[114] _On gusty ground._] So Varro, de Re Rusticâ, lib. i. c. 51. “The threshing-floor should be in a field, on higher ground, where the wind might blow over it.” See also Columella, lib. xi. c. 20. [115] _Thy hireling swain_ _From forth thy house dismiss._] Θητα αοικον ποιεισθαι is rendered by Grævius _comparare sibi servum domo carentem_: and Schrevelius explains the passage to mean that “you should seek out a servant who, having no house of his own to look after, could direct his whole attention to your concerns.” So when the harvest is over, and the corn laid up in the granaries, he is to look out for a labourer! Was there ever a direction so unmeaning as this? I translate the words, (_meo periculo_) “_servum operarium è domo dimitte_.” [116] _Keep, too, a sharp-tooth’d dog._] Virgil has a more poetical passage on the same subject, Georg. iii. 404: Nor last forget thy faithful dogs: but feed With fattening whey the mastiff’s generous breed And Spartan race, who for the fold’s relief Will prosecute with cries the nightly thief, Repulse the prowling wolf, and hold at bay The mountain robbers rushing to the prey. DRYDEN. [117] _On Arcturus looks from high_ _The rosy-finger’d morn._] By this is understood the heliacal rising of Arcturus, which happened in the time of Hesiod about the 21st of September. LE CLERC. [118] _On morning’s brink_ _The Pleiads, Hyads, and Orion sink._] This is the morning, or cosmical, setting of the Pleiads; which, according to Petavius, happened some time in November. LE CLERC. [119] _Then varying winds._] Virgil cautions the navigator against the appearances of the sun, Georg. i. 455: If dusky spots are varied on his brow And streak’d with red a troubled colour show: That sullen mixture shall at once declare Winds, rain, and storms, and elemental war: What desperate madman then would venture o’er The frith, or haul his cables from the shore? DRYDEN. [120] _Black ocean._] Οινοπι ποντω, wine-coloured. This evidently means black: as the Greek poets apply the epithet black to wine. Hesiod has αιθοπα οινοι, black coloured wine. The sense of this latter epithet is deduced from the blackness caused by burning: as αιθω is _to burn_. [121] _In summer irksome._] This inconvenience arose from the site of the place: as the scholiasts Proclus and Tzetzes relate: for by the neighbourhood of so high a mountain as Helicon, the breezes, which might have alleviated the summer heat, were intercepted: and in winter, the rays of the sun were excluded from the village; which was also exposed to torrents from the melting of the snow. ROBINSON.