160 THEOGNIS

From these entanglements ; with these in view, Death is the lighter evil of the two." (F.) Possibly, as we hear no more of him, the poet's younger and less sensitive comrade did not respond to the invitation. Certainly Theognis shortly transferred his residence to Sicily, that isle of the west, which ^ was to his countrymen what America is to ours, the refuge of unemployed enterprise and unappreciated talent. Arrived there, he quickly shakes off the gloom which the impressions of a sea-voyage would not tend to lighten, and prepares to grapple in earnest the problem "how to manage to live." Though he gives vent to expressions which show what an indignity work must have seemed to " A manly form, an elevated mind, Once elegantly fashioned and refined," his pluck and good sense come to his aid, and he con- soles himself with the generalisation that '/ All kinds of shabby shifts are understood, (All kinds of art are practised, bad and good, All kinds of ways to gain a livelihood." (F.) Xot that he descends in his own person to any un- worthy art or part. Having satisfied himself that his voice and skill in music were his most marketable gifts, he set up as an assistant performer at musical festivals ; and, in one of his pieces, he apologises for his voice being likely to fail at one of those entertain- ments, because he had been out late the night before serenading for hire. The poor gentleman no doubt