7.9.23

Hesiodi, Opera et Dies, lines 175-202



Never would I in the fifth generation of humans desire to                                175
live, but before to have died, or instead to be born thereafter.
Now it is so that the age is of iron, and never by day do
men cease laboring, miserably, nor in the night is there pause from
perishing. Harsh are the troubles which gods will allot to the humans.
Even the blessings, alike to afflictions, will all be confounded.                       180
Zeus will destroy, though, even this race of articulate people,
when they are born already with gray hairs crowning their temples.
Neither a father to sons is familiar, nor sons with their father,
nor is a guest with his host, nor companion with comrades convivial,
nor will a brother a friend be; as once was the usual custom.                           185
Rather will men dishonor the ones, grown old, who begot them;
always so full of reproaches, they'll blame them with harsh words,
merciless, blind to the gods' cruel vengeance; unable to give back
all that their parents had given to nourish their childhood,
[violent abusers. Another will vanquish another man's city.]                            190
Nor will the grace of the faithful exist, nor of the righteous
nor of the good, but the worker of evils, his hubris and pretense
these they'll venerate. Justice by violence; Shame and repentance
will not exist, but the rubbish will blame his faults on a better
person, belittling him with corrupted remarks and will curse him.                   195
Jealous, together with every miserable, wretched, unkind and
heinous, sadistic, despicable human, he'll congregate, hate-faced.
And, then, towards Olympus, away from the earth's broad pathways
shrouding their elegant bodies in pale white luminous fabrics,
deathless, they'll go forth, leaving behind them the race of the humans,         200
Aidos and Nemesis. All that remains will be pitiful anguish
left for the mortals. Reprieve from misfortune will never abide here.