論輕世 第 2 章

The golden ages and the first strength have passed away; there was a golden race, and at one and the same time this fell, those passed away. Lamentable, the golden age begins, the golden age receives its bounds; swiftly there passed away both the former zeal and the former age. Grace used to be firmer, order stronger; and the land flowed milky with honey and honeyed with milk, fields abounding with crops watered from heaven upon the parched ground, giving good things to the givers, and faithful itself to the faithful. Peace gave leisure; the people was wholly ignorant of doing harm; the land abounded for faithful fathers, abounded with harvest. Now peace lies void and the land ruined, and right, and the good; the love of this has crashed down, the love of that has dried up, both grow dry. The land denies its crops; the peace given to man alone is put to flight, which once flourished assured, now void crashes down and is violated.

While it stood firm and assured, every plowman came forth abounding; the farmer rejected the old and reaped the new. So long as it was assured, the land returned to the field crops abundantly enough sown, giving good grasses and bountiful seed from a small seed. The race was best, most steadfast, of modest heart, knowing not how to gather the gains of the marketplace, rich in honesty. Knowing not how to deceive, to advance themselves at others' cost, diligent for right, knowing not the stain of crime, not lightly burned by the fire of cupidity. They bore no perils, since indeed no offences; the faithful fields and ancestral homes they duly tended, they waged only perpetual covenants — and battles only with pestilence. To seek the heights and to know crimes they counted a crime. Then, as it were in play, plenty was wont to flow from a teeming horn, and great abundance with a sober life, in substance, in feast, in drink.

Much modesty and much abundance went together; the bodies were vigorous, for the living breasts thrived well. Then was renowned that honesty of mind which is now lost; what is now greatest was then the lowest, and power was as nothing; the lyre of music as much as the trumpet of war then fell silent, nor did the lyre call for joys, nor the trumpet for battles. The race was golden, to which frenzy was a dice-throw, to which crime was gold, to which buying was a shame, to which there was not even mention of riches. It was not lawful to hide away nor to gather gains into purses. Tagus, full of wealth, flowed gold-streaming, wandering over its sands. Gains rivalling perils, how precious — man had not dug them up, nor learned that they would be the cause of envy. As soon as each took up the iron darts for golden weights, soon swelling pride and wrath raised both, and each fights with each.

Only a rule, born for the purpose, ruled the ages of old; only the living page taught the former ages. No capitols then were strong with marble, nor with jasper, no Indian dye, nor the unique gem from the Arimaspians. The race was useful, unchanging, exalted, severe, accustomed to enter late into the marriage bed. No care for lust, only the single implanted care for offspring; then sacred were the bonds, then it gave kisses pure of crime. Whoever was a father had passed ten times four years. Therefore this race, not drunken Venus, gave forth great men; in the boy the father himself returned in image; a good stock arose and succeeded the fathers as they passed away. Not drunken Venus but holy grace then gave to the world all who were begotten with sound blood, without the seed of disease.

They had manly limbs, upright bodies, an upright heart; they nourished not these with drink, nor these with feasting, nor that with luxuries. The dice-throw of crime and the wish for baths were not theirs, nor to go with hair covering the neck or flowing back. The swan-white temples and hoary breasts they revered not, to crave wines, to speak trifling things, to profess violence. The race was well-conscious, well-sober; that race was itself, with neither bodies nor breasts nor mind slack to itself. Their order gave nothing more, nor less than fair. For new cups there was no drunkenness for them, no crier. Wines they were wont to call perils, and wines fetters, wines poisons, and they knew them to be full of the asp. A spring was his vineyard, linen coverings a rare man had; silken coverings then no bridal woman wore;

the sober bride was free for nothing but her own proper portion. Now each man calls only his own; then each called the good things common. Common were the fleeces, the milk, the crops, the acres, the fruitfulness, the cups, the meals, the pastures, the estates, the meadows, the household gods. The meals I belie — for the former age scarcely bore such, accustomed to demand them only at evening, nor were the foods enough. What small portion was wont duly to live from the tree of Jove! To these the hermit's meal contributed the fig. For these, food from the sheep, dreams beneath Jove's sky, a couch on the grass. Commands to the lesser came from the graver, words from the elder. Holy peace gave joys, peace gave leisure and fruitfulness, but neither joys gave infamy, nor leisure weakness. Peace gave holy leisure, the businesses of rustic toil, the land legumes, the streams for cups, a rope for a girdle;

a beast for service, a cave for lodging, barley for food, grass for a couch, a rock for a seat, a hide for a cloak, a bough for a covering, and on feast-days as a rare dish a legume. By day to journey afoot, by night to rest, and a torch for light. The temples which they now build of marble, they then built of any tree at all; the courts which they now adorn with arts, they then polished with leaves. The ages were milky, the race golden, a good race, of which I dare with my poor song to say it was a fair race. The race was golden; the golden race fell, and a bereft one took its place; which, longing to live abounding and dead in mind, lives abounding in revenues, destitute of sense, bereft of patrons; it gives itself over to impious things, hurries into the trackless ways of perdition. The world is reckoned a world in origin, but only in name; it spits out purity, rushes into Venus's lusts, and is filled with these.

That former age fell, the next shuddered, the next is yet the same; the times now are not, nor the hearts, such as they were before. The flowering times, the living hearts were at first; the flowering times, the living hearts have passed away. The golden age has passed, the horrid image of the world has come forth, the very last plague and the true tear, the true abyss. This age, worthy neither in name nor upright in order, stands; this perishes by vices, this bears restless souls. And as it goes rushing on, this age creates a people standing toward evil, watchful over goods, honors, and drunken bouts. This has lost good things, this has brought forth every guileful kind, fickle in heart, changeable in substance, shameful in mind. This last age is called the lowest dregs of the others; this last age has come forth as the inmost death of souls.

It has shrunk in horror from the upright way, has fallen in order, but stands out in cunning, in anxious care, in fraud, in lust, in crime, in arrogance. It is without a name, for it is without the divine power, for it is without right; ruined by disasters, because it is given to frauds, this is its concern. To weep and to speak forth all the wicked deeds of this age that must be wept — believe me, weeping I am unable; I go to utter but a very few. As soon as that golden world briefly shone, it utterly withered, with deaths gathering from every side, with diseases from every side. The ages, ruined in substance, ruined by plague, prevailed, lying low while standing, falsely green, withered in truth. While I speak such things, I am burned and consumed by a faithful fire; I am wholly burned by inward heats and by the torch of zeal. While I note the foul things — how many, how great the impious, what evils of the earth — though my tongue be unskilled, I cannot bear to keep silence. Whence then shall I begin?

Whence shall I be heard? Whence shall I speak? Where God admonishes, He breathes abundantly that very thing which the mouth may utter. What shall I pursue first? Shall I pursue the evils, or the good things laid low? The evils stand, right lies hidden; hence a wide field for satire lies open. Spare me, O modesty: many things that follow are dishonorable; yet my care forbids the guilty deeds, and urges honorable ones. Grant pardon, I pray; here I pursue satire, here spurn the evils; put on the heart of an old man; I speak evil well — do you discern it well. The ages are ruined by crime, on the very threshold of death. Crying out I weep, grieving to weep I go with the song sent forth, O evil ages, diligent to seek wealth, sluggish toward what is right, by whom fraud has been brought forth, grace lost, and right cast away. O evil times, which have begotten evil hearts, willing nothing, scarce able to see right things.

Chaste love lies hidden, and the deep pit of Venus lies open; every good thing lies low, Venus alone pleases all, she alone. You, my eyes, pour forth now the rivers of tears. The upright way perishes; let the heavy heart, the pious mind, weep bitterly. Lust thrives, as fire binds the stubble of Avernus; lust glows and openly prevails, brought forth to be seen. Peace weeps, love groans, wrath stands and rages, with right in exile. Wherever I turn my eyes, both the gleeful crimes and the loose ones I behold; I drink in nothing with my eyes, nay nor with my ears, that I may call worthy of praise, or useful in fact. Wherever I go forth, I straightway mourn to behold dishonorable things; wherever I am borne to meet them, there is impious frenzy, within and without. No one, free of complicity in lust or vice, escapes.

Where the twofold pole stands out, there is guile, there is frenzy, there is death. Fraud sits in all those by whom either zone is inhabited. In all men, toward evil, the flesh is prone in every part. Civil battles, and no faithful hearts are found. Colchian potions, and kisses no less treacherous, are given. Wicked license wills, prevails, dares all things of crime. After evils he is led, into evils he slips, in evils he rejoices! Your nation, O Christ, called by name yours and meant to be yours, gives itself to Avernus. Things to be wept forever, on every side with weeping, I hear, I behold. Applause to impious things, a clamor for drunken ones, after, but also before. My back resounds; the guilty deeds sit fast, with right tottering. The king of Babylon enters the empty walls with his soldiery, and he himself presides, and the wing of his fury sits beside him. Exiled from his origin, deprived by his father of light, Zedekiah is made;

Look to yourself, O mind, lest you become like him in crime. Ah, grief! all things now are the complaint of reason, the bare tragedy and proper tear of religion. A single image of death possesses the slippery ages; the slippery ages an emulous race fills, a depraved offspring, (learned yet ignorant), bland yet impious, and vicious, unsociable, insatiable, gluttonous. A nation pious in voice, impious in conduct — behold, it is created; a nation provident for itself, envious in conduct, is multiplied; it is evil in speech, worse in cunning, worst of all in deed, a nation that digests evils, incites them, puts them forth, bending toward evils. The pious nation has passed away; it has gone out into Zion, this one into Babylon. Now Jacob becomes Israel, and Leah becomes Rachel — order, the crown;

it reigns in heaven, it sucks Philosophy from the breast. Now Leah, by the way, holds the homeland, Rachel; Martha holds Mary. That pious choir and its estate went, departed; it lives in heaven, now without death — believe it — it lives. There was a golden race, which now the living laurel crowns; adoption saves it, action sets it free, the palm adorns it all about. The pious nation has passed away; the impious has come forth, and numerous, a useless throng, feeble in body, hateful in heart; a nation without a breast, very many in this present time, seethes, contrary to morals, contrary to laws, contrary to Christ. It grows numb in order, it delights to grow in the throng — and it grows; it becomes very many in the flock, it knows the lowest gains, the rest it knows not.

Slipping toward evils, feeble toward good things, it prefers these to those; it perishes into vice, has leisure for this, performs it, knows it, exalts it. It is — nor do I lie — more glad toward evils, sadder toward goods; it approves the reprobate and reproves the good, every one among these. It knows how to speak good things with the voice, but knows not how to put forth deeds in deeds; quick for evil it thrives, sick toward God it stiffens and turns to stone. The golden ages and the trusting hearts have passed away; now they are a burden, who seek neither crimes nor evils; and they are refuse, who keep not for themselves very many gains, who heap not up great gains, the gains of the marketplace. Now each man wishes only fleshly, only earthly comforts; gluttony presides over the commons, money over the elders, error over both. Grace is sold, and every man runs into crime for money.

And while faith totters, every man that has, has — and shudders to be in want. White-haired faith there once was; with this love fell, with this order, as it fell. While faith stood, order stood; it seeks flight as faith flees. The sober breasts, passing by, have passed away; the manly hearts, the chaste beds, have turned their backs. The law of the Lord crashes down; the shameless man pays no penalty for his shameless venture. For ventures vengeance is wanting; unction is given, applause instead of the cross. Force lacks restraint, crimes an avenger, lawsuits a judge, vile deeds the scourge, thefts the prison, and the gentle their bishop. Outright, broad license is borne toward impious things; everywhere men run into evils and live ill, and go iniquitously. The estate of right departs; the side of crimes is everywhere propped up. He who dares and exhibits evilly whatever pleases, hears himself unpunished; an olive branch is borne to all transgressing things.

Emulous death fills the ages with crime, and Tartarus with citizens. To all transgressors it befalls — O frenzy, O fraud! — to applaud instead of the cross, to whisper flattery instead of the harsh truth, praise instead of the goad. Force has the breast, fiction has prosperity, arrogance has honor; light conduct has milk, scepters have remissness, vile deeds have favor. Where now does the vigor of justice, the strictness of the Church, the order of the fathers preeminently stand, or where does the union of the brethren remain? What hand, meeting impious or proud things, takes them in hand? I speak not of blows, but of harsh things — I mean to speak harsh words. Whose heart seethes to argue that crime has grown strong? What father of an order is a sacrifice of bruised fine flour? Who now is a good leader, taking up the whole burden of his own? Who would cry aloud good things and soldier well for the gains of morals?

Who groans over impious things, who over the evils that stand, and right forsaken? Who brandishes the sword of the mouth and thence aims the blow against crime? Who teaches men to drive off harmful leisure, and to weep the things to be wept? Who teaches to spurn vile deeds, to wipe away the spurned, and to beware the wiped? Every impious nation, rank, and order strives toward all impious things, and ill men live, and ill men sing psalms on the ten-stringed lyre. The whole world, wandering astray, strives toward all impious things; the elder is grave, the young man is light, the boy is erring. The bishop is at hand; he goes before, he himself bears his own, himself the burdens of his own. Hence crime, hence a load; a lofty throne is to him a heavy harness. He is a scepter-bearer; he rages, he raises these, he presses down those, and he is a tyrant; and — what I weep the more — to the gentle he is a lion, to thieves a lamb. He is a presbyter;

A priest ought to walk a profitable path toward good things; yet he offers himself no profitable road but a lamentable one. He is a cleric; he reads, yet governs himself badly, he wallows in the depths; both he knows the things that ought to be done and does them least of all — he turns these things into their opposite. A soldier is here; he bears arms, he rages, he strikes, he flashes with his spear, he ranges through the camps, he throttles everything, and he is a horned serpent. He is a nobleman; he swells with pride, he himself fears nothing, and therefore he is feared; he raises lofty and twisted horns, he reveres nothing. A magistrate is here; he sells his lips for hire, he loves profits, he judges what is unjust, he stands by those who have, he blocks the needy, his mouth is hostile. He is a trader; he circles the markets and the seas, he praises his own wares, he approves his own and condemns yours, and thereby he defrauds. He is a peasant;

he sows and gathers in his crops, he stuffs his barns full, he conceals the firstfruits and gleans the tithes, and so he spares himself. By going over these things again more broadly and more spaciously, I add to dwell upon them, and I aim once more to gnaw at their crimes. Money has darkened the hearts of bishops; it has proved bishops' hearts to be lacking a heart. The estate of a bishop was once reckoned sound, once whole; he used to bestow rank, but now, as the order totters, he himself totters. He who over this sea ought to have given himself as a bridge, in Zion has become for all the peoples a road into the river of fire. If I knew, without grief, how to say new things or learn new things, I could name the bishops whom I know but keep hidden. There stands for him glory, pomp, the pride of riches; in this present age no one strives to be a bridge for souls.

The bishop's mitre — to loose bonds, to hold bonds fast — by the canon he rejects it, and with money he destroys, with money he builds up. Having obtained royal heights or royal governance, he becomes an enemy plunderer, and his deed is tyrannical. A king only in name, a consul in semblance, a tyrant in mind, he is wicked to the citizens, virtuous to the reprobate, and great in his own eyes. With this man as judge, disgraces abound, the standard lacks a leader, the road is opened to gain; with this man as a bad avenger, the bird that has fed does not fly away from the cross. For the poor flock he scorns to take up righteous arms; he is a foul shield for robbers, available to those who fear. The vigor of the Church, the firmness of the empire have perished; the way lies open to frauds, and while these stand, those things have fallen. Schisms abound on both sides, two swords stand, nothing is feared; and the royal laws, the pontifical laws, are oppressed.

The law of the Lord is silent, and the imperial sword lies idle. The death of the soul roars, and — alas! — the synodal sword trembles. The common people, without a leader, oppressed by tyranny, are torn to pieces; by crime they are ruined, by the enemy they are struck down, by fire they are consumed. Neither the bishop's stole nor the consul's opposing right hand snatches them from capital dangers within, nor from enemies without. He who stands first in the ranks under the appearance of the priesthood is fickle in vice, brief in office, broken in his loins; the priest's wife becomes for him a most intimate sister, nearest to him; she calls him father, she settles him on the couch, she sits beside him; she serves as is her custom, and grieves over his aching brain when he is in pain. She herself buys the feasts, she sits by and groans beside him as he groans. She herself cherishes, favors, listens, loves, fears for her master;

she is the bolt of the bedchamber, she often sends the servant outside. That man called priest stands forth idly in his order; alas! he embodies for himself and devours the people's guilt. How venerable, how usefully sacred, and what sort of holy thing it is — he does not sufficiently regard it; hence he makes a mere image of his order. With pure lust and with blood worthy of the flesh of Christ; he bears a mouth less fit, and the bereaved people are stricken by the deeds of their master. Only in name is the clergy among the ranks and the lot of the clergy; he endures to live, but he stands forth lofty, eager to seem something. He is fervent in the ranks, sluggish in the order by which he is titled; in name a cleric, in his acts he is proved to be a courtier. You may see the clergy running without law or order, visiting halls, turning over the turbulent affairs of palaces, attending to popular business and matters of the law-court;

Add that he draws his weapon, that he heaps sword upon swords. To lead armies, to join battles, to be reckoned a soldier — the cleric chooses this, and he neglects the sacred leisure of the cleric. The cruel soldier seizes, oppresses, drives, takes, presses upon the needy; whom he weighs down he crushes, and on all sides he sinks his teeth into everyone. Not only does he not govern with his mouth, nor protect the farmers with his hand, but he puts to flight and strikes, and burns and grinds those who till the fields. The plunder taken from them is his food that clothes those whom he wickedly strips bare; toward evil he wages war, toward evil he runs about, toward evil he sweats. The soldier is more devouring than fire, more rapacious than the kite, fiercer than the tiger and more harmful than harmful fire. He rages in the ranks, illustrious in his origin of nobility, yet not his own virtue but reverence for his father props him up.

He is set in command, he goes first, with his mouth he extols his forefathers, but he extols them not in deed; noble in pedigree, he himself is reprehensible in guilt. In wealth, in origin, in flesh he is ennobled — but not in his way of life; he is dissoluble, and this noble flesh withers and is buried. Tender toward vice is the degenerate man, both high and low. Why? Because in body and not in soul he wishes to be, as it were, first. For gain he supplicates, and for gain's sake the judge judges wickedly. Your crime hinders you, the golden man speeds along; for bronze the law keeps silent. Bronze tames all things, money makes impious things pious, the law falls silent for bronze. As a wolf you bring violence; you will be reckoned a lamb — offer your possession. By your gifts you touch even the heavens, though you ought to be burned by law. Wealth is yours; the magistrate will be yours; do not flee, he is fawning. By bribery you let no one of any rank remember this.

For gain he cries out, for gain he sells his lips, he presses himself down; in short, the law is so made subject to him, and not man to the law. Behold from bribery so many evils arise, so many good things are sunk. Oh madness! behold how quickly, while the judge holds the gain, evils stand, justice falls; this man reads the law, that man spits it out for a third of a coin. See how he judges without judgment, how he judges without law; for money, not the law of Theodosius, is his care. The trader rolls almost all his dealings in fraud, he buys gains with gains, raises these, presses those, exchanges these for those; through black frosts, over mountain-ridges, through markets, across the seas he runs; the thief seizes him, the enemy strikes him, winter wears him down, the heat scorches him. Captured, in want he departs, and empty-handed he sings before the robber;

He revives his profits, hence he spurs his journey on toward Babylon; thence he returns home, here he announces new things, and brings back new things. As a buyer he defrauds your goods, for indeed he prefers his own weights to yours. The farmer is wickedly faithless, he walks about envious; often the plowman swears that the new-broken fields next to his are his own. He swears in order to carry off, and quickly he commits perjury, and knowingly; hence frequent quarrels between them, frequent litigation. The peasant puts barley into the granaries, he stores away the grain, he stores up great granaries, capacious vessels, and many things; nor does he wish to tithe the cattle or the crops, the things given by God's gift; neither the sacred portion nor the tithe is rendered to the altar. Wicked stands every action, every profession, race, rank, and age; each commits abominations; the sober road has its bounds. Every good thing perishes, every man bears otherness;

Idleness fights to undo strong things, fraud fights to undo piety. Now money alone presses upon all things, wealth lords it over all; Mammon is hidden away, men run to the markets, men stand for gain. Now Mammon stands, good things are a burden, crime is held in honor. The way of justice is given over to reproach, pious deeds to shame. The clerical order has fallen from its summit, the monastic order from its citadel. That part is broken, this is dissolved by the twisting of its order; the one is lamentable, the other utterly wretched. Each stands in name, each lies in order turned backward; each part totters, the one used to give honor, the other splendor; each falls, each, withered, has lost its flower. Who is good? Holy old age is well scorned by the old man, modesty by the boy, blushing by the strong man, and the straight path by all.

Finally, the crimes — I put off naming those whose order of evils cries out, loves, performs, brings forth, and perishes. So lost in crime is the face of the whole world, that not even now does a boy come out untouched by the plague of vices. There are childish vices, there are youthful ones, along with the age of old men; foul are men's breasts, and no season is without a blemish. Even the little child — hardly as it were a male — but I will keep silent; such things, such, so frenzied, I will pass over in silence. I spare to unweave them, I put off to bring forth fouler things. What was a vice to utter has defiled both heart and mouth. Fiery Venus stands, the golden girdle of modesty is loosed. Disgraces stand fixed, and now the nets of frenzy are stretched taut; to spare the loins has fallen away from all, from all I say; I will leave off neither gnawing nor rebuking anyone.

The common people, dissolved into impious things, into all base things — I weep, I laugh; I am Diogenes, I am Democritus. For the people think it right to know the beds of harlots; the law of one's nature commands, they say, that this man lie here and that woman with him. For why is a woman given, or begotten, if she is not to submit? Sex commands it, they say, that she bear and he be borne. Just as with their meals, so the drunken people think the disgraces of harlots are permitted, not knowing, of course, how to restrain themselves. The whole world, in all its parts, in all things, rushes of its own accord toward evils; it once stood in order, now it is ready to fall. Of its own accord it slips back, of its own accord it is dissolved, of its own accord it dies, while lust stands and crime stands, and justice is buried. Wherever the Tanais flows and the shore of tropical Syene lies beneath, everyone wishes to ungird his loins, and no one wishes to gird them.

The asinine race, perpetually drunk, runs riot in lust; and a sober, chaste life and grace are reviled. Each one, like a beast or a leaping horse, neighs after wickedness; he leaps into Venus, he cherishes her, he nourishes her, and from her he begets evils. We see all things abandoned: nothing abominable, nothing fair is left untouched. They give themselves the bonds of the flesh and kisses, kindred in flesh; base kisses and nothing sisterly — secretly the sister redoubles them for her brother; there is a road — why do I delay? — the broad road of the pit. The race is bred, for all there is the single care of Venus. Now not even the seventh degree is the last bar in begetting; the lawful heir perishes, and one who is not the father's heir treads the father's fields. Blind license intertwines all things by means of women. The wandering court of the nobility gives spurious pledges, with children born of different rank in lineage but equal in blood.

The adulteress burns; nor does the great man approve unbroken covenants; the wandering Herodias is given to many, but no one is a John. Now too the spiritual lilies are prostituted, the living jewels, the heavenly lilies are subjected. The sacred dowry is broken, and the veil is dissolved into disgraces. Each one guards himself and dreads to provoke God's zeal. The virgin choir withers away, the unstained marriage-bed departs; the bride of God falls, every man, shattered, flows into disgraces. Ah, the chaste rule groans that all base things live on; this complaint, or tragedy, cries to the stars. I shudder to tell the things which I am often inflamed to rebuke; alas, the encountering cry of a single crime strikes the heavens.

The deed of a crime is called its outcry, that crime which in Noah's time was, but now I think is, or will be, worse. Now the earth is filled with bloodshed, with fraud, with lust. Moderation in the belly is despised, grace in giving, and good in substance. Everything you behold is dissolved into the disgraces of fornication; nothing stands in order, nothing now stands well-protected from lust. Demonic nets now are the harlots, ruined bodies and a well-trodden path, a public gate. Luxury thrives, impiety stiffens, iniquity overflows. The abominable mob, the throng of harlots, defiles everything. The life of bold harlots is to go about freely — tongue, heart, action, defilement, drunken excess, belly; and the one and only slippery glory of the flesh is to love, to defile hearts in the abyss, to defile members in lust.

A filthy woman, a faithless woman, a broken woman; she defiles what is clean, she ruminates impious things, she wears down what is increased. Toward wickedness, toward good, the evil woman becomes a spur, a rein; the woman is a wild beast, and her crimes are like the sand. I do not go to pluck at the just women, whom I ought rather to bless, but because I ought, I bite with my song, in my mind, the Locusts. Now the evil woman becomes my page, becomes my discourse. I approve her well enough, but I condemn her ways; therefore I will pursue her. The woman by nods, by arts, by acts, impiously persuades; the whole woman rejoices to force crimes and to live by them. There is indeed no good one — yet if any good one too has come along, she is an evil thing, for a good woman is good almost nowhere. The woman is a guilty thing, a thing wickedly fleshly, or all flesh, energetic to betray, born to deceive, learned in deceiving;

the newest pit, the worst viper, beautiful rottenness, a slippery path, a thing wickedly public, both prey and predator, a dreadful screech-owl, a public doorway, sweet poison. Conscious of nothing good, fickle, impious, a vessel full of plague, a vessel less useful, more violable, full of outrage, insatiable, unsociable, quarrelsome; cheap merchandise sold but quickly lost, a slave of metal, a household flame, she alone loves to deceive and be deceived. She stands forth an enemy to those who love her and a friend to enemies. If she is not sought, she seeks, and reaps that as gain, so that she may be unjust. She has her own joys, she has her own things, her light is in her night. She makes exception of nothing, she conceives from her father and from her grandson; the pit of lust, the arms of the abyss, the mouth of vices — this she was, is, and will be, and through her the order of the good perishes.

As long as crops shall be given to the farmers, entrusted to the countryside, this lioness will roar, this wild beast will rage against the law. She is the ultimate madness, an enemy within, an inmost plague. While she refuses she allures, and she casts crime even upon the modest. This fleshly flesh, but with the plague of a Proteus in mobility, is known to conquer; she is seen as pious in her impiety. She teaches vice; let not my art call her vicious. I call her vice itself, I prove her treachery, I name her harm. That merchandise is most abundant, that thing is the worst, the worst of things; the art of women alone becomes more cunning than all the arts. The she-wolf is not more wicked than she, because her onslaught is more sparing. Not the dragon, not the lion — but what worse than her can I say? Condemn all of hers not only as harmful but even as good. This crime John charged, and by the sword that John fell.

By her too the man Hippolytus fell, by her Amnon fell, by her Joseph is afflicted, and by her your hair is shaved, O Samson. By her Reuben, by her David, by her Solomon falls, by her the first man. She gives, she does, she works whence shame perishes, whence we perish. The woman, in heart, in mouth, or in deeds, is a dreadful dragon, a most grievous flame creeps into the inmost parts, like a venom. Into her crimes the evil woman paints herself, adorns herself, rouges, falsifies, renews, alters, and colors. While she contrives crime, she circles like a lion, she runs like a wild beast; she runs, and by devouring fires the fire is burned, and burns. Slippery in her eye, fervid in crime, and herself the crime, standing in love-affairs, in fickleness she is now fixed.

She glues fast, she allures, as much as she gazes too intently upon the one gazing; and as often as it is allowed, so often it pleases her to be harmful. When she shall be seen more faithful and more closely joined to you, then she will set a servant over you, if more is given to her. Light is the heart, light the voice, and brief the faith in a woman. The woman by her gift gives brief sport, but no brief weeping; the last things are sad and the first sweet in love; the outcome of crime is wont to be beset with grief. The flame, first kindled, rekindles the lost hearts; the outcome of crime — alas for me! — utterly, alas for me! it cries. A foul woman, fervid to deceive, the flame of frenzy, the first destruction, the worst portion, the plunderer of modesty: alas for her wild crimes! she shakes her own offspring from her womb; she cuts off what is born, casts it away, kills it, in a depraved order.

The woman is a viper, not a human but a wild beast, not even faithful to herself. Of His creation, nay, of her own beforehand, she is the murderer, fiercer than an asp and more furious than the raging. Oh ferocity! she plunges her own innards into the waves. A faithless woman, a foul woman, a woman that is a stench, she is the throne of Satan; to her modesty is a burden — flee her, reader! And it is read that more pleasing to the Lord, more acceptable too, are wicked deeds of men than well-done deeds of women. O evil times! Why? Because they have brought forth so much dung, and have given so many filthy things — not to speak of horrid ones. Every good thing falls, every man flows into every disgrace; every good thing lies low, every evil pleases all alike. Chaste beds are now held cheap; broad ones are sought; conjugal or married pacts are forsaken.

The bride spurns her husband and rushes upon men, she draws them to herself; lest she lie alone, lest she be as it were a peasant-woman, she gives her own and gives herself. What woman is good? to whom belong good names? Which is truly chaste? Which excels in piety, or endures to remain within unbroken enclosures? Which keeps sacred covenants? lest she be an adulteress, lest she mark herself guilty, lest she bear offspring without law or order, like a she-wolf, so that here a boy may be noted as a father, here a father by the mouth of a boy, nor be degenerate in origin, nor in semblance. Let the stock given to the husband, begotten by a husband as father, not by a father who is a slave, bring forth the father's face and herself display the father's deeds. To whom belongs a ratified pact, or the blessing that is made at the altar? To whom belong pious eyes? Which woman is good? Believe me, rare. Rarer is this bird, this is a herb too hard to find.

Such things I bite at, such things I laugh at, not without weeping. Rare is she who keeps faith, for indeed every order toward the husband perishes. The flock is without its turtledove, for without its sparrow none is desired. The man pleases all peoples, so that one married woman may have leisure. For many a single woman becomes a slippery road, a broken path. The man seeks foreign things, the adulteress rejoices, the harlot rejoices. Soon she contrives crime, she summons, she nods assent, she burns and dares. Her husband's leisure she watches anxiously, glad at his bier, glad at his perils, glad at his bonds, glad at his death. Julian decree and Scatinian law, where now do you sleep? Men live without laws and without norms; many a woman, many a crime, much ruin. Many a Lydia; rare a Lucretia, no Sabine woman; almost none is good, no one now sees a single Amazon.

Apart from three suitors, and those wanton ones, I hear of none. As much without a light as without crime each one wishes to be; she loves equally to be three times bedridden as once to be the only one. The adulterous wife seeks rather to be sent even into hell, than to be the companion of a single husband — O impious madness! A single little eye is more sufficient and more pleasing to her than a single companion — O heathen madness! O guilty earth! Choose whatever ones you please, take any one you please, gather these together: scarcely is even one not guilty in body and chaste in heart. Through a varied kind, Venus rules over the imperious. Lamentable — but to whom? to those blazing for the stars, hating the depths. She herself defiles and glues to herself all the things of the world; into her nets she forces the idle hearts to be poured back.

She herself is more devouring and more rapacious than fire of fires, she burns, planted in idle and wickedly rotten timbers. Into Venus rushes, into coupling flows everyone as if one man; the pledge of that man's wife becomes this man's, and a funeral is near. Who now is not a father? and a boy presses to have boys; it looms over him to fill the halls and the ancestral roofs with offspring. Each one desires his own wife and enters the bridal chamber, and is a husband; in the host of Jacob, not without seed, he is made blessed. He becomes a father, offspring is born, what is born is handed over to him as a new offspring; toward the father's outer parts, toward the mother's breasts, a very great mass. O new ages! Now too the tiny little girl yearns to wed; the raw little maiden craves a husband's kisses and his force. A dowry is handed over to her, a ring is added, a pledge is solemnized.

Hence the lyric jest, thence the cook clatters, the food is passed around; the hall grows hot with rejoicing and singing dance-choirs, and the wedding-pomp follows behind and goes before. No delay: she conceives, she is heavy, she takes on all the burdens of a mother, her breasts full for the babes that pull and drink. Greater and loftier her stock; soon her own stock is in doubt — he who is her son is thought to be his father. Lust begets diseased offspring and many throngs; often a heavy parent and a grandmother are present, overflowing the nest. The flock of boys is quickly born and the harvest brought forth from this; the begetting, the multiplying of them grows. Why delay? Everywhere wanders the very numerous and itself most wicked flock of men, without simple light, of an iniquitous mind.

Through almost all the countryside the throng of the city is scattered; there are no empty places, no places lacking crowds. Now individual places — mountain, cave, island, fields, meadows — are crowded with inhabitants and with those who pass through. Now the Caspian ridges, once trackless, are worn by the foot; not because the greatest man, but because the most numerous man, is a hermit. Innumerable and wretched is today's race, more ready after evils, more prone to evils, bending toward evils. Each one teaches evil and not in the least harms the one doing harm; each one is hot with unmixed wine and is not in the least able to be one who knows. More swiftly and more gladly is the dripping tavern sought than the heavenly temples splendid with the light of God's majesty. The impious race drinks raging wines more than is fair; the hearth bears oil, thence the jest follows in blind procession.

The drunken race thirsts for famous wines, warlike wines, raging wines that bring violence, full of ruin. By these Noah was broken, by these Lot was inflamed, who before was chaste; to the gluttonous and the bibulous clings wicked ardor. You who too frequently, drunk, crave it and recline at the unmixed cups, you wish quickly to loose the bonds from your loins. By these too you are conquered, you scorch and are scorched with the love of fire; your mind boils with frenzied fires, your bones with heat. A worm more devouring — I do not lie — an implanted enemy is in your reins and thrives by fires stored deep within. By the worm of lust you straightway cease to be modest. Here an enemy rages against enemies, and a heat keener than heats. Venus desires wine, by this torch the mind rages, action smokes; soon the sated stomach is given over to Venus, it foams into disgraces.

Because of unmixed cups the gullet rages first, afterward the belly: soon Venus, roused, frenziedly stirs up the hidden members. There are shameful parts that float and stand, with the belly standing. Food fills the one, Venus the other; these two members love wickedness; the excess of the one rushes into goblets, flows into disgraces; thence straightway comes the flux of lust and of rottenness. The frenzy of the other brings it about that modesty is cast away, that vigor perishes, that firmness dies, that order is pressed down; the only care, the public struggle, is in the eating of flesh; drunkenness pleases, and your voice lies silent, O good Jesus. Greedy gluttony reigns and full drunken excess; hearts are weighed down by drunkennesses, goaded by wickednesses. Full of the abyss, full of lust, and full in the belly, are the times for which there is one love: food and flesh, the procuress.

To give the innards to food, the mouth to drinks, is now reckoned glorious, and both Venus and the gullet are now the rule of belly-worshippers. I deny that they are Christ-worshippers, I call the gluttons belly-worshippers, hating finally no abominable things, no base things. Now the guilty man is good, the stomach is a god, the belly is a school. Each one is zealous for his gullet — ah! it is irksome and shameful to walk shamefully. Receive what I say: with the prince of the cooks standing in ruins, Jerusalem lies low; the wave of food pleases — nay, of foods. The narrow path is despised, and behold, the broad street is sought; first the gullet, then Cytherea, gives each one their bonds. O the grief! behold the ages bound by a threefold madness, bound by a threefold crime: lust, fraud, and swelling pride. Pride binds hearts, but drunken Venus binds bodies.

Fraud binds bodies and hearts, and both death bends to itself. An earthy load, guilty, presses the hearts and the bowed necks; in heart we are bent back, nay rather we turn back to Pharaoh. We go on trackless ways, we stand at impious things, but standing badly, loving altogether the passing or the perishing things. We go and we shall go whence we shall perish, whence we shall fall, we who behold only the perishing or the falling things. Peace weeps, love perishes, this man rages and strikes, that man is struck. Rigid Mars roars, this man stands, that man groans, men go into wickedness, wrath seizes and whirls and shakes the bloody scourge, it bears wild darts, savage perils, deadly war. Heathen peace thrives, the unique peace of the Christ-worshippers falls. If I judge rightly, the union and peace of wild beasts is closer-joined. Behold, guilty people:

no lioness devours a lioness, nor does a boar cut down a boar, nor does the vengeance of fathers slay their own offspring. Spiritual battles finally tempt us grievously always, and the impious mind often stains itself with murders. Ah, with even foot I lament that the right and the wrong run their course! Hence frenzy fights, thence frenzy arms both hands; here and there war is among kinsmen, among brothers of the same mother. Into its own bowels the race rages, the savage Fury reigns. Oh ferocity! the son burns for his father's funeral, he complains that death, the after-road of man, is slow to come; and the impious father longs, in fine fashion, to hide away beforehand the splendid limbs in a poor man's tomb. The daughter rejoices to close her mother's aged eyes, and to weep at the funeral, that afterward, free, she may dare whatever she pleases.

Stepmothers give cups with venom, foods full of death. Savage death comes on, when one seeks foreign things with rich wares. The rich man pays for his wealth, the guest rushes upon the throat of his host. Rare is the husband who is safe with his wife surviving and none unharmed. By his wife the man perishes, and the sharp sword strikes him for his wife; from the harsh father-in-law the tender one, the son-in-law, is ill-protected; the brother pursues his friend with death, if entreaty avails less; whom he cannot overcome with swords, he crushes with arts — O wicked heart! A race harmful to itself, an utterly impious throng, is its own undoing. Your neighbor is to you, and you mutually to him, what the wolf is to the lamb. Grace falls and the fire of love grows cold; now the royal path is lost, the path of right conduct; and hearts empty of light and full of crime grow frozen; cold breasts and true frosts are proven to stand.

Grace falls, a chill more ample than the Ister bristles up. The people are without morals, without order, without king, without master. The law of the Lord falls, and its head streams everywhere with dew, that good head which — O grievous is this sound! — spews out the lukewarm from its mouth. In short, why do I delay? both swelling and its sister, Wrath, sister of pride, stand above all things, and the twofold fraud of heart and mouth. The honest race has passed away, the dishonest and shameful race has come forth, busy with chatterings, with drunkennesses, full of sloth, full of lust, full of crime, cunning in heart and small in body, and lacking in countenance. Almost no one bears ancestral hearts or ancestral strength; a son is from a father as Sisyphus from Polyphemus. One form does not remain for parents and grandchildren; all the failing things of the body are like the moon.

As the state of the body is given over to ruin, so it is with the mind. The race teems, parched; the bodies of the race are languid, and the hearts. Each one now is most wicked in heart and nearest to himself, the one who supplicates you; he doubles his inmost parts with art and guile, into two it is split, the union is dissolved by otherness, the covenants by schism, and the simple bowels by duplicity. That man becomes this man's, this man becomes that man's enemy, friend; he laughs and envies, he opposes and sits beside, just and unjust. The royal path of simplicity is betrayed, made vain; impious pretense puts on the cloaks of duplicity. I want you to believe what I want to say: no age has borne pseudo-prophets more fruitfully or more numerously than this one. Finally, with their inner filth, these Pharisees are a slippery road, a public gateway of destruction.

The plague has bristled up, and the host of hypocrites has burst in, a race rough in body, slippery in heart, a race of darkness. To these belong sacred names and sacred coverings, but proud hearts; the lamb lies open to them in the tunic, the snake lurks in the grass. They are wanton hearts, stiff with the brow of a Cato, waxen in their morals, brazen in their faces, prone to evils, threatening hearts, rapacious hearts, wolfish hearts; a sheep's clothing rouges with an image, cloaks with order; swelling hearts, hearts lacking the single unity of the heart, they are pious in their brows, impious in their fruits, courts of filth. To these is added guile, as the hair is shaved and clipped; the wolf feigns a sheep, and the bramble is likened to the rose. To these belong unmixed cups and many dishes, the whole rule; to these belongs union as their place, pretense as their law, their vows as their right.

Scandals, schisms, and no Sabbaths of the mind are in them. Finally, order is taken away from their acts and added to their hair; with shears, with comb, the hair is canonized in due order. I, more foolish here, am lying — but they feign it. One of them, older in countenance and as it were more just, is to the brothers lower in rank a school of morals. The heart ruminates evil, the mouth sows good things and utters good things. O shame, O wickedness! he is Satan, he is thought to be an angel; he is Satan in his acts, and the same man an angel in his words. What the sound teaches, the action unteaches, an enemy to the same man. Argus sees neither his own base things nor his impious things toward the brothers, the sower of eloquence and giver of pardon, he is lavish to himself. Old men's words lack an old heart; an old man's words are approved; senile members are summoned under youthful vows.

He covers the wolf with a fox, he governs himself by the outer appearance; in his mouth the good man lies open, and in his inner self lurks guile. A mind evilly conscious, a burden of its own, a nearest plague, subjects itself to itself, flees and puts to flight the inmost witness. His brow bears a Hector, his age is believed to conquer a Nestor, his skin is dry and bears bristles along his shaggy arms. Now near to the grave, his right hand counts the years on the thumb, and while the old man here totters, he himself harbors tyrant souls. Now what more openly? lo, a third Cato sent from heaven, more severe in brow, more just in skin, slack within. He is a Cato; in time he is seen to be Maurus Iarbas. Hence Venus unmans him, thence a shaggy beard prepares the man; his brow bears the man, within the man perishes, there is a wolf within.

But your glory, O king's daughter, stands within you. Why is delay woven? The order is abandoned, men stand for evils; pretense stands, the show of obedience is mocked. The right hand becomes for you a vain Pythagorean letter; your right side lies idle, and it pleases you to walk the street of crimes. The narrow way is abandoned, and the broad path is taken by all; we seek out the trackless, the loose, the flowing things, and we flow together, seeking the high tables, scepters, the first seats; each one makes a tumult, presses on and boils, busy with these things. The world is breathless for honors and not at all for morals; now there stand fixed luxury, idleness, pretense, and zeal;

There stands pretense, dissimulation, both a crime, dice, drunken excess, fraud, villainy, gluttony, and outrage, double-tongued mouths, strife, murders, Mars, the trumpet, terror, violence, disgraces, quarrels — why do I delay? — all the things that error teaches. Such offspring, that is, such hosts, are of the vices; such offspring are the capital wounds of morals; first, pride urges the mind to go on trackless ways, it brings in hosts, the greatest crimes, the seven crimes; first, pride gives impious commands, the flock howls; first it besieges the heart and quickly possesses it, laid low by this flock. This one warns, that one rushes in and undermines good things, and keeps the evil ones; while lust stands and crime stands, it heaps up crime.

The Hebrew drowns his male offspring, his living pledges of life, yet keeps the female and everything that belongs to softness. O wicked age! Why so? Because no rule is kept; the man quick at outward show, who is learned in inward things, is reckoned a fool. Not patience but violence now grants peace. He who is silent goes hungry, and to be talkative brings forth gain. The sophistical tongue, the tyrannical tongue, the forensic tongue commands all things, strikes down whatever it meets, just as a sword. The glib tongue is now held noble: 'Come here,' it says, and one obeys. The mute bishop, reprobate in his order, shuts the doors. You taste nothing puffed up; you are judged to be either a beast or a stone. You are like a viper; you bear witness to an open heart. Now to repay evil and to yield glory is counted a fault; irreverence is called praise, and patience a crime.

To live by alms and not to repay evil—both alike bring shame. By day and night a wicked nation flourishes in crime and in disgrace. Alas! evil speech, worse deed, the most vile practice: now crime stands strong, and the strength of good order lies thrust aside. As few sober hearts can now be found as there are mouths of the overflowing Nile, as few pious hearts as there are wandering stars. If anywhere I perceive someone to be of simple breast and modest, I judge that to be crude, and I count an honest heart among monstrous things! I liken the open sea to ploughing chariots, dry land to sails, the fields to fishes, the air to ships, the stars to camels. Flaccus Horace, and Cato, Persius and Juvenal: what, I ask, would they do, if their life were now a companion to these times?

That Lucilius would be astounded at the deeds of this age, and would not keep silent about his own prosperous and holy times. He would now call best those times which he called worst; he would write as golden what he wrote as black, as guilty, as evil. Look upon the ages, look upon each thing plunged in darkness! You slip into evil, fallen you are loved; upright you shall be in want. Do you wish to forsake evil, to grasp what is right, to live rightly? Then you become a public lyre, a stage-play made of yourself about yourself. Ah, the grief! true Charybdis swallows all things into impiety. Heap up crimes, and you shall be reckoned first, you shall go as the greatest. Do you wish to rest, and to live in safety? Do you wish peace for yourself? Be a pander to the powerful in their guilt; anoint the threatening man. Seeing guilty deeds, take on the eyes of a goat, the sight of a mole. What you have seen, quickly drive it from your heart, scrape it away, erase it.

If you wish to expose evils and to gnaw at the crimes of others, you take no counsel for yourself: besides, the penalty of exile is yours. Now wild quarrelling is fond of pricking the foul deeds of vices; to pluck at disgraces and to speak the truth is the fountain of hatreds. He who exposes my crimes, even with good intent, is a burden to me; a mind ill at ease with its conscience gnaws at and hates all the light. The nation drinks, drunken, harmful cups, the cups of Lethe which that poet devised for all the dying. Each one, mindful of evil, is forgetful of the one thing—piety. The just man lacks a home; no one wishes to give of his own to the good for free. All things go by census, all by merchandise, but without coin you carry nothing, nothing but nothing. Alas! the hut of the poor man is without smoke. The halls of the rich man, or his lofty panelled ceilings, gleam again; male offspring and the first strength now laugh to themselves.

The wealthy man reclines, the haughty man walks abroad, himself in his Liburnian galley, and as often as it pleases him he lies high upon his ivory couch in his chamber. In the morning he summons his cooks, and at once sacrifices a bull to his stomach. Gold supports honeyed cups and rich dishes. Night brings him dreams, the sun returns to give him festal feasts. His gullet is the equal of an abyss; what does it do but gobble whole ages? The smell of the kitchen is savory to him, and the food seizes his throat. His feasts are usury, quarrels, gains, robberies. The man is a beast, and the victim of his belly, a beast indeed, swollen in belly and lively in tooth, but dead in mind. He wants good dinners, he wants good estates, he wants good meadows, he wants good cups, he wants good dishes—but not good deeds. Property has worth, money tastes sweet to such men; the strongbox snatches up titles in these days.

Tongue, learning, and sober life are nothing without possessions. Gifts to the rich, but lashes to the meek, are redoubled. To lesser men they threaten laws, to inferior men, arms. Money commands all things, and besides, money receives all things. The rich man goes celebrated, endowed with bronze, supreme in his fortress; he possesses earthly goods; for these he provides, increases, and heaps up. By chance he keeps that wealth, swollen, in reserve for robbers or for enemies; in the end, when his coffers or doors are broken, he is parched the more with weeping than if he had buried his own children and dear bodies. He circles the ages, ruminates impious schemes, rolls the depths about, and goes over the seas, over the mountain ridges, over the marketplaces; he changes climes. He strives across the sea, he goes into exile, he makes use of a fresh world. The shores give themselves to him, the level seas give themselves; only the winds do not give him the straits.

His property is frivolous, his mind crafty, his lot to be wept over. He dreams of things sold, enlarges things bought, haggles over what must be amended. He prepares gain upon gain, and with his account-styluses crowds in this and that. Debts, credits, and whatever is stored away in a rich chest. To this man it is sweet to rest beneath a mound of riches; often he turns the heap over, and he loves still more often to add gold. In the end he falls short, because by these very things he profits, and overflowing he is parched; Mammon is laid by, and thirst is added—O thirst that overflows! Without renown he becomes, by the omen of his name, that Tantalus. His joys are gains, money, estates, country houses. He builds barns, one man overflows with all things, opulent, slower to the good, quicker to evil, first to the marketplace. The rich man is roused to all impious things, slow to what is just.

As the rose is beheld, as the wheel is laid low, so too are his things laid low with him; standing in fame today, he himself collapses tomorrow—himself, yet another. In the morning the rich man sees his own things, and these in the evening are yours, you poor man. The wealthy man shall sleep, and at once, being dead, he shall lose all; soon a robber shall carry off his goods that are not his, and shall lay himself low by his own death. As a light leaf for a short while, so the thief steals his goods, death takes himself away, and he forsakes all things; then his harmful gains stand as harms against him. What a year's labor brought in, a single hour took away—all the rich man's goods, all that gleamed, all that was comely. O wretched man, O man to be wept over by himself, O the same man miserable! As great as his money, so great a trouble grows for that same man. He dreads all things, whom his own abundance renders needy; his own property possesses him, and besieges and chokes his mind on every side. Care makes the heart anxious, anguish intoxicates, error hinders.

His color grows pale; hence comes guile, hence comes grief, on every side terror. Sleep, empty things, and many dreams furnish him nothing; by day his business, by night threatening visions trouble him. The robber seems to break open his coffers and to carry off the rest; the rich man, needy, trembles, and waking he groans and fears it; at once he rises, the chest is unrolled, the money is found. The delay of night departs, the light calls him to the marketplace, the merchandise clamors, off he goes. After gains he runs about, for gains he soldiers, for gains he breathes. The sailor too breathes upon the seas; on foot he often circles the markets. Through the greatest evils, through very many scourges, he avoids being in want. He defrauds and snatches, gives this, receives that, renews bronze with bronze. The miser seeks to give little to his own, and nothing to you, Lazarus; weeping is yours now, weeping shall be his—of what sort? Bitter.

Now let the wealthy man go, let him sate and fill his impious desires; after a little while it shall flow away, and that whole estate shall fall to ruin; just as gravel slides down, so the threshing-floor of riches shall slide; the abundance shall collapse, the floor shall fall, and the man who owned them too. Plainly this man wants, has wanted, and will want fleeting gains, gains that pass away; he cherishes and will cherish these forever. While England gives milk, India ivory, Smyrna the cicada, through the markets, over the ridges, the most numerous Adam shall run, chasing gains. Gains, money, property, opulence now hold dominion. O evils! the poor man's tear, though best, is brought to nothing. Having gotten very many estates or sums by fraud, now he is blessed, and is himself said to be happy. Each man wants grand palaces for himself, builds his houses, as though this world were for him through all ages his own abode.

The splendid halls and flowering castles are the rose of the world; no one builds everlasting halls—all are earthly. We paint our halls, a wicked throng, a Canaanite race—halls built perhaps of marble or of Sabaean wood. We paint our halls—Christ groans at our doors. We stretch ourselves out at the banquet and feed ourselves well—He goes hungry. Evil drunkenness loosens us, gluttony drives us, the flute breaks us in pieces; He thirsts, He groans, He hungers and trembles and laments grievously. We feed on crane, we eat goose, and He on neither. Ah! the guilty man is anointed, and God is afflicted—a lovely order indeed! We feed on fowl, on sheep, on swine, on ox—but He does not. The demon binds stony breasts and bowels of bronze.

We are a drunken people, an impious people, full of the demon, a most wicked nation, a depraved creation, an alien race. We seek out very many of the choicest dishes as a weight for the belly; we send—nay, we abandon—worthless scraps to the hungry man. O wicked age! Why so? Because each single thing is now corrupted, and these are bound to excesses, those to wickednesses. The leader stands, the helpless one falls; the people spit upon this man and honor that one. The fool, growing rich, rages, and buys himself a seal against the upright. Justice has perished, because the broad road of luxury lies open wide—to babblings, to drunkennesses, to gluttony; to lovers of the flesh, to enemies of order, to the envious, to fornicators, to the irreverent, to the ambitious—no wickedness, no foul things are left undone. The matter is now openly displayed, that once was not even acknowledged in word.

Crimes of cunning, or crimes of frenzy, are committed; those last and most evil times are now laid bare. For the harlots' beds are reckoned as almost nothing, and what are venial are called as if they were proper to marriage. Shame has perished in all who stand in the plague, who lie stretched out in disgraces. When was good less, or the bosom of wickedness more ample? When did foul things hold dominion more? When was the abundance of evils broader, or the threshing-floor of good morals more narrow? If God commanded all impious and capital deeds, who would keep those more watchfully, who would keep these more abundantly? If it were lawfully permitted to add crime and to scorn sober things, who would add these more, and scorn and shun those? Through every kind, one Venus shoots at every head; each man fails to bring forth wholesome things, none fails to bring forth wicked ones.

If for great evils lofty rewards were now to be given, evils would not be more eagerly nor goods more slowly sought after. While I speak I shudder. I do not know, I cannot, I do not wish to speak. Things to be spoken and things unspeakable—who could even weep over both? What rivers, I ask, or what volumes of tears would be enough to wipe away so many foul deeds of so many furies? If I should tell such frenzied things, it would not be fair, if the crime is less; alas! far off lies the action of the laws. Ploughing my song, I weep; with my song I cannot, nor in prose can I tell so many evils, recount so many disgraces, bear such disgraceful things. They are very many; my voice fails for recounting them; it is no shame to all that these things must be uncovered with words. The paper will fail, I know, the speech, the time and the hour, if I wish to touch on, if I wish to reprove, even graver matters.

Indeed my Muse is now too weary to record these things; yet that offspring is not too weary to commit them, and not guiltless. Therefore for a little while this stylus and this dactyl shall be restrained. The Muse shall afterward speak of the lost age and of what comes after, once subdued. We run over the deep seas; let the anchor now be cast; where fuller force and a more favorable breeze shall go, there let us go.