Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/106

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. Fellow, give o’er. Cease tending yon dead man!

Obey my voice, and leave him where he lies.

. Thy potent cause for spending so much breath?

. My will, and his whose word is sovereign here.

. May we not know the reasons of your will?

. Because he, whom we trusted to have brought

To lend us loyal help with heart and hand,

Proved in the trial a worse than Phrygian foe;

Who lay in wait for all the host by night,

And sallied forth in arms to shed our blood;

That, had not one in Heaven foiled this attempt,

Our lot had been to lie as he doth here

Dead and undone for ever, while he lived

And flourished. Heaven hath turned this turbulence

To fall instead upon the harmless flock.

Wherefore no strength of man shall once avail

To encase his body with a seemly tomb,

But outcast on the wide and watery sand,

He’ll feed the birds that batten on the shore.

Nor let thy towering spirit therefore rise

In threatening wrath. Wilt thou or not, our hand

Shall rule him dead, howe’er he braved us living,

And that by force; for never would he yield,

Even while he lived, to words from me. And yet

It shows base metal when the subject-wight

Deigns not to hearken to the chief in power.

Since without settled awe, neither in states

Can laws have rightful sway, nor can a host

Be governed with due wisdom, if no fear

Or wholesome shame be there to shield its safety.

And though a man wax great in thews and bulk,

Let him be warned: a trifling harm may ruin him.

Whoever knows respect and honour both

Stands free from risk of dark vicissitude.

But whereso pride and licence have their fling,

Be sure that state will one day lose her course

And founder in the abysm. Let fear have place