Classic Poem

O ye splendid children of Memory and Zeus the Olympian
Pierian Muses, hear! Heed me now as I pray!
Happiness in the eyes of the Gods ever blessed, O grant me,
And to enjoy good repute in the eyes of mankind!
Let me be sweet to my friends, to my enemies let me be bitter;
Win from the ones respect, fill the others with fear!
Soothly I fain would have riches, but never would gain them unjustly.
All together the last Justice came on the earth.
Wealth, if the Gods confer it, remains an unbroken possession,
Standing faithfully by from foundation to roof.
But the power that men honour, born of violence, lawless,
Action unjust obeys, prisoner is by restraint.
Ate, the Goddess of Mischief, quickly takes part in the matter.
Tiny it is at first — soon it spreads like a fire,
Smouldering when it begins, but finally ending in anguish.
Thus for mortal men insolent deeds cannot thrive.
Zeus as he sits on high foresees the ending of all things.
Sudden as when the wind scatters the clouds in the Spring,
Stirring the depths of the wild waste sea with its infinite billows,
Wreaking destruction fierce over the wheat-fruitful lands.
Then when it sweeps thro the skies, the lofty seats of Immortals
Clear it leaves them again, freed from the veil of the fogs.
Then the might of the sun shines down on the wide fertile regions
Beautiful, filled with the works built by the labours of man.
Such is the retribution of Zeus, that comes all-impartial,
Not like a mortal man's, quickly stirred into wrath.
Not forever will he escape and hide from the judgment
Who has a sinful heart; nay! at the last he is doomed.
One may pay it to-day and another may pay it to-morrow.
Yet if they seem to escape, if the doom of the Gods
Following, do not attain them while still in the land of the living,
Under the fatal ban, guiltless, their children are curst.