A Poem For Today - Extract from Criticas

[KEN DICKINSON]

A time there was when disorder ruled 
    Human lives, which were then, like lives of beasts,
    Enslaved to force; nor was there then reward
    For the good, nor for the wicked punishment.

Next, it seems to me, humans established laws
    For punishment, that justice might rule
    Over the tribe of mortals, and wanton injury be subdued;
    And whosoever did wrong was penalized.
    Next, as the laws held [mortals] back from deeds
Of open violence, but still such deeds
    Were done in secret,—then, I think,

Some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise,
    Found for mortals the fear of gods,
    Thereby to frighten the wicked should they 
Even act or speak or scheme in secret.
    Hence it was that he introduced the divine 
    Telling how the divinity enjoys endless life,
    Hears and sees, and takes thought
    And attends to things, and his nature is divine,
So that everything which mortals say is heard

    And everything done is visible. 
    Even if you plan in silence some evil deed
    It will not be hidden from the gods: for discernment
    Lies in them. So, speaking words like these,

The sweetest teaching did he introduce,
    Concealing truth under untrue speech.
    The place he spoke of as the gods' abode
    Was that by which he might awe humans most,—
    The place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals
And things advantageous in their wearisome life—
    The revolving heaven above, in which dwell
    The lightnings, and awesome claps
    Of thunder, and the starry face of heaven,
    Beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time,—
From which, too, the meteor's glowing mass speeds
    And wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth.
    Such were the fears with which he surrounded mortals,
    And to the divinity he gave a fitting home,
    By this his speech, and in a fitting place,
And [thus] extinguished lawlessness by laws.

Criticas

5th Century BC

Sent from my iPhone