Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica
of the man who has no oxen. Then is the time to feed up your horned
oxen in the byre; for it is easy to say: ‘Give me a yoke of oxen and a
waggon,’ and it is easy to refuse: ‘I have work for my oxen.’ The man
who is rich in fancy thinks his waggon as good as built already—the
fool! He does not know that there are a hundred timbers to a waggon.
Take care to lay these up beforehand at home.
(ll. 458-464) So soon as the time for ploughing is proclaimed to men,
then make haste, you and your slaves alike, in wet and in dry, to
plough in the season for ploughing, and bestir yourself early in the
morning so that your fields may be full. Plough in the spring; but
fallow broken up in the summer will not belie your hopes. Sow fallow
land when the soil is still getting light: fallow land is a defender
from harm and a soother of children.
(ll. 465-478) Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make
Demeter’s holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing,
when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down
your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the
yoke-straps. Let a slave follow a little behind with a mattock and make
trouble for the birds by hiding the seed; for good management is the
best for mortal men as bad management is the worst. In this way your
corn-ears will bow to the ground with fullness if the Olympian himself
gives a good result at the last, and you will sweep the cobwebs from
your bins and you will be glad, I ween, as you take of your garnered
substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to grey 1318
springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but another shall be
in need of your help.
(ll. 479-492) But if you plough the good ground at the solstice 1319,
you will reap sitting, grasping a thin crop in your hand, binding the
sheaves awry, dust-covered, not glad at all; so you will bring all home
in a basket and not many will admire you. Yet the will of Zeus who
holds the aegis is different at different times; and it is hard for
mortal men to tell it; for if you should plough late, you may find this
remedy—when the cuckoo first calls 1320 in the leaves of the oak and
makes men glad all over the boundless earth, if Zeus should send rain
on the third day and not cease until it rises neither above an ox’s
hoof nor falls short of it, then the late-plougher will vie with the
early. Keep all this well in mind, and fail not to mark grey spring as
it comes and the season of rain.
(ll 493-501) Pass by the smithy and its crowded lounge in winter time
when the cold keeps men from field work,—for then an industrious man
can greatly prosper his house—lest bitter winter catch you helpless and
poor and you chafe a swollen foot with a shrunk hand. The idle man who
waits on empty hope, lacking a livelihood, lays to heart
mischief-making; it is not an wholesome hope that accompanies a need
man who lolls at ease while he has no sure livelihood.
(ll. 502-503) While it is yet midsummer command your slaves: ‘It will
not always be summer, build barns.’
(ll. 504-535) Avoid the month Lenaeon 1321, wretched days, all of them
fit to skin an ox, and the frosts which are cruel when Boreas blows
over the earth. He blows across horse-breeding Thrace upon the wide sea
and stirs it up, while earth and the forest howl. On many a high-leafed
oak and thick pine he falls and brings them to the bounteous earth in
mountain glens: then all the immense wood roars and the beasts shudder
and put their tails between their legs, even those whose hide is
covered with fur; for with his bitter blast he blows even through them
although they are shaggy-breasted. He goes even through an ox’s hide;
it does not stop him. Also he blows through the goat’s fine hair. But
through the fleeces of sheep, because their wool is abundant, the keen
wind Boreas pierces not at all; but it makes the old man curved as a
wheel. And it does not blow through the tender maiden who stays indoors
with her dear mother, unlearned as yet in the works of golden
Aphrodite, and who washes her soft body and anoints herself with oil
and lies down in an inner room within the house, on a winter’s day when
the Boneless One 1322 gnaws his foot in his fireless house and wretched
home; for the sun shows him no pastures to make for, but goes to and
fro over the land and city of dusky men 1323, and shines more
sluggishly upon the whole race of the Hellenes. Then the horned and
unhorned denizens of the wood, with teeth chattering pitifully, flee
through the copses and glades, and all, as they seek shelter, have this
one care, to gain thick coverts or some hollow rock. Then, like the
Three-legged One 1324 whose back is broken and whose head looks down
upon the ground, like him, I say, they wander to escape the white snow.
(ll. 536-563) Then put on, as I bid you, a soft coat and a tunic to the
feet to shield your body,—and you should weave thick woof on thin warp.
In this clothe yourself so that your hair may keep still and not
bristle and stand upon end all over your body.
Lace on your feet close-fitting boots of the hide of a slaughtered ox,
thickly lined with felt inside. And when the season of frost comes on,
stitch together skins of firstling kids with ox-sinew, to put over your
back and to keep off the rain. On your head above wear a shaped cap of
felt to keep your ears from getting wet, for the dawn is chill when
Boreas has once made his onslaught, and at dawn a fruitful mist is
spread over the earth from starry heaven upon the fields of blessed
men: it is drawn from the ever flowing rivers and is raised high above
the earth by windstorm, and sometimes it turns to rain towards evening,
and sometimes to wind when Thracian Boreas huddles the thick clouds.
Finish your work and return home ahead of him, and do not let the dark
cloud from heaven wrap round you and make your body clammy and soak
your clothes. Avoid it; for this is the hardest month, wintry, hard for
sheep and hard for men. In this season let your oxen have half their
usual food, but let your man have more; for the helpful nights are
long. Observe all this until the year is ended and you have nights and
days of equal length, and Earth, the mother of all, bears again her
various fruit.
(ll. 564-570) When Zeus has finished sixty wintry days after the
solstice, then the star Arcturus 1325 leaves the holy stream of Ocean
and first rises brilliant at dusk. After him the shrilly wailing
daughter of Pandion, the swallow, appears to men when spring is just
beginning. Before she comes, prune the vines, for it is best so.
(ll. 571-581) But when the House-carrier 1326 climbs up the plants from
the earth to escape the Pleiades, then it is no longer the season for
digging vineyards, but to whet your sickles and rouse up your slaves.
Avoid shady seats and sleeping until dawn in the harvest season, when
the sun scorches the body. Then be busy, and bring home your fruits,
getting up early to make your livelihood sure. For dawn takes away a
third part of your work, dawn advances a man on his journey and
advances him in his work,—dawn which appears and sets many men on their
road, and puts yokes on many oxen.
(ll. 582-596) But when the artichoke flowers 1327, and the chirping
grass-hopper sits in a tree and pours down his shrill song continually
from under his wings in the season of wearisome heat, then goats are
plumpest and wine sweetest; women are most wanton, but men are
feeblest, because Sirius parches head and knees and the skin is dry
through heat. But at that time let me have a shady rock and wine of
Biblis, a clot of curds and milk of drained goats with the flesh of an
heifer fed in the woods, that has never calved, and of firstling kids;
then also let me drink bright wine, sitting in the shade, when my heart
is satisfied with food, and so, turning my head to face the fresh
Zephyr, from the everflowing spring which pours down unfouled thrice
pour an offering of water, but make a fourth libation of wine.
(ll. 597-608) Set your slaves to winnow Demeter’s holy grain, when
strong Orion 1328 first appears, on a smooth threshing-floor in an airy
place. Then measure it and store it in jars. And so soon as you have
safely stored all your stuff indoors, I bid you put your bondman out of
doors and look out for a servant-girl with no children;—for a servant
with a child to nurse is troublesome. And look after the dog with
jagged teeth; do not grudge him his food, or some time the Day-sleeper
1329 may take your stuff. Bring in fodder and litter so as to have
enough for your oxen and mules. After that, let your men rest their
poor knees and unyoke your pair of oxen.
(ll. 609-617) But when Orion and Sirius are come into mid-heaven, and
rosy-fingered Dawn sees Arcturus 1330, then cut off all the
grape-clusters, Perses, and bring them home. Show them to the sun ten
days and ten nights: then cover them over for five, and on the sixth
day draw off into vessels the gifts of joyful Dionysus. But when the
Pleiades and Hyades and strong Orion begin to set 1331, then remember
to plough in season: and so the completed year 1332 will fitly pass
beneath the earth.
(ll. 618-640) But if desire for uncomfortable sea-faring seize you;
when the Pleiades plunge into the misty sea 1333 to escape Orion’s rude
strength, then truly gales of all kinds rage. Then keep ships no longer
on the sparkling sea, but bethink you to till the land as I bid you.
Haul up your ship upon the land and pack it closely with stones all
round to keep off the power of the winds which blow damply, and draw
out the bilge-plug so that the rain of heaven may not rot it. Put away
all the tackle and fittings in your house, and stow the wings of the
sea-going ship neatly, and hang up the well-shaped rudder over the
smoke. You yourself wait until the season for sailing is come, and then
haul your swift ship down to the sea and stow a convenient cargo in it,
so that you may bring home profit, even as your father and mine,
foolish Perses, used to sail on shipboard because he lacked sufficient
livelihood. And one day he came to this very place crossing over a
great stretch of sea; he left Aeolian Cyme and fled, not from riches
and substance, but from wretched poverty which Zeus lays upon men, and
he settled near Helicon in a miserable hamlet, Ascra, which is bad in
winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time.
(ll. 641-645) But you, Perses, remember all works in their season but
sailing especially. Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a
large one; for the greater the lading, the greater will be your piled
gain, if only the winds will keep back their harmful gales.
(ll. 646-662) If ever you turn your misguided heart to trading and with
to escape from debt and joyless hunger, I will show you the measures of
the loud-roaring sea, though I have no skill in sea-faring nor in
ships; for never yet have I sailed by ship over the wide sea, but only
to Euboea from Aulis where the Achaeans once stayed through much storm
when they had gathered a great host from divine Hellas for Troy, the
land of fair women. Then I crossed over to Chalcis, to the games of
wise Amphidamas where the sons of the great-hearted hero proclaimed and
appointed prizes. And there I boast that I gained the victory with a
song and carried off an handled tripod which I dedicated to the Muses
of Helicon, in the place where they first set me in the way of clear
song. Such is all my experience of many-pegged ships; nevertheless I
will tell you the will of Zeus who holds the aegis; for the Muses have
taught me to sing in marvellous song.
(ll. 663-677) Fifty days after the solstice 1334, when the season of
wearisome heat is come to an end, is the right time for me to go