Note 31 — THE WORKS AND DAYS.

The good which asphodel and mallows yield.] A similar sentiment occurs in the Proverbs: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Ch. 15. v. 17.

Plutarch in the “Banquet of the Seven Sages,” observes, that “the herb mallows is good for food, as is the sweet stalk of the asphodel or daffodil.” These plants were often used by metonymy for a frugal table. Homer (Odyssey 24.) places the shades of the blessed in meadows of asphodel, because they were supposed to be restored to the state of primitive innocence, when men were contented with the simple and spontaneous aliment of the ground. Perhaps the Greeks had this allusion in their custom of planting the asphodel in the cemeteries, and also burying it with the bodies of the dead. It appears from Pliny, b. xxii. c. 22. that Hesiod had treated of the asphodel in some other work: as he is said to have spoken of it as a native of the woods.