“Cancel your pious cares; already he Has paid his debt to justice and to me; Yet what his crimes, and what my judgments were, Remains for me thus briefly to declare. The clamours of this vile degenerate age, The cries of orphans, and the oppressor’s rage, Had reach’d the stars: ‘I will descend,’ said I, ‘In hope to prove this loud complaint a lie.’ Disguised in human shape I travell’d round The world, and more than what I heard I found. O’er Maenalus I took my steepy way, By caverns infamous for beasts of prey; Then cross’d Syllene, and the piny shade More infamous, by cursed Lycaon made: Dark night had cover’d heaven and earth before I enter’d his inhospitable door. Just at my entrance, I display’d the sign That somewhat was approaching of divine: The prostrate people pray, the tyrant grins, And adding profanation to his sins, ‘I’ll try,’ said he, ‘and if a god appear, To prove his deity shall cost him dear.’ ’Twas late, the graceless wretch my death prepares, When I should soundly sleep, oppress’d with cares:

This dire experiment he chose to prove If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove: But first he had resolved to taste my power. Not long before, but in a luckless hour, Some legates, sent from the Molossian state, Were on a peaceful errand come to treat; Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh, And lays the mangled morsels in a dish; Some part he roasts, then serves it up, so dress’d, And bids me welcome to this human feast. Moved with disdain, the table I o’erturn’d, And with avenging flames the palace burn’d. The tyrant, in a fright, for shelter gains The neighb’ring fields, and scours along the plains; Howling he fled, and fain he would have spoke, But human voice his brutal tongue forsook; About his lips the gather’d foam he churns, And, breathing slaughters, still with rage he burns, But on the bleating flock his fury turns. His mantle, now his hide, with rugged hairs Cleaves to his back, a famish’d face he bears, His arms descend, his shoulders sink away To multiply his legs for chase of prey; He grows a wolf, his hoariness remains,

And the same rage in other members reigns, His eyes still sparkle in a narrower space, His jaws retain the grin and violence of his face.

“This was a single ruin, but not one Deserves so just a punishment alone. Mankind’s a monster, and the ungodly times Confederate into guilt are sworn to crimes; All are alike involved in ill, and all Must by the same relentless fury fall.” Thus ended he; the greater gods assent, By clamours urging his severe intent, The less fill up the cry for punishment: Yet still with pity they remember man, And mourn as much as heavenly spirits can. They ask, when those were lost of human birth, What he would do with all this waste of earth; If his dispeopled world he would resign To beasts, a mute and more ignoble line; Neglected altars must no longer smoke, If none were left to worship and invoke. To whom the father of the gods replied: “Lay that unnecessary fear aside, Mine be the care new people to provide; A race unlike the first, and try my skill again.”

Already had he toss’d the flaming brand, And roll’d the thunder in his spacious hand, Preparing to discharge on seas and land; But stopp’d, for fear, thus violently driven, The sparks should catch his axletree of heaven; Remembering in the Fates, a time when fire Should to the battlements of heaven aspire, And all his blazing worlds above should burn, And all the inferior globe to cinders turn. His dire artillery thus dismiss’d, he bent His thoughts to some securer punishment; Concludes to pour a watery deluge down, And what he durst not burn, resolves to drown.