Page:Hesiod, and Theognis.djvu/67

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THE WORKS AND DAYS.
53

jury, and not, as Virgil supposed, the Roman Orcus or Hades, was born, and taken care of by the Erinnyes. The seventeenth was lucky for bringing in the corn to the threshing-floor, and for other works, because it was the festival-day, in one of the months, of Demeter and Cora, or Proserpine. The fourth was lucky for marriages, perhaps because sacred to Aphrodite and Hermes. Hesiod lays down the law, however, of these days without giving much enlightenment as to the "why" or "wherefore," and our knowledge from other sources does not suffice to explain them all. A fair specimen of this calendar is that which we proceed to quote:—

"The eighth, nor less the ninth, with favouring skiesSpeeds of th' increasing month each rustic enterprise:And on the eleventh let thy flocks be shorn,And on the twelfth be reaped thy laughing corn:Both days are good; yet is the twelfth confessedMore fortunate, with fairer omen blest.On this the air-suspended spider treads,In the full noon, his fine and self-spun threads;And the wise emmet, tracking dark the plain,Heaps provident the store of gathered grain.On this let careful woman's nimble handThrow first the shuttle and the web expand."—E. 1071-1082.

Hesiod's account of the twenty-ninth of the month is also a characteristic passage, not without a touch of the oracular and mysterious. "The prudent secret," he says, "is to few confessed." "One man praises one day, another another, but few know them." "Some-

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