their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and
left no name: terrible though they were, black Death seized them,
and they left the bright light of the sun.

(ll. 156-169b) But when earth had covered this generation also,
Zeus the son of Cronos made yet another, the fourth, upon the
fruitful earth, which was nobler and more righteous, a god-like
race of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the race before our
own, throughout the boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle
destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-
gated Thebe when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some,
when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy
for rich-haired Helen's sake: there death's end enshrouded a part
of them. But to the others father Zeus the son of Cronos gave a
living and an abode apart from men, and made them dwell at the
ends of earth. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands
of the blessed along the shore of deep swirling Ocean, happy
heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit
flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and
Cronos rules over them (5); for the father of men and gods
released him from his bonds. And these last equally have honour
and glory.

(ll. 169c-169d) And again far-seeing Zeus made yet another
generation, the fifth, of men who are upon the bounteous earth.

(ll. 170-201) Thereafter, would that I were not among the men of
the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born
afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest
from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and