Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/38

 "Wonders are many, but nothing is more wonderful than Man; that power which walks the whitening sea before the stormy south, making a path amid engulfing surges; and Earth, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, doth it wear, turning the soil with the race of horses as the ploughs go to and fro from year to year.

"And the careless tribe of birds, the nations of the angry beasts, the deep sea's ocean-brood he snares in the meshes of his woven wiles, he leads captive, man excellent in wit. He conquers by his arts the beast that walks in the wilds of the hills, he tames the horse with shaggy mane, he puts its yoke on its neck, he tames the stubborn mountain-bull.

"And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state hath he taught himself; and how to flee the shafts of frost beneath the clear, unsheltering sky, and the arrows of the stormy rain.

"All-providing is he; unprovided he meets nothing that must come. Only from death shall he not win deliverance; yet from hard sicknesses hath he devised escapes.

"Cunning beyond fancy's dreams is that resourceful skill which brings him now to evil, anon to good. When he honours the laws of the land, proudly stands his city: no city hath he who in his rashness harbours sin. Never may he share my hearth, never think my thoughts, who doth these things!"

In the "Œdipus Tyrannus" the Chorus is