Note 95 — THE WORKS AND DAYS.
George Chapman translation
The brazier’s forge.] Θακος was properly a seat or bench: and λεσχη, conversation, chit-chat—but they came to be applied to the places where loungers sat and talked: hence the former meant a shop, and the latter a portico, piazza, or public exchange, whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer that beggars took up their night’s lodging in such places: Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to him,
Thou wilt not seek for rest some brazier’s forge, Or portico.