Metamorphoses

And not only was the rich soil required to furnish corn and due sustenance, but men even descended into the entrails of the Earth; and riches were dug up, the incentives to vice, which the Earth had hidden, and had removed to the Stygian shades. Then destructive iron came forth, and gold, more destructive than iron; then War came forth, that fights through the means of both, and that brandishes in his blood-stained hands the clattering arms. Men live by rapine; the guest is not safe from his entertainer, nor the father-in-law from the son-in-law; good feeling, too, between brothers is a rarity. The husband is eager for the death of the wife, she for that of her husband. Horrible stepmothers then mingle the ghastly wolfsbane; the son prematurely makes inquiry into the years of his father. Piety lies vanquished, and the virgin Astræa is the last of the heavenly Deities to abandon the Earth, now drenched in slaughter.

MetamorphosesOvidHenry T. RileyEnglishVerse permalinkRead in Book 1

Book 1, Line 13ProseID metamorphoses-riley-en-prose-1-13