CHAPTER V.

_HESIOD._

The Difference between the Homeric and the Hesiodic Spirit.--The Personality of Hesiod more Distinct than that of Homer.--What we Know about his Life.--Perses.--The Hesiodic Rhapsodes.--_Theogony_ and _Works and Days_.--Didactic Poetry.--The Story of Prometheus.--Greek and Hebrew Myths of the Fall.--The Allegorical Element in the Promethean Legend.--The Titans.--The Canto of the Four Ages.--Hesiodic Ethics.--The Golden Age.--Flaxman's Illustrations.--Justice and Virtue.--Labor.--Bourgeois Tone of Hesiod.--Marriage and Women.--The Gnomic Importance of Hesiod for the Early Greeks Page 161