The Golden Age
Table of Contents
The Golden Age
- Nor unto them was any Ares god, nor Kydoimos, Nor Zeus, the king of gods, nor Kronos, nor Poseidon then, but only Kypris queen…
Whom they with holy gifts were wont to appease, With painted images of living things, With costly unguents of rich fragrancy, With gentle sacrifice of taintless myrrh, With redolent fumes of frankincense, of old Pouring libations out upon the ground
Of yellow honey; not then with unmixed blood Of many bulls was ever an altar stained; But among men ’twas sacrilege most vile To reeve of life and eat the goodly limbs.
The Sage
- Was one among them there, a supreme man Of vastest knowledge, gainer of large wealth Of understanding, and chief master wise Of diverse works of skill and wisdom all;
For whensoe’er he sought with scope and reach
Of understanding, then ’twas his to view
Readily each and every thing that e’er In ten or twenty human ages throve.
- All things were tame, and gentle toward men, all beasts and birds, and friendship’s flame blew fair.
The Divine
- For since, O Muse undying, thou couldst deign
To give for these our paltry human cares A gateway to thy soul, O now much more, Kalliope of the beautiful dear voice, Be near me now beseeching!—whilst I speak Excelling thoughts about the blessed gods.
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O well with him who hath secured his wealth Of thoughts divine, O wretched he whose care Is shadowy speculation on the gods!
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We may not bring It near us with our eyes, We may not grasp It with our human hands, With neither hands nor eyes, those highways twain Whereby Belief drops into minds of men.
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For ’tis adorned with never a manlike head, For from Its back there swing no branching arms, It hath no feet nor knees alert, nor form Of tufted secret member; but It lives, One holy mind, ineffable, alone, And with swift thoughts darts through the universe.
But the wide law of all extends throughout Broad-ruling ether and the vast white sky.
Animal Sacrifice
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Will ye not cease from this great din of slaughter? Will ye not see, unthinking as ye are, How ye rend one another unbeknown?
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The father lifteth for the stroke of death His own dear son within a changed form, And slits his throat for sacrifice with prayers— A blinded fool! But the poor victims press, Imploring their destroyers. Yet not one But still is deaf to piteous moan and wail. Each slits the throat and in his halls prepares A horrible repast. Thus too the son Seizes the father, children the mother seize, And reeve of life and eath their own dear flesh.
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Drawing the soul as water with the bronze.
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Ah woe is me! that never a pitiless day Destroyed me long ago, ere yet my lips Did meditate this feeding’s monstrous crime!
Taboos.
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Withhold your hands from leaves of Phoebus’ tree!
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Ye wretched, O ye altogether wretched, Your hands from beans withhold!
Sin
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Neither roofed halls of aegis-holding Zeus Delight it, nor dire Hecate’s venging house.
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Scooping from fountains five with lasting bronze.
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O fast from evil-doing.
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Since wildered by your evil-doings huge, Ne’er shall ye free your life from heavy pains.
The Progression of Rebirth
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Seers at last, and singers of high hymns, Physicians sage, and chiefs o’er earth-born men Shall they become, whence germinate the gods, The excellent in honors.
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At hearth and feast companioned with the immortals, From human pains and wasting eld immune.
Last Echoes of a Song Half Lost.
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Man-enfolding Earth.
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The cloud-collecting.
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The blood-full liver.
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Life-giving.
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Evening, the day’s old age.
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The belly.
153a. In seven times seven days.