That first age was an age of gold: no law
and no compulsion then were needed; all
kept faith; the righteous way was freely willed.
There were no penalties that might instill
dark fears, no menaces inscribed upon
bronze tablets; trembling crowds did not implore
the clemency of judges; but, secure,
men lived without defenders. In those times,
upon its native mountain heights, the pine
still stood unfelled; no wood had yet been hauled
down to the limpid waves, that it might sail
to foreign countries; and the only coasts
that mortals knew in that age were their own.
The towns were not yet girded by steep moats;
there were no curving horns of brass, and no
brass trumpets—straight, unbent; there were no swords,
no helmets. No one needed warriors;
the nations lived at peace, in tranquil ease.
Earth of itself—and uncompelled—untouched
Latin [79–101]
by hoes, not torn by ploughshares, offered all
that one might need: men did not have to seek:
they simply gathered mountain strawberries
and the arbutus’ fruit and cornel cherries;
and thick upon their prickly stems, blackberries;
and acorns fallen from Jove’s sacred tree.
There spring was never-ending. The soft breeze
of tender zephyrs wafted and caressed
the flowers that sprang unplanted, without seed.
The earth, untilled, brought forth abundant yields;
and though they never had lain fallow, fields
were yellow with the heavy stalks of wheat.
And streams of milk and streams of nectar flowed,
and golden honey dripped from the holm oak.
But after Saturn had been banished, sent
down to dark Tartarus, Jove’s rule began;
the silver age is what the world knew then—
an age inferior to golden times,
but if compared to tawny bronze, more prized.
Jove curbed the span that spring had had before;
he made the year run through four seasons’ course:
the winter, summer, varied fall, and short
springtime. The air was incandescent, parched
by blazing heat—or felt the freezing gusts,
congealing icicles: such heat and frost
as earth had never known before. Men sought—
for the first time—the shelter of a house;
until then, they had made their homes in caves,
dense thickets, and in branches they had heaped
and bound with bark. Now, too, they planted seeds
of wheat in lengthy furrows; and beneath
the heavy weight of yokes, the bullocks groaned.
The third age saw the race of bronze: more prone
to cruelty, more quick to use fierce arms,
but not yet sacrilegious.
Latin [101–27]
What bestowed
its name upon the last age was hard iron.
And this, the worst of ages, suddenly
gave way to every foul impiety;
earth saw the flight of faith and modesty
and truth—and in their place came snares and fraud,
deceit and force and sacrilegious love
of gain. Men spread their sails before the winds,
whose ways the mariner had scarcely learned:
the wooden keels, which once had stood as trunks
upon the mountain slopes, now danced upon
the unfamiliar waves. And now the ground,
which once—just like the sunlight and the air—
had been a common good, one all could share,
was marked and measured by the keen surveyor—
he drew the long confines, the boundaries.
Not only did men ask of earth its wealth,
its harvest crops and foods that nourish us,
they also delved into the bowels of earth:
there they began to dig for what was hid
deep underground beside the shades of Styx:
the treasures that spur men to sacrilege.
And so foul iron and still fouler gold
were brought to light—and war, which fights for both
and, in its bloodstained hands, holds clanging arms.
Men live on plunder; guests cannot trust hosts;
the son-in-law can now betray his own
father-in-law; and even brothers show
scant love and faith. The husband plots the death
of his own wife, and she plots his. And dread
stepmothers ply their fatal poisons; sons
now tally—early on—how many years
their fathers still may live. Now piety
lies vanquished; and the maid Astraea, last
of the immortals, leaves the blood-soaked earth.
Latin [127–50]