COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

374 COSMOS.
action, riveted their attention almost exclusively. An active
life, spent chiefly in public, drew the minds of men from dwelling
with enthusiastic exclusiveness on the silent workings
of nature, and led them always to consider physical phenomena
as having reference to mankind, whether in the relations
of external conformation or of internal development.* It
was almost exclusively under such relations that the consideration
of nature was deemed worthy of being admitted into
the domain of 'poetry under the fantastic form of comparisons,
which often present small detached pictures replete with
objective truthfulness.
At Delphi, preans to Spring were sung,f being intended, probably,
to express the delight ofman at the termination of the discom-
forts of winter. A natural description of muter is interwoven
(perhaps by the hand of some Ionian rhapsodist)
in the
Works and Days of Hesiod.'| This poem, which is composed
with noble simplicity, although in accordance with the rigid
didactic form, gives instructions regarding agriculture, direc-
tions for different kinds of trade and labour, and ethic precepts
for a blameless course of life. It is only elevated to the
dignity of a lyric poem, when the poet clothes the miseries of
mankind, or the exquisite mythical allegory of Epimetheus
and Pandora in an anthropomorphic garb. In the theogony
of Hesiod, which is composed of many ancient and dissimilar
elements, we frequently find, as, for instance, in the enumeration
of the Nereides, natural descriptions of the realm of
* Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Kunste lei den Alien, bd. ii.
1843,
s. 128-138.
*h Piut., de E. I. apud Delphos, c. 9. [an attempt of Plutarch's to explain
the meaning of an inscription at the entrance of the temple of Delphi.
TV.] Regarding a passage of Apollonius Dyscolus of Alexandria
(Mirdb. Hist., c. 40), see Otfr. Miiller's last work, Gesch. der griecli.
Litteratur, bd. i. 1845, s. 31.
J Hesiodi Opera et Dies, v. 502-561. Gottling, in Hes. Carm. 1831,
p. xix.; Ulrici, Gesch. der liellenisclien Diclitlcumt, tk. i. 1835, s. 337.
Bernhardy, Grundriss der griech. Litteratur, th. ii. s. 176. to the opinion of Gottfr. Hermann (Opuscula, vol. vi. p.
According
"
239) the
picturesque description given by Hesiod of winter, bears all the evidence
of great antiquity."
Hes. Theog., v. 233-264. The Nereid Mera (Oct., xi. 326; II,
xviii. 48), may perhaps be indicative of the phosphoric light seen on the
surface of the sea, in the same manner as the same word /ucupa designates
the sparkling dog-star Sirius.