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and air lacked light; shapes shifted constantly,
and all things were at odds with one another,
for in a single mass cold strove with warm,
wet was opposed to dry and soft to hard,
and weightlessness to matter having weight.
Some god (or kinder nature) settled this
dispute by separating earth from heaven,
and then by separating sea from earth
and fluid aether from the denser air;
and after these were separated out
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and liberated from the primal heap,
he bound the disentangled elements
each in its place and all in harmony.
The fiery and weightless aether leapt
to heaven’s vault and claimed its citadel;
the next in lightness to be placed was air;
the denser earth drew down gross elements
and was compressed by its own gravity;
encircling water lastly found its place,
encompassing the solid earth entire.
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Now when that god (whichever one it was)
had given Chaos form, dividing it
in parts which he arranged, he molded earth
into the shape of an enormous globe,
so that it should be uniform throughout.
And afterward he sent the waters streaming
in all directions, ordered waves to swell
under the sweeping winds, and sent the flood
to form new shores on the surrounded earth;
he added springs, great standing swamps and lakes,
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as well as sloping rivers fixed between
their narrow banks, whose plunging waters (all
in varied places, each in its own channel)
are partly taken back into the earth
and in part flow until they reach the sea,
when they—received into the larger field
of a freer flood—beat against shores, not banks.
He ordered open plains to spread themselves,
valleys to sink, the stony peaks to rise,
and forests to put on their coats of green.
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And as the vault of heaven is divided
by two zones on the right and two on the left,
with a central zone, much hotter, in between,
so, by the care of this creator god,
the mass that was enclosed now by the sky
was zoned in the same way, with the same lines
inscribed upon the surface of the earth.
Heat makes the middle zone unlivable,
and the two outer zones are deep in snow;
between these two extremes, he placed two others
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of temperate climate, blending cold and warmth.
Air was suspended over all of this,
proportionately heavier than aether,
as earth is heavier than water is.
He ordered mists and clouds into position,
and thunder, to make test of our resolve,
and winds creating thunderbolts and lightning.
Nor did that world-creating god permit
the winds to roam ungoverned through the air;
for even now, with each of them in charge
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of his own kingdom, and their blasts controlled,
they scarcely can be kept from shattering
the world, such is the discord between brothers.
Eurus went eastward, to the lands of Dawn,
the kingdoms of Arabia and Persia,
and to the mountain peaks that lie below
the morning’s rays; and Zephyr took his place
on the western shores warmed by the setting sun.
The frozen north and Scythia were
seized by bristling Boreas; the lands opposite,
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continually drenched by fog and rain,
are where the south wind, known as Auster, dwells.
Above these winds, he set the weightless aether,
a liquid free of every earthly toxin.
No sooner had he separated all
within defining limits, when the stars,
which formerly had been concealed in darkness,
began to blaze up all throughout the heavens;
and so that every region of the world
should have its own distinctive forms of life,
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the constellations and the shapes of gods
occupied the lower part of heaven;
the seas gave shelter to the shining fishes,
earth received beasts, and flighty air, the birds.
An animal more like the gods than these,
more intellectually capable
and able to control the other beasts,
had not as yet appeared: now man was born,
either because the framer of all things,
the fabricator of this better world,
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created man out of his own divine
substance—or else because Prometheus
took up a clod (so lately broken off
from lofty aether that it still contained
some elements in common with its kin),
and mixing it with water, molded it
into the shape of gods, who govern all.
And even though all other animals
lean forward and look down toward the ground,
he gave to man a face that is uplifted,
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and ordered him to stand erect and look
directly up into the vaulted heavens
and turn his countenance to meet the stars;
the earth, that was so lately rude and formless,
was changed by taking on the shapes of men.
The four ages
Golden, that first age, which, though ignorant
of laws, yet of its own will, uncoerced,
fostered responsibility and virtue;
men had no fear of any punishment,
nor did they read of threatened penalties
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engraved on bronze; no throng of suppliants
trembled before the visage of a judge
or sought protection from the laws themselves.
As yet no pine tree on its mountaintop
had been chopped down and fitted out to ship
for foreign lands; men kept to their own shores;
steep moats did not yet girdle besieged towns;
there were no straight bronze trumpets, no curved horns,
no swords or helmets; without warfare, all
the nations lived, securely indolent.
