Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/51

SOPHOCLES. They find in thee to censure, what to praise.

Thy look doth fill with dread the citizen

And checks the frankness of his speech in things

Unpleasant for the king to hear; but I

Can hear them unperceived, how for this maid

The pedpte all make moan, “no woman e’er

Met death more undeserved, for glorious deeds

E’er met so foul a death, who could not leave

Her own dear brother uninterted, a prey

For carrion dogs and vultures lying there

Unheeded where he fell in bloody strife.

Should she for this no golden guerdon gain?

So speak the people guardedly, and still

The rumor spreads. There is no treasure prized

So highly as thy welfare, father, none

That mortal time affords so dear to me.

What greater ornament for children than

Their father’s glory and prosperity,

Or for the father than his children’s? Wear

Not, then, one way of thinking in thy heart,

That what thou sayst and nothing else is right.

For if a man assume that he alone

Is wise, in speech and judgment doth excel

All others, when his mind is opened as a book,

Naught else but emptiness is seen therein.

’T is no disgrace for e’en the wise to learn,

To yield convinced, and not be overstiff

In their opinions. By the swollen streams,

Thou seest the reeds that yielding bend their heads,

How they preserve themselves, whereas the trees,

That stiff resist the current, fall and die.

So too the sailor, if he tightly draws

The sheet, and keeps it taut and never slack,

Capsized, completes his voyage upside down.

Recede, then, from thy wrath and change thy mood.

If I, though younger, (and deemed competent

To offer an opinion) be allowed to speak,

I hold it best for man to be all-wise,

But since omniscience does not tip the scale

In human thinking, it is well to learn

From those who well can speak and well discern.