THE MODERNITY OF HESIOD. Fro THE EDITOR OF THE "
SPECTILT011.".1 SIR,—Some of your other readers may, like the present writer, find that their Greek has grown too rusty to allow them to read the original text with pleasure. To such a new rendering
of merit may be welcome, as enabling them to converse again with an old friend whose face had become unfamiliar in the lapse of years. Turning over the pages of Professor Males excellent version of Hesiod, I have been struck by the curious applicability of so much to the problems and circumstances of the present day. Could there be a better answer at once to the idealistic Socialist, who would fain banish all competition from social life, and to the pseudo-Darwinian advocate of brute force, who contends that competition necessarily carries with it a state of permanent warfare, than Hesiod's opening lines ?- "Not one breed of Strife is there on earth, but twain. One
shall a man praise but the other is a thing of
reproach The one increaseth evil war and contention.
No man loveth her But the other stirreth even the helpless to labour. For when he that hath no business looketh on hinf that is rich, he hasteth to plow and to plant.
And neighbour vieth with neighbour hasting to be rich : good is this strife for men."
I hope these few remarks may induce some fellow-subscribers to the Spectator to re-read their Hesiod, and derive therefrom as much pleasure as I have done.—I am, Sir, &c., A SUBSCRIBER OF THIRTY-FIVE YEARS.
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