But when good Saturn, banish’d from above, Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove. Succeeding times a silver age behold, Excelling brass, but more excell’d by gold. Then summer, autumn, winter, did appear, And spring was but a season of the year; The sun his annual course obliquely made, Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad. Then air with sultry heats began to glow, The wings of winds were clogg’d with ice and snow; And shivering mortals, into houses driven, Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven. Those houses, then, were caves or homely sheds, With twining osiers fenced, and moss their beds. Then ploughs, for seed, the fruitful furrows broke, And oxen labour’d first beneath the yoke.

To this came next in course the brazen age; A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage, Not impious yet.

Hard steel succeeded then, And stubborn as the metal were the men. Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook; Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took. Then sails were spread to every wind that blew, Raw were the sailors and the depths were new; Trees, rudely hollow’d did the waves sustain, Ere ships in triumph plough’d the watery plain.

Then landmarks limited to each his right; For all before was common as the light. Nor was the ground alone required to bear Her annual income to the crooked share, But greedy mortals, rummaging her store, Digg’d from her entrails first the precious ore (Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid), And that alluring ill to sight display’d. Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold, Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold; And double death did wretched man invade, By steel assaulted, and by gold betray’d. Now (brandish’d weapons glittering in their hands) Mankind is broken loose from moral bands; No rights of hospitality remain; The guest, by him who harbour’d him, is slain; The son-in-law pursues the father’s life; The wife her husband murders, he the wife; The stepdame poison for the son prepares; The son inquires into his father’s years; Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns; And justice, here oppress’d, to heaven returns.

Men of enormous stature, sons of Coelus and Terra, affect to scale the walls of heaven, but are overthrown by the thunder of Jupiter⁠—The earth, becoming impregnated by the blood of these monsters, begets men of similar disposition to their fathers, among whom Lycaon, tyrant of Arcadia, signalizes himself by putting to death all strangers who seek his protection⁠—Jupiter transforms him into the shape of a wolf, and destroys the whole human race by a universal deluge, with the exception of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who people the earth with a new race by the conversion of stones into men⁠—A huge serpent, named Pytho, makes its appearance, and excites universal terror, till he is at length destroyed by the shafts of Apollo⁠—The Pythian games are instituted in honour of this exploit.

Nor were the gods themselves more safe above, Against beleaguer’d heaven the giants move, Hills piled on hills, on mountains mountains lie, To make their mad approaches to the sky; Till Jove, no longer patient, took his time To avenge with thunder their audacious crime. Red lightning play’d along the firmament, And their demolish’d works to pieces rent. Singed with the flames, and with the bolts transfix’d. With native earth their blood the monsters mix’d. The blood, indued with animating heat, Did, in the impregnant earth, new sons beget. They, like the seed from which they sprung, accursed, Against the gods immortal hatred nursed; An impious, arrogant, and cruel brood, Expressing their original from blood.