Athena after Minerva

From the other Greeks hast thou surely heard much ill about Cecrops, for he were not in good repute.¹
But I dare say, he were an enlightened man, highly famed by the natives as well as by us, for he was not about to oppress the people as were the other priests, but he was virtuous and wist to value the wisdom of distant folk after its worth.

Therefore that he wist that, had he granted us that we might live by our own equal law book.
There went a tale that he was inclined toward us, because he should have been begotten by a Frisian maiden and an Egyptian priest, because he had blue eyes, and that many maidens were stolen from us and sold over in Egypt.⁵
This has never been confirmed.

However, it may be, it is sure that he shew us more friendship than all other priests together.
But when he was dead, his successor went quickly to tamper with our laws and gradually made so many unfair rulings, that thus at long last, of equality and freedom have naught remained other than the appearance and the name.

Furthermore wouldn’t they naught not allow that the codes be brought into writing, whereby the knowledge thereof was hidden from us.
Heretofore were all cases within Athens pleaded in our language, afterwards must it take place in both languages and at last only in the natives’ speech.¹⁰

In the first years, the menfolk took only wives of our own race, but the young folk grew up with the maidens of the natives and also took of them.
The bastard children who came thereof were the most beautiful and shrewdest in the world but they were also the worst.

Hopping over to both sides, caring neither about rules nor customs, were it not that it were for their own gain.
So long as there were yet a beam of Frya’s ghost holding sway, was all the building material wrought to common works and no one mightn’t build a house, that is roomier and richer than his neighbor’s.

Though when some bastard townsmen were rich through our sea voyages and through silver which their slaves won from the silver mines, then went they over upon the hills or dales to dwell.¹⁵
There behind high walls of leaves or of stone built they courts with costly household appointments and to be in good standing with the priests, they installed there false, godlike and impious images.

By the foul priests and princes were the knaves sometimes more craved than the daughters, and often through riches or through force led off from the path of virtue.
After that riches far above virtue and honour were gotten by that degenerate bastard race, one saw often youths who adorned themselves in famous rich clothes, their parents and the maids to shame and their gender to ridicule.

If our simple elders came to Athens upon the general assembly and therefore would complain, so was it called out, hark, hark, there shall a seamonster speak.²⁰
Thus is Athens become like a morass in the hot lands, full of bloodsuckers, toads and venomous snakes, wherein no person of hard principles may dare set his foot.