ghter the tiller of his fields; who could strike, with the axe, that
neck worn bare with labour, through which he had so oft turned up the
hard ground, {and} had afforded so many a harvest.

"And it is not enough for such wickedness to be committed; they have
imputed to the Gods themselves this abomination; and they believe that a
Deity in the heavens can rejoice in the slaughter of the laborious ox.
A victim free from a blemish, and most beauteous in form (for 'tis being
sightly that brings destruction), adorned with garlands and gold, is
placed upon the altars, and, in its ignorance, it hears one praying, and
sees the corn, which it has helped to produce, placed on its forehead
between its horns; and, felled, it stains with its blood the knives
perhaps before seen by it in the limpid water. Immediately, they examine
the entrails snatched from its throbbing breast, and in them they seek
out the intentions of the Deities. Whence comes it that men have so
great a hankering for forbidden food? Do you presume to feed {on flesh},
O race of mortals? Do it not, I beseech you; and give attention to my
exhortations. And when you shall be presenting the limbs of slaughtered
oxen to your palates, know and consider that you are devouring your
{tillers of the ground}. And since a God impels me to speak, I will duly
obey the God that {so} prompts me to speak; and I will pronounce my own
Delphic {warnings}, and disclose the heavens themselves; and I will
reveal the oracles of the Divine will. I will sing of wondrous things,
never investigated by the intellects of the ancients, and {things} which
have long lain concealed. It delights me to range among the lofty stars;
it delights me, having left the earth and this sluggish spot {far
behind}, to be borne amid the clouds, and to be supported on the
shoulders of the mighty Atlas; and to look down from afar on minds
wandering {in uncertainty}, and devoid of reason; and so to advise them
alarmed and dreading extinction, and to unfold the range of things
ordained by fate.

"O race! stricken by the alarms of icy death, why do you dread Styx? why
the shades, why empty names, the stock subjects of the poets, and the
atonements of an imaginary world? Whether the funeral pile consumes your
bodies with flames, or old age with gradual dissolution, believe that
they cannot suffer any injury. Souls are not subject to death; and
having left their former abode, they ever inhabit new dwellings, and,
{