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Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica by Hesiod
page 49 of 363 (13%)
that, you can raise disputes and strive to get another's goods.
But you shall have no second chance to deal so again: nay, let us
settle our dispute here with true judgement divided our
inheritance, but you seized the greater share and carried it off,
greatly swelling the glory of our bribe-swallowing lords who love
to judge such a cause as this. Fools! They know not how much
more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there
is in mallow and asphodel (1).

(ll. 42-53) For the gods keep hidden from men the means of life.
Else you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a
full year even without working; soon would you put away your
rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy
mule would run to waste. But Zeus in the anger of his heart hid
it, because Prometheus the crafty deceived him; therefore he
planned sorrow and mischief against men. He hid fire; but that
the noble son of Iapetus stole again for men from Zeus the
counsellor in a hollow fennel-stalk, so that Zeus who delights in
thunder did not see it. But afterwards Zeus who gathers the
clouds said to him in anger:

(ll. 54-59) `Son of Iapetus, surpassing all in cunning, you are
glad that you have outwitted me and stolen fire -- a great plague
to you yourself and to men that shall be. But I will give men as
the price for fire an evil thing in which they may all be glad of
heart while they embrace their own destruction.'

(ll. 60-68) So said the father of men and gods, and laughed
aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth
with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind,
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