Zago/Introduction

Zago Giovanni

Stoop not down to the darkly-splendid world;
In which continually lies a faithless depth, and Hades
Cloudy, squalid, delighting in images unintelligible,
Precipitous, winding, a blind profundity always rolling,
Always espousing an opacous, idle, breathless body.

Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below the earth,
Drawing under a descent of seven steps, beneath which
Is the throne of dire necessity.

---'The Chaldaean Oracles of Zoroaster', from "Ancient Fragments" by I. P. Cory (1832 ed.) ---