There was a time when mortals lived like brutes
In caves and unsunned hollows of the earth,
For neither house nor city flanked with towers
Had then been reared: no ploughshare cut the clod
To make it yield a bounteous harvest, nor
Were the vines ranked and trimmed with pruning-knives,
But fruitless births the sterile earth did bear.
Men on each other fed with mutual slaughter,
For Law was feeble, Violence enthroned,
And to the strong the weaker fell a prey.