Note 153 — Chapter II · LEGENDS RELATING TO HEROES AND MEN.
Reading edition
There are some lines, in which he appears to believe that, under the present wicked and treacherous rulers, it is not the interest of any man to be just (Opp. Di. 270):—
Νῦν δὴ ἐγὼ μήτ᾽ αὐτὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισι δίκαιος Εἴην, μήτ᾽ ἐμὸς υἱός· ἐπεὶ κακόν ἐστι δίκαιον Ἔμμεναι, εἰ μείζω γε δίκην ἀδικώτερος ἕξει· Ἀλλὰ τόδ᾽ οὔπω ἔολπα τελεῖν Δία τερπικέραυνον.
On the whole, however, his conviction is to the contrary.
Plutarch rejects the above four lines, seemingly on no other ground than because he thought them immoral and unworthy of Hesiod (see Proclus ad loc.). But they fall in perfectly with the temper of the poem: and the rule of Plutarch is inadmissible, in determining the critical question of what is genuine or spurious.