behind with a mattock and make trouble for the birds by hiding
the seed; for good management is the best for mortal men as bad
management is the worst. In this way your corn-ears will bow to
the ground with fullness if the Olympian himself gives a good
result at the last, and you will sweep the cobwebs from your bins
and you will be glad, I ween, as you take of your garnered
substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to grey
(18) springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but
another shall be in need of your help.

(ll. 479-492) But if you plough the good ground at the solstice
(19), you will reap sitting, grasping a thin crop in your hand,
binding the sheaves awry, dust-covered, not glad at all; so you
will bring all home in a basket and not many will admire you.
Yet the will of Zeus who holds the aegis is different at
different times; and it is hard for mortal men to tell it; for if
you should plough late, you may find this remedy -- when the
cuckoo first calls (20) in the leaves of the oak and makes men
glad all over the boundless earth, if Zeus should send rain on
the third day and not cease until it rises neither above an ox's
hoof nor falls short of it, then the late-plougher will vie with
the early. Keep all this well in mind, and fail not to mark grey
spring as it comes and the season of rain.

(ll 493-501) Pass by the smithy and its crowded lounge in winter
time when the cold keeps men from field work, -- for then an
industrious man can greatly prosper his house -- lest bitter
winter catch you helpless and poor and you chafe a swollen foot
with a shrunk hand. The idle man who waits on empty hope,
lacking a livelihood, lays to heart mischief-making; it is not an