[27] "For the nymph pleased him no longer. Nathless, as need was, he slept the night in hollow caverns, beside her loving him who loved her not." [28] "Like to a young man when his beard has just begun to grow, whose bloom is then most lovely." [29] Hector's only son, like unto a fair star. [30] "For, dying, thou didst not reach to me thy hand from the bed, nor say to me words of wisdom, the which I might have aye remembered night and day with tears." [31] #Hêrôïkos#, 680. [32] _Life of Apollonius_, 150. [33] _Ibid._ 153, 154. [34] #Eikones#, 820. (By Kayser, Zurich, 2d ed.) [35] #Hêrôïkos#, 736, 733, 722. For the curious detail about Hector's ears compare Theocr. 22, 45, where athletes are described #tethlagmenoi ouata pygmais#. Statues of Hercules show this. 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. Hesiod, though he belongs to the first age of Greek literature, and ranks among the earliest of Hellenic poets, marks the transition from the heroic period to that of the despots, when ethical inquiry began in Greece. Like Homer, Hesiod is inspired by the Muses: alone, upon Mount Helicon, he received from them the gift of inspiration. But the message which he communicates to men does not concern the deeds of demigods and warriors. It offers no material for tragedies upon the theme of Thebes or Pelops' line, Or the tale of Troy divine.