Beneath the two feet of Bootes you can observe the Maiden, who carries in her hand the radiant Spica.1 Whether she is the daughter of Astraeus, who, they say, was the original father of the stars, or of some other, may her way be peaceful! There is, however, another tale current among men, that once she actually lived on earth, and came face to face with men, and did not ever spurn the tribes of ancient men and women, but sat in their midst although she was immortal. And they called her Justice: gathering together the elders, either in the market-place or on the broad highway, she urged them in prophetic tones to judgements for the good of the people. At that time they still had no knowledge of painful strife or quarrelsome conflict or noise of battle, but lived just as they were; the dangerous sea was far from their thoughts, and as yet no ships brought them livelihood from afar, but oxen and ploughs and Justice herself, queen of the people and giver of civilised life, provided all their countless needs. That was as long as the earth still nurtured the Golden Age. But with the Silver she associated little, and now not at all willingly, as she longed for the ways of the earlier folk. But nevertheless she was still with this Silver Age too. She would emerge from the sounding mountain towards evening all alone, and not engage anyone in friendly conversation. But filling the broad hillsides with people, she would then speak menacingly, rebuking them for their wickedness, and say she would never more come face to face with them, even if they called her: ‘What an inferior generation your golden fathers have left! And you are likely to beget a still more evil progeny. There will surely be wars, yes, and unnatural bloodshed among men, and suffering from their troubles will come upon them.’ So saying she made for the mountains, and left the people all staring after her. But when these men also had died and there were born the Bronze Age men, more destructive than their predecessors, who were the first to forge the criminal sword for murder on the highways, and the first to taste the flesh of ploughing oxen, then Justice, conceiving a hatred for the generation of these men, flew up to the sky and took up her abode in that place, where she is still visible to men by night as the Maiden near conspicuous Bootes.

1 The ‘Spica’ is an ear of grain.

THE MERCHANT

The Merchant

Plautus

Translated by Henry Thomas Riley, 1852