According to fixed law, yet could they not Discover from what causes this took place. Therefore they found a refuge from such doubts In handing all things over to the deities And deeming all to be guided by their nod. The abodes of their divinities they placed In heaven, because they saw night and the moon Progressing through the sky, moon day and night, The severe constellations of the night, The sky’s night-wandering meteors and gliding fires, Clouds sun and snow, lightning and winds and hail, Thunder’s swift crash and mightily threatening murmurs. O unhappy race of men, that could assign Such functions to the deities, and thereto Add cruel wrath! What groans then for themselves Did they beget, what wounds for us, what tears For our children’s children! ’Tis no piety To be seen often with veiled head to turn Towards a stone, visiting every altar, Nor to fall grovelling with outspread palms Prostrate before the temples of the gods, Nor sprinkling altars with much blood of beasts To add to votive offering votive offering; But this rather is piety, to have power To survey all things with a tranquil mind. For when we lift our eyes to the celestial Temples of the great universe, and the aether Studded with glittering stars, and contemplate The paths of sun and moon, then in our breasts, Burdened with other evils, this fear too Begins to lift its reawakened head, Lest perchance it be true that with the gods Resides a boundless power, which can move Upon their various courses the bright stars. For ignorance of cause troubles the mind, So that it doubts whether there ever was A birth-time and beginning for the world, And likewise whether there shall be an end; How far the world’s walls can endure this strain Of restless motion, or whether by the gods With eternal stability endowed They may glide on through endless lapse of time, Defying the strong powers of infinite age. Again whose mind shrinks not with awe of gods, Whose limbs creep not for terror, when beneath The appalling stroke of thunder the parched earth Shudders, and mutterings run through the vast sky? Do not the peoples and the nations quake, And proud kings, stricken with religious dread Sit quailing, lest for any wicked deed Or overweening word, the heavy time Of reckoning and punishment be ripe? Also when the full violence of a wind Raging across the sea, sweeps o’er the waves The high commander of a fleet, with all His powerful legions and his elephants, Does he not supplicate the gods with vows For mercy, and with craven prayers entreat them To lull the storm and grant propitious gales? But all in vain; since often none the less, Seized by the violent hurricane, he is whirled Onto the shoals of death. Thus evermore