A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

CHAPTER XI
ECONOMY AND COLONIZATION
I. Farming
Get a house first and a woman and a plowing ox; and Preparations
for
get all gear arrayed within the house, lest thou beg of small farni'
ing.
another and he deny thee and thou go lacking, and the
season pass by and thy work be minished.
Neither put
off till the morrow nor the day after. The idle man filleth
not his barn, neither he that putteth off.
Diligence prospereth
work, but the man that putteth off ever wrestleth
with ruin.
'
And bring thou home a plowbeam, when thou findest
it by search on hill or in field—of holm oak: for this is the
strongest to plow with, when Athena's servant fasteneth
it in the share-beam and fixeth it with dowels to the pole.
Get thee two plows, fashioning them at home, one of the
natural wood, the other jointed, since it is far better to do
so. Hence if thou break the one, thou canst yoke the oxen
to the other.
Freest of worms are poles of bay or elm.
Get thee then share-beam of oak, plow-beam of holm,
and two oxen of nine years. For the strength of such is
not weak in the fulness of their age; they are best for
work. They will not quarrel in the furrow and break the
plow, and leave their work undone. And with them let
a man of forty follow, his dinner a loaf of four quarters,
eight pieces, who will mind his work and drive a straight
furrow, no more gaping after his fellows,
but having his
heart on his task. Than he no younger man is better at
103
Hesiod,
M'orks and
Days.
Plows.
Evidently
the writer
here has in
mind a larger
farm.