{23}
After this commenced the age of steel, when even Jupiter abandoned himself
to the fiery passions of love, jealousy, and vengeance.
----------"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 hollowed, did the waves sustain,
Ere ships in triumph, ploughed 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,
Dug from her entrails first the precious ore,
Which next to hell the prudent Gods had laid,
And that alluring ill to sight displayed.
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made the mischief bold,
And double did wretched man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.
Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:
No right of hospitality remain;
The guest, by him who harboured him, is slain.
The son-in-law pursues the father's life,
The wife her husband murders, he the wife;
The step-dame poison for the son prepares;
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
And justice, here opprest, to heaven returns."