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No rake had been familiar with the earth,
no plowshare had yet wronged her; untaxed, she gave
of herself freely, providing all essentials.
Content with food acquired without effort,
men gathered fruit from the arbutus tree,
wild strawberries on mountainsides, small cherries,
and acorns fallen from Jove’s spreading oak.
Spring was the only season that there was,
and the warm breath of gentle Zephyr stroked
flowers that sprang up from the ground, unsown.
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Later—though still untilled—the earth bore grain,
and fields, unfallowed, whitened with their wheat;
now streams of milk, now streams of nectar flowed,
and from the green oak, golden honey dripped.
When Saturn was dispatched to Tartarus,
Jove ruled the world; the silver race appeared,
less dear than gold, but costlier than bronze.
Jupiter made the ancient springtime shorter
by adding onto it three seasons more:
now winter, summer, an erratic fall,
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and a brief
spring filled out the fourfold year.
Then the scorched air first burned and glowed with heat,
and icicles dangled in the freezing wind;
then houses first appeared, in the form of caves,
or crude shelters hidden in dense thickets,
or huts of branches bound with strips of bark.
At that time, grain was first sown in long furrows,
and bullocks groaned, whose shoulders bore the yoke.
The third age followed with the race of bronze,
crueler by nature and much more disposed
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to savage warfare, but not yet corrupt.
Last was the age of iron: suddenly,
all forms of evil burst upon this time
of baser mettle; modesty, fidelity,
and truth departed; in their absence, came
fraud, guile, deceit, the use of violence,
and shameful lusting after acquisitions.
Now ships spread sail, though sailors until now
knew nothing of them; pines that formerly
had stood upon the summits of their mountains,
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turned into keels, now prance among the waves;
and land—which formerly was held in common,
as sunlight is and as the breezes are—
is given boundaries by the surveyor.
Now men demand that the rich earth provide
more than the crops and sustenance it owes,
and piercing to the bowels of the earth,
the wealth long hidden in Stygian gloom
is excavated and induces evil;
for iron, which is harmful, and the more
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pernicious gold (now first produced) create
grim warfare, which has need of both; now arms
are grasped in bloodstained hands; men live off plunder,
and guest has no protection from his host,
nor father-in-law from his daughter’s husband,
and kindness between brothers is infrequent;
husband and wife both wish each other dead,
and wicked stepmothers concoct the bilious
poisons that turn their youthful victims pale;
a son goes to a soothsayer to learn
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the date when he will change from heir to owner,
and piety lies vanquished here below.
Virgin Astraea, the last immortal left
on the bloodstained earth, withdraws from it in horror.
War with the Giants
So that the skies above might be no more
secure than earth, the race of Giants plotted
(we hear) to rule in heaven by themselves:
they brought together mountains in a heap
and piled them up to reach the lofty stars;
then the omnipotent father launched a bolt
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that shattered Mount Olympus at the base,
so Pelion came crashing down from Ossa.
When their enormous corpses all lay crushed
beneath the great weight of each other’s bodies,
their Mother Earth (or so the story goes)
drenched with their steaming gore, gave life to it;
and lest no memory at all remain
of her offspring, she gave them human shape;
her stock was marked by hatred of the gods,
by cruelty and eagerness for slaughter:
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you would have recognized their bloody nature.
Lycaon’s feast
Now when great Jove, the son of Saturn, saw
all this from his high citadel, he groaned,
recalling an event then still too recent
to be widely known: Lycaon’s filthy banquet!
And stirred by anger worthy of himself,
he called a council of the gods to session:
none of those summoned was the least bit late.
When the nighttime sky is clear, there can be seen
a highway visible in heaven, named
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the Milky Way, distinguished for its whiteness.
Gods take this path to the royal apartments
of Jove the Thunderer; on either side
are palaces with folding doors flung wide,
and filled with guests of their distinguished owners;
plebeian gods reside in other sections,
but here in this exclusive neighborhood,
the most renowned of heaven’s occupants
have their own household deities enshrined;
and if I were permitted to speak freely,
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I would not hesitate to call this enclave
the Palatine of heaven’s ruling class.
So when, within their marble council chamber,
all of the gods assembled took their seats,
and Jove, above the others, leaned upon
his staff of ivory and shook three times
and four his awe-inspiring thick head
of hair, which makes the very cosmos tremble,
these words escaped from his indignant lips:
“I’ve never been more anxious for my realm,
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not even when the serpent-footed Giants
were each preparing to take heaven captive
in the fierce embrace of his one hundred arms!
—That enemy was savage, to be sure,
but all the trouble came from just one source;
yet now, wherever Nereus is heard
resounding as he flows around the world,
the human race must perish; this I swear
by the rivers flowing underneath the earth
through Stygian groves; we have tried everything
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to find a cure, but now the surgeon’s blade
must cut away what is untreatable,
lest the infection spread to healthy parts.
“I have my demigods to think about,
rustic divinities, the nymphs, the fauns,
the Satyrs, and the spirits of the forest
that dwell on mountainsides; although, as yet,
we haven’t honored them with residence
in heaven, we must guarantee their safety
upon the earth which we have given them.
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“But can we? O my gods, can you believe
lesser immortals and the thunderbolt,
have had snares set against me by a mortal
noted for beastliness? I mean—Lycaon!”
All hell broke loose in heaven—what an uproar,
with everyone excitedly demanding
a punishment to fit such infamy!
It was as when that band of traitors raged
to annihilate the name of Rome by shedding
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the blood of Caesar’s heir; stunned by the frightful
prospect of utter ruin, the human race
throughout the world, as one, began to shudder;
nor was the piety of your own subjects,
Augustus, any less agreeable
to you than that of Jove’s had been to him.
By voice and gesture, he suppressed the riot.
All held their peace.
When the clamor had subsided,
curbed by the weight of his authority,
great Jove once more broke silence with these words:
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“He has been dealt with—have no fears of that!
But I will now inform you of his crimes and of their punishment.
“The age’s infamy
had reached our ears; hoping to disprove it,
I glided down from the summit of Olympus,
concealing my godhood in a human form,
and walked upon the earth. Long would it take
to enumerate the evils that I found
in suc
h abundance, everywhere I went:
the truth was even worse than I had heard.
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“I crossed Maenala, where the wild beasts roam,
Cyllene, and the pine groves of Lycaeus;
then on to the inhospitable abode
and seat of the tyrant of Arcadia,
approaching it as evening turned night.
“By signs I let them know a god had come,
and common folk began to offer prayers;
at first Lycaon mocked their piety,
and then he said, ‘I will make trial of him,
and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt
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whether this fellow is a god or man.’
“He planned to take me, overcome with sleep,
and murder me as I lay unawares;
that was his way of getting at the truth.
Nor was he satisfied with this: he took
a hostage sent by the Molossians,
and after severing his windpipe, cut
his body into pieces and then put
the throbbing parts up to be boiled or broiled.
“As soon as he had set this on the table,
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I loosed my vengeful bolts until that house
collapsed on its deserving household gods!
“Frightened, he runs off to the silent fields
and howls aloud, attempting speech in vain;
foam gathers at the corners of his mouth;
he turns his lust for slaughter on the flocks,
and mangles them, rejoicing still in blood.
“His garments now become a shaggy pelt;
his arms turn into legs, and he, to wolf
while still retaining traces of the man:
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greyness the same, the same cruel visage,
the same cold eyes and bestial appearance.
“One house has fallen: many more deserve to;
over the broad earth, bestiality
prevails and stirs the Furies up to vengeance.”
The great flood
Some of the gods give voice to their approval
of Jove’s words and aggravate his grumbling,
while others play their roles with mute assent.
Nevertheless, all of them were saddened
by the proposed destruction of the human race
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and wondered what the future form of earth
could possibly be like, without men on it:
why, who would bring the incense to their altars?
Was it his purpose to surrender earth
for wild beasts to plunder? As they debated,
the king of gods bade them not to worry,
for he would tend to everything himself,
and promised to provide them with a race
which, quite unlike the one he would destroy,
would be miraculous in its origin.
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Now he was just about to sprinkle earth
with thunderbolts, yet held back out of fear