From hence Astræa took her flight, and here The prints of her departing steps appear. DRYDEN. As also Juvenal: Sat. vi. line 19. I well believe in Saturn’s ancient reign This Chastity might long on earth remain:— By slow degrees her steps Astræa sped To heaven above, and both the sisters fled. [53] _Now unto kings._] Βασιλευς, which we render _king_, was properly, in the early times of Greece, a magistrate. The kings against whom Hesiod inveighs, are therefore simply a kind of nobles, who exercised the judicial office in Bœotia; like the twelve of Phœacia mentioned in the Odyssey. See Mitford’s History of Greece, vol. i. ch. 3. [54] _A neck-streak’d nightingale._] Ποικιλοδειρον, with variegated throat. This has not been thought appropriate to the nightingale. Tzetzes and Moschopolus interpreted the term by ποικιλοφωνον, with varied voice; a very forced construction; yet it is adopted by Loesner, who renders it by _canoram_. Ruhnken proposes the emendation of ποικιλογηρυν, which is synonymous. Others have doubted whether αηδων, which is literally _singer_, might not apply to some other bird, as the thrush, which is defined by Linnæus, “back brown, neck spotted with white.” But the name _singer_ might have been applied to the nightingale by way of eminence. In fact I see no difficulty. Linnæus, indeed, describes the nightingale, “bill brown, head and back pale mouse-colour, with olive spots,” and says nothing of the throat. Simonides, however, speaks of χλοραυχενες αειδονες, _green-necked_ nightingales, which might justify Hesiod’s epithet. Bewick in the “British Birds” thus describes the _luscinia_: “the whole upper part of the body of a rusty brown tinged with olive; under parts pale ash-colour; _almost white at the throat_.” A more ancient ornithologist has a description still more nearly approximating to the term of Hesiod; and it seems evident that there is more than one species of nightingale. “Luscinia, philomela, αηδων. “The nightingale is about the bigness of a goldfinch. The colour on the upper part, _i. e_. the head and back, is a pale fulvous (lion, or deep gold colour) with a certain mixture of green, like that of a red-wing. Its tail is of a deeper fulvous or red, like a red-start’s. From its red colour it took the name of _rossignuolo_, in Italian: (_rossignol_, French). The belly is white. The parts under the wings, breast, and _throat_, are of a darker colour, with _a tincture of green_.” WILLOUGHBY’S ORNITHOLOGY, fol. 1678. [55] _The fool by suffering his experience buys._] Παυων δε τε νηπιος εγνω. This seems to have been a national proverb. Homer has a similar apophthegm: Il. 17. 33. μηδ’ αντιος ισταθ’ εμειο Πριν τι κακον παθεειν· ρεχθεν δε τε νηπιος εγνω. Confront me not, lest some sore evil rise: The fool must rue the act that makes him wise. Plato uses the same proverbial sentiment: