Her annual income to the crooked share;
But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
Digged from her entrails first the precious ore;
(Which next to hell the prudent gods had laid),
And that alluring ill to sight displayed:
Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold;
And double death did wretched man invade,
By steel assaulted, and by gold betrayed.
Now (brandished weapons glittering in their hands)
Mankind is broken loose from moral bands:
No rights of hospitality remain;
The guest by him who harbored him is slain;
The son-in-law pursues the father's life;
The wife her husband murders, he the wife;
The step-dame poison for the son prepares,
The son inquires into his father's years.
Faith flies, and Piety in exile mourns;
And Justice, here oppressed, to heaven returns.

The Scriptures assert that the wickedness of mankind was the cause
of the Noachian flood, or deluge. So, also, we find that, in Grecian
mythology, like causes led to the deluge of Deuca'lion. Therefore,
before giving Ovid's account of this latter event, we give, from
Hesiod, a curious account of


THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, AND ITS INTRODUCTION INTO THE WORLD.

It appears from the legend that, during a controversy between