60 HESIOD.

expression, save in the substitution of the word " acts " for "suffers;" and it is exceedingly probable that both adapted to their immediate purposes the words of a pre-existing proverb.* Hesiod had already glanced at the same proverb, when, in v. 89 of the ' Works and Days,' he said of the improvident Epimetheus that " he first took the gift " (Pandora)/' and after grieved ; " and it is probable that we have in it the germ of very many adagial expressions about the teach- ing of experience such as those about "the stung fisherman," " the burnt child," and " the scalded cat " of the Latin, English, and Spanish languages respect- ively. The Ojis, according to Burton, say, " He whom a serpent has bitten, dreads a slow-worm." Of a kin- dred tone of high heathen morality are several prover- bial 'expressions in the ' Works and Days ' touching uprightness and justice in communities and indi- viduals. Thus in one place we read that " Oft the crimes of one destructive fall, The crimes of one are visited on all." E. 319, 320. In another, that mischief and malice recoil on their author : " Whoever forgeth for another ill, With it himself is overtaken still ; In ill men run on that they most abhor ; 111 counsel worst is to the counsellor." Chapman.

• Livy has " Eventus stultorum magister ; " and the Proverbs

of Solomon, xx. 2, 3 "A prudent man foreseeth the evil and hideth himself ; but the simple pass on and are punished."