Note 46 — THE WORKS AND DAYS.

A hundred years.] Heinsius explains this passage to mean, that “although this age was indeed deteriorated from the former, this much of good remained; that the boys were not early exposed to the contagion of vice, but long participated the chaste and retired education of their sisters in the seclusion of the female apartments.” Grævius, on the contrary, insists that Hesiod notes it as a mark of depravation, that the youth were educated in sloth and effeminacy, and grew up, as it were, on the lap of their mothers. These two opinions are about equally to the purpose. [“The poet manifestly alludes to the longevity of persons in the patriarchic age: for they did not, it seems, die at three-score and ten, but took more time even in advancing towards puberty. He speaks, however, of their being cut off in their prime; and whatever portion of life nature might have allotted to them, they were abridged of it by their own folly and injustice.”] Bryant.