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THE WORKS

OF

HES I OD.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK,

BY

THOMAS COOKE

Q

DEDICATION.

TO HIS GRACE

JOHN DUKE OF ARGYLL AND GREENWICH, &c.

MY LORD,

As this is the only method by which men of genius and learning, though small perhaps my claim to either, can fhow their efteem for persons of extraordinary merit, in a superior manner to the reft of mankind, I could never embrace a more favourable opportunity to exprefs my veneration for your Grace, than before a tranflation of fo ancient and valuable an author as Hefiod. Your high descent, and the glory of your illustrious ancestors, are the weakest foundations of your praife; your own exalted worth attracts the admiration, and I may fay the love of all virtuous and diftinguihing fouls; and to that only I dedicate the following work. The many circumftances which contributed to the raifing you to the dignities which you now enjoy, and which render you deferving the greatest favours a prince can beftow; and, what is above all, which fix you ever dear in the affection of your country, will be no fmall part of the English hiftory, and fhall make the name of Argyll facred to every generation; nor is it the least part of your character, that the nation entertains the higheft opinion of your taste and judgment in the polite arts.

You, my Lord, know how the works of genius lift up the head of a nation above her neighbours, and give it as much honour as fuccefs in arms; among these we must reckon our tranflations of the claffics; by which, when we have naturalized all Greece and Rome, we fhall be so much richer than they were by fo many original productions as we hall have of our own. By tranflations, when performed by able hands, our countrymen have an opportunity of difcovering the beauties of the ancients, without the trouble and expence of learning their languages; which are of no other advartage to us than for the authors who have writ in them; among which he poets are in the firft rank of honour, whofe verfes are the delight-I fui channels through which the best precepts of morality are conveyed to the mind, they have generally fomething in them fo much above the common fenfe of mankind; and that delivered with fuch dignity of expreffion, and in fuch harmony of numbers, all which put together, confti

fentiments of honour and virtue, he thinks with abhorrence of all that is bafe and trifling; I may say, while he is reading, he is exalted above himself.

You, my Lord, I say, have a just sense of the benefits arifing from works of genius, and will therefore pardon the zeal with which I exprefs myfelf concerning them: and great is the blefling, that we want not perfons who have hearts equal to their power to cherish them: and here I must beg leave to pay a debt of gratitude to one, who, I dare fay, is as highly thought of by all lovers of polite learning as by myself, I mean the Earl of Pembroke; whose notes I have used in the words in which he gave them to me, and diftinguished them by a particular mark from the reft. Much would I fay in commendation of that great man; but I am checked by the fear of offending that virtue which every one admires. The fame reafon makes me dwell lefs on the praife of your Grace than my heart inclines me to.

The many obligations which I have received from a lady, of whofe virtues I can never fay too much, make it a duty in me to mention her in the most grateful manner; and particularly before a tranflation, to the perfecting which I may with propriety fay the greatly conduced, by her kind folicitations in my behalf, and her earnest recommendation of me to several persons of distinction. I believe your Grace will not charge me with vanity, if I confefs myself ambitious of being in the least degree of favour with fo excellent a lady as the Marchionefs of Annandale.

I fhall conclude without troubling your Grace with any more circumftances relating to myself, fincerely wishing what I offer was more worthy your patronage; and at the fame time I beg it may be received as proceeding from a juft sense of your eminence in all that is great and laudable. am,

My Lord,

with the most profound refpe&,

tute the ∞ divinum, that the reader is infpired with January 1728.

your Grace's

mott obedient,

and most humble fervant,

THOMAS COOKEN

TWO DISCOURSES

ON THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF HESIOD.

ON THE LIFE OF HESIOD.

Sect. 1. The Introduction.

in the following book. I have no doubt but Le Clerc is right in the meaning of the word day; but at the fame time I think his obfervation on it trif

THE lives of few perfons are confounded with foling: becaufe, if his father was reduced to poverty, many uncertainties and fabulous relations as thofe of Hefiod and Homer; for which reafon, what may poffibly be true, is fometimes as much difputed as the romantic part of their stories. The firft has been more fortunate than the other, in furnishing us, from his writings, with fome circumstances of himfelf and family, as the condition of his father, the place of his birth, and the extent of his travels; and he has put it out of difpute, though he has not fixed the period, that he was one of the earliest writers of whom we have any account.

we are not to infer from thence he was never
rich, or, if he was always poor, that is no argu-
ment against his being of a good family; nor is
the word divine in the leaft debased by being an
epithet to the fwincherd, but a proof of the dig-
We are fup-
nity of that office in thofe times.
ported in this reading by Tzetzes: and Valla and
Frifius have took the word in the fame sense, in
their Latin translations of the Works and Days.
-Frater ades (fays Valla) generofo e fanguine

Perfe.

And Frifius calls him Perfe divine.

2. Of bis own and father's country, from his writings. He tells us in the fecond book of his Works and Days, that his father was an inhabitant of Cuma, 4. A judgment of his age and quality from fiction. in one of the Eolian ifles; from whence he re- The genealogy likewife which the author of moved to Afcra, a village in Bastia, at the foot the contention betwixt Homer and Hefiod, gives of mount Helicon; which was doubtlefs the place us, very much countenance this interpretation. of our poet's birth, though Suidas, Lilius Gyral-We are told in that work, that Linus was the fon dus, Fabricius, and others, fay he was of Cuma. of Apollo, and of Thoose the daughter of Neptune; Hefiod himself feems, and not undefignedly, to | King Pierus was the fon of Linus, Oeagrus of Piehave prevented any mistake about his country; he rus and the nymph Methone, and Orpheus of Octells us pofitively, in the fame book, he never was agrus and the Mufe Calliope; Orpheus was the but once at fea, and that in a voyage from Aulis, father of Othrys, Othrys of Harmonides, and Hara fea port in Baotia, to the ifland Euboea. This, morides of Philoterpus; from him fprung Euconnected with the former paffage of his father phemus the father of Epiphrades, who begot Mefailing from Cuma to Boeotia, will leave us in no nalops the father of Dios; Hefiod and Ferics were doubt concerning his country. the fons of Dios by Pucamede the daughter of Apollo; Perfes was the father of Mæon, whofe daughter Crytheis bore Homer to the river Meles. the brother of Hefiod. I do not give this account Homer is here made the great grandson of Perfes with a view it should be much depended on; for it is plain from the poetical etymologies of the inferences may be made from it; first, it is natural it is a fictitious generation; yet two ufeful have forged fuch an honourable defcent, unless it to fuppofe the author of this genealogy would not was generally believed he was of a great family; nor would he have placed him fo long before Homer, had it not been the prevailing opinion he was

3. Of bis quality, from bis writings.

Of what quality his father was we are not very certain; that he was drove from Cuma to Alera, by misfortunes, we have the testimony of Hefiod. Some tell us he fled to avoid paying a fine; but what reafon they have to imagine that I know not. It is remarkable that our poet, in the first book of his Works and Days, calls his brother do goves

namics,

firit.

We are told indeed that the name of his father was Dios, of which we are not affared from any of his writings now extant; but if it was, I rather believe, had he defigned to call his brother of the race of Dios, he would have ufed Διογένης οι Δια για ses; he must therefore by diov yives intend to call him of race divine. Le Clerc obferves, on this 5. Of bis age, from Longomentanus, and the Arundelian paffage, that the old poets were always proud of the epithet divine; and brings an instance from Homer, who flyled the fwineherd of Ulysses fo. In the fame remark he fays, he thinks Hefiod debafes the word in his application of it, having Spoke of the neceflitous circumstances of his father

marble.

Mr. Kennet quotes the Danish aftronomer Longomontanus, who undertook to fettle the age of Hefiod from fome lines in his Works and Days; and he made it agree with the Arundelian marble, which makes him about thirty years before Homer

I

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