Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/39

 commenting on the scorn for oracles just expressed by locastê:—

"Mine be the lot to win a reverent purity in all words and deeds sanctioned by those laws of sublime range, brought forth in the wide, clear sky, whose birth is of Olympus alone; which no brood of mortal men begat; which forgetfulness shall never lay to sleep. Strong in these is the god, and grows not old.

"Insolence breeds the tyrant; Insolence, once blindly gorged with plenty, with things which are not fit or good, when it hath scaled the crowning height leaps on the abyss of doom, where it is served not by the service of the foot. But that rivalry which is good for the state I pray that the god may never quell: the god ever will I hold my champion.

"But whoso walks haughtily in deed or word, unterrified by Justice, revering not the shrines of gods, may an evil doom take him for his miserable pride, if he will not gain his gains fairly, if he will not keep himself from impieties, but must lay wanton hands on things inviolable.

"In such case, what man can boast any more that he shall ward the arrows of anger from his life? Nay, if such deeds are honoured, what have I more to do with dance and song?

"No more will I go, a worshipper, to the awful altar at Earth's centre, no more to Abæ's shrine or to Olympia, if these oracles fit not the issue so that all men shall point at them with the finger. Nay, King—if thou art rightly called—Zeus, all-ruling, let it not escape thee and thy deathless power!"