[127] And wed the fifth of her expanded bloom.] She begins to bloom in her twelfth year. Let her wed in the fifth year of her puberty; that is, in her sixteenth. Guietus.
Robinson, not considering the difference of climate, supposes that the fourteenth year is the first of her puberty, and that she is directed to wed in her nineteenth.
[128] Shall send a fire thy vigorous bones within.] A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband, but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. Proverbs, xii. 4.
[129] Nor lie with idle tongue.] Devise not a lie against thy brother, neither do the like to thy friend. Ecclesiasticus, vii. 12.
[130] Chastise his sin.] Far more liberal is the counsel of the son of Sirach:
Admonish a friend: it may be, he hath not done it; and if he have done it, that he may do it no more.
Admonish thy friend: it may be he hath not said it; and if he have, that he speak it not again.
Admonish a friend, for many times it is a slander; and believe not every tale.
There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart: and who is he, that hath not offended with his tongue? Ecclesiasticus, xix.
Cicero says elegantly, “Care is to be taken lest friendships convert themselves even into grievous enmities: whence arise bickerings, backbitings, contumelies: these are yet to be borne, if they be bearable: and this compliment should be paid to the ancient friendship, that the person in fault should be he that inflicts the injury, not he that suffers it.” De Amicitia, c. 21.
The author of the Pythagorean “golden verses” has a line which deserves indeed to be written in letters of gold:
This is probably one of the maxims of Hesiod which induced La Harpe to observe, “Cette morale n’est pas toujours la meilleure du monde.” Lycée, tom. i. Hésiode.
[131] Rebuke not want.] Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker. Proverbs, xvii. 5.
[132] Lo! the best treasure is a frugal tongue.] In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise. The tongue of the just is as choice silver. Proverbs, x. 19, 20.
[133] When many guests combine.] There were two sorts of entertainments among the ancient Grecians: the first was provided at the expense of one man, the second was at the common charge of all present: at the latter some of the guests occasionally contributed more than their exact proportion. These were generally most frequented, and are recommended by the wise men of those times as most apt to promote friendship and good neighbourhood. They were for the most part managed with more order and decency, because the guests who ate of their own collation were usually more sparing than when they were feasted at another man’s expense; as we are informed by Eustathius. So different was their behaviour at the public feasts from that at private entertainments, that Minerva, in Homer, having seen the intemperance and unseemly actions of Penelope’s courtiers, concludes their entertainment was not provided at the common charge.
Potter, Archæologia Græca.
[134] The feast of gods.] A sacrifice was followed by a general banquet, and the tables were spread in the temple itself. The gods were supposed invisibly to be present. Thus we are to explain their visit to the Æthiopians in Homer, Il. i:
[135] Ne’er to thy five-branch’d hand apply the blade.] This precept is somewhat obscurely expressed, like the symbols of Pythagoras: that things of no value might appear to involve a mysterious importance. Hesiod seems to intimate that we should not choose the precise time of the feast for washing the hands and paring the nails, but sit down to table with hands ready washed. No person, indeed, even at a private entertainment, would have thought of cutting his nails at table, if he did not wish the parings to fly into the dishes, which I conceive could not have been more agreeable to the Greeks than to ourselves. Le Clerc.
[136] Upon the goblet’s edge.] Robinson supposes a sentiment of hospitality; that the flaggon is not to stand still. Others suppose οινοχοη to be a bowl used only in libation, and which it was indecent to prostitute to common use. But for this there seems not the least authority.
“All the allegorical glosses invented by the latter Greeks to varnish over the doting superstitions of their ancestors are utterly destitute of verisimilitude. Even in our day traces of the old superstitions remain in many places. There are people, for instance, who think it a bad omen if the loaf be inverted, so that the flat part is uppermost; if the knives be laid across, or the salt spilt on the table. It would be just as easy to find a mystical sense in these, as in the idle fancies of Hesiod.” Le Clerc.
[137] Unhallow’d vessels.] There is here an allusion to the ancient custom of purifying new vessels and consecrating them to a happy use; or, as we say, blessing them. Guietus.
Le Clerc imagines a prohibition against seizing the flesh from the tripods before a sacrifice, which he illustrates by the offence of the sons of Eli, 1 Sam. ii. 13; but what has the bathing to do with this?
[138] On moveless stones.] By ακινητα, immoveable things, he appears to mean the ground or stones, which are cold and hard; or by sitting on immoveable things we may understand habits of sloth. Guietus.
Proclus interprets the word to mean sepulchres, which it was unlawful to move: but on the same grounds it may be interpreted land-marks. One should rather understand by it any sort of stones; Hesiod preferring that a boy should be placed on wooden slabs that might be moved about. But the being placed on a stone could not be more hurtful to him on the twelfth day or month than at any other period of his childhood. This was a mere superstition; and we may as well seek to interpret the dreams of a man who is light-headed. Le Clerc.
[139] The thirtieth of the moon.] That is, the last day of each month; for the most ancient Greeks, as well as the Orientals, employed lunar months of thirty days. Le Clerc.
The Greek month was divided into τρια δεκημερα, three decades of days. The first was called μηνος αρχομενου or ισταμενου; the second, μηνος μησουντος; and the third, μηνος φθινοντος, παυομενου, or ληγοντος: the beginning month, the middle month, the declining or ending month. The words were put in the genitive case because some day was placed before them. Thus the middle-first or first of the second decade was the eleventh of the whole month; and the first of the end, or of the last decade, was the twenty-first: the twenty-ninth was called εικας μεγαλη, the great twentieth. The French Republican calendar was formed on the Greek model.
[140] What time the people to the courts repair.] The forenoon was distinguished by the time of the court of judicature sitting, as in this passage of Hesiod; the afternoon by the time of its breaking up, as in the following of Homer:
[141] Beware the fifth.] Virgil copies this, as well as some other of these superstitions, Georg. i. 275: