by Hesiod
is parched from the heat. At that time let there be a shady
rock and Bibline wine,499 and bread made with milk, and cheese
made from goats just going off their milk, and the flesh of a cow
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that has grazed in the woods,501 that has never calved, and the flesh
of newborn kids. Drink shining wine sitting in the shade when
you have eaten to your heart’s content. Turn your face toward
the cooling West Wind, and pour out three portions from the ever-flowing
spring, running and pure, and add a fourth portion of wine.505
505
Order your slaves to winnow the sacred grain of Demeter
in an airy place on a well-rolled threshing-floor when powerful
Orion first appears.508 Then measure out the grain, and store it in jars.
But when you have placed all the means of life under lock inside
your house, I urge you to turn your hired man out of the house and seek
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out a serving girl who has no children: A serving girl with a child
at the breast is a problem. And tend your dog with jagged teeth
—don’t spare the food, so that a day sleeper does not at some time
latch onto your possessions.514 Bring in fodder and sweepings, so that
there be ample provision for your cattle and mules. And then let
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your slaves refresh their poor knees, and unyoke your pair of oxen.
When Orion and Sirius come into the middle of the sky, and Dawn
with her fingers of rose sees Arcturus,518 O Persês, then cut off all
the grape clusters, and bring them home. Expose them to the sun
for ten days and ten nights; then cover them with shade for five, and on
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the sixth day draw off the gifts of delightful Dionysos into vessels.
But when the Pleiadês and the Hyadês and powerful Orion set,522
then remember that this is the season for plowing: May the seed lodge
firmly in the earth.524 If the desire for stormy seafaring takes hold
of you when the Pleiadês fall into the misty sea, fleeing the mighty
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strength of Orion,526 then the blasts of all sorts of winds rage.
Then no longer keep your boats on the wine-dark sea, but remember
to work the earth, as I advise you. Drag your boat up on the land
and support it with stones all around, so that it can resist the strength
of the winds blowing wet, and draw out the plug in the bilge
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so the rains of Zeus do not rot it. Put away all the tackle under lock
in your house after you have neatly stored the wings of the sea-crossing
boat.532–533 Hang your well-made steering oar over the smoke.533 You yourself
wait until the season for sailing has come, and then drag your swift boat
to the sea, and load up your well-ordered cargo so that you may bring
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home your profit, just as your father and mine—O great fool, Persês!
—used to sail in ships, because he lacked a decent living.
And one day
he came even here, crossing a great sea, leaving behind Aiolian KYMê
in a black ship, fleeing not wealth or riches and prosperity but evil poverty
that Zeus gives to men. He settled near HELIKON in a miserable village,
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ASKRA, evil in winter, insufferable in summer, never nice.541 But you,
O Persês, remember to do your work in the right season, especially
your seafaring. Admire a small ship, but put your cargo in a big one.
For the larger your cargo, the larger your profit will be, profit piled
on profit—if only the winds hold off their evil blasts.
545
If ever you turn
your silly mind to trade and wish to flee debt and nasty hunger, I will
show you the rules of the much-resounding sea, though I know little
about seafaring or about boats. For I have never yet sailed the broad sea
in a ship, except to EUBOEA from AULIS,549 where once the Achaeans,
waiting through the winter, assembled a great host from sacred HELLAS,
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heading to Troy, the land of beautiful women. There I crossed over
to CHALCIS to the games for the warrior Amphidamas. The sons
of the great-hearted man had put up and proclaimed many prizes,
and there I say that I won a victory with a poem,554 earning a tripod
with handles. And I dedicated it to the Helikonian Muses, where
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they first set me on the road to sweet song. That is the extent
of my knowledge about many-nailed ships.
Figure 18. A satyr presents a tripod with handles to Dionysos, presumably the prize in a poetic contest over which Dionysos presided. The bearded and balding satyr has an erect phallus and a horse’s tail. Dionysos carries a wine cup in his right hand and wears a long gown and a leopard skin. He holds a vine in his left hand and wears ivy leaves in his hair. Such tripods were often made of bronze and were of great value, often being offered as prizes in athletic and poetic competitions. Fragments of many have been found at the athletic center of Olympia in the Peloponnesus. Athenian red-figure water jar, ca. 450 B.C. Paestum Museum, Paestum, Italy (Photo: Dave & Margie Hill / Kleerup; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Paestum_Museum_%286120765128%29.jpg)
But I will speak the mind
of Zeus, who carries the goatskin fetish, for the Muses taught me
how to sing wondrous song. For around fifty days after the solstice,
when the work-filled season of heat comes to an end, is for men
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the season for sailing.561 Then you will not wreck your ship, and the sea
will not drown your men—if on purpose Poseidon, shaker of the earth,
or Zeus, king of the deathless ones, does not wish to destroy them:
for in them is the fulfillment both of good things and of bad. Then
the winds are well defined, and the sea is gentle. Then without care
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trust your swift ship to the winds: Drag it into the sea, and put all
your cargo in it, but make haste to return as swiftly as possible back
to your home. Do not wait for the new wine, and the autumn rain,
and the oncoming storms with the terrible blasts of South Wind,
who accompanies the heavy rain of Zeus and stirs up the sea
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and makes the sea dangerous.571
Another time for men to go sailing
is in the spring when first you see on the topmost of a fig tree leaves
as large as the footprint that a crow makes as it goes along—then first is
the sea safe to travel on.574 This is spring sailing. I do not recommend it,
for it is not pleasing to my heart. Such a sailing is snatched, and only
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with difficulty will you escape evil. But men act ignorantly, for wealth
is like life for wretched mankind. It is a dreadful thing to die on
the waves.578 But I urge you to consider these matters in your heart,
just as I declare. Don’t place all your means of life in your hollow ships,
but leave the greater part behind, and put the lesser part on board.
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It is a terrible thing to meet with disaster on the waves of the sea,
just as it is terrible if you lift an excess weight on your wagon
and break the axle, and your load is ruined.
Observe due measure:
The right moment is best in all things. In the proper season take a wife
to your house, being not much younger than thirty y
ears, nor much
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older. This is the right time for marriage. The woman should have
reached puberty four years earlier and marry in the fifth. Marry
a virgin, so that you may teach her modest ways. Marry one especially
who lives close to you, after you have looked around in all directions,
so that your marriage does not become a joke to your neighbors. For a man
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gets nothing better than a good wife, but nothing is more
shivery than a bad one, a glutton who scorches her husband without
a torch, though he is strong, and gives him to a raw old age!
Be careful to avoid the anger of the deathless, blessed ones. Do not
make a companion equal to a brother. If you do so, do not be the first
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to wrong him, or give him a false favor with your tongue.596 If he is first
to wrong you, or says something contrary to your spirit, or does some
such thing, remember to punish him twice over. But if he wants
once again to be your friend and is willing to offer you satisfaction,
take it. He is a worthless man who makes now one friend, now another.
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As for you, do not let your disposition put to shame your outward
appearance!602 Don’t earn a reputation as one who has many guests,
nor as one who has none, nor be a friend to evil men, nor a reviler
of excellent men. And do not ever dare to reproach a man with
destructive poverty that eats out the heart, a gift of the blessed ones
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who are forever. The best treasure for a man is to have a sparing
tongue, and the most pleasure comes from a tongue that speaks
according to measure. If you speak ill, then quickly even worse
will be said about you.
And don’t be storm-tossed in the midst
of a meal with many guests. When a meal is shared in common,
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the pleasure is greatest; the expense is least.611
At dawn never pour
a libation of gleaming wine to Zeus with unwashed hands,
or to the other deathless ones; for they do not hear you, and they
spurn your prayers.
Do not take a piss standing upright and turned
toward the sun, but remember to do this after it sets and before
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it rises. And do not piss on the road, nor off the road as you
are walking, and do not piss while naked: Nights belong to the blessed
ones.617–18 A god-fearing man, wise at heart, sits down, or he goes
against the wall of a well-built court. And inside your house
do not expose your genitals befouled with intercourse beside
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the hearth, but avoid this.621
Do not beget offspring when you come back
from an ill-omened burial but after a banquet to the deathless ones.
Do not piss in the streams of water that run into the sea,
nor in springs, but be careful to avoid this. And do not shit
in them either, for that is no better.
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Don’t cross the beautiful water
of ever-flowing rivers by foot before you have prayed, gazing
into the beautiful stream, after washing your hands in the lovely
white water.628 He who crosses a river without washing the filth
from his hands—the gods will be angry with him and cause
him to suffer in aftertimes.
630
From the five-brancher, at the joyous
festival of the gods, do not cut the dry from the living with
the shining iron.632
Don’t ever place the wine ladle above the wine bowl
while people are drinking: A deadly fate is assigned for this.633
When you are building a house, do not leave it unfinished
or a screaming crow may settle on it and croak.635
635
Do not take
from undedicated cauldrons with legs anything to eat or wash with,
because for this too there is punishment.637
Do not let a twelve-dayold
boy sit on things that cannot be moved, which is not better
—it makes a man unmanly—nor a child of twelve months,
which has the same effect.640
640
Nor should a man cleanse his skin
with water that has washed a woman: for there is grievous punishment
for a time for that too.
Do not carp at what is consumed at fiery
sacrifices: The god concerned is angry at this too.643
Act in this way:
Avoid the wretched speech of men, for speech is evil, and light
to raise up quite easily, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of.
645
Speech is not ever completely got rid of, which many people speak:
This too is some sort of god.
Pay good attention to the days that come
from Zeus, and tell your slaves of them all in order. The thirtieth day
of the month is best to review the work and to distribute rations:
for the days are from Zeus the Counselor, when the people celebrate it,
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deciding the truth.651
To begin, the first, the fourth, and the seventh
—when Leto gave birth to Apollo of the golden sword—are holy days,
as are the eighth and the ninth. Two days of the waxing month
are outstanding for doing a mortal’s labor: the eleventh and the twelfth,
both excellent days for shearing sheep and for gathering in the gladdening
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wheat; but the twelfth is much better than the eleventh. On this day
the high-soaring spider weaves its web in the full of the day, when
the Wise One658 heaps her pile. On that day the woman should set up her loom
and get on with her work.
On the thirteenth day of the waxing moon, avoid
beginning to sow, but it is the best day to set out plants. The sixth day
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of the midmonth is very poor for plants,661 but it is good for the birth
of males, though unfavorable for females either to be born in the first
place or to marry. Nor is the first sixth day suited for begetting
a female, but it is a good time for castrating kids and rams, and for building
a pen for the flocks. It is good for the birth of a man, but he will love
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mocking speech, and lies, and clever words, and secret conversation.
On the eighth day of the month castrate the boar and roaring bull,
and on the twelfth the hardworking mules. On the great twentieth,
in the fullness of the day, a wise man is born, for his mind is very
shrewd. The tenth day is good for begetting a man; the fourth
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of the midmonth, good for a girl: On that day place your hand on sheep
and rolling-gaited, curved-horn cattle and the dog with jagged teeth,
and tame them.
Be careful to avoid troubles that eat out the heart
on the fourth day of the waning and the waxing month; it is a day
established by the gods. On the fourth day of the month, take your
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bride home, having chosen the bird omens that are best for this business.
Avoid the fifth days, for they are hard and terrible; they say that