Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/111

1226–1261]

. And so I hear thou’lt stretch thy mouth agape

With big bold words against us undismayed—

Thou, the she-captive’s offspring! High would scale

Thy voice, and pert would be thy strutting gait,

Were but thy mother noble; since, being naught,

So stiff thou stand’st for him who is nothing now,

And swear’st we came not as commanders here

Of all the Achaean navy, nor of thee;

But Aias sailed, thou say’st, with absolute right.

Must we endure detraction from a slave?

What was the man thou noisest here so proudly?

Have I not set my foot as firm and far?

Or stood his valour unaccompanied

In all this host? High cause have we to rue

That prize-encounter for Pelides’ arms,

Seeing Teucer’s sentence stamps our knavery

For all to know it; and nought will serve but ye,

Being vanquished, kick at the award that passed

By voice of the majority in the court,

And either pelt us with rude calumnies,

Or stab at us, ye laggards! with base guile.

Howbeit, these ways will never help to build

The wholesome order of established law,

If men shall hustle victors from their right,

And mix the hindmost rabble with the van,

That craves repression. Not by bulky size,

Or shoulders’ breadth, the perfect man is known;

But wisdom gives chief power in all the world.

The ox hath a huge broadside, yet is held

Right in the furrow by a slender goad;

Which remedy, I perceive, will pass ere long

To visit thee, unless thy wisdom grow;

Who hast uttered forth such daring insolence

For the pale shadow of a vanished man.

Learn modestly to know thy place and birth,

And bring with thee some freeborn advocate

To plead thy cause before us in thy room.