TOPICS

SEE ALSO

AUTH

BOOKS

Enchiridion_text

The_Wit_and_Wisdom_of_Alfred_North_Whitehead

IN CHAPTERS TITLE

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT

01.03_-_Mystic_Poetry

01.04_-_The_Poetry_in_the_Making

02.06_-_Boris_Pasternak

05.31_-_Divine_Intervention

1.03_-_The_Manner_of_Imitation.

1.04_-_The_Origin_and_Development_of_Poetry.

1.06_-_Being_Human_and_the_Copernican_Principle

1.06_-_On_remembrance_of_death.

1.10_-_Aesthetic_and_Ethical_Culture

1.14_-_(Plot_continued.)_The_tragic_emotions_of_pity_and_fear_should_spring_out_of_the_Plot_itself.

1.15_-_The_element_of_Character_in_Tragedy.

1.16_-_(Plot_continued.)_Recognition__its_various_kinds,_with_examples

1.18_-_Further_rules_for_the_Tragic_Poet.

1.25_-_Critical_Objections_brought_against_Poetry,_and_the_principles_on_which_they_are_to_be_answered.

1.pbs_-_Hellas_-_A_Lyrical_Drama

2.05_-_Apotheosis

2.05_-_On_Poetry

2.1.7.08_-_Comments_on_Specific_Lines_and_Passages_of_the_Poem

2.2.1.01_-_The_World's_Greatest_Poets

27.02_-_The_Human_Touch_Divine

30.02_-_Greek_Drama

33.11_-_Pondicherry_II

BOOK_II._--_PART_III._ADDENDA._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED

ENNEAD_02.09_-_Against_the_Gnostics;_or,_That_the_Creator_and_the_World_are_Not_Evil.

Euthyphro

Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1

the_Eternal_Wisdom

PRIMARY CLASS

author

SIMILAR TITLES

Sophocles

TERMS STARTING WITH


TERMS ANYWHERE

Erinyes (Greek) [cf Latin Furae furies] Also Dirae. Furies, avenging goddesses; sometimes legion, sometimes three in number, according to the point of view of the ancient writers, named by Alexandrian authors, copying Euripides: Tisiphone (avenger of the slain), Megaera (the jealous), and Alecto (unceasing hatred). Their mission was to follow and reform evil doers, which has popularly been misunderstood to be persecution. Aeschylus speaks of them as being daughters of Night, Sophocles as being born of Darkness and Earth, and Hesiod as having sprung from the blood of the injured Uranus. They dwell in the underworld, whence they issue to pursue the wicked towards reformation and the reestablishment of all broken natural equilibrium; upon the expiation of crime in Aeschylus they transform themselves into gracious and beneficent deities called the Eumenides. In Athens they were known as Semnae (the venerable ones).

Oedipus (Greek) Oidipous. Swollen-footed; Theban hero, son of Laius, named by the shepherd who found him with his feet swollen from the holes bored in them when he was exposed by his father, as it was predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother — which he subsequently did. In many cosmogonies there are characters who slay their fathers or who are represented as both husband and son of the same goddess. This symbolism, being interpreted literally in Oedipus’ case, has made a fine story of horror for the tragedians. Oedipus is also famous for having solved the riddle of the Theban Sphinx. Oedipus’ romantic and tragic history formed the theme of three plays by Sophocles and by Aeschylus. The essential significance of the story is the inescapable consequences following upon karmic causes, from which there is no escape once these causes have been set in motion by man.

KEYS (10k)

   5 Sophocles
   2 Sri Aurobindo
   1 Mortimer J Adler

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

  790 Sophocles
   7 Plato
   5 Cassandra Clare
   3 Tom Stoppard
   3 Jodi Picoult
   3 Haruki Murakami
   3 Aristotle
   2 Walter Kaufmann
   2 Sri Aurobindo
   2 Mortimer J Adler
   2 Kasey Michaels
   2 Friedrich Nietzsche
   2 Emily Dickinson
   2 Edith Hamilton
   2 Charles Churchill
   2 Arthur Schopenhauer
   2 Anonymous

1:Always desire to learn something useful. ~ Sophocles,

2:Numberless are the worlds wonders, but none more wonderful than man.    ~ Sophocles,

3:The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.    ~ Sophocles,

4:It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it. ~ Sophocles, Ajax,

5:The world is full of marvels and the greatest marvel is man. ~ Sophocles, the Eternal Wisdom

6:If you want only the very greatest, none of these can enter - only Vyasa and Sophocles. Vyasa could very well claim a place beside Valmiki, Sophocles beside Aeschylus.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, Great Poets of the World, 369,

7:1st row Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki 2nd row Dante, Kalidasa, Aeschylus, Virgil, Milton 3rd row Goethe ... I am not prepared to classify all the poets in the universe - it was the front bench or benches you asked for. By others I meant poets like Lucretius, Euripides, Calderon, Corneille, Hugo. Euripides (Medea, Bacchae and other plays) is a greater poet than Racine whom you want to put in the first ranks. If you want only the very greatest, none of these can enter - only Vyasa and Sophocles. Vyasa could very well claim a place beside Valmiki, Sophocles beside Aeschylus. The rest, if you like, you can send into the third row with Goethe, but it is something of a promotion about which one can feel some qualms. Spenser too, if you like; it is difficult to draw a line. Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth have not been brought into consideration although their best work is as fine poetry as any written, but they have written nothing on a larger scale which would place them among the greatest creators. If Keats had finished Hyperion (without spoiling it), if Shelley had lived, or if Wordsworth had not petered out like a motor car with insufficient petrol, it might be different, but we have to take things as they are. As it is, all began magnificently, but none of them finished, and what work they did, except a few lyrics, sonnets, short pieces and narratives, is often flawed and unequal. If they had to be admitted, what about at least fifty others in Europe and Asia? ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art,

8:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Time is a kindly God. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

2:Who seeks shall find. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

3:In season, all is good. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

4:The truth is ever best. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

5:The end excuses any evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

6:Evil counsel travels fast. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

7:To revive sorrow is cruel. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

8:Ill-gotten gains work evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

9:A lie never lives to be old. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

10:No lie ever reaches old age. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

11:Despair often breeds disease. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

12:The good befriend themselves. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

13:Stranger in a strange country. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

14:Thou shalt not ration justice. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

15:Success is dependant on effort. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

16:Success is the reward for toil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

17:The tyrant is a child of pride. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

18:Without labor nothing prospers. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

19:Great Time makes all things dim. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

20:Truth is always straightforward. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

21:Evil gains work their punishment. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

22:I write a woman's oaths in water. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

23:Kids are anchors of mothers' life ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

24:Kindness gives birth to kindness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

25:Love, you mock us for your sport. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

26:Silence is an ornament for women. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

27:Trust dies but mistrust blossoms. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

28:Wise thinkers prevail everywhere. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

29:Be a thrifty steward of thy goods. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

30:Everything is ideal to its parent. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

31:Gentle time will heal our sorrows. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

32:It is not righteousness to outrage ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

33:Kindness begets kindness evermore. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

34:Let a man nobly live or nobly die. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

35:Nobody loves life like an old man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

36:Best to live lightly, unthinkingly. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

37:Even a poor man can receive honors. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

38:Knowledge must come through action. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

39:Unwanted favours gain no gratitude. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

40:What men have seen they know. . . . ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

41:God's dice always have a lucky roll. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

42:Laziness is the mother of all evils. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

43:No one who errs unwillingly is evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

44:The gods love those of ordered soul. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

45:Trouble brings trouble upon trouble. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

46:Ugly deeds are taught by ugly deeds. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

47:Better not to exist than live basely. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

48:False words do not bring forth fruit. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

49:For the dead there are no more toils. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

50:Fortune never helps the fainthearted. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

51:Ignorance is a tough evil to conquer. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

52:Nobody likes the bringer of bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

53:Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

54:Reason is God's crowning gift to man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

55:Stubbornness and stupidity are twins. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

56:The dice of Zeus always fall luckily. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

57:There is no success without hardship. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

58:It is best to live however one can be. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

59:Kindness will always attract kindness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

60:No honest man will argue on every side ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

61:Opportunity has power over all things. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

62:There is no greater evil than anarchy. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

63:To me no profitable speech sounds ill. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

64:True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

65:A fearful man is always hearing things. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

66:Always desire to learn something useful ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

67:A man is nothing but breath and shadow. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

68:A mind at peace does not engender wars. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

69:An enemy's gift is ruinous and no gift. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

70:Brave hearts do not back down back off. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

71:It is God's giving if we laugh or weep. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

72:No oath can be too binding for a lover. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

73:Obedience to authority saves many skins ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

74:Silence gives the proper grace to women ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

75:What you can't enforce, do not command. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

76:When trouble ends even troubles please. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

77:A human being is only breath and shadow. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

78:A man growing old becomes a child again. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

79:Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

80:How dangerous can false reasoning prove! ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

81:It made our hair stand up in panic fear. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

82:Much wisdom often goes with fewer words. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

83:Not even Ares battles against necessity. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

84:Remember, nothing succeeds without toil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

85:Success, remember is the reward of toil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

86:Truth hates delay. (Veritas odit moras.) ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

87:A friend in word is never friend of mine. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

88:Man's worst ill is stubbornness of heart. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

89:Nobody likes the man who brings bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

90:Not even old age knows how to love death. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

91:The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

92:The rewards of virtue alone abide secure. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

93:To him who is afraid, everything rustles. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

94:A short saying often contains much wisdom. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

95:Enemies gifts are no gifts and do no good. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

96:Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

97:It is hope that maintains most of mankind. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

98:It is terrible to speak well and be wrong. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

99:Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

100:Love is like ice in the hands of children. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

101:Not knowing anything is the sweetest life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

102:Not to be born is, past all prizing, best. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

103:No wound is worse than counterfeited love. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

104:Sleep's the only medicine that gives ease. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

105:The happiest life is to be without thought ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

106:To women silence gives their proper grace. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

107:You would rouse to anger a heart of stone. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

108:For no one loves the bearer of bad tidings. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

109:Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

110:I cannot love a friend whose love is words. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

111:I was not born to share the hate, but love. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

112:Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

113:No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

114:The truth is always the strongest argument. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

115:War loves to seek its victims in the young. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

116:Afterthought makes the first resolve a liar. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

117:Children are the anchors of a mother's life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

118:Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

119:If you are out of trouble, watch for danger. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

120:In a just cause it is right to be confident. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

121:None love the messenger who brings bad news. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

122:No speech can stain what is noble by nature. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

123:Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

124:Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

125:To the man who is afraid everything rustles. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

126:What people believe prevails over the truth. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

127:You can kill a man but you cant kill a idea. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

128:Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

129:Strike at a great man, and you will not miss. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

130:Woman, to women silence is the best ornament. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

131:A prudent man should neglect no circumstances. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

132:For most men friendship is a faithless harbor. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

133:If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

134:If they are just, they are better than clever. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

135:In a just cause the weak will beat the strong. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

136:No man loves life like him that's growing old. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

137:There is a time when even justice brings harm. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

138:There is nothing more hateful than bad advice. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

139:To live without evil belongs only to the gods. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

140:You win the victory when you yield to friends. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

141:Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

142:Remember there is no success without hard work. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

143:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

144:Time, which sees all things, has found you out. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

145:Whom Jupiter would destroy he first drives mad. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

146:Wisdom is the most important part of happiness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

147:A state is not a state if it belongs to one man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

148:Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

149:Goodbye to the sun that shines for me no longer. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

150:It is always fair sailing, when you escape evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

151:Opportunity is the best captain of all endeavor. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

152:To err from the right path is common to mankind. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

153:To the person who is afraid, everything rustles. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

154:What greater wound is there than a false friend? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

155:When I do not understand, I like to say nothing. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

156:When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

157:I recommend... bread, meat, vegetables, and beer. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

158:Is anyone in all the world safe from unhappiness? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

159:Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

160:Old age and the passage of time teach all things. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

161:Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

162:The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

163:You should not consider a man's age but his acts. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

164:Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

165:There is no such thing as the old age of the wise. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

166:The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

167:When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

168:A day lays low and lifts up again all human things. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

169:As sight is in the eye, so is the mind in the soul! ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

170:For God hates utterly the bray of bragging tongues. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

171:Hope has often caused the love of gain to ruin men. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

172:No one longs to live more than someone growing old. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

173:Opinions have greater power than strength of hands. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

174:To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

175:Chance never helps those who do not help themselves. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

176:Heaven never helps the man who will not help himself ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

177:It's impossible to speak what it is not noble to do. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

178:Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

179:Zeus detests above all the boasts of a proud tongue. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

180:How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong! ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

181:Laws can never be enforced unless fear supports them. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

182:Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

183:As they say of the blind, Sounds are the things I see. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

184:Even from the first it is meek to seek the impossible. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

185:Every wind is fare when we are flying from misfortune. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

186:There are times when even justice brings harm with it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

187:Troubles hurt the most when they prove self-inflicted. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

188:It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

189:Men's minds are given to change in hate and friendship. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

190:Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

191:Nobly to live, or else nobly to die,Befits proud birth. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

192:Think not that your word and yours alone must be right. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

193:A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

194:If we always helped one another, no one would need luck. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

195:To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

196:It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

197:I was born to join in love, not hate - that is my nature. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

198:Of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

199:The Most beautiful human deed, is to be useful to others. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

200:Don't you know that silence supports the accuser's charge? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

201:There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

202:God will not punish the man Who makes return for an injury. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

203:Often have brief words laid men low and then raise them up. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

204:To those who err in judgment, not in will, anger is gentle. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

205:Whatever God has brought about Is to be borne with courage. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

206:When men have killed joy, I do not believe they still live. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

207:If I am young, then you should look not to age but to deeds. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

208:I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

209:The golden eye of justice sees, and requites the unjust man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

210:War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

211:Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

212:You don't know what kind of day you will have, until evening. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

213:A word does not frighten the man who, in acting feels no fear. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

214:Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

215:Many things are formidable, and none more formidable than man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

216:The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

217:Though a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

218:When people fall in deep distress, their native sense departs. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

219:Astronomy? Impossible to understand and madness to investigate. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

220:It becomes one, while exempt from woes, to look to the dangers. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

221:It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

222:Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

223:Those griefs smart most which are seen to be of our own choice. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

224:Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

225:The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

226:There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

227:The sleep of a sick man has keen eyes. It is a sleep unsleeping. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

228:A fool cannot be an actor, though an actor may act a fool's part. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

229:For even bold natures flee, whenever they see Hades close to life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

230:From suffering that has been/ Decreed no man will ever find escape ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

231:Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

232:Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

233:More men come to doom through dirty profits than are kept by them. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

234:All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

235:Even the stout of heart shrink when they see the approach of death. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

236:I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

237:To live with glory, or with glory die, This is the brave man's part. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

238:We must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day had been. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

239:Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

240:He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

241:If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

242:Numberless are the world's wonders, but none More wonderful than man. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

243:Each one of us must live the life God gives him; it cannot be shirked. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

244:If you try to cure evil with evil you will add more pain to your fate. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

245:It can be no dishonor to learn from others when they speak good sense. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

246:To throw awayan honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

247:Whoever has a keen eye for profits, is blind in relation to his craft. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

248:Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

249:How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the man that's wise ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

250:If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

251:It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being good. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

252:Count no mortal fortunate till he has departed this life free from pain. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

253:It's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

254:I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

255:One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

256:The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

257:Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no knowledge to its possessor. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

258:You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

259:How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth! ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

260:A broad-backed ox can be driven straight on his road even by a small goad. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

261:All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

262:Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

263:It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

264:It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

265:Show me the man who keeps his house in hand, He's fit for public authority. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

