O who can build with puissant breast a song 
Worthy the majesty of these great finds? 
Or who in words so strong that he can frame 
The fit laudations for deserts of him 
Who left us heritors of such vast prizes, 
By his own breast discovered and sought out?- 
There shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock. 
For if must needs be named for him the name 
Demanded by the now known majesty 
Of these high matters, then a god was he,- 
Hear me, illustrious Memmius- a god; 
Who first and chief found out that plan of life 
Which now is called philosophy, and who 
By cunning craft, out of such mighty waves, 
Out of such mighty darkness, moored life 
In havens so serene, in light so clear. 
Compare those old discoveries divine 
Of others: lo, according to the tale, 
Ceres established for mortality 
The grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape, 
Though life might yet without these things abide, 
Even as report saith now some peoples live. 
But man's well-being was impossible 
Without a breast all free. Wherefore the more 
That man doth justly seem to us a god, 
From whom sweet solaces of life, afar 
Distributed o'er populous domains, 
Now soothe the minds of men. But if thou thinkest 
Labours of Hercules excel the same, 
Much farther from true reasoning thou farest. 
For what could hurt us now that mighty maw 
Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar 
Who bristled in Arcadia? Or, again, 
O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest 
Of Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous? 
Or what the triple-breasted power of her 
The three-fold Geryon... 

The sojourners in the Stymphalian fens 
So dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds 
Of Thracian Diomedes breathing fire 
From out their nostrils off along the zones 
Bistonian and Ismarian? And the Snake, 
The dread fierce gazer, guardian of the golden 
And gleaming apples of the Hesperides, 
Coiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk, 
O what, again, could he inflict on us 
Along the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea?- 
Where neither one of us approacheth nigh 
Nor no barbarian ventures. And the rest 
Of all those monsters slain, even if alive, 
Unconquered still, what injury could they do? 
None, as I guess. For so the glutted earth 
Swarms even now with savage beasts, even now 
Is filled with anxious terrors through the woods 
And mighty mountains and the forest deeps- 
Quarters 'tis ours in general to avoid. 
But lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then, 
What perils, must bosom, in our own despite! 
O then how great and keen the cares of lust 
That split the man distraught! How great the fears! 
And lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness- 
How great the slaughters in their train! and lo, 
Debaucheries and every breed of sloth! 
Therefore that man who subjugated these, 
And from the mind expelled, by words indeed, 
Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him 
To dignify by ranking with the gods?- 
And all the more since he was wont to give, 
Concerning the immortal gods themselves, 
Many pronouncements with a tongue divine, 
And to unfold by his pronouncements all 
The nature of the world.