Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/525

Rh Our city hailed his name,

And from my heart the charge of baseness ne'er shall rise.

Would 'twere my lot to lead

My life in holiest purity of speech,

In purity of deed,

Of deed and word whose Laws high-soaring reach

Through all the vast concave.

Heaven-born, Olympos their one only sire!

To these man never gave

The breath of life, nor shall they e'er expire

In dim oblivion cold:

In these God shews as great and never waxeth old.

The wantonness of pride

Begets the tyrant,—wanton pride, full-flushed

With thoughts vain, idle, wide,

That to the height of topmost fame hath rushed,

And then hath fallen low,

Into dark evil where it cannot take

One step from out that woe.

I cannot bid the Gods this order break

Of toil for noblest end;

Yea, still I call on God as guardian and as friend.

But if there be who walks too haughtily

In action or in speech,

Who the great might of Justice dares defy,