Unhappy, from whom still concealed does lie
Of roots and herbs the wholesome luxury.
This I conceive to have been honest Hesiod's meaning. From Homer we
must not expect much concerning our affairs. He was blind, and
could neither work in the country nor enjoy the pleasures of it; his
helpless poverty was likeliest to be sustained in the richest
places, he was to delight the Grecians with fine tales of the wars
and adventures of their ancestors; his subject removed him from all
commerce with us, and yet, methinks, he made a shift to show his
goodwill a little. For though he could do us no honour in the
person of his hero Ulysses (much less of Achilles), because his
whole time was consumed in wars and voyages, yet he makes his father
Laertes a gardener all that while, and seeking his consolation for
the absence of his son in the pleasure of planting and even dunging
his own grounds. Yet, see, he did not contemn us peasants; nay, so
far was he from that insolence, that he always styles Eumaeus, who
kept the hogs with wonderful respect, [Greek text which cannot be
reproduced], the divine swine-herd; he could have done no more for
Menelaus or Agamemnon.
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