Page:Sophocles' King Oedipus.pdf/39

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For this one thing above all I would be praised as a man,

That in my words and my deeds I have kept those laws in mind

Olympian Zeus, and that high clear Empyrean,

Fashioned, and not some man or people of mankind,

Even those sacred laws nor age nor sleep can blind.

A man becomes a tyrant out of insolence,

He climbs and climbs, until all people call him great,

He seems upon the summit, and God flings him thence;

Yet an ambitious man may lift up a whole State,

And in his death be blessed, in his life for­tunate.

And all men honour such; but should a man forget

The holy Images, the Delphian Sybil’s trance

And the world’s navel stone, and not be punished for it

And seem most fortunate, or even blessed perchance,

Why should we honour the gods, or join the sacred dance?