Canto V
         The Old One Destroys the Ogres

    [Luscinia, soprano, sang loudly.]

So now ye Sisters, sing the song that tells
The tales of old, our history,
The age-old story of our Race and those
Who came before the Janid Clan.  Recall
To mind that ancient time, near lost in mists
Obscuring, yea, so long ago that all
The Gods Consenting* stood Their watch.  For know   [*Di Consentes]
That Tin's Advisors Twelve, the Couns'lors, take
Their turns to rule our World, for each accepts
The Pillar, bears the Carrier of the Sun,
Where it resides upon the year's first day.*      [*Vernal Equinox]

    [The rest of the chorus joined in, singing quietly.]

Our memory recedes away from this
Our time, and stretches back into the past,
As far as we can go, until we call
To mind the Reign of Two Great Twins, a Pair
Of Culs-gods, Lugalirus, Mighty Lord
Who guards the Left, and Meslamteo, He
Who's at the Right.  In ancient times, when these
Two Gods the Pillar held, the land was cloaked
In ice, and food was nowhere to be found.
Then also roamed the world another kind
Of people, Ogres, vicious in their ways.*      [*Neanderthals?]
They preyed on us like game, and soon in sooth
They would have killed us, each and every one.

Now sing the miracle that happened then,
The changing of the Epoch.  Happily
A Hero came to save us, Vetis;* He's           [*Vejovis]
The Ancient One who bears the Crook, which first
Appeared above the world and quickly caught
The Ogres by their necks.  Then came the Old,
The Ancient Man Himself, and scattered He
Our tormenters. And He by younger help
Was joined, the Shepherd True, descending from
The Sky.  These two destroyed the Beasts, by cold
And by the help and wits They gave to us.
For full five hundred years They fought against
The Ogres.  Fin'lly though They'd weakened them
With wind and frost, and so the Ogres died.

                    * * *