Prevod
First came the golden age, which, with no one to enforce it, freely, without laws, cherished good faith and right. Punishment and fear were absent; no threatening words were read on bronze tablets, nor did a pleading crowd dread the face of its judge: without protectors, all were safe. No pine, felled on its native mountains to visit a foreign world, had yet descended to the flowing waves, and mortals knew no shores beyond their own.
No steep-sided moats yet girdled towns; there were no straight trumpets, no horns of curving bronze, no helmets and no swords: with no need of soldiers, the peoples lived at ease in tranquil leisure. The earth herself, free of all demands, untouched by the hoe, unwounded by any ploughshare, gave everything of her own accord; content with food that grew without compulsion, they gathered fruit from strawberry trees and mountain strawberries, cornel cherries and blackberries clinging to thorny brambles, and acorns fallen from Jupiter’s spreading tree.
Spring was eternal, and gentle west winds, with their warm breath, caressed the flowers that sprang up without seed. Soon, too, the unploughed earth bore grain, and fields untilled grew pale with heavy ears; now rivers of milk, now rivers of nectar flowed, and golden honey dripped from the green holm oak. After Saturn had been cast into the darkness of Tartarus, and the world was under Jupiter, a silver race arose, inferior to gold, but more precious than tawny bronze.
Jupiter shortened the span of that ancient spring and divided the year into four seasons: winter, summer, changeable autumn, and a brief spring. Then for the first time the air, scorched by dry heat, blazed, and ice hung frozen hard by the winds. Then for the first time people took shelter in homes—homes were caves, dense thickets, and branches bound together with bark.
Then for the first time the seeds of Ceres were buried in long furrows, and bullocks groaned beneath the yoke. After that came the third race, of bronze, fiercer in spirit and readier for savage warfare, yet not wicked. The last was of hard iron. At once, into this age of baser metal, every evil burst: shame, truth, and good faith fled, and in their place came fraud and deceit, treachery, violence, and the wicked lust for gain.
The sailor spread his sails to winds he scarcely knew as yet; and trees that had long stood on lofty mountains now, as ships, went leaping over unknown waves. The ground, once common to all like sunlight and air, the wary surveyor marked with long boundary lines. Nor was the fertile soil asked only for crops and the food it owed: men plunged into the earth’s entrails, and the wealth she had hidden near the shades of Styx was dug out—wealth that goads men on to evil.
Now deadly iron and gold, more deadly still, had emerged; and war emerged, which fights with both, and shook its clashing weapons in a bloodstained hand. People lived by plunder: guest was not safe from host, nor father-in-law from son-in-law; even brothers seldom loved. The husband plotted his wife’s death, and she her husband’s; fearsome stepmothers mixed deadly, pale aconite; the son inquired into his father’s years before their time.
Piety lay defeated, and the maiden Astraea, last of the immortals, left the blood-soaked earth.
Izvirnik
Source ID: ovid_metamorphoses_story_002 Citation: Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.89-1.150 Original language: Latin Source: PerseusDL canonical-latinLit Source URL: https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-latinLit/blob/master/data/phi0959/phi006/phi0959.phi006.perseus-lat2.xml Segmentation certainty: medium 89: Aurea prima sata est aetas, quae vindice nullo, 90: sponte sua, sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.
91: Poena metusque aberant, nec verba minantia fixo 92: aere legebantur, nec supplex turba timebat 93: iudicis ora sui, sed erant sine vindice tuti. 94: Nondum caesa suis, peregrinum ut viseret orbem, 95: montibus in liquidas pinus descenderat undas, 96: nullaque mortales praeter sua litora norant. 97: Nondum praecipites cingebant oppida fossae; 98: non tuba directi, non aeris cornua flexi, 99: non galeae, non ensis erat: sine militis usu 100: mollia securae peragebant otia gentes.
101: ipsa quoque inmunis rastroque intacta nec ullis 102: saucia vomeribus per se dabat omnia tellus; 103: contentique cibis nullo cogente creatis 104: arbuteos fetus montanaque fraga legebant 105: cornaque et in duris haerentia mora rubetis 106: et quae deciderant patula Iovis arbore glandes. 107: Ver erat aeternum, placidique tepentibus auris 108: mulcebant zephyri natos sine semine flores.
109: Mox etiam fruges tellus inarata ferebat, 110: nec renovatus ager gravidis canebat aristis; 111: flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant, 112: flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella. 113: Postquam, Saturno tenebrosa in Tartara misso, 114: sub Iove mundus erat, subiit argentea proles, 115: auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior aere. 116: Iuppiter antiqui contraxit tempora veris 117: perque hiemes aestusque et inaequalis autumnos 118: et breve ver spatiis exegit quattuor annum.
119: Tum primum siccis aer fervoribus ustus 120: canduit, et ventis glacies adstricta pependit. 121: Tum primum subiere domus (domus antra fuerunt 122: et densi frutices et vinctae cortice virgae). 123: Semina tum primum longis Cerealia sulcis 124: obruta sunt, pressique iugo gemuere iuvenci. 125: Tertia post illam successit aenea proles, 126: saevior ingeniis et ad horrida promptior arma, 127: non scelerata tamen. De duro est ultima ferro.
128: Protinus inrupit venae peioris in aevum 129: omne nefas: fugere pudor verumque fidesque; 130: In quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolique 131: insidiaeque et vis et amor sceleratus habendi. 132: Vela dabat ventis (nec adhuc bene noverat illos) 133: navita; quaeque diu steterant in montibus altis, 134: fluctibus ignotis insultavere carinae, 135: communemque prius ceu lumina solis et auras 136: cautus humum longo signavit limite mensor.
137: Nec tantum segetes alimentaque debita dives 138: poscebatur humus, sed itum est in viscera terrae: 139: quasque recondiderat Stygiisque admoverat umbris, 140: effodiuntur opes, inritamenta malorum. 141: Iamque nocens ferrum ferroque nocentius aurum 142: prodierat: prodit bellum, quod pugnat utroque, 143: sanguineaque manu crepitantia concutit arma. 144: Vivitur ex rapto: non hospes ab hospite tutus, 145: non socer a genero; fratrum quoque gratia rara est.
146: Inminet exitio vir coniugis, illa mariti; 147: lurida terribiles miscent aconita novercae; 148: filius ante diem patrios inquirit in annos. 149: Victa iacet pietas, et virgo caede madentis, 150: ultima caelestum terras Astraea reliquit.
