THE LIFE OF HESIOD.

from Cyme in ^Eplia, urged by narrowness of means and a desire to "better his fortunes by a recurrence to the source and fountain-head of his race ; for he sailed to Breotia, the mother-country of the ^olian colonies. There he probably gave up his seafaring life, taking to agriculture instead ; and there unless, as some have surmised without much warranty, his elder son, Hesiod, was born before his migration he begat two sons, Hesiod, and a younger brother, Perses, whose personality is too abundantly avouched by Hesiod to be any subject of question. Though not himself a bard, the father must have carried to Bceotia lively and personal reminiscences and souvenirs of the heroic poetry for which the ^Eolic coast of Asia Minor was then establishing a fame ; and his own traditions, to- gether with the intercourse between the mother and daughter countries, cannot but have nursed a taste for the muse in Hesiod, which developed itself in a dis- tinct and independent vein, and was neither an offset of the Homeric stock, nor indebted to the Homeric poems for aught beyond the countenance afforded by parity of pursuits. The account given by Hesiod of his father's migration deserves citation, and may be conveniently given in the words of Elton's transla- tion of the ' Works and Days : ' " witless Perses, thus for honest gain, Thus did our mutual father plough the main. Erst from jEolian Cyme's distant shore Hither in sable ship his course he bore ; Through the wide seas his venturous way he took, No revenues, nor prosperous ease forsook.