THE REMAINS
OF
HESIOD THE ASCRÆAN
INCLUDING
The Shield of Hercules,
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH RHYME AND BLANK VERSE;
WITH
A DISSERTATION
ON THE
LIFE AND ÆRA, THE POEMS AND MYTHOLOGY,
OF
HESIOD,
AND COPIOUS NOTES.
THE SECOND EDITION,
REVISED AND ENLARGED
BY
CHARLES ABRAHAM ELTON,
AUTHOR OF SPECIMENS OF THE CLASSIC POETS FROM HOMER TO TRYPHIODORUS.
Ὡ πρέσβυς καθαρῶν γευσάμενος λιβάδον.—ΑΛΚΑΙΟΣ.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY,
47 PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1815.
C. Baldwin, Printer,
New Bridge street, London.
The remains of Hesiod are not alone interesting tothe antiquary, as tracing a picture of the rude artsand manners of the ancient Greeks. His sublimephilosophic allegories; his elevated views of a retributiveProvidence; and the romantic elegance, ordaring grandeur, with which he has invested thelegends of his mythology, offer more solid reasonsthan the accident of coeval existence for the traditionalassociation of his name with that of Homer.
Hesiod has been translated in Latin hexametersby Nicolaus Valla, and by Bernardo Zamagna. AFrench translation by Jacques le Gras bears date1586. The earliest essay on his poems by our owncountrymen appears in the old racy version of “TheWorks and Days,” by George Chapman, the translatorof Homer, published in 1618. It is so scarce thatWarton in “The History of English Poetry” doubts[iv]its existence. Some specimens of a work equally curiousfrom its rareness, and interesting as an exampleof our ancient poetry, are appended to this translation.Parnell has given a sprightly imitation of the Pandora,under the title of “Hesiod, or the Rise ofWoman:” and Broome, the coadjutor of Pope inthe Odyssey, has paraphrased the battle of the Titansand the Tartarus.[1] The translation by ThomasCooke omits the splendid heroical fragment of “TheShield,” which I have restored to its legitimate connexion.It was first published in 1728; reprinted in1740; and has been inserted in the collections ofAnderson and Chalmers.
This translator obtained from his contemporaries thename of “Hesiod Cooke.” He was thought a goodGrecian; and translated against Pope the episode ofThersites, in the Iliad, with some success; whichprocured him a place in the Dunciad:
and a passage in “The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”[v]seems pointed more directly at the affront of theThersites: