Within the city-walls eludes the light. Or oh! if evil wait the righteous deed, If thus the wicked gain the righteous meed, Then may not I, nor yet my son remain In this our generation just in vain! But sure my hope, not this doth Heaven approve, Not this the work of thunder-darting Jove. Deep let my words, oh Perses! graven be: Hear Justice, and renounce th’ oppressor’s plea: This law the wisdom of the god assign’d To human race and to the bestial kind: To birds of air and fishes of the wave, And beasts of earth, devouring instinct gave In them no justice lives: he bade be known This better sense to reasoning man alone. Who from the seat of judgment shall impart The truths of knowledge utter’d from his heart; On him the god of all-discerning eye [63]Pours down the treasures of felicity. Who sins against the right, his wilful tongue With perjuries of lying witness hung; Lo! he is hurt beyond the hope of cure: Dark is his race, nor shall his name endure. Who fears his oath shall leave a name to shine With brightening lustre through his latest line. Most foolish Perses! let the truths I tell, Which spring from knowledge, in thy bosom dwell: Lo! wickednesses rife in troops appear; [64]Smooth is the track of vice, the mansion near: On virtue’s path delays and perils grow: The gods have placed before [65]the sweat that bathes the brow: And ere the foot can reach her high abode, Long, rugged, steep th’ ascent, and rough the road. The ridge once gain’d, the path so rude of late Runs easy on, and level to the gate. Far best is he whom conscious wisdom guides; Who first and last the right and fit decides: He too is good, that [66]to the wiser friend His docile reason can submissive bend: But worthless he that reason’s voice defies, Nor wise himself, nor duteous to the wise. But thou, oh Perses! what my words impart Let mem’ry bind for ever on thy heart. [67]Oh son of Dios! labour evermore, That hunger turn abhorrent from thy door; That Ceres blest, with spiky garland crown’d, Greet thee with love and bid thy barns abound. [68]Still on the sluggard hungry want attends, The scorn of man, the hate of heaven impends: While he, averse from labour, drags his days, Yet greedy on the gain of others preys: Even as the stingless drones devouring seize With glutted sloth the harvest of the bees. Love ev’ry seemly toil, that so the store Of foodful seasons heap thy garner’s floor. From labour men returns of wealth behold; Flocks in their fields and in their coffers gold: From labour shalt thou with the love be blest Of men and gods; the slothful they detest. Not toil, but sloth shall ignominious be; Toil, and the slothful man shall envy thee; Shall view thy growing wealth with alter’d sense,