As oft when a great people mutinie
Ignoble vulgar rage; stones, firebrands flye,
Furie finds arms.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]

And as when a sedition has perchance arisen among a mighty multitude, and the minds of the ignoble vulgar rage; now firebrands, now stones fly; fury supplies them with arms.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]

As when sedition oft has stirred
In some great town the vulgar herd,
And brands and stones already fly --
For rage has weapons always nigh ....
[tr. Conington (1866)]

As when
Sedition in a multitude has risen,
And the base mob is raging with fierce minds,
And stones and firebrands fly, and fury lends
Arms to the populace ...
[tr. Cranch (1872), l. 187ff]

Even as when oft in a throng of people strife hath risen, and the base multitude rage in their minds, and now brands and stones are flying; madness lends arms.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]

And, like as mid a people great full often will arise
Huge riot, and all the low-born herd to utter anger flies,
And sticks and stones are in the air, and fury arms doth find ....
[tr. Morris (1900)]

As when in mighty multitudes bursts out
Sedition, and the wrathful rabble rave;
Rage finds them arms; stones, firebrands fly about ....
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 21, l. 181ff]

As when, with not unwonted tumult, roars
in some vast city a rebellious mob,
and base-born passions in its bosom burn,
till rocks and blazing torches fill the air
(rage never lacks for arms) ....
[tr. Williams (1910)]

And as, when oft-times in a great nation tumult has risen, the base rabble rage angrily, and now brands and stones fly, madness lending arms ....
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]

Sometimes, in a great nation, there are riots
With the rabble out of hand, and firebrands fly
And cobblestones; whatever they lay their hands on
Is a weapon for their fury.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]

Just as so often it happens, when a crowd collects, and violence
Brews up, and the mass mind boils nastily over, and the next thing
Firebrands and brickbats are flying (hysteria soon finds a missile) ....
[tr. Day-Lewis (1952)]

And just as, often, when a crowd or people
is rocked by a rebellion, and the rabble
rage in their minds, and firebrands and stones
fly fast -- for fury finds its weapons ....
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 209ff]

When rioting breaks out in a great city,
And the rampaging rabble goes so far
That stones fly, and incendiary brands --
For anger can supply that kind of weapon ....
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981)]

As when disorder arises among the people of a great city and the common mob riuns riot, wild passion finds weapons for men's hands and torches and rocks start flying ....
[tr. West (1990)]

As often, when rebellion breaks out in a great nation,
and the common rabble rage with passion, and soon stones
and fiery torches fly (frenzy supplying weapons) ....
[tr. Kline (2002)]

Riots will often break out in the crowded assembly
When the rabble are roused. Torches and stones
Are soon flying -- Fury always finds weapons.
[tr. Lombardo (2005)]

Just as, all too often,
some huge crowd is seized by a vast uprising,
the rabble runs amok, all slaves to passion,
rocks, firebrands flying. Rage finds them arms.
[tr. Fagles (2006)]

Just as riots often fester in great crowds when the common mob goes mad; rocks and firebrands fly, the weapons rage supplies.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]

John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.