Thou, guiltless, for thy sires' defaults wilt pay,
Till, Roman, to the Gods fair as of yore
Their shrines and temples tottering in decay,
And smoke-defiled statues thou restore.

Submission to the gods hath empire brought.
From them all came: remember that they hold
Of all the issue. Slighted heaven hath wrought
For Italy's woe reverses manifold.

Twice have Monaeces and the Parthian band
Of Pacorus our unblest onset foiled,
And to the little necklets of their land
Have added glittering gauds from camp despoiled.

The city, while within to faction's heat
A prey, was all but to destruction swept
By the redoubted Ethiopian fleet,
And Dacian in archer's craft adept.

The ages rife with vice the marriage bed,
Our blood, our homes, did first contaminate;
And from the tainted source disaster spread
In flood upon the people and the state.

With zest the marriageable maiden learns
Ionian dance, and arts that men allure,
And even in tender years her fancy turns
To dwell on lawless ties of love impure.

Soon, while her husband at his wine is set,
With younger lovers she the time employs;
Nor chooses one to whom in darkness met
At moment stolen to grant forbidden joys,

But will in sight of her conniving lord
Rise, if a factor call her to his arms,
Or master of a Spanish ship afford
The price of shame to buy her venal charms.

Not from such parentage as this did spring
The youths who dyed with Punic gore the wave,
To Pyrrhus and Antiochus, mighty king,
And Hannibal accurst the death-blow gave.

The manly sons of peasant soldiers they,
With Sabine mattock taught to till the soil,
And faggots cut and to the pile convey,
By a strict mother's bidding aye at toil

Detained, even while the sun his waning light
Cast, changing the hill shadows, from the west,
Unyoked the weary oxen, and to flight
Betaking brought the welcome hour of rest.

What doth not time's injurious hand debase?
From sires, of grandsires the degenerate breed,
Worse in our turn we come; to whom a race
Yet more depraved of children will succeed.