Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/40

36 Earth, the unwearied, too,

Highest of gods, supreme,

Man wears away as through

All the years plowing the ground,

He follows round and round

The slowly furrowing team.

Light-minded tribes of birds

He snares in meshes fine,

Savage beasts in their herds

And the brood of the deepest sea,

Leads to captivity,

Man with his crafty mind.

Beasts from the mountain lair,

Roaming the hills, he takes;

Lays the yoke on their shaggy hair,

On the necks of horses proud;

Mountain-bulls bellowing loud

Yoked to the plow he breaks.

And speech has he taught him, and wind-swift thought,

And order and law for government;

And shelter from missiles of frost and sleet he hath wrought,

Resourceful in all—his resources are spent,

When he seeks to escape from Death; Man so wise

Vicissitudes numberless conquers at will,

And cures for baffling diseases he well can devise,

Save for Death—Death alone e’er bates his skill.

Inventive and skilful, with subtlety passing belief,

Moves he now to the good and now to the ill.

Upholding the justice of heaven he comes not to grief,

And the vows to the gods he hath sworn to fulfil;

For whoso upholds the laws of the land,

Incorruptible, sinless, an outcast never shall roam;

A city hath he, and proudly his city doth stand—

May the wicked ne’er share my city, my home!