Laudator Temporis Acti

Bacchylides, fragment 4 (Paean for Apollo Pythaieus at Asine), lines 61-80 (tr. John Addington Symonds):

To mortal men Peace giveth these good things:
Wealth, and the flowers of honey-throated song;
The flame that springs
On carven altars from fat sheep and kine,
Slain to the gods in heaven; and, all day long,
Games for glad youths, and flutes, and wreaths, and circling wine.
Then in the steely shield swart spiders weave
Their web and dusky woof:
Rust to the pointed spear and sword doth cleave;
The brazen trump sounds no alarms;
Nor is sleep harried from our eyes aloof,
But with sweet rest my bosom warms:
The streets are thronged with lovely men and young,
And hymns in praise of boys like flames to heaven are flung.

The same, in a more literal prose translation by David A. Campbell:

Peace gives birth to noble wealth for mortals, to the flowers of honey-tongued songs, to the burning for gods of thighs of oxen and fleecy sheep in yellow flame on elaborate altars, to young men's concern with the gymnasium, with pipes and revelry. On iron-pinned shieldgrips are found the spinnings of red-brown spiders, and sharp-pointed spears and double-edged swords are subdued by rust.

                2 lines are missing

There is no din of bronze trumpets, and sleep, honey for the mind, still soothing the heart at daybreak, is not pillaged from men's eyelids. The streets are laden with lovely feasts, and the songs of boys rise like flame.

The Greek:

τίκτει δέ τε θνατοῖσιν εἰ-
ρήνα μεγαλάνορα πλοῦτον
καὶ μελιγλώσσων ἀοιδᾶν ἄνθεα,
δαιδαλέων τ' ἐπὶ βωμῶν
θεοῖσιν αἴθεσθαι βοῶν ξανθᾶι φλογὶ    65
μηρί' εὐμάλλων τε μήλων
γυμνασίων τε νέοις
αὐλῶν τε καὶ κώμων μέλειν.
ἐν δὲ σιδαροδέτοις πόρπαξιν αἰθᾶν
ἀραχνᾶν ἱστοὶ πέλονται,    70

ἔγχεα τε λογχωτὰ ξίφεα
τ' ἀμφάκεα δάμναται εὐρώς.
<...
...>
χαλκεᾶν δ' οὐκ ἔστι σαλπίγγων κτύπος,    75
οὐδὲ συλᾶται μελίφρων
ὕπνος ἀπὸ βλεφάρων
ἀῶιος ὃς θάλπει κέαρ.
συμποσίων δ' ἐρατῶν βρίθοντ' ἀγυιαί,
παιδικοί θ' ὕμνοι φλέγονται.    80

M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (1997; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Paperbacks, 2003), p. 543 (footnote omitted):

Some very similar lines appear in Erra and Ishum. The ferocious Seven who march with Erra, the god of war and destruction, are urging him to rise up and act. They complain of the state of affairs that has arisen as a result of his inactivity:

'Over our battle gear spiders' webs are woven ...
The points of our sharp arrows are bent;
our swords, from lack of slaughter, have developed verdegris.'

M.L. West emphasizes that Bacchylides of course had no knowledge of Erra and Ishum.