After old Saturn fell to Death's dark country
Straitly Jove ruled the world with silver charm,
Less radiant than gold, less false than brass.
And it was then that he split up the year
In shifty Autumn, wild Winter, and short Spring.
Summer that glared with heat, the winter wind
Gleamed white with ice that streamed on field and river;
Then men built walls against both sun and wind--
Their elder shelters had been caves or boughs.
Now grain was planted and plough pierced the earth;
The driven ox whimpered beneath the yoke.
Third came the age of bronze, less soft than silver,
And men in bronze were quick with sword and spear,
Yet all feared Jove. Then came the age of iron,
And from it poured the very blood of evil:
Piety, Faith, Love, and Truth changed to Deceit,
Violence, the Tricks of Trade, Usury, Profit;
Ignorant of contrary winds, men sailed the seas:
The mountain oak, the pine were felled and stripped,
Their long beams swaying above uncharted Ocean.
Then land, once like the gift of sunlit air,
Was cut in properties, estates, and holdings:
Not only crops were hoarded; men invaded
Entrails of earth down deeper than the river
Where Death's shades weave in darkness underground;
Where hidden from the sight of men Jove's treasures
Were locked in night. There, in his sacred mines,
All that drives men to avarice and murder
Shone in the dark: the loot was dragged to light
And War, inspired by curse of iron and gold,
Lifted blood-clotted hands and marched the earth.
Men fed on loot and lust; the guest feared host;
Neighbor looked warily with smiles at neighbor;
And fathers had good reasons to distrust
Their eager sons-in-law. If brothers loved
Each other, the sight was rare, and watchful
Husbands prayed for death of wives; stepmothers
Made poison a dessert as dinner--sons
Counted the hours that led to fathers' graves.
Piety was overthrown, and Astrea,
Last-born sister of the skies--left the blood-
Sweating earth to drink its blood, and turning
Lightly, swiftly found her place in heaven.
Soon it was roumoured that earth's taste for blood
Was threatening heaven: giants piled hill on
Mountain to make a stair that reached the skies,
To clamber to the throne of Jove, then blinding
Thunder shook Olympus, and Pelion
Thrust down by heaven's bolt crashed over Ossa.
It was reported that when the mountains
With monsters fell from grace, trailing their blood,
Then earth, remembering earlier sons and daughters,
Made human images from blood-wet clay,
The new breed godless, violent in mind;
One saw too clearly they were born of blood.
When Jove from his high seat looked down on earth
He sighed aloud: he thought of Lycaon's altar
Of human flesh, of incident too recent
To be well known. Jove's anger burned his soul,
Was well worthy of it: and he named a council
Of lesser gods who sat at his command.
On evenings when deepest heavens are clear
One sees a highroad called The Milky Way
Where gods walk out upon a path of stars
To Jove the Thunderer; on either side
Of palace and high hall, great doors fall open
To the chambered light; guests wandering where
Nobility received its worshippers.
The lesser deities do not live here;
I choose to call it Palatine of Heaven.
As gods assembled at Jove's throne in state
He stood above them leaning on his scepter,
Shook his heavy locks three times and once again
As land, sea, sky rocked with his weighted gesture;
Then lips, grown thick with rage began to speak:
``We live in danger greater than the hour
When lizard-footed giants climbed the hills
And with a hundred hands clawed at the sky.
They were one breed, one will. But now when Ocean
Storms helpless earth, all traces of mankind
Should be destroyed. I swear by all the rivers
Of deepest Hell my best is done to conquer
Human ill; the best is not enough; taint
Must be cut from flesh as with a cleansing
Knife the body cured. I am protector
Of nymphs, fauns, satyrs, and small gods who wander
The village street, down lanes, up shaded hills;
Since we have found no home for them in heaven,
The lands they live in must be cleared of evil,
Where Lycaon, known for his will against me,
Walks like a beast and hides his traps in forests.''
All who heard trembled and with anxious lips
Asked who was Lycaon, what breed was he?
And as they spoke the scene was like the day
When hands of madness washed in Caesar's blood
Threatened to blot the very name of Rome,
When all the world stood dazed by thought of ruin.
Even now, Augustus, when your subjects please,
So Jove was pleased by anger of his gods.
He waved for silence with an easy hand;
Their murmuring ceased and he resumed his lecture:
``Lycaon met his fate; here is my story.
I had heard evil rumours of mankind
And with the hope of proving them unture
I stepped down from Olympus incognito,
No longer Jovian but extremely human,
A traveller walking up and down the world.
It takes too long to list the crimes I saw--
Rumours were less amazing than the truth.
I crossed Maenala where every bush and cave
Was hideously alive with boars, bears, foxes,
Then through Cyllene and the frost-pine forest
Of Lycaeus, and as that twilight dwindled
To ever-increasing dark I stepped across
Rough threshold where Lycaon, bitter tyrant
Of Arcadian wildness, lived. I raised
My hand; peasant and shepherd fell before me
To offer prayers at them and me began to roar,
`Soon we shall know if this is god or man;
I shall have proof of its divinity.'
The proof was simple. When I had feasted
(So he had planned) and heavily asleep,
Lifted to bed, he hoped to murder me.
Nor was this scheme enough; he took a Northern
Hostage from a cell, slit the poor devilish
Monster's throat and tossed his warm and bleeding
Vitals in a pot; the rest he roasted.
This was the dinner that he put before me.
My thunderbolt struck the king's house to ruins,
And he, wild master, ran like beast to field
Crying his terror which cannot utter words
But howls in fear, his foaming lips and jaws,
Quick with the thought of blood, harry the sheep.
His cloak turned into bristling hair, his arms
Were forelegs of a wolf--yet he resembled
Himself, what he had been--the violent
Gray hair, face, eyes, the ceaseless, restless state
Of drunken tyrrany and hopeless hate.
His house has fallen; others shall follow him;
Far as earth reaches, Furies rule the land;
All men have Joined in Hell's conspiracy
Since I have said it: all shall pay the toll
Of early death--and earth an early fall.''