Works and Days

Hesiod

Hesiod, creator; Homer, creator; Evelyn-White, Hugh G. (Hugh Gerard), d. 1924, translator

  • You yourself wait until the season for sailing is come, and then haul your swift ship down to the sea and stow a convenient cargo in it, so that you may bring home profit, even as your father and mine, foolish Perses, used to sail on shipboard because he lacked sufficient livelihood. And one day he came to this very place, crossing over a great stretch of sea;
  • he left Aeolian Cyme and fled, not from riches and substance, but from wretched poverty which Zeus lays upon men, and he settled near Helicon in a miserable hamlet,
  • Ascra, which is bad in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time. But you, Perses, remember all works in their season but sailing especially. Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the greater the lading, the greater will be your piled gain,