Odes 3.6 (Gladstone): Delicta Majorum

Thy fathers' crimes, though guiltless, thou shalt rue,
Roman, till thou the fanes renew,
And care for each neglected shrine,
And cleanse from smoke the forms divine.

Thou rulest, why? Thou to the gods dost bend.
Here all begins, here all must end.
From scorn of gods doth ever flow
On sad Hesperia heaven-sent woe.

Monaeses twice, and Pacorus's troop
Our godless charge at one fell swoop
Have quelled: the necklace, mean of old,
Is now replaced with Roman gold.

Dacian and Ethiop have destroyed, almost,
Rome with her civil broils engrossed:
One feared at sea, the other's power
More apt to drive the arrowy shower.

This age, so rich in crime, on marriage bed,
On kin, and homes, its filth hath shed:
This is the fount, to this we owe
The ills that land and folk o'erflow.

The ripening virgin now delights to learn
Ionic dances; she will burn,
Well taught by art and trick to move,
From head to foot for lawless love.

A wife, she seeks some youthful gallant's arms,
Her husband drowned in wine: her charms
At random given, to none denied,
None, whom extinguished lights may hide.

Anon, and while her husband conscious lies,
Some man of cash will have her rise,
Some captain of a ship from Spain,
Who buys disgrace, and pays amain.

The race that dyed with Punic blood the seas,
They never sprang from stocks like these,
That strong Antiochus o'erthrew,
That Hannibal and Pyrrhus slew.

No: rustics brave a manful seed beheld,
Expert the wood their arms had felled
To fetch at their strict mother's nod,
Or cleave with Sabine spade the clod,

Till evening suns the lengthening shadows cast,
The wearied steers, set free at last,
And bring the genial hour, when Light,
The car departing, yields to Night.

Age cankers all things: so our grandsires' time
Bequeathed us one more ripe in crime;
Our sires did worse again beget,
And we shall yield the basest yet.