266:A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

267:Deem no man happy until he passes the edo fhis life without suffering grief. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

268:All is disgust when one leaves his own nature and does things that misfit it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

269:A wise player ought to accept his throws and score them, not bewail his luck. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

270:How terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

271:I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

272:Look how men live, always precariously balanced between good and bad fortune. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

273:Oh death, death, why do you never come to me thus summoned always day by day? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

274:Time is the only test of honest men, one day is space enough to know a rogue. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

275:Tomorrow is tomorrow. Future cares have future cures, And we must mind today. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

276:If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

277:Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

278:In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

279:And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool's eye. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

280:Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

281:If to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

282:Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

283:Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

284:The eyes of men love to pluck the blossoms from the faded flowers they turn away. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

285:Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

286:It is not righteousness to outrage A brave man dead, not even though you hate him. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

287:Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

288:How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

289:To know that all is well, even if late will come to know it, is at least some gain. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

290:We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

291:A man who deals in fairness with his own, he can make manifest justice in the state. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

292:Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

293:The strongest iron, hardened in the fire, most often ends in scraps and shatterings. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

294:Even the bold will fly when they see Death drawing in close enough to end their life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

295:What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

296:A man though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

297:But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

298:For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

299:Pardon, and keep silent, for what is shameful for women must be concealed among women. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

300:The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

301:Whenever the deity contrives misfortunes for a man, he first harms their understanding. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

302:Desire looks clear from the eyes of a lovely bride: power as strong as the founded world ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

303:Ignorant men do not know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

304:Now let the weeping cease; Let no one mourn again. These things are in the hands of God. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

305:The joy that comes past hope and beyond expectation is like no other pleasure in extent. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

306:There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

307:Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

308:Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

309:A trifle is often pregnant with high importance; the prudent man neglects no circumstance. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

310:For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

311:Rather throw away that which is dearest to you, your own life, than turn away a good friend. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

312:There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

313:You cannot know a man's life before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

314:For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

315:Men whose wit has been mother of villainy once have learned from it to be evil in all things. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

316:One's own escape from troubles makes one glad; but bringing friends to trouble is hard grief. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

317:One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

318:There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

319:To me so deep a silence portends some dread event; a clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

320:Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

321:A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

322:Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

323:Knowledge must come through action. You can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

324:What fate can be worse than to know we have no one but ourselves to blame for our misfortunes! ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

325:Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

326:Of no mortal say, &

327:It has been hard, I know, my daughters, but one word alone wipes out all of the hardships: love. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

328:One thinking it is right to speak all things, whether the word is fit for speech or unutterable. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

329:Shame brings no advantage in misfortunes, for silence (of the accused) is the ally of the speaker. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

330:And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

331:Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

332:For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

333:The curse of ignorance is that man without being good or evil is nevertheless satisfied with himself ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

334:What greater ornament to a son than a father's glory, or to a father than a son's honorable conduct? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

335:And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

336:The Greeks could be a crushing bore. I recommend dressing everyone in combat fatigues or S&M gear. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

337:To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

338:A cunning fellow is man, inventive beyond all expectation, he reaches sometimes evil and sometimes good ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

339:For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

340:It is best not to have been born at all: but, if born, as quickly as possible to return whence one came. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

341:One must obey the man whom the city sets up in power in small things and in justice and in its opposite. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

342:The man from whom the joys of life have departed is living no more, but should be counted with the dead. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

343:To many men much-wandering hope comes as a boon, but to many others it is the deception of vain desires. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

344:Having advanced to the limit of boldness, child, you have stumbled against the lofty pedestal of Justice. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

345:It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

346:If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

347:Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

348:Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

349:Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

350:No yield to the dead! Never stab the fighter when he's down. Where's the glory, killing the dead twice over? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

351:They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

352:Fate has terrible power. You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

353:Men of perverse opinion do not know the excellence of what is in their hands, till someone dash it from them. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

354:Better to die, and sleep The never-waking sleep, than linger on And dare to live when the soul's life is gone. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

355:Oh child, may you be happier than your father, but in all other respects alike. And then you would not be bad. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

356:Sleep, ignorant of pain, sleep, ignorant of grief, may you come to us blowing softly, kindly, kindly come king. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

357:What is to be taught I learn; what is to be discovered I seek; what is to be prayed for I sought from the gods. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

358:For kindness begets kindness evermore, But he from whose mind fades the memory Of benefits, noble is he no more. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

359:If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

360:A man who takes pleasure in speaking continuously fools himself in thinking he is not unpleasant to those around him. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

361:Rash indeed is he who reckons on tomorrow, or happily on the days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

362:Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonorably is pardonable. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

363:Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

364:If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

365:What men have seen they know; But what shall come hereafter No man before the event can see, Nor what end waits for him. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

366:Many are the things that man seeing must understand. Not seeing, how shall he know what lies in the hand of time to come? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

367:Sleep, thou patron of mankind, Great physician of the mind Who does nor pain nor sorrow know, Sweetest balm of every woe. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

368:But the power of destiny is something awesome; neither wealth, nor Ares, nor a tower, nor dark-hulled ships might escape it. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

369:Surely, to think your own the only wisdom, and yours the only word, the only will, betrays a shallow spirit, an empty heart. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

370:The man the state has put in place must have obedient hearing to his least command when it is right, and even when it's not. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

371:All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

372:Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light and then go back quickly whence we came ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

373:There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

374:Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

375:Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

376:If you are out of trouble, watch for danger. And when you live well, then consider the most your life, lest ruin take it unawares. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

377:Dreadful is the mysterious power of fate; there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by walled city or dark, seabeaten ships. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

378:You clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed. Such natures are justly the hardest for themselves to bear. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

379:Why should man fear since chance is all in all for him, and he can clearly foreknow nothing? Best to live lightly, as one can, unthinkingly. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

380:When an oath is taken ... the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

381:Not to be born surpasses all reckoning. The next best thing by far, when one has been born is to go back as swiftly as possible whence one came. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

382:To err is common to all mankind, but having erred he is no longer reckless nor unblest who haven fallen into evil seeks a cure, nor remains unmoved. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

383:All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next - who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

384:Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

385:The shimmering night does not stay for mortals, not misfortunes, nor wealth, but in a moment it is gone, and to the turn of another comes joy and loss. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

386:Let every man in mankind's frailtyConsider his last day; and let nonePresume on his good fortune until he findLife, at his death, a memory without pain. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

387:The stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness,Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

388:But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

389:Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own, Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge Such as none other hath, when they are known, They are found shallow. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

390:It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

391:The tyrant is a child of Pride Who drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity, Until from his high crest headlong He plummets to the dust of hope. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

392:Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

393:You see how when rivers are swollen in winter those trees that yield to the flood retain their branches, but those that offer resistance perish, trunk and all. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

394:There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

395:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

396:No greater evil can a man endure Than a bad wife, nor find a greater good Than one both good and wise; and each man speaks As judging by the experience of his life. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

397:Wealth makes an ugly person beautiful to look on and an incoherent speech eloquent; and wealth alone can enjoy pleasure even in sickness and can conceal its miseries. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

398:Friend, hast thou considered the "rugged, all-nourishing earth," as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man? ~ thomas-carlyle, @wisdomtrove

399:Surely there never was so evil a thing as money, which maketh cities into ruinous heaps, and banisheth men from their houses, and turneth their thoughts from good unto evil. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

400:Let be the future: mind the present need and leave the rest to whom the rest concerns ... present tasks claim our care: the ordering of the future rests where it should rest. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

401:Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

402:Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

403:The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

404:Yet I pity the poor wretch, though he's my enemy. He's yoked to an evil delusion, but the same fate could be mine. I see clearly: we who live are all phantoms, fleeing shadows. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

405:Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear&

406:Heap up great wealth in your house, if you wish, and live as a tyrant, but, if the enjoyment of these things be lacking, I would not buy the rest for the shadow of smoke as against happiness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

407:It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

408:Each say following another, either hastening or putting off our death&

409:Ah, race of mortal men, How as a thing of nought I count ye, though ye live; For who is there of men That more of blessing knows, Than just a little while To seem to prosper well, And, having seemed, to fall? ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

410:The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

411:Henceforth ye may thieve with better knowledge whence lucre should be won, and learn that it is not well to love gain from every source. For thou wilt find that ill-gotten pelf brings more men to ruin than to weal. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

412:I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man than that I am. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

413:Do not believe that you alone can be right.The man who thinks that,The man who maintains that only he has the powerTo reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul-A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

414:For every nation that lives peaceably, there will be many others to grow hard and push their arrogance to extremes; the gods attend to these things slowly. But they attend to those who put off God and turn to madness. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

415:No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

416:I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him either. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

417:Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day's dusk, Trembles before your glory. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

418:Man's highest blessedness, In wisdom chiefly stands; And in the things that touch upon the Gods, &

419:We should not speak of one that prospers well As happy, till his life have run its course, And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift In shortest time has oft laid low the state Of one full rich in great prosperity, When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

420:I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager. ~ edgar-allan-poe, @wisdomtrove

421:When ice appears out of doors, and boys seize it up while it is solid, at first they experience new pleasures. But in the end their pride will not agree to let it go, but their acquisition is not good for them if it stays in their hands. In the same way an identical desire drives lovers to act and not to act. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

422:When he endures nothing but endless miseries&

423:Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a genuine work of art, contains the totality. Just as the works of Apelles and Sophocles, if Raphael and Shakespeare had known them, should not have appeared to them as mere preliminary exercises for their own work, but rather as a kindred force of the spirit, so, too reason cannot find in its own earlier forms mere useful preliminary exercises for itself. ~ georg-wilhelm-friedrich-hegel, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:Time is a kindly God. ~ Sophocles,

2:Tomorrow is tomorrow. ~ Sophocles,

3:Who seeks shall find. ~ Sophocles,

4:A lie never grows old. ~ Sophocles,

5:All men make mistakes. ~ Sophocles,

6:In season, all is good. ~ Sophocles,

7:The truth is ever best. ~ Sophocles,

8:Better to die, and sleep ~ Sophocles,

9:The only crime is pride. ~ Sophocles,

10:Alas for the seed of man. ~ Sophocles,

11:The end excuses any evil. ~ Sophocles,

12:Evil counsel travels fast. ~ Sophocles,

13:To revive sorrow is cruel. ~ Sophocles,

14:I live in a place of tears. ~ Sophocles,

15:Ill-gotten gains work evil. ~ Sophocles,

16:A lie never lives to be old. ~ Sophocles,

17:By words the mind is winged. ~ Sophocles,

18:No lie ever reaches old age. ~ Sophocles,

19:The dead alone feel no pain. ~ Sophocles,

20:Wisdom outweighs any wealth. ~ Sophocles,

21:But life takes sudden twists. ~ Sophocles,

22:Despair often breeds disease. ~ Sophocles,

23:Leave me to my own absurdity. ~ Sophocles,

24:The good befriend themselves. ~ Sophocles,

25:Every way Leads but astray, ~ Sophocles,

26:Stranger in a strange country. ~ Sophocles,

27:Thou shalt not ration justice. ~ Sophocles,

28:He has the thousand-yard stare. ~ Sophocles,

29:Success is dependant on effort. ~ Sophocles,

30:Success is dependent on effort. ~ Sophocles,

31:Success is the reward for toil. ~ Sophocles,

32:The dead clay makes no protest. ~ Sophocles,

33:The tyrant is a child of pride. ~ Sophocles,

34:Without labor nothing prospers. ~ Sophocles,

35:Great Time makes all things dim. ~ Sophocles,

36:La insolencia produce al tirano. ~ Sophocles,

37:Truth is always straightforward. ~ Sophocles,

38:Evil gains work their punishment. ~ Sophocles,

39:I am at the end. I exist no more. ~ Sophocles,

40:If you try to cure evil with evil ~ Sophocles,

41:I write a woman's oaths in water. ~ Sophocles,

42:Kids are anchors of mothers' life ~ Sophocles,

43:Kindness gives birth to kindness. ~ Sophocles,

44:Love, you mock us for your sport. ~ Sophocles,

45:Silence is an ornament for women. ~ Sophocles,

46:Trust dies but mistrust blossoms. ~ Sophocles,

47:Wise thinkers prevail everywhere. ~ Sophocles,

48:You're in love with impossibility ~ Sophocles,

49:Be a thrifty steward of thy goods. ~ Sophocles,

50:Best to live lightly, unthinkingly ~ Sophocles,

51:Everything is ideal to its parent. ~ Sophocles,

52:Gentle time will heal our sorrows. ~ Sophocles,

53:It is not righteousness to outrage ~ Sophocles,

54:Kindness begets kindness evermore. ~ Sophocles,

55:Let a man nobly live or nobly die. ~ Sophocles,

56:Nobody loves life like an old man. ~ Sophocles,

57:No enemy is worse than bad advice. ~ Sophocles,

58:Numberless are the world's wonders ~ Sophocles,

59:You are a woman marked for sorrow. ~ Sophocles,

60:You chose to live, I chose to die. ~ Sophocles,

61:Best to live lightly, unthinkingly. ~ Sophocles,

62:Even a poor man can receive honors. ~ Sophocles,

63:Knowledge must come through action. ~ Sophocles,

64:This is Electra. Brilliant no more. ~ Sophocles,

65:Unwanted favours gain no gratitude. ~ Sophocles,

66:What men have seen they know. . . . ~ Sophocles,

67:God's dice always have a lucky roll. ~ Sophocles,

68:I will not live by rules like those. ~ Sophocles,

69:Laziness is the mother of all evils. ~ Sophocles,

70:No one who errs unwillingly is evil. ~ Sophocles,

71:Oh love, you break on me like light! ~ Sophocles,

72:The gods love those of ordered soul. ~ Sophocles,

73:Trouble brings trouble upon trouble. ~ Sophocles,

74:Ugly deeds are taught by ugly deeds. ~ Sophocles,

75:Unnatural silence signifies no good. ~ Sophocles,

76:Better not to exist than live basely. ~ Sophocles,

77:False words do not bring forth fruit. ~ Sophocles,

78:For the dead there are no more toils. ~ Sophocles,

79:Fortune never helps the fainthearted. ~ Sophocles,

80:Ignorance is a tough evil to conquer. ~ Sophocles,

81:Nobody likes the bringer of bad news. ~ Sophocles,

82:Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. ~ Sophocles,

83:Reason is God's crowning gift to man. ~ Sophocles,

84:Stubbornness and stupidity are twins. ~ Sophocles,

85:The dice of Zeus always fall luckily. ~ Sophocles,

86:There is no success without hardship. ~ Sophocles,

87:For kindness begets kindness evermore, ~ Sophocles,

88:It is best to live however one can be. ~ Sophocles,

89:Kindness will always attract kindness. ~ Sophocles,

90:No honest man will argue on every side ~ Sophocles,

91:Opportunity has power over all things. ~ Sophocles,

92:There is no greater evil than anarchy. ~ Sophocles,

93:To me no profitable speech sounds ill. ~ Sophocles,

94:True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills ~ Sophocles,

95:A fearful man is always hearing things. ~ Sophocles,

96:Always desire to learn something useful ~ Sophocles,

97:A man is nothing but breath and shadow. ~ Sophocles,

98:A mind at peace does not engender wars. ~ Sophocles,

99:An enemy's gift is ruinous and no gift. ~ Sophocles,

100:A State for one man is no State at all. ~ Sophocles,

101:Brave hearts do not back down back off. ~ Sophocles,

102:Death the deliverer freeth all at last. ~ Sophocles,

103:I don't even exist—I'm no one. Nothing. ~ Sophocles,

104:It is God's giving if we laugh or weep. ~ Sophocles,

105:No oath can be too binding for a lover. ~ Sophocles,

106:Obedience to authority saves many skins ~ Sophocles,

107:Silence gives the proper grace to women ~ Sophocles,

108:To live with glory, or with glory die, ~ Sophocles,

109:Truth is always the strongest argument. ~ Sophocles,

110:Weep not, everything must have its day. ~ Sophocles,

111:What an ugly, loveless life for a girl. ~ Sophocles,

112:What woe is lacking to my tale of woes? ~ Sophocles,

113:What you can't enforce, do not command. ~ Sophocles,

114:When trouble ends even troubles please. ~ Sophocles,

115:A human being is only breath and shadow. ~ Sophocles,

116:Always desire to learn something useful. ~ Sophocles,

117:A man growing old becomes a child again. ~ Sophocles,

118:Compassion limits even the power of God. ~ Sophocles,

119:Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing. ~ Sophocles,

120:How dangerous can false reasoning prove! ~ Sophocles,

121:It made our hair stand up in panic fear. ~ Sophocles,

122:Much wisdom often goes with fewer words. ~ Sophocles,

123:Not even Ares battles against necessity. ~ Sophocles,

124:Only a fool could be in love with death. ~ Sophocles,

125:O waste no fears on me; look to thyself. ~ Sophocles,

126:Remember, nothing succeeds without toil. ~ Sophocles,

127:[S]ilence supports the accuser’s charge? ~ Sophocles,

128:Success, remember is the reward of toil. ~ Sophocles,

129:Truth hates delay. (Veritas odit moras.) ~ Sophocles,

130:What you cannot enforce, do not command! ~ Sophocles,

131:A friend in word is never friend of mine. ~ Sophocles,

132:Always desire to learn something useful. ~ Sophocles,

133:But death was a wind too strong for that. ~ Sophocles,

134:By God, I'll have more booty in a moment. ~ Sophocles,

135:Jumalat eivät voi tehdä mitä eivät tahdo. ~ Sophocles,

136:Man's worst ill is stubbornness of heart. ~ Sophocles,

137:Ne da sovražim – da ljubim, sem na svetu. ~ Sophocles,

138:Nobody likes the man who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles,

139:Not even old age knows how to love death. ~ Sophocles,

140:Reason is God's crowning gift to a man... ~ Sophocles,

141:The blind man cannot move without a guide ~ Sophocles,

142:The oaths of a woman I inscribe on water. ~ Sophocles,

143:The rewards of virtue alone abide secure. ~ Sophocles,

144:To him who is afraid, everything rustles. ~ Sophocles,

145:Alas! How sad when reasoners reason wrong. ~ Sophocles,

146:A short saying often contains much wisdom. ~ Sophocles,

147:Enemies gifts are no gifts and do no good. ~ Sophocles,

148:Gratitude to gratitude always gives birth. ~ Sophocles,

149:It is hope that maintains most of mankind. ~ Sophocles,

150:It is my nature to join in love, not hate. ~ Sophocles,

151:It is terrible to speak well and be wrong. ~ Sophocles,

152:Kindness is ever the begetter of kindness. ~ Sophocles,

153:Love is like ice in the hands of children. ~ Sophocles,

154:Not knowing anything is the sweetest life. ~ Sophocles,

155:Not to be born is, past all prizing, best. ~ Sophocles,

156:No wound is worse than counterfeited love. ~ Sophocles,

157:Sleep's the only medicine that gives ease. ~ Sophocles,

158:The dead alone can feel no touch of spite. ~ Sophocles,

159:The happiest life is to be without thought ~ Sophocles,

160:Thy life is safe while any god saves mine. ~ Sophocles,

161:To women silence gives their proper grace. ~ Sophocles,

162:What do I care for life when you are dead? ~ Sophocles,

163:You would rouse to anger a heart of stone. ~ Sophocles,

164:For no one loves the bearer of bad tidings. ~ Sophocles,

165:Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver. ~ Sophocles,

166:I cannot love a friend whose love is words. ~ Sophocles,

167:I was not born to share the hate, but love. ~ Sophocles,

168:Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love? ~ Sophocles,

169:No treaty is ever an impediment to a cheat. ~ Sophocles,

170:The truth is always the strongest argument. ~ Sophocles,

171:Those swift to think are not always secure. ~ Sophocles,

172:Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong. ~ Sophocles,

173:War loves to seek its victims in the young. ~ Sophocles,

174:Afterthought makes the first resolve a liar. ~ Sophocles,

175:Brave hearts do not back down they back off. ~ Sophocles,

176:Children are the anchors of a mother's life. ~ Sophocles,

177:Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act. ~ Sophocles,

178:How sad when those who reason, reason wrong. ~ Sophocles,

179:If you are out of trouble, watch for danger. ~ Sophocles,

180:In a just cause it is right to be confident. ~ Sophocles,

181:It's no city at all, owned by one man alone. ~ Sophocles,

182:None love the messenger who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles,

183:No speech can stain what is noble by nature. ~ Sophocles,

184:Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. ~ Sophocles,

185:Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand. ~ Sophocles,

186:Thou wouldst make a good monarch of a desert ~ Sophocles,

187:To the man who is afraid everything rustles. ~ Sophocles,

188:What people believe prevails over the truth. ~ Sophocles,

189:You can kill a man but you cant kill a idea. ~ Sophocles,

190:I know I please where I must please the most. ~ Sophocles,

191:I pleasure those whom I would liefest please. ~ Sophocles,

192:Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud. ~ Sophocles,

193:Strike at a great man, and you will not miss. ~ Sophocles,

194:Woman, to women silence is the best ornament. ~ Sophocles,

195:All is disgust when one leaves his own nature ~ Sophocles,

196:All my care is you, and all my pleasure yours. ~ Sophocles,

197:A prudent man should neglect no circumstances. ~ Sophocles,

198:Art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes? ~ Sophocles,

199:A sight to touch e’en hatred’s self with pity. ~ Sophocles,

200:For most men friendship is a faithless harbor. ~ Sophocles,

201:If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free. ~ Sophocles,

202:If they are just, they are better than clever. ~ Sophocles,

203:In a just cause the weak will beat the strong! ~ Sophocles,

204:In a just cause the weak will beat the strong. ~ Sophocles,

205:I need one food: I must not violate Elektra ~ Sophocles,

206:No man loves life like him that's growing old. ~ Sophocles,

207:Oed. Must I not fear my mother’s marriage-bed? ~ Sophocles,

208:There is a time when even justice brings harm. ~ Sophocles,

209:There is nothing more hateful than bad advice. ~ Sophocles,

210:To live without evil belongs only to the gods. ~ Sophocles,

211:You're dreaming, girl, lost in a moving dream. ~ Sophocles,

212:You win the victory when you yield to friends. ~ Sophocles,

213:Foolishness is indeed the sister of wickedness. ~ Sophocles,

214:In a just cause, the weak overcome the strong”. ~ Sophocles,

215:No one loves the messenger who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles,

216:Remember there is no success without hard work. ~ Sophocles,

217:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom. ~ Sophocles,

218:Thou lov'st to speak in riddles and dark words. ~ Sophocles,

219:Time, which sees all things, has found you out. ~ Sophocles,

220:Whom Jupiter would destroy he first drives mad. ~ Sophocles,

221:Wisdom is the most important part of happiness. ~ Sophocles,

222:A state is not a state if it belongs to one man. ~ Sophocles,

223:Fortune is not on the side of the faint-hearted. ~ Sophocles,

224:Goodbye to the sun that shines for me no longer. ~ Sophocles,

225:Goodbye to the sun that shines for me no longer; ~ Sophocles,

226:I recommend...bread, meat, vegetables, and beer. ~ Sophocles,

227:It is always fair sailing, when you escape evil. ~ Sophocles,

228:Niin monet miehet ovat naineet unissaan äitiään. ~ Sophocles,

229:Opportunity is the best captain of all endeavor. ~ Sophocles,

230:To err from the right path is common to mankind. ~ Sophocles,

231:To the person who is afraid, everything rustles. ~ Sophocles,

232:What greater wound is there than a false friend? ~ Sophocles,

233:When I do not understand, I like to say nothing. ~ Sophocles,

234:When you can prove me wrong, then call me blind. ~ Sophocles,

235:Is anyone in all the world safe from unhappiness? ~ Sophocles,

236:Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always. ~ Sophocles,

237:Of happiness the chiefest part IS a wise heart ~ Sophocles,

238:Old age and the passage of time teach all things. ~ Sophocles,

239:Profit is sweet, even if it comes from deception. ~ Sophocles,

240:The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. ~ Sophocles,

241:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom... ~ Sophocles,

242:You should not consider a man's age but his acts. ~ Sophocles,

243:For Time calls only once, and that determines all. ~ Sophocles,

244:I am free! for I have in me the strength of truth. ~ Sophocles,

245:I ask this one thing: let me go mad in my own way. ~ Sophocles,

246:Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies? ~ Sophocles,

247:Pero a veces también la justicia aporta desgracia. ~ Sophocles,

248:There is no such thing as the old age of the wise. ~ Sophocles,

249:The truth is what I cherish and that's my strength ~ Sophocles,

250:When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed. ~ Sophocles,

251:A day lays low and lifts up again all human things. ~ Sophocles,

252:As sight is in the eye, so is the mind in the soul! ~ Sophocles,

253:For God hates utterly the bray of bragging tongues. ~ Sophocles,

254:Friendship is a tension. It makes delicate demands. ~ Sophocles,

255:Hope has often caused the love of gain to ruin men. ~ Sophocles,

256:I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth. ~ Sophocles,

257:No one longs to live more than someone growing old. ~ Sophocles,

258:Opinions have greater power than strength of hands. ~ Sophocles,

259:To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task. ~ Sophocles,

260:To be doing good deeds is man’s most glorious task. ~ Sophocles,

261:A city which belongs to just one man is no true city ~ Sophocles,

262:Chance never helps those who do not help themselves. ~ Sophocles,

263:Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life. ~ Sophocles,

264:Heaven never helps the man who will not help himself ~ Sophocles,

265:In his den the monster keep, Giver of eternal sleep. ~ Sophocles,

266:It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not. ~ Sophocles,

267:It's impossible to speak what it is not noble to do. ~ Sophocles,

268:Now is no time to delay. This is the edge of action. ~ Sophocles,

269:The pain we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all. ~ Sophocles,

270:Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure. ~ Sophocles,

271:We begin in the dark and birth is the death of us ~ Sophocles,

272:Zeus detests above all the boasts of a proud tongue. ~ Sophocles,

273:How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong! ~ Sophocles,

274:I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone. ~ Sophocles,

275:Laws can never be enforced unless fear supports them. ~ Sophocles,

276:Many the wonders but nothing walks stranger than man. ~ Sophocles,

277:The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all. ~ Sophocles,

278:Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man ~ Sophocles,

279:As they say of the blind, Sounds are the things I see. ~ Sophocles,

280:Even from the first it is meek to seek the impossible. ~ Sophocles,

281:Every wind is fare when we are flying from misfortune. ~ Sophocles,

282:I will suffer nothing as great as death without glory. ~ Sophocles,

283:Of all ill, Self-chosen sorrows are the worst to bear. ~ Sophocles,

284:Sister - if all this is true, what could I do or undo? ~ Sophocles,

285:There are times when even justice brings harm with it. ~ Sophocles,

286:There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. ~ Sophocles,

287:Troubles hurt the most when they prove self-inflicted. ~ Sophocles,

288:I have been a stranger here in my own land: All my life ~ Sophocles,

289:It is better not to live at all than to live disgraced. ~ Sophocles,

290:I was born to join in love, not hate--that is my nature ~ Sophocles,

291:Men's minds are given to change in hate and friendship. ~ Sophocles,

292:Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another. ~ Sophocles,

293:Nobly to live, or else nobly to die,Befits proud birth. ~ Sophocles,

294:ODYSSEUS             I cannot recommend a rigid spirit. ~ Sophocles,

295:Think not that your word and yours alone must be right. ~ Sophocles,

296:To Never Have been born may be the greatest boon of all ~ Sophocles,

297:Wild as you are, all that love you must love you still. ~ Sophocles,

298:A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick. ~ Sophocles,

299:If we always helped one another, no one would need luck. ~ Sophocles,

300:Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse. ~ Sophocles,

301:To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all. ~ Sophocles,

302:Wonders are many ... but none is more wonderful than man ~ Sophocles,

303:...count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last. ~ Sophocles,

304:It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune. ~ Sophocles,

305:I was born to join in love, not hate - that is my nature. ~ Sophocles,

306:Nothing great enters the life of mortals without a curse. ~ Sophocles,

307:Of all human ills, greatest is fortune's wayward tyranny. ~ Sophocles,

308:The Most beautiful human deed, is to be useful to others. ~ Sophocles,

309:The weak can defeat the strong in a case as just as mine. ~ Sophocles,

310:When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed. ~ Sophocles,

311:Don't you know that silence supports the accuser's charge? ~ Sophocles,

312:In matters where I have no cognizance I hold my tongue. ~ Sophocles,

313:IOKASTE. So ging das Gerücht und ist noch nicht verstummt. ~ Sophocles,

314:The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most most of all. ~ Sophocles,

315:There is a point beyond which even justice becomes unjust. ~ Sophocles,

316:To speak much is one thing; to speak to the point another! ~ Sophocles,

317:Do not fear for me. Make straight your own path to destiny. ~ Sophocles,

318:God will not punish the man Who makes return for an injury. ~ Sophocles,

319:I was born to join in love, not hate— that is my nature. ~ Sophocles,

320:Last night was a night of bad dreams and ambiguous visions. ~ Sophocles,

321:Not long now: the blazing dream of my head is crawling out. ~ Sophocles,

322:Often have brief words laid men low and then raise them up. ~ Sophocles,

323:To those who err in judgment, not in will, anger is gentle. ~ Sophocles,

324:Whatever God has brought about Is to be borne with courage. ~ Sophocles,

325:When men have killed joy, I do not believe they still live. ~ Sophocles,

326:If I am young, then you should look not to age but to deeds. ~ Sophocles,

327:It is the task of a good man to help those in misfortune ~ Sophocles,

328:I would prefer even to fail with honor than win by cheating. ~ Sophocles,

329:Los más inflexibles pensamientos son los más prestos a caer. ~ Sophocles,

330:The golden eye of justice sees, and requites the unjust man. ~ Sophocles,

331:The world is full of marvels and the greatest marvel is man. ~ Sophocles,

332:To never have been born would be the greatests boon of all ! ~ Sophocles,

333:War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always. ~ Sophocles,

334:Ymmärrä, ettei yksikään kuolevaisista osaa nähdä silmillään. ~ Sophocles,

335:Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last. ~ Sophocles,

336:It is the dead, not the living, who make the longest demands. ~ Sophocles,

337:Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always. — Sophocles ~ Anonymous,

338:KREON. Ich gehe, von dir verkannt, gerecht jedoch vor diesen. ~ Sophocles,

339:Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. ~ Sophocles,

340:You don't know what kind of day you will have, until evening. ~ Sophocles,

341:A word does not frighten the man who, in acting feels no fear. ~ Sophocles,

342:Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near. ~ Sophocles,

343:Many things are formidable, and none more formidable than man. ~ Sophocles,

344:Of all vile things current on earth, none is so vile as money. ~ Sophocles,

345:The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past. ~ Sophocles,

346:Though a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn. ~ Sophocles,

347:Thou seek'st to part us, wrapping in soft words Hard thoughts. ~ Sophocles,

348:What is God singing in his profound Delphi of gold and shadow? ~ Sophocles,

349:When people fall in deep distress, their native sense departs. ~ Sophocles,

350:Astronomy? Impossible to understand and madness to investigate. ~ Sophocles,

351:It becomes one, while exempt from woes, to look to the dangers. ~ Sophocles,

352:It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong. ~ Sophocles,

353:It's little I ask, and get still less, but quite enough for me. ~ Sophocles,

354:Not all things are to be discovered; many are better concealed. ~ Sophocles,

355:Those griefs smart most which are seen to be of our own choice. ~ Sophocles,

356:Ah! terrible is knowledge to the man Whom knowledge profits not. ~ Sophocles,

357:All my love gone for nothing. Days of my love, years of my love. ~ Sophocles,

358:Look and you will find it - what is unsought will go undetected. ~ Sophocles,

359:Many are the wonders of the world, and none so wonderful as man. ~ Sophocles,

360:The gods plant reason in mankind, of all good gifts the highest. ~ Sophocles,

361:There is no greater evil for men than the constraint of fortune. ~ Sophocles,

362:The sleep of a sick man has keen eyes. It is a sleep unsleeping. ~ Sophocles,

363:Ungeheuer ist vieles, doch nichts ist ungeheurer als der Mensch. ~ Sophocles,

364:When misfortune comes, The wisest even lose their mother wit ~ Sophocles,

365:A fool cannot be an actor, though an actor may act a fool's part. ~ Sophocles,

366:Commit cruelty on a person long enough and the mind begins to go. ~ Sophocles,

367:El que no tiembla ante una acción, menos se espanta por palabras. ~ Sophocles,

368:For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, is full of misery ~ Sophocles,

369:..."for I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than to the living: ~ Sophocles,

370:For even bold natures flee, whenever they see Hades close to life. ~ Sophocles,

371:From suffering that has been/ Decreed no man will ever find escape ~ Sophocles,

372:Hide nothing, for time, which sees all and hears all, exposes all. ~ Sophocles,

373:Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always. ~ Sophocles,

374:More men come to doom through dirty profits than are kept by them. ~ Sophocles,

375:The good leader repeats the good news, keeps the worst to himself. ~ Sophocles,

376:We long to have again the vanished past, in spite of all its pain. ~ Sophocles,

377:All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure evil with evil. ~ Sophocles,

378:And if you find I've lied, from this day on call the prophet blind. ~ Sophocles,

379:Even the stout of heart shrink when they see the approach of death. ~ Sophocles,

380:In his autumn before the winter comes mans last mad surge of youth. ~ Sophocles,

381:It's perfect justice: natures like yours are hardest on themselves. ~ Sophocles,

382:ÖDIPUS. Nun denn, von neuem werd ich, abermals, das Dunkel lichten. ~ Sophocles,

383:To me, excessive silence seems to bode as ill as too much shouting. ~ Sophocles,

384:And now that Reason’s light returns, New sorrow in his spirit burns. ~ Sophocles,

385:Children are the anchors of a mother’s life. —SOPHOCLES, Phaedra, ~ Jodi Picoult,

386:I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect. ~ Sophocles,

387:Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man ~ Sophocles,

388:One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been. ~ Sophocles,

389:We must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day had been. ~ Sophocles,

390:Whoever gets up and comes to grips with Love like a boxer is a fool. ~ Sophocles,

391:Why melt your life away in mourning? Why let grief eat you alive? ~ Sophocles,

392:Alas! how terrible it is to know, Where no good comes of knowing! ~ Sophocles,

393:But if I am young, thou shouldest look to my merits, not to my years. ~ Sophocles,

394:He who throws away a friend is as bad as he who throws away his life. ~ Sophocles,

395:If I am Sophocles, I am not mad; and if I am mad, I am not Sophocles. ~ Sophocles,

396:Niet om te haten, maar om lief te hebben ben ik op de wereld gekomen. ~ Sophocles,

397:Numberless are the world's wonders, but none More wonderful than man. ~ Sophocles,

398:One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been. ~ Sophocles,

399:You are nothing at all. Just a crack where the light slipped through. ~ Sophocles,

400:Each one of us must live the life God gives him; it cannot be shirked. ~ Sophocles,

401:It can be no dishonor to learn from others when they speak good sense. ~ Sophocles,

402:Time, seeing all things, has found You out as you did not foresee. ~ Sophocles,

403:To throw away an honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away ~ Sophocles,

404:To throw awayan honest friend is, as it were, to throw your life away. ~ Sophocles,

405:Whoever has a keen eye for profits, is blind in relation to his craft. ~ Sophocles,

406:All is disgust when a man leaves his own nature and does what is unfit. ~ Sophocles,

407:A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist ~ Sophocles,

408:Careful! There is war in women too, as you know by experience, I think. ~ Sophocles,

409:Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot. ~ Sophocles,

410:El que no tiene temor ante los hechos tampoco tiene miedo a la palabra. ~ Sophocles,

411:How terrible is wisdom, when it brings no profit to the man that's wise ~ Sophocles,

412:If one begins all deeds well, it is likely that they will end well too. ~ Sophocles,

413:It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being good. ~ Sophocles,

414:it reels under a wild storm of blood, wave after wave battering Thebes. ~ Sophocles,

415:Numberless are the worlds wonders, but none more wonderful than man.    ~ Sophocles,

416:There is no greater evil than men's failure to consult and to consider. ~ Sophocles,

417:What a splendid king you'd make of a desert island - you and you alone. ~ Sophocles,

418:a man be wise it is no shame for him to live and learn.’ Sophocles. ~ Kasey Michaels,

419:Count no mortal fortunate till he has departed this life free from pain. ~ Sophocles,

420:It's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong. ~ Sophocles,

421:I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely. ~ Sophocles,

422:Never honor the gods in one breath and take the gods for fools the next. ~ Sophocles,

423:One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~ Sophocles,

424:Si tratas de curar la maldad con maldad, sumarás más dolor a tu destino. ~ Sophocles,

425:The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter. ~ Sophocles,

426:Wisdom is a dreadful thing when it brings no knowledge to its possessor. ~ Sophocles,

427:You must remember that no one lives a life free from pain and suffering. ~ Sophocles,

428:You won't listen to reason at all, will you?" "No. My mind is my own. ~ Sophocles,

429:Comply, and fear not, for my load of woe Is incommunicable to all but me. ~ Sophocles,

430:Enough words! The criminals are escaping, we the victims, we stand still. ~ Sophocles,

431:How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in truth! ~ Sophocles,

432:If you try to cure evil with evil you will add more pain to your fate. ~ Sophocles,

433:A broad-backed ox can be driven straight on his road even by a small goad. ~ Sophocles,

434:All a man's affairs become diseased when he wishes to cure evils by evils. ~ Sophocles,

435:Oblivion - what a blessing...for the mind to dwell a world away from pain. ~ Sophocles,

436:One word frees us from all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~ Sophocles,

437:Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all. ~ Sophocles,

438:It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth. ~ Sophocles,

439:It was my care to make my life illustrious not by words more than by deeds. ~ Sophocles,

440:Never since that time has this house got itself clear of rawblood butchery. ~ Sophocles,

441:Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong. ~ Sophocles,

442:Show me the man who keeps his house in hand, He's fit for public authority. ~ Sophocles,

443:Sophocles said he drew men as they ought to be, and Euripides as they were. ~ Aristotle,

444:A wise doctor does not mutter incantations over a sore that needs the knife. ~ Sophocles,

445:But when a god             strikes harm, a worse man often foils his better. ~ Sophocles,

446:Deem no man happy until he passes the edo fhis life without suffering grief. ~ Sophocles,

447:De los sufrimientos, los que más afligen, son los que uno mismo ha escogido. ~ Sophocles,

448:How terrible-- to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees! ~ Sophocles,

449:It's not through words but actions that I want to set the luster on my life. ~ Sophocles,

450:Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as they are. ~ Aristotle,

451:There is much that is strange, but nothing that surpasses man in strangeness ~ Sophocles,

452:They see you and me: they know my pain's a fact, my revenge is empty breath. ~ Sophocles,

453:A wise player ought to accept his throws and score them, not bewail his luck. ~ Sophocles,

454:How terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it. ~ Sophocles,

455:I see that all of us who live are nothing but images or insubstantial shadow. ~ Sophocles,

456:Look how men live, always precariously balanced between good and bad fortune. ~ Sophocles,

457:Oh death, death, why do you never come to me thus summoned always day by day? ~ Sophocles,

458:Time is the only test of honest men, one day is space enough to know a rogue. ~ Sophocles,

459:Electra, grieving for death, for her father, as a nightingale grieving always. ~ Sophocles,

460:If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them. ~ Sophocles,

461:Nunca me verás a mí mirar ni a derecha ni a izquierda por causa de un augurio. ~ Sophocles,

462:Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong. ~ Sophocles,

463:One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love. ~ Sophocles,

464:Show me the man who keeps his house in hand, He's fit for public authority. ~ Sophocles,

465:Whoever thinks his friend more important than his country, I rate him nowhere. ~ Sophocles,

466:In darkness one may be ashamed of what one does, without the shame of disgrace. ~ Sophocles,

467:The penalty is death: yet hope of gain Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes. ~ Sophocles,

468:And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool's eye. ~ Sophocles,

469:Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly. ~ Sophocles,

470:If to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool. ~ Sophocles,

471:Inviolable, untrod; goddesses, Dread brood of Earth and Darkness, here abide. ~ Sophocles,

472:...Time, sweeping through its rounds, gives birth to infinite nights and days... ~ Sophocles,

473:Whoever lives among many evils just as I, how can dying not be a source of gain? ~ Sophocles,

474:Children are the anchors of a mother’s life. —SOPHOCLES, Phaedra, fragment 612 ~ Jodi Picoult,

475:How dreadful the knowledge of the truth can be When there’s no help in truth. ~ Sophocles,

476:I well believe it, to unwilling ears; None love the messenger who brings bad news ~ Sophocles,

477:Reverence does not die with mortals, nor does it perish whether they live or die. ~ Sophocles,

478:Sophocles quote—“Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse”—to ~ Jocelyn K Glei,

479:The eyes of men love to pluck the blossoms from the faded flowers they turn away. ~ Sophocles,

480:Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day. ~ Sophocles,

481:Whatever is sought for can be caught, you know, whatever is neglected slips away. ~ Sophocles,

482:You'll never find a man on Earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate. ~ Sophocles,

483:But when a god sends harm, no man can sidestep it, no matter how strong he may be. ~ Sophocles,

484:For time alone shews a man's honesty, But in one day you may discern his guilt. ~ Sophocles,

485:It is not righteousness to outrage A brave man dead, not even though you hate him. ~ Sophocles,

486:Remember: women may not be too weak To strike a blow. -Sophocles, Electra ~ Anne Fortier,

487:Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to. ~ Sophocles,

488:How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time. ~ Sophocles,

489:There is a kind of excellence in me and you—born in us—and it cannot live in shame. ~ Sophocles,

490:To know that all is well, even if late will come to know it, is at least some gain. ~ Sophocles,

491:Tomorrow is tomorrow. Future cares have future cures, And we must mind today. ~ Sophocles,

492:We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead. ~ Sophocles,

493:A man who deals in fairness with his own, he can make manifest justice in the state. ~ Sophocles,

494:And if to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool. ~ Sophocles,

495:I know that you are deathly sick; and yet, sick as you are, not one is as sick as I. ~ Sophocles,

496:It is the dead Not the living, who make the longest demands: We die for ever... ~ Sophocles,

497:Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice. ~ Sophocles,

498:The strongest iron, hardened in the fire, most often ends in scraps and shatterings. ~ Sophocles,

499:Even the bold will fly when they see Death drawing in close enough to end their life. ~ Sophocles,

500:Invited, not inflicted; of all wounds, those that seem willful are the worst to bear. ~ Sophocles,

501:It is not right if I am wrong. But if I am young, and right, what does my age matter? ~ Sophocles,

502:King as thou art, free speech at least is mine. To make reply; in this I am thy peer. ~ Sophocles,

503:No man, my lord, should make a vow, for if He ever swears he will not do a thing. ~ Sophocles,

504:What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence? ~ Sophocles,

505:Yes it will be a grace if I die. To exist is pain. Life is no desire of mine anymore. ~ Sophocles,

506:A man though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind. ~ Sophocles,

507:And instead my beloved, luck sent you back to me colder than ashes, later than shadow. ~ Sophocles,

508:But this is a true saying among men: the gifts of enemies are no gifts and profitless. ~ Sophocles,

509:For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams. ~ Sophocles,

510:Long have we lived in shadows and shuddering: today I think our future is opening out. ~ Sophocles,

511:No hagas nada en secreto, porque el tiempo lo ve todo y lo oye todo, y lo revela todo. ~ Sophocles,

512:OD: σὺ οὔτε φωνεῖς οὔτε δρασείεις σοφά. NE: ἀλλ‘ εἰ δίκαια, τῶν σοφῶν κρείσσω τάδε. ~ Sophocles,

513:Pardon, and keep silent, for what is shameful for women must be concealed among women. ~ Sophocles,

514:The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities. ~ Sophocles,

515:A man, though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind. ~ Sophocles,

516:I am determined that never, if I can help it, Shall evil triumph over good." - Creon ~ Sophocles,

517:Whenever the deity contrives misfortunes for a man, he first harms their understanding. ~ Sophocles,

518:All concerns of men go wrong when they wish to cure with evil. -SOPHOCLES ~ Jonathan Maberry,

519:Desire looks clear from the eyes of a lovely bride: power as strong as the founded world ~ Sophocles,

520:Ignorant men do not know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away. ~ Sophocles,

521:I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, IS no less ominous than excessive grief. ~ Sophocles,

522:Now let the weeping cease; Let no one mourn again. These things are in the hands of God. ~ Sophocles,

523:The joy that comes past hope and beyond expectation is like no other pleasure in extent. ~ Sophocles,

524:There is some pleasure even in words, when they bring forgetfulness of present miseries. ~ Sophocles,

525:There's no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by. ~ Sophocles,

526:To a terrible place which men’s ears             may not hear of, nor their eyes see it. ~ Sophocles,

527:Men of ill judgment ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it. ~ Sophocles,

528:Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution. ~ Sophocles,

529:Of no mortal say, 'That man is happy,' till vexed by no grievous ill he pass Life's goal. ~ Sophocles,

530:The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.    ~ Sophocles,

531:A man's anger can never age and fade away, not until he dies. The dead alone feel no pain. ~ Sophocles,

532:A trifle is often pregnant with high importance; the prudent man neglects no circumstance. ~ Sophocles,

533:El silencio así, en demasía, me parece un exceso gravoso, tanto como el griterío en balde. ~ Sophocles,

534:Tis better not to be than to vilely live." "Greedy of gain is every barbarous tribe. ~ Sophocles,

535:For e'en the bravest spirits run away When they perceive death pressing on life's heels. ~ Sophocles,

536:For whoever knows how to return a kindness he has received must be a friend above all price. ~ Sophocles,

537:Good advice, if there's any good in suffering. Quickest is best when trouble blocks the way. ~ Sophocles,

538:Rather throw away that which is dearest to you, your own life, than turn away a good friend. ~ Sophocles,

539:There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled? ~ Sophocles,

540:You cannot know a man's life before the man has died, then only can you call it good or bad. ~ Sophocles,

541:Death is not the worst thing; rather, when one who craves death cannot attain even that wish. ~ Sophocles,

542:For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly. ~ Sophocles,

543:he came to know the god intimately and the strange mad flower of his mind dripped in the dark ~ Sophocles,

544:It is not in words that I should wish my life to be distinguished, but rather in things done. ~ Sophocles,

545:Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good that lies within their hands, till they have lost it. ~ Sophocles,

546:Men whose wit has been mother of villainy once have learned from it to be evil in all things. ~ Sophocles,

547:Muchas veces, pocas palabras fueron suficientes para hacer o deshacer la fortuna de un hombre ~ Sophocles,

548:One's own escape from troubles makes one glad; but bringing friends to trouble is hard grief. ~ Sophocles,

549:One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession. ~ Sophocles,

550:There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us. ~ Sophocles,

551:To me so deep a silence portends some dread event; a clamorous sorrow wastes itself in sound. ~ Sophocles,

552:To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously. ~ Sophocles,

553:Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver. ~ Sophocles,

554:A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers should one day suffer reverse. ~ Sophocles,

555:Give me a life wherever there is an opportunity to live, and better life than was my father's. ~ Sophocles,

556:Knowledge must come through action. You can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial. ~ Sophocles,

557:What fate can be worse than to know we have no one but ourselves to blame for our misfortunes! ~ Sophocles,

558:Yes I know sorrow. Know it far too well. My life is a tunnel choked by the sweepings of dread. ~ Sophocles,

559:Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven. ~ Sophocles,

560:There is something bad here, growing. Day and night I watch it. Growing. —Sophocles, Electra ~ Megan Abbott,

561:I have seen or heard of no other man whom destiny treated with such enmity as it did Philoktetes ~ Sophocles,

562:It has been hard, I know, my daughters, but one word alone wipes out all of the hardships: love. ~ Sophocles,

563:One thinking it is right to speak all things, whether the word is fit for speech or unutterable. ~ Sophocles,

564:É uma vergonha para um homem almejar uma longa vida, se não conseguir libertar-se dos seus males. ~ Sophocles,

565:Minua pilkkasit sokeudestani. Sanon: Et näe näkevillä silmillä, kuka asuu kanssasi tässä alhossa. ~ Sophocles,

566:Shame brings no advantage in misfortunes, for silence (of the accused) is the ally of the speaker. ~ Sophocles,

567:The Greeks could be a crushing bore. I recommend dressing everyone in combat fatigues or S&M gear. ~ Sophocles,

568:All art at a certain level is entertainment. We go to a tragedy by Sophocles to be entertained. ~ John Banville,

569:And if my present deeds are foolish in thy sight, it may be that a foolish judge arraigns my folly. ~ Sophocles,

570:Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud. ~ Sophocles,

571:One learns by doing a thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try. ~ Sophocles,

572:Orestes beloved. as you die you destroy me. You have torn away the part of my mind where hope was . ~ Sophocles,

573:Tell me the news, again, whatever it is... sorrow and I are hardly strangers. I can bear the worst. ~ Sophocles,

574:What was that line of Sophocles from Oedipus Rex? “How awful a knowledge of the truth can be. ~ Douglas Preston,

575:When he endures nothing but endless miseries-- What pleasure is there in living the day after day, ~ Sophocles,

576:For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night. ~ Sophocles,

577:So here I am, against my will and yours too, well I know-- no one wants the man who brings bad news. ~ Sophocles,

578:The curse of ignorance is that man without being good or evil is nevertheless satisfied with himself ~ Sophocles,

579:What greater ornament to a son than a father's glory, or to a father than a son's honorable conduct? ~ Sophocles,

580:And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool. ~ Sophocles,

581:CREON: Can’t you see? If a man could wail his own dirge before he dies, he’d never finish. ~ Sophocles,

582:Like father like daughter, passionate, wild . . . she hasn’t learned to bend before adversity. ~ Sophocles,

583:May the dead forgive me, I can do no other But as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene ~ Sophocles,

584:And also because - Oh, my darling, my darling, forgive me; I’m going to cause you quite a lot of pain. ~ Sophocles,

585:Even in these straits our life is not as pitiful as you'd think, so long as we find joy in every hour. ~ Sophocles,

586:I owe more to the dead, with whom I will spend a much longer time, than I will ever owe to the living. ~ Sophocles,

587:To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it. ~ Sophocles,

588:A cunning fellow is man, inventive beyond all expectation, he reaches sometimes evil and sometimes good ~ Sophocles,

589:Ahora miraréis, en la tiniebla, a los que nunca debisteis ver, y no a los que tanto ansiasteis conocer. ~ Sophocles,

590:Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well. ~ Sophocles,

591:Fate works most for woe With Folly’s fairest show. Man’s little pleasure is the spring of sorrow. ~ Sophocles,

592:For to cast away a virtuous friend, I call as bad as to cast away one's own life, which one loves best. ~ Sophocles,

593:Shame I do feel. And I know there is something all wrong about me—believe me. Sometimes I shock myself. ~ Sophocles,

594:It is best not to have been born at all: but, if born, as quickly as possible to return whence one came. ~ Sophocles,

595:One must obey the man whom the city sets up in power in small things and in justice and in its opposite. ~ Sophocles,

596:One soul is enough, I know, to pay the debt for thousands, if one will go to the gods in all good faith. ~ Sophocles,

597:The man from whom the joys of life have departed is living no more, but should be counted with the dead. ~ Sophocles,

598:To many men much-wandering hope comes as a boon, but to many others it is the deception of vain desires. ~ Sophocles,

599:Having advanced to the limit of boldness, child, you have stumbled against the lofty pedestal of Justice. ~ Sophocles,

600:It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it. ~ Sophocles,

601:Once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. ~ Sophocles,

602:If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink. ~ Sophocles,

603:Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money. ~ Sophocles,

604:ÖDIPUS. Wie packt mich, da ich eben dich gehört hab, Frau, der Seele Irrlauf und Erschütterung des Geistes! ~ Sophocles,

605:You drive me back down my desperation—that unclouded incurable never forgotten evil growing inside my life. ~ Sophocles,

606:By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles," noted Will. "Has no one respect for the classics these days? ~ Cassandra Clare,

607:Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still. ~ Sophocles,

608:I owe more to the dead, with whom I will spend a much longer time, than I will ever owe to the living. ~ Sophocles,

609:Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day. ~ Sophocles,

610:No yield to the dead! Never stab the fighter when he's down. Where's the glory, killing the dead twice over? ~ Sophocles,

611:They are not wise, then, who stand forth to buffet against Love; for Love rules the gods as he will, and me. ~ Sophocles,

612:Fate has terrible power. You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it. ~ Sophocles,

613:Men of perverse opinion do not know the excellence of what is in their hands, till someone dash it from them. ~ Sophocles,

614:ORESTES: Just to see the outline of your suffering ELECTRA: Yet this is only a fraction of it you see. ~ Sophocles,

615:It is a painful thing To look at your own trouble and know That you yourself and no one else has made it ~ Sophocles,

616:Oh child, may you be happier than your father, but in all other respects alike. And then you would not be bad. ~ Sophocles,

617:‎"Sei abile con la lingua. Ma non conosco nessun uomo onesto che trovi parole belle per ogni circostanza ~ Sophocles,

618:No pity for these things, there is no pity but mine, oh father, for the pity of your butchering rawblood death. ~ Sophocles,

619:Sleep, ignorant of pain, sleep, ignorant of grief, may you come to us blowing softly, kindly, kindly come king. ~ Sophocles,

620:What is to be taught I learn; what is to be discovered I seek; what is to be prayed for I sought from the gods. ~ Sophocles,

621:I was born to share love, not hate”, said Antigone. “Go then, and share your love for the dead”, responds Creon. ~ Sophocles,

622:Which would you choose if you could: pleasure for yourself despite your friends or a share in their grief? ~ Sophocles,

623:If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief. ~ Sophocles,

624:No quieras imponer tu voluntad en todo. Pues incluso aquello donde la impusiste no te ha acompañado toda tu vida. ~ Sophocles,

625:Whose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire? O Oedipus, discrowned head, Thy cradle was thy marriage bed. ~ Sophocles,

626:Pues veo que son efectivos, sobre todo, los hechos llevados a cabo por los consejos de los que tienen experiencia. ~ Sophocles,

627:Bu durumda dostlarım, ne akıllı ne dindar olmak mümkündür; kötülüğün içinde bizi kötülüğe zorlayan güç çok büyüktür. ~ Sophocles,

628:Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart. ~ Sophocles,

629:A man who takes pleasure in speaking continuously fools himself in thinking he is not unpleasant to those around him. ~ Sophocles,

630:The happiest life consists of ignorance, Before you learn how to grieve or rejoice." --SOPHOCLES (496-406 B.C.) ~ Sophocles,

631:There was the girl, screaming like an angry bird, When it finds its nest left empt and little ones gone." - Sentry ~ Sophocles,

632:They're both mad, I tell you, the two of them. One's just shown it, the other's been that way since she was born. ~ Sophocles,

633:And remember that the captor is now the captive; the hunter is in the snare. What was won by stealth will not be kept. ~ Sophocles,

634:Rash indeed is he who reckons on tomorrow, or happily on the days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past. ~ Sophocles,

635:Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonorably is pardonable. ~ Sophocles,

636:Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes. ~ Sophocles,

637:If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright. ~ Sophocles,

638:What men have seen they know; But what shall come hereafter No man before the event can see, Nor what end waits for him. ~ Sophocles,

639:Many are the things that man seeing must understand. Not seeing, how shall he know what lies in the hand of time to come? ~ Sophocles,

640:One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try. —Sophocles ~ Steve Freeman,

641:Sleep, thou patron of mankind, Great physician of the mind Who does nor pain nor sorrow know, Sweetest balm of every woe. ~ Sophocles,

642:But the power of destiny is something awesome; neither wealth, nor Ares, nor a tower, nor dark-hulled ships might escape it. ~ Sophocles,

643:Surely, to think your own the only wisdom, and yours the only word, the only will, betrays a shallow spirit, an empty heart. ~ Sophocles,

644:That will come when it comes; we must deal with all that lies before us. The future rests with the ones who tend the future. ~ Sophocles,

645:The man the state has put in place must have obedient hearing to his least command when it is right, and even when it's not. ~ Sophocles,

646:Truly, to tell lies is not honorable; but when the truth entails tremendous ruin, to speak dishonorably is pardonable. ~ Sophocles,

647:In time you will know this well: For time, and time alone, will show the just man, though scoundrels are discovered in a day. ~ Sophocles,

648:All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride. ~ Sophocles,

649:(...) I, for one, prize less The name of king than deeds of kingly power; And so would all who learn in wisdom’s school. ~ Sophocles,

650:Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light and then go back quickly whence we came ~ Sophocles,

651:There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick. ~ Sophocles,

652:Whoever thinks that he alone has speech, or possesses speech or mind above others, when unfolded such men are seen to be empty. ~ Sophocles,

653:I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born - but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it. ~ Slavoj Zizek,

654:Fear? What has a man to do with fear? Chance rules our lives, and the future is all unknown. Best live as we may, from day to day. ~ Sophocles,

655:If you are out of trouble, watch for danger. And when you live well, then consider the most your life, lest ruin take it unawares. ~ Sophocles,

656:My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards—but I am a queen! ~ Sophocles,

657:No siento yo amor por la que sólo con palabras ama. [...] No mueras tú conmigo ni hagas tuyo un acto en el que no pusiste tu mano. ~ Sophocles,

658:That will come when it comes; we must deal with all that lies before us. The future rests with the ones who tend the future. ~ Sophocles,

659:Here he comes like a stealing shadow, like a footprint of death into the rooms, stalking the past with freshcut blood in his hands. ~ Sophocles,

660:AGAMEMNÔN. Il n’est pas facile à un roi d’être pieux. ODYSSEUS. Mais les rois peuvent obéir aux amis qui les conseillent bien. ~ Sophocles,

661:Creon: Why not? You and the whole breed of seers are mad for money. Tiresias: And the whole race of tyrants lusts for filthy gain. ~ Sophocles,

662:Dreadful is the mysterious power of fate; there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by walled city or dark, seabeaten ships. ~ Sophocles,

663:Hasta los más hábiles hombres caen, e ignominiosa es su caída cuando en bello ropaje ocultan infames palabras para servir a su avaricia. ~ Sophocles,

664:The powe if fate is something terrible. It cannot be escaped--not with wealth or by war, not with a tower ir a sea-lashed black ship. ~ Sophocles,

665:You clearly hate to yield, but you will regret it when your anger has passed. Such natures are justly the hardest for themselves to bear. ~ Sophocles,

666:Why should man fear since chance is all in all for him, and he can clearly foreknow nothing? Best to live lightly, as one can, unthinkingly. ~ Sophocles,

667:When an oath is taken ... the mind is more attentive; for it guards against two things, the reproach of friends and offence against the gods. ~ Sophocles,

668:For if any man thinks that he is alone is wise--that in speech, or in mind, he hath no peer--such a soul, when laid open, is ever found empty. ~ Sophocles,

669:May the dead forgive me, I can do no other But as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene, Antigone (The Theban Plays) by Sophocles ~ Sophocles,

670:Ni pensaba yo que tus proclamas tuvieran tanta fuerza que permitieran a un mortal transgredir las leyes no escritas e inmutables de los dioses. ~ Sophocles,

671:Not to be born surpasses all reckoning. The next best thing by far, when one has been born is to go back as swiftly as possible whence one came. ~ Sophocles,

672:Oh my love take me there. Let me dwell where you are. I am already nothing, I am already burning. Oh my love, I was once part of you—take me too! ~ Sophocles,

673:Prefiero, señor, obrar bien y fracasar, antes que triunfar con malas artes. Palabras de Neoptólemo a Odiseo, en la tragedia griega Filoctetes. ~ Sophocles,

674:All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead. ~ Sophocles,

675:Haemon: No city is property of a single man. Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler. Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone. ~ Sophocles,

676:I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State. ~ Sophocles,

677:Show me a man who longs to live a day beyond his time who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly. ~ Sophocles,

678:CREON: Am I to rule for others, or myself? HAEMON: A State for one man is no State at all. CREON: The State is his who rules it, so 'tis held. ~ Sophocles,

679:To err is common to all mankind, but having erred he is no longer reckless nor unblest who haven fallen into evil seeks a cure, nor remains unmoved. ~ Sophocles,

680:To err is common To all men, but the man who having erred Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise. ~ Sophocles,

681:Closer, it’s all right. Touch the man of grief. Do. Don’t be afraid. My troubles are mine and I am the only man alive who can sustain them. ~ Sophocles,

682:Come, Fate, a friend at need, Come with all speed! Come, my best friend, And speed my end! Away, away! Let me not look upon another day! ~ Sophocles,

683:Fortune raises up and fortune brings low both the man who fares well and the one who fares badly; and there is no prophet of the future for mortal men. ~ Sophocles,

684:The shimmering night does not stay for mortals, not misfortunes, nor wealth, but in a moment it is gone, and to the turn of another comes joy and loss. ~ Sophocles,

685:Let every man in mankind's frailtyConsider his last day; and let nonePresume on his good fortune until he findLife, at his death, a memory without pain. ~ Sophocles,

686:The stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness,Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through. ~ Sophocles,

687:What men have seen they know;             but what shall come hereafter             no man before the event can see, 1420    nor what end waits for him. ~ Sophocles,

688:Another husband could be found and with That husband another son. But I have no mother now. I have no father. I cannot bring another brother to the world. ~ Sophocles,

689:Never at my hands will the traitor be honored above the patriot. But whoever proves his loyalty to the state–I'll prize that man in death as well as life. ~ Sophocles,

690:They are dying, the old oracles sent to Laius, now our masters strike them off the rolls. Nowhere Apollo's golden glory now -- the gods, the gods go down. ~ Sophocles,

691:But whoever gives birth to useless children, what would you say of him except that he has bred sorrows for himself, and furnishes laughter for his enemies. ~ Sophocles,

692:Let every man in mankind's frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find Life, at his death, a memory without pain. ~ Sophocles,

693:Whoe'er imagines prudence all his own, Or deems that he hath powers to speak and judge Such as none other hath, when they are known, They are found shallow. ~ Sophocles,

694:It is a base thing for a man among the people not to obey those in command. Never in a state can the laws be well administered when fear does not stand firm. ~ Sophocles,

695:The tyrant is a child of Pride Who drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity, Until from his high crest headlong He plummets to the dust of hope. ~ Sophocles,

696:Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied. ~ Sophocles,

697:Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I would not have come here. ~ Sophocles,

698:You see how when rivers are swollen in winter those trees that yield to the flood retain their branches, but those that offer resistance perish, trunk and all. ~ Sophocles,

699:Life is short, but art is long. Sophocles is dead, but Oedipus lives on…Each of us when we read a great piece of literature is a little more human than befor ~ James W Sire,

700:Neoptolemus: I am glad to see you and take you as a friend. For one who knows how to show and accept kindness will be a better friend than any possession. ~ Sophocles,

701:There is an ancient saying, famous among men, that thou shouldst not judge fully of a man's life before he dieth, whether it should be called blest or wretched. ~ Sophocles,

702:Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he has crossed life's border, free from pain. ~ Sophocles,

703:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise. ~ Sophocles,

704:And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death. ~ Sophocles,

705:No greater evil can a man endure Than a bad wife, nor find a greater good Than one both good and wise; and each man speaks As judging by the experience of his life. ~ Sophocles,

706:The stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness, Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through. ~ Sophocles,

707:JOCASTA: So clear in this case were the oracles, so clear and false. Give them no heed, I say; what God discovers need of, easily he shows to us himself. ~ Sophocles,

708:The idea of withholding a massive secret is obviously quite exciting to some people. It is also the basis of much classic drama, of course, from Sophocles onwards. ~ Lynne Truss,

709:they would praise me too if their lips weren't locked in fear. Lucky tyrants - the perquisites of power! Ruthless power to do and say whatever pleases them. ~ Sophocles,

710:Wealth makes an ugly person beautiful to look on and an incoherent speech eloquent; and wealth alone can enjoy pleasure even in sickness and can conceal its miseries. ~ Sophocles,

711:Friend, hast thou considered the "rugged, all-nourishing earth," as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man? ~ Thomas Carlyle,

712:I could not turn away from anyone Like you, a stranger, or refuse to help him. I know well, being mortal, that my claim Upon the future is no more than yours. ~ Sophocles,

713:Shall we not perish wretchedest of all, If in defiance of the law we cross A monarch's will?—weak women, think of that, Not framed by nature to contend with men. Remember ~ Sophocles,

714:The tyrant is a child of Pride Who drinks from his sickening cup Recklessness and vanity, Until from his high crest headlong He plummets to the dust of hope. ~ Sophocles,

715:Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are free from the grasp, not of one mad master only, but of many. ~ Plato,

716:There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And proud men in old age learn to be wise. ~ Sophocles,

717:The director was only invented in the nineteenth century. So directors have only been around for 200 year,s and playwrights have been around since Sophocles and Euripides. ~ Sarah Ruhl,

718:Surely there never was so evil a thing as money, which maketh cities into ruinous heaps, and banisheth men from their houses, and turneth their thoughts from good unto evil. ~ Sophocles,

719:The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles. ~ Aristotle,

720:Let be the future: mind the present need and leave the rest to whom the rest concerns ... present tasks claim our care: the ordering of the future rests where it should rest. ~ Sophocles,

721:TEIRESIAS: Alas, how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise! This I knew well, but had forgotten it, else I would not have come here. ~ Sophocles,

722:Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man; the power that crosses the white sea, driven by the stormy wind, making a path under surges that threaten to engulf him. ~ Sophocles,

723:Best of children, sisters arm-in-arm, we must bear what the gods give us to bear-- don't fire up your hearts with so much grief. No reason to blame the pass you've come to now. ~ Sophocles,

724:Money is the worst currency that ever grew among mankind. This sacks cities, this drives men from their homes, this teaches and corrupts the worthiest minds to turn base deeds. ~ Sophocles,

725:The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach ~ Sophocles,

726:Yet I pity the poor wretch, though he's my enemy. He's yoked to an evil delusion, but the same fate could be mine. I see clearly: we who live are all phantoms, fleeing shadows. ~ Sophocles,

727:A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth, But by the dead commended; and with them I shall abide for ever.  As for thee, Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.   ISMENE ~ Sophocles,

728:The power of fate is a wonder; dark, terrible wonder. Neither wealth nor armies, towered walls nor ships, Black hulls lashed by the salt, can save us from that force. —Sophocles ~ John R Hale,

729:The working of the mind discover oft Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act. More hateful still the miscreant who seeks When caught, to make a virtue of a crime. ~ Sophocles,

730:By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will as the worm vanished behind a large structure shaped like a Greek temple. “Has no one respect for the classics these days? ~ Cassandra Clare,

731:Children are the anchors of a mother’s life. —SOPHOCLES, Phaedra, fragment 612 ALICE In the wild, we often didn’t realize an elephant was pregnant until she was about to deliver. ~ Jodi Picoult,

732:Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye, Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie, Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee? ~ Sophocles,

733:Never to have been born is best. Everyone knows that, and a close second, once you have appeared in this life, is a quick return, as soon as you can, to where you came from. ~ Sophocles,

734:The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light, nothing known that may not become unknown. Nothing is impossible. —Sophocles ~ Anonymous,

735:I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, and I shall not be shamed. She is my mother; my sisters are the Seasons; my rising and my falling match with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no ~ Sophocles,

736:Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgement, not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws. Experience, there's the test. ~ Sophocles,

737:On Juan Rulfo: "His published writings add up to no more than 300 pages, but they are just as many, and I believe just as enduring, as those that we know of Sophocles. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez,

738:Of evils current upon earth The worst is money. Money 'tis that sacks Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home; Warps and seduces native innocence, And breeds a habit of dishonesty. ~ Sophocles,

739:Heap up great wealth in your house, if you wish, and live as a tyrant, but, if the enjoyment of these things be lacking, I would not buy the rest for the shadow of smoke as against happiness. ~ Sophocles,

740:Y ¿qué podría temer un hombre para quien los imperativos de la fortuna son los que le pueden dominar, y no existe previsión clara de nada? Lo más seguro es vivir al azar, según cada uno pueda. ~ Sophocles,

741:Creon: My voice is the one voice giving orders in this city! Haimon: It is no city if it takes orders from one voice. Creon: The State is the King! Haimon: Yes, if the State is a desert. ~ Sophocles,

742:Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws. Experience, there's the test. ~ Sophocles,

743:There let her pray to the one god she worships: Death--who knows?--may just reprieve her from death. Or she may learn a last, better late than never, what a waste of breath it is to worship Death. ~ Sophocles,

744:forbear, or I shall hate thee soon, And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death. ~ Sophocles,

745:My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right ~ Sophocles,

746:Each say following another, either hastening or putting off our death--what pleasure does it bring? I count that man worthless whois cheered by empty hopes. No, a noble man must either live or die well. ~ Sophocles,

747:It is best to live anyhow, as one may; do not be afraid of marriage with your mother! Many have lain with their mothers in dreams too. It is he to whom such things are nothing who puts up with life best. ~ Sophocles,

748:Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the Gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise. ~ Sophocles,

749:Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater. That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes, Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul, Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon ~ Sophocles,

750:Both noun (eusebia) and verb (sebizo) derive from the Greek root seb-, which refers to the awe that radiates from gods to humans and is given back as worship. Everything related to this root has fear in it. ~ Sophocles,

751:Be warned my son, no man is free from error, but the wise and prudent man, When he has fallen into evil courses Does not persist but tries to find amendment It is the stubborn man who is the fool ~ Sophocles,

752:Rose the joint evil that is now o’erflowing. And the old happiness in that past day Was truly happy, but the present hour Hath pain, crime, ruin:—whatsoe’er of ill Mankind have named, not one is absent here. ~ Sophocles,

753:Ah, race of mortal men, How as a thing of nought I count ye, though ye live; For who is there of men That more of blessing knows, Than just a little while To seem to prosper well, And, having seemed, to fall? ~ Sophocles,

754:Far-stretching, endless Time Brings forth all hidden things, And buries that which once did shine. The firm resolve falters, the sacred oath is shattered; And let none say, "It cannot happen here". ~ Sophocles,

755:The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity. ~ Sophocles,

756:Henceforth ye may thieve with better knowledge whence lucre should be won, and learn that it is not well to love gain from every source. For thou wilt find that ill-gotten pelf brings more men to ruin than to weal. ~ Sophocles,

757:CHORUS: What canst thou plead? OEDIPUS: A plea of justice. CHORUS: How? OEDIPUS: I slew who else would me have slain; I slew without intent, A wretch, but innocent In the law's eye, I stand, without a stain. ~ Sophocles,

758:Do not believe that you alone can be right.The man who thinks that,The man who maintains that only he has the powerTo reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul-A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty. ~ Sophocles,

759:If women were once permitted to read Sophocles and work with logarithms, or to nibble at any side of the apple of knowledge, there would be an end forever to their sewing on buttons and embroidering slippers. ~ Anna Julia Cooper,

760:ISMENE: How can I live alone, without her? CREON: Her? Don't even mention her-- she no longer exists. ISMENE: What? You'd kill your own son's bride? CREON: Absolutely: there are other fields for him to plow. ~ Sophocles,

761:Sister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon, And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death.   ISMENE ~ Sophocles,

762:For every nation that lives peaceably, there will be many others to grow hard and push their arrogance to extremes; the gods attend to these things slowly. But they attend to those who put off God and turn to madness. ~ Sophocles,

763:There is no more deadly peril than disobedience; States are devoured by it, homes laid in ruins, Armies defeated, victory turned to rout. White simple obedience saves the lives of hundreds Of honest folk." - Creon ~ Sophocles,

764:Think again, Electra. Don't say anymore. Don't you see what you're doing? You make your own pain. Why keep wounding yourself? With so much evil stored up in that cold dark soul of yours you breed enemies everywhere you touch. ~ Sophocles,

765:Men are of little worth. Their brief lives last a single day. They cannot hold elusive pleasure fast; It melts away. All laurels wither; all illusions fade; Hopes have been phantoms, shade on air-built shade, since time began. ~ Sophocles,

766:You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused! Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen, blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind! ~ Sophocles,

767:Shall not I Learn place and wisdom? Have I not learned this, Only so much to hate my enemy, As though he might again become my friend, And so much good to wish to do my friend, As knowing he may yet become my foe? ~ Sophocles,

768:Creon: See that you never side with those who break my orders. Leader: Never. Only a fool could be in love with death. Creon: Death is the price - you're right. But all too often the mere hope of money has ruined many men. ~ Sophocles,

769:Do not believe that you alone can be right. The man who thinks that, The man who maintains that only he has the power To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul— A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty. ~ Sophocles,

770:If you want only the very greatest, none of these can enter - only Vyasa and Sophocles. Vyasa could very well claim a place beside Valmiki, Sophocles beside Aeschylus.    ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art, Great Poets of the World, 369,

771:Hail the sun! the brightest of all that ever Dawned on the City of Seven Gates, City of Thebes! Hail the golden dawn over Dirce's river Rising to speed the flight of the white invaders Homeward in full retreat!" - Chorus ~ Sophocles,

772:No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know. ~ Sophocles,

773:I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed. ~ Sophocles,

774:In flood time you can see how some trees bend, and because they bend, even their twigs are safe, while stubborn trees are torn up, roots and all. And the same thing happens in sailing: make your sheet fast, never slacken,--and over you go ~ Sophocles,

775:For instance, I remember someone asking Sophocles, the poet, whether he was still capable of enjoying a woman. ‘Don’t talk in that way,’ he answered; ‘I am only too glad to be free of all that; it is like escaping from bondage to a raging madman. ~ Plato,

776:S takva djela dika mi je mrijet, Jer draga do njeg - do dragog ću u grob leć, Učiniv sveti grijeh. Ta dulje sviđat se Ja svijetu moram onom negol' ovome, Jer ondje dovijek ću počivat. Sviđa l' se Onako tebi, zakon božji pogazi! ~ Sophocles,

777:Abysmal vermin that I am, I couldn't of course tell her that it was her incredible mother that I wanted to see again… I knew only as I drove through the cold, night autumn air that somewhere Freud, Sophocles and Eugene O’Neill were laughing. ~ Woody Allen,

778:TEIRESIAS: You have your eyes but see not where you are in sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with. Do you know who your parents are? Unknowing you are enemy to kith and kin in death, beneath the earth, and in this life. ~ Sophocles,

779:Man's highest blessedness, In wisdom chiefly stands; And in the things that touch upon the Gods, 'Tis best in word or deed To shun unholy pride; Great words of boasting bring great punishments, And so to grey-haired age Teach wisdom at the last. ~ Sophocles,

780:Not from Hades' black and universal lake can you lift him. Not by groaning, not by prayers. Yet you run yourself out in a grief with no cure, no time-limit, no measure. It is a knot no one can untie. Why are you so in love with things unbearable? ~ Sophocles,

781:ELECTRA: Oh but my love—now that you have travelled back down all those years to meet my heart, over all this grief of mine, do not oh love— ORESTES: What are you asking? ELECTRA: Do not turn your face from me. Don't take yourself away. ~ Sophocles,

782:I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him either. ~ Sophocles,

783:Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day's dusk, Trembles before your glory. ~ Sophocles,

784:I should have praise and honor for what I have done: All these men here would praise me. Were their lips not frozen shut with fear of you. Ah the good fortune of kings. Licensed to say and do whatever the please." Antigone to Theben's king Creon ~ Sophocles,

785:I should have praise and honor for what I have done: All these men here would praise me. Were their lips not frozen shut with fear of you. Ah the good fortune of kings. Licensed to say and do whatever they please." Antigone to Theben's king Creon ~ Sophocles,

786:Upon that foreign soil he chose Died he! For ever laid Low, in the kindly shade, He left behind no tearless grief, No measured mourning, dull and brief, These eyes are wet With weeping yet, Nor know I how to find relief." Antigone ~ Sophocles,

787:OEDIPUS: O, O, O, they will all come, all come out clearly! Light of the sun, let me look upon you no more after today! I who first saw the light bred of a match accursed, and accursed in my living with them I lived with, cursed in my killing. ~ Sophocles,

788:We should not speak of one that prospers well As happy, till his life have run its course, And reached its goal. An evil spirit's gift In shortest time has oft laid low the state Of one full rich in great prosperity, When the change comes, and so the Gods appoint. ~ Sophocles,

789:All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity—pride is a crime. ~ Sophocles,

790:But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time. Earth's might decays, the might of men decays, Honor grows cold, dishonor flourishes, There is no constancy 'twixt friend and friend, Or city and city; be it soon or late, Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love. ~ Sophocles,

791:How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, How does love suit with age, Sophocles,—are you still the man you were? Peace, he replied; most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. ~ Plato,

792:None but a fool or an infant could forget a father gone so far and cold. No. Lament is a pattern cut and fitted around my mind—like the bird who calls Itys! Itys! endlessly, bird of grief, angel of Zeus. O heartdragging Niobe, I count you a god: buried in rock yet always you weep. ~ Sophocles,

793:CHOR. Denn weder reifen des herrlichen Landes Früchte noch tauchen bei ihren Geburten aus qualvollen Schmerzen empor die Frauen; doch einen zum andern kannst du sehen gleich gut befiederten Vögeln, jäher als unwiderstehliches Feuer losfliegen dem Strande zu des abenddunkeln Gottes. ~ Sophocles,

794:How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles, when in answer to the question, "How does love suit with age, Sophocles - are you still the man you were?" he replied, "Peace, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak; I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master." ~ Plato,

795:I never can hear a crowd of people singing and gesticulating, all together, at an Italian opera, without fancying myself at Athens, listening to that particular tragedy, by Sophocles, in which he introduces a full chorus of turkeys, who set about bewailing the death of Meleager. ~ Edgar Allan Poe,

796:Why does Alexander the Great never tell us about the exact location of his tomb, Fermat about his Last Theorem, John Wilkes Booth about the Lincoln assassination conspiracy, Hermann Göring about the Reichstag fire? Why don’t Sophocles, Democritus, and Aristarchus dictate their lost books? ~ Carl Sagan,

797:A city that is of one man only is no city, says Haemon in Sophocles' 'Antigone.' Only where differences are valued and opposition tolerated can be transmuted into dialectic: so in its internal economy the city is a place-to twist Blake's dictum-that depresses corporeal and promotes mental war. ~ Lewis Mumford,

798:Cling not to one mood, And deemed not thou art right, all others wrong. For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him, That he alone can speak or think alright, Such oracles are empty breath when tried. The wisest man will let himself be swayed By other's wisdom and relax in time. ~ Sophocles,

799:Sentry: King, may I speak? Creon: Your very voice distresses me. Sentry: Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience? Creon: By God, he wants to analyze me now! Sentry: It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you. Creon: You talk too much. ~ Sophocles,

800:When ice appears out of doors, and boys seize it up while it is solid, at first they experience new pleasures. But in the end their pride will not agree to let it go, but their acquisition is not good for them if it stays in their hands. In the same way an identical desire drives lovers to act and not to act. ~ Sophocles,

801:And how can we lose this maddening self, lose it entirely? Love? Yes, but as old Cephalus once heard Sophocles say, the least of us know that love is a cruel and terrible master. One loses oneself for the sake of the other, but in doing so becomes enslaved and miserable to the most capricious of all the gods. ~ Donna Tartt,

802:Nada, bludnica velika, mnogim ljudima pomaže, a mnogim je dim nestalnih, praznih želja; ne znadu što im gamiže, dok žarki oganj noge im ne oprži. Slavljenu reč pametno neko izusti: kad u jad koga baci bog, on za zlo to ne uzima, no dobra traži u tome; a kratak trenut boravi izvan jada. ~ Sophocles,

803:O građani otadžbine Tebe, evo Edipa, znalca čudesne zagonetke i prvog čoveka, čiju sreću niko nije gledao bez zavisti! Gledajte u kakav ponor sudbe grozne pade on! Zato nikog, dan dok onaj poslednji ne dočeka, neću proslavljati kao srećna, pre no doplovi kraju veka svog a nikakav ne pogodi ga jad. ~ Sophocles,

804:Long, long ago; her thought was of that child By him begot, the son by whom the sire Was murdered and the mother left to breed With her own seed, a monstrous progeny. Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood, Husband by husband, children by her child. ~ Sophocles,

805:Eros invencible en el combate, que te ensañas como en medio de reses, que pasas la noche en las blandas mejillas de una jovencita y frecuentas, cuando no el mar, rústicas cabañas. Nadie puede escapar de ti, ni aun los dioses inmortales; ni tampoco ningún hombre, de los que un día vivimos; pero tenerte a ti enloquece. ~ Sophocles,

806:Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you. All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity - pride is a crime. ~ Sophocles,

807:Like the child who does not reason and has no care we trust ourselves to the Divine that the Divine’s Will may be done. ~ ~ The MotherLike the Greeks, we ignore at our peril the message of Sophocles in Oedipus: You have your sight, but do not see what evils are about you. ~ Anne BaringMy video essay on this work:youtube.com/watch?v=XFrQVV…,

808:When he endures nothing but endless miseries-- What pleasure is there in living the day after day, Edging slowly back and forth toward death? Anyone who warms their heart with the glow Of flickering hope is worth nothing at all. The noble man should either live with honor or die with honor. That's all there is to be said. ~ Sophocles,

809:Never to have been born is best But if we must see the light, the next best Is quickly returning whence we came. When youth departs, with all its follies, Who does not stagger under evils? Who escapes them? Sophocles' Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, The best would be never to have been born at all. Heinrich Heine2 ~ David Benatar,

810:Pues así como estoy, me voy a ir. Venid, venid, compañeros los que estáis presentes y ausentes; y con hachas en las manos corred hacia el lugar famoso. Y yo, puesto que mi opinión así ha cambiado, y yo mismo la aprisioné, quiero estar presente para salvarla; pues temo no sea la mejor resolución el vivir observando las leyes establecidas. ~ Sophocles,

811:And indeed it was, the arrow still protruding from its wet, grayish skin, humping its body along with incredible speed. A flick of its tail caught the edge of a statue, sending it flying into the dry ornamental pool, where it shattered into dust. “By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will. “Has no one respect for the classics these days? ~ Cassandra Clare,

812:No? Believe me, the stiffest stubborn wills fall the hardest; the toughest iron tempered strong in the white-hot fire, you'll see it crack and shatter first of all. And I've known spirited horses you can break with a light bite—proud, rebellious horses. There's no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by. ~ Sophocles,

813:Not to be born at all Is best, far best that can befall, Next best, when born, with least delay To trace the backward way. For when youth passes with its giddy train, Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils, Pain, pain forever pain; And none escapes life's coils. Envy, sedition, strife, Carnage and war, make up the tale of life. ~ Sophocles,

814:And indeed it was, the arrow still protruding from its wet, grayish skin, humping its body along with incredible speed. A flick of its tail caught the edge of a statue, sending it flying into the dry ornamental pool, where it shattered into dust. “By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will. “Has no one respect for the classics these days? ~ Cassandra Clare,

815:By dread things I am compelled. I know that. I see the trap closing. I know what I am. But while life is in me I will not stop this violence. No. Oh my friends who is there to comfort me? Who understands? Leave me be, let me go, do not soothe me. This is a knot no one can untie. There will be no rest, there is no retrieval. No number exists for griefs like these. ~ Sophocles,

816:CHORUS: You that live in my ancestral Thebes, behold this Oedipus,- him who knew the famous riddles and was a man most masterful; not a citizen who did not look with envy on his lot- see him now and see the breakers of misfortune swallow him! Look upon that last day always. Count no mortal happy till he has passed the final limit of his life secure from pain. ~ Sophocles,

817:God helps those who help themselves. ~ Algernon Sidney, Discourse Concerning Government, Chapter II. Ovid—Metamorphoses. X. 586. Pliny the Elder, viewing the Eruption of Vesuvius, Aug., 79. Friedrich Schiller, William Tell, I. 2. Simonides is quoted as author by Claudian. Sophocles, Fragments. Terence, Phormio. I. 4. Vergil, Æneid (29-19 BC), X, 284. Quoted as a proverb by old and modern writers,

818:Nothing so evil as money ever grew to be current among men. This lays cities low, this drives men from their homes, this trains and warps honest souls till they set themselves to works of shame; this still teaches folk to practise villainies, and to know every godless deed. But all the men who wrought this thing for hire have made it sure that, soon or late, they shall pay the price. ~ Sophocles,

819:Look well at this, and speak no towering word             yourself against the gods, nor walk too grandly             because your hand is weightier than another’s, 130      or your great wealth deeper founded. One short day             inclines the balance of all human things             to sink or rise again. Know that the gods             love men of steady sense and hate the wicked. ~ Sophocles,

820:Since the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, and a host of others have shown that this religious dimension can be experienced and communicated apart from any religious context. But that is no reason for closing my heart to Job's cry, or to Jeremiah's, or to the Second Isaiah. I do not read them as mere literature; rather, I read Sophocles and Shakespeare with all my being, too. ~ Walter Kaufmann,

821:OEDIPUS: Upon the murderer I invoke this curse- whether he is one man and all unknown, or one of many- may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom! If with my knowledge he lives at my hearth I pray that I myself may feel my curse. On you I lay my charge to fulfill all this for me, for the God, and for this land of ours destroyed and blighted, by the God forsaken. ~ Sophocles,

822:the Alexandrian Library was a tragedy of some moment, for it was believed to contain the complete published works of Æschylus, Sophocles, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, and a hundred others, who have come down to us in mangled form; full texts of the pre-Socratic philosophers, who survive only in snatches; and thousands of volumes of Greek, Egyptian, and Roman history, science, literature, and philosophy. ~ Will Durant,

823:I once heard a writer say, 'It's easy to write a novel, you just slit your wrist and let it bleed on the pages.' She was right...Sophocles and Freud believed that we are defined by our fears. There's a lot of truth to that. When you share your greatest fears, your vulnerability, we bond in that honesty. We connect with each other and we don't feel so alone. And that's what books are really about. Connecting. ~ Richard Paul Evans,

824:It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles' Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God's sake, not to inquire further. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer,

825:Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a genuine work of art, contains the totality. Just as the works of Apelles and Sophocles, if Raphael and Shakespeare had known them, should not have appeared to them as mere preliminary exercises for their own work, but rather as a kindred force of the spirit, so, too reason cannot find in its own earlier forms mere useful preliminary exercises for itself. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,

826:We can talk about our dreams all night, Lisette. We can talk forever, for the rest of our lives, living one adventure after another, I promise. But not now, my darling Lisette. For now, all I can think of is the brilliance of yet another ancient Greek, Sophocles. He said, 'One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life-that word is love.' I love you, Lisette. You bring my life joy I've never known. Please, marry me. ~ Kasey Michaels,

827:ANTIGONE: A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth, But by the dead commended; and with them I shall abide for ever. As for thee, Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven. ... CREON: So am I purposed; never by my will Shall miscreants take precedence of true men, But all good patriots, alive or dead, Shall be by me preferred and honored. ... GUARD: Take it all in all, I deem A man's first duty is to serve himself. ~ Sophocles,

828:In particular I may mention Sophocles the poet, who was once asked in my presence, How do you feel about love, Sophocles? are you still capable of it? to which he replied, Hush! if you please: to my great delight I have escaped from it, and feel as if I had escaped from a frantic and savage master. I thought then, as I do now, that he spoke wisely. For unquestionably old age brings us profound repose and freedom from this and other passions. ~ Plato,

829:The Greeks had a word for ultimate self-consciousness which I find illuminating: hubris: pride: pride in the sense of putting oneself in the center of the universe. The strange and terrible thing is that this kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. The great tragedians have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. We witness it in history in such people as Tiberius, Eva Perón, Hider. I ~ Madeleine L Engle,

830:Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are right To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say— I hope that I shall never want to say!— that you Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful. You are not in a position to know everything That people say or do, or what they feel: Your temper terrifies them—everyone Will tell you only what you like to hear. ~ Sophocles,

831:It is the courage to make a clean breast of it in the face of every question that makes the philosopher. He must be like Sophocles’ Oedipus, who, seeking enlightenment concerning his terrible fate, pursues his indefatigable inquiry even though he divines that appalling horror awaits him in the answer. But most of us carry with us the Jocasta in our hearts, who begs Oedipus, for God’s sake, not to inquire further. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer, Letter to Goethe (November 1819),

832:It is more important that milestones be sharp-edged and unambiguous than that they be easily verifiable by the boss. Rarely will a man lie about milestone progress, if the milestone is so sharp that he can't deceive himself. But if the milestone is fuzzy, the boss often understands a different report from that which the man gives. To supplement Sophocles, no one enjoys bearing bad news, either, so it gets softened without any real intent to deceive. ~ Frederick P Brooks Jr,

833:Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative for ever, beyond man utterly. I knew I must die, even without your decree: I am only mortal. And if I must die Now, before it is my time to die, Surely this is no hardship: can anyone Living, as I live, with evil all about me, Think Death less than a friend? ~ Sophocles,

834:Never to have been born is best. Everyone knows that, and a close second, once you have appeared in this life, is a quick return, as soon as you can, to where you came from. In our light-headed youth we carry blithe ideas, not knowing what blows await, what hardships are bearing down, closer and closer. Murder, hatred, strife, resentment, and envy are lurking, and then, behind them, bitter old age, powerless, friendless, with evils our only neighbors. ~ Sophocles,

835:The end, the tale of what happened to the Trojan women when Troy fell, comes from a play by Sophocles’ fellow playwright, Euripides. It is a curious contrast to the martial spirit of the Aeneid. To Virgil as to all Roman poets, war was the noblest and most glorious of human activities. Four hundred years before Virgil a Greek poet looked at it differently. What was the end of that far-famed war? Euripides seems to ask. Just this, a ruined town, a dead baby, a few wretched women. ~ Edith Hamilton,

836:Al' dobro znaj, da neće više mnogoput Projurit sunce u svom trku hitrome, A ti ćeš sam od svoje krvi vratiti Mrtvaca jednog mrtvima za odmjenu. Ti živu dušu vrže s gornjeg svijeta nam U donji i u grobu grdno udomi, A mrtvu opet ovdje ne daš, bozima Da dolje ode, već bez groba, posvete Njeg puštaš, a nit tebi niti bozima On gornjim pripada, već ti to siliš ih. A zato osvetnice tebe vrebaju Erinije - bič skori Hada, bogova, Te ista ta će tebe stići nevolja! ~ Sophocles,

837:In the center of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp of a very beautiful temple in another or better place that this wherefrom it can illuminate everything at the same time? As a matter of fact, not unhappily do some call it the lantern; others, the mind and still others, the pilot of the world. Trismegistus calls it a "visible God"; Sophocles' Electra, "that which gazes upon all things." And so the sun, as if resting on a kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus,

838:We shed as we pick up, like travelers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. ~ Tom Stoppard,

839:For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. ~ Plato,

840:For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. I ~ Plato,

841:Sophocles once warned, “Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse.”3 The invention of writing was vast; this book will investigate the curse. There exists ample evidence that any society acquiring the written word experiences explosive changes. For the most part, these changes can be characterized as progress. But one pernicious effect of literacy has gone largely unnoticed: writing subliminally fosters a patriarchal outlook. Writing of any kind, but especially its alphabetic form, diminishes feminine values and with them, women’s power ~ Leonard Shlain,

842:The sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I'm getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results. ... [But] we accept irony through a device called metaphor. And through that we grow and become deeper human beings. ~ Haruki Murakami,

843:Listen, Kafka. What you’re experiencing now is the motif of many Greek tragedies. Man doesn’t choose fate. Fate chooses man. That’s the basic worldview of Greek drama. And the sense of tragedy—according to Aristotle—comes, ironically enough, not from the protagonist’s weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I’m getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex being a great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of laziness or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results. ~ Haruki Murakami,

844:'The Rest I Will Tell To Those Down In Hades' 'Indeed,' said the proconsul, closing the book, 'This line is beautiful and very true. Sophocles wrote it in a deeply philosophic mood. How much we'll tell down there, how much, and how very different we'll appear. What we protect here like sleepless guards, wounds and secrets locked inside us, protect with such great anxiety day after day, we'll reveal freely and clearly down there.' 'You might add,' said the sophist, half smiling, 'if they talk about things like that down there, if they bother about them at all any more.' ~ Constantine P. Cavafy,

845:One might be tempted to extol as an advance over Sophocles the radical tendency of Euripides to produce a proper relation between art and the public. But "public," after all, is a mere word. In no sense is it a homogeneous and constant quantity. Why should the artist be bound to accommodate himself to a power whose strength lies solely in numbers? And if, by virtue of his endowments and aspirations, he should feel himself superior to every one of these spectators, how could he feel greater respect for the collective expression of all these subordinate capacities than for the relatively highest-endowed individual spectator? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

846:We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew? ~ Tom Stoppard,

847:It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than fourscore years, And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten, Had but begun his Characters of Men. Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past, These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives. Where little else than life itself survives. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

848:Jem drew the bow back and let the arrow fly; it struck the creature in the side. The massive demon worm writhed in agony, undulating as it swept its great, blind head from side to side, uprooting shrubbery with its thrashings. Leaves filled the air and the boys choked on dust, Gideon backing up with his seraph blade in his hand, trying to see by its light. “It’s coming toward us,” he said in a low voice. And indeed it was, the arrow still protruding from its wet, grayish skin, humping its body along with incredible speed. A flick of its tail caught the edge of a statue, sending it flying into the dry ornamental pool, where it shattered into dust. “By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will. “Has no one respect for the classics these days? ~ Cassandra Clare,

849:One need not believe in Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, to be overwhelmed by the Parthenon. Similarly, a man who rejects all dogmas, all theologies and all religious formulations of beliefs may still find Genesis the sublime book par excellence. Experiences and aspirations of which intimations may be found in Plato, Nietzsche, and Spinoza have found their most evocative expression in some sacred books. Since the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, and a host of others have shown that this religious dimension can be experienced and communicated apart from any religious context. But that is no reason for closing my heart to Job's cry, or to Jeremiah's, or to the Second Isaiah. I do not read them as mere literature; rather, I read Sophocles and Shakespeare with all my being, too. ~ Walter Kaufmann,

850:TEIRESIAS: I tell you, king, this man, this murderer (whom you have long declared you are in search of, indicting him in threatening proclamation as murderer of Laius)- he is here. In name he is a stranger among citizens but soon he will be shown to be a citizen true native Theban, and he'll have no joy of the discovery: blindness for sight and beggary for riches his exchange, he shall go journeying to a foreign country tapping his way before him with a stick. He shall be proved father and brother both to his own children in his house; to her that gave him birth, a son and husband both; a fellow sower in his father's bed with that same father that he murdered. Go within, reckon that out, and if you find me mistaken, say I have no skill in prophecy. ~ Sophocles,

851:Beneath the specific events that I experienced, I recognised a universal story – the story of what happens when human beings find themselves at the mercy of cruel circumstances that have been generated by an inhuman, mostly unseen network of power relations. This is why there are no ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies’ in this book. Instead, it is populated by people doing their best, as they understand it, under conditions not of their choosing. Each of the persons I encountered and write about in these pages believed they were acting appropriately, but, taken together, their acts produced misfortune on a continental scale. Is this not the stuff of authentic tragedy? Is this not what makes the tragedies of Sophocles and Shakespeare resonate with us today, hundreds of years after the events they relate became old news? ~ Yanis Varoufakis,

852:As long as the sole ruler and disposer of the universe, the nous, remained excluded from artistic activity, things were mixed together in a primeval chaos: this was what Euripides must have thought; and so, as the first "sober" one among them, he had to condemn the "drunken" poets. Sophocles said of Aeschylus that he did what was right, though he did it unconsciously. This was surely not how Euripides saw it. He might have said that Aeschylus, because he created unconsciously, did what was wrong. The divine Plato, too, almost always speaks only ironically of the creative faculty of the poet, insofar as it is not conscious insight, and places it on a par with the gift of the soothsayer and dream-interpreter: the poet is incapable of composing until he has become unconscious and bereft of understanding. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

853:When Nietzsche made his famous definition of tragic pleasure he fixed his eyes, like all the other philosophers in like case, not on the Muse herself but on a single tragedian. His “reaffirmation of the will to live in the face of death, and the joy of its inexhaustibility when so reaffirmed” is not the tragedy of Sophocles nor the tragedy of Euripides, but it is the very essence of the tragedy of Æschylus. The strange power tragedy has to present suffering and death in such a way as to exalt and not depress is to be felt in Æschylus’ plays as in those of no other tragic poet. He was the first tragedian; tragedy was his creation, and he set upon it the stamp of his own spirit. It was a soldier-spirit. Æschylus was a Marathon-warrior, the title given to each of the little band who had beaten back the earlier tremendous Persian onslaught. ~ Edith Hamilton,

854:Ta ne proglasi meni valj'da ovo Zeus, Nit Pravda, vjerna druga donjih bogova, Ovakvih zakona ti ljudma postavi; Nit tvoj je, mišljah, proglas taj toliko jak, Te ti ko smrtnik dići bi se mogao Nad božje, nepisane, stalne zakone. Od danas nijesu ni odjučer, od vijeka Pa dovijek živu, nitko ne zna, otkad se Pojaviše. A rad njih kazan ne htjedoh Od bogova da trpim, volje s' čovjeka Pobojav ma kog. da ću mrijet, to znala sam -Ta kako ne? - pa da i ne proglasi ti. A prije reda l' umrem, držim za dobit. Tko živi, ko što ja, u bijedi velikoj, Ej kako neće od koristi biti mu smrt? Pa tako i ja žalit neću, snađe l' me Ovakva kob. No trup da sina matere Ja rođene bez groba pustit odolim, To peklo bi je, - ali ovo ne žalim. Al' misliš li, da ludo to uradih ja, A ono lud me, bit će, krivi s ludosti. ~ Sophocles,

855:ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could’st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven.  I knew that I must die, E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery.  Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother’s son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit. ~ Sophocles,

856:A precious mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind. The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty, And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true: He lived where dreams were born. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize just so. ~ Emily Dickinson,

857:Ah me! think, sister, how our father perished, amid hate and scorn, when sins bared by his own search had moved him to strike both eyes with self-blinding hand; then the mother wife, two names in one, with twisted noose did despite unto her life; and last, our two brothers in one day,-each shedding, hapless one, a kinsman's blood,-wrought out with mutual hands their common doom. And now we in turn-we two left all alone think how we shall perish, more miserably than all the rest, if, in defiance of the law, we brave a king's decree or his powers. Nay, we must remember, first, that we were born women, as who should not strive with men; next, that we are ruled of the stronger, so that we must obey in these things, and in things yet sorer. I, therefore, asking the Spirits Infernal to pardon, seeing that force is put on me herein, will hearken to our rulers. for 'tis witless to be over busy. ~ Sophocles,

858:Helen’s era was quite different from what most people think of when they hear the words ancient Greece. The Parthenon, the graceful statues, the works of Sophocles, Euripides, Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato, all came nearly a thousand years after Helen’s time, during the classical era. In the Bronze Age, no one yet knew how to make brittle iron flexible enough to use for tools and weapons. Art, especially sculpture of the human form, was stiffer and more stylized. Few people could read or write. Instead of signing important papers, you would use a stone seal to leave an impression on clay tablets. The design on the seal would be as unique as a signature. There was a kind of writing in Bronze Age Greece, but it was mostly used to keep track of financial matters, such as royal tax records. Messages, poems, songs, and stories were not written down but were memorized and passed along by word of mouth. ~ Esther M Friesner,

859:In his play Antigone, Sophocles summed it up: Wonders are many and none more wonderful than man . . . In the meshes of his woven nets, cunning of mind, ingenious man . . . He snares the lighthearted birds and the tribes of savage beasts, and the creatures of the deep seas . . . He puts the halter round the horse’s neck And rings the nostrils of the angry bull. He has devised himself a shelter against the rigours of frost and the pelting rains. Speech and science he has taught himself, and artfully formed laws for harmonious civic life . . . Only against death he fights in vain. But clear intelligence—a force beyond measure— moves to work both good and ill . . . When he obeys the laws and honors justice, the city stands proud . . . But man swerves from side to side, and when the laws are broken, and set at naught, he is like a person without a city, beyond human boundary, a horror, a pollution to be avoided.29 The ~ Charles Freeman,

860:A Precious—mouldering Pleasure 371 A precious—mouldering pleasure—'tis— To meet an Antique Book— In just the Dress his Century wore— A privilege—I think— His venerable Hand to take— And warming in our own— A passage back—or two—to make— To Times when he—was young— His quaint opinions—to inspect— His thought to ascertain On Themes concern our mutual mind— The Literature of Man— What interested Scholars—most— What Competitions ran— When Plato—was a Certainty— And Sophocles—a Man— When Sappho—was a living Girl— And Beatrice wore The Gown that Dante—deified— Facts Centuries before He traverses—familiar— As One should come to Town— And tell you all your Dreams—were true— He lived—where Dreams were born— His presence is Enchantment— You beg him not to go— Old Volume shake their Vellum Heads And tantalize—just so— ~ Emily Dickinson,

861:We were nobodies, two young lit. students chatting away in a rickety old house in a small town at the edge of the world, a place where nothing of any significance had ever happened and presumably never would, we had barely started out on our lives and knew nothing about anything, but what we read was not nothing, it concerned matters of the utmost significance and was written by the greatest thinkers and writers in Western culture, and that was basically a miracle, all you had to do was fill in a library lending slip and you had access to what Plato, Sappho or Aristophanes had written in the incomprehensibly distant mists of time, or Homer, Sophocles, Ovid, Lucullus, Lucretius or Dante, Vasari, da Vinci, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Cervantes or Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Lukács, Arendt or those who wrote in the modern day, Foucault, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss, Deleuze, Serres. Not to mention the millions of novels, plays and collections of poetry which were available. All one lending slip and a few days away. We didn’t read any of these to be able to summarise the contents, as we did with the literature on the syllabus, but because they could give us something. ~ Karl Ove Knausg rd,

862:Numberless are the world's wonders, but none More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high; Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven With shining furrows where his plows have gone Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions. The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover, The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water, All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind; The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned, Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull. Words also, and thought as rapid as air, He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow, The spears of winter rain: from every wind He has made himself secure--from all but one: In the late wind of death he cannot stand. O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure! O fate of man, working both good and evil! When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands! When the laws are broken, what of his city then? Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth, Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts. ~ Sophocles,

863:All kinds of things are happening to me." I begin. ,,Some I choose, some I didn't. I don't know how to tell one from the other any more. What I mean is, it feels like everything's been decided in advance - that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense od who I am. It's as if my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch. Oshima gazes deep into m eyes. "Listen, Kafka. What you are experiencing now is the motif od many Greek tragedies. Man does not chose fate. Fate chooses man. That is the basic world view of Greek drama. And the sense od tragedy - according to Aristotle - somes, ironically enough, not drom the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I am getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex being a Great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of lazines or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results. ~ Haruki Murakami,

864:THOMASINA: ....the enemy who burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! -- can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides -- thousands of poems -- Aristotle's own library!....How can we sleep for grief? SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew? ~ Tom Stoppard,

865:-- What a fool I was. "Want To Be a Little Off-Beat?" Here's ten ways, the article said. A lilac door was one. So off I tripped to the nearest hardware store to assert my unique individuality with the same tin of paint as two million other dimwits. Conned into idiocy. My mind is full of trivialities. At lunch Ian said Duncan's piece of cake is miles bigger than mine -- it's not fair, and I roared that they should quit bothering me with trivialities. So when they're at school, do I settle down with the plays of Sophocles? I do not. I think about the color of my front door. That's being unfair to myself. I took that course, Ancient Greek Drama, last winter. Yeh, I took it all right. Young academic generously giving up his Thursday evenings in the cause of adult education. Mrs. MacAindra, I don't think you've got quite the right slant on Clytemnestra. Why not? The king sacrificed their youngest daughter for success in war-- what's the queen supposed to do, shout for joy? That's not quite the point we're discussing, is it? She murdered her husband, Mrs. MacAindra, (Oh God, don't you think I know that? The poor bitch.) Yeh well I guess you must know, Dr. Thorne. Sorry. Oh, that's fine -- I always try to encourage people to express themselves. -- Young twerp. Let somebody try killing one of his daughters. But still, he had his Ph.D. What do I have? Grade Eleven. My own fault.... ~ Margaret Laurence,

866:1st row Homer, Shakespeare, Valmiki 2nd row Dante, Kalidasa, Aeschylus, Virgil, Milton 3rd row Goethe ... I am not prepared to classify all the poets in the universe - it was the front bench or benches you asked for. By others I meant poets like Lucretius, Euripides, Calderon, Corneille, Hugo. Euripides (Medea, Bacchae and other plays) is a greater poet than Racine whom you want to put in the first ranks. If you want only the very greatest, none of these can enter - only Vyasa and Sophocles. Vyasa could very well claim a place beside Valmiki, Sophocles beside Aeschylus. The rest, if you like, you can send into the third row with Goethe, but it is something of a promotion about which one can feel some qualms. Spenser too, if you like; it is difficult to draw a line. Shelley, Keats and Wordsworth have not been brought into consideration although their best work is as fine poetry as any written, but they have written nothing on a larger scale which would place them among the greatest creators. If Keats had finished Hyperion (without spoiling it), if Shelley had lived, or if Wordsworth had not petered out like a motor car with insufficient petrol, it might be different, but we have to take things as they are. As it is, all began magnificently, but none of them finished, and what work they did, except a few lyrics, sonnets, short pieces and narratives, is often flawed and unequal. If they had to be admitted, what about at least fifty others in Europe and Asia? ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters On Poetry And Art,

867:The Dover Bitch: A Criticism Of Life So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me, And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc., etc.' Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read Sophocles in a fairly good translation And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, But all the time he was talking she had in mind the notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck. She told me later on That after a while she got to looking out At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad, Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds And blandishments in French and the perfumes. And then she got really angry. To have been brought All the way down from London, and then be addressed As sort of a mournful cosmic last resort Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty. Anyway, she watched him pace the room and finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit, And then she said one or two unprintable things. But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is, She's really all right. I still see her once in a while And she always treats me right. We have a drink And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year Before I see her again, but there she is, Running to fat, but dependable as they come, And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d'Amour. [Note: See Matthew Arnold's poem 'Dover Beach'] ~ Anthony Evan Hecht,

868:The past folds accordion-like into the present. Different media have different event horizons—for the written word, three millennia; for recorded sound, a century and a half—and within their time frames the old becomes as accessible as the new. Yellowed newspapers come back to life. Under headings of 50 Years Ago and 100 Years Ago, veteran publications recycle their archives: recipes, card-play techniques, science, gossip, once out of print and now ready for use. Record companies rummage through their attics to release, or re-release, every scrap of music, rarities, B-sides, and bootlegs. For a certain time, collectors, scholars, or fans possessed their books and their records. There was a line between what they had and what they did not. For some, the music they owned (or the books, or the videos) became part of who they were. That line fades away. Most of Sophocles' plays are lost, but those that survive are available at the touch of a button. Most of Bach's music was unknown to Beethoven; we have it all—partitas, cantatas, and ringtones. It comes to us instantly, or at light speed. It is a symptom of omniscience. It is what the critic Alex Ross calls the Infinite Playlist, and he sees how mixed is the blessing: "anxiety in place of fulfillment, and addictive cycle of craving and malaise. No sooner has one experience begun than the thought of what else is out there intrudes." The embarrassment of riches. Another reminder that information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. ~ James Gleick,

869:EDIPO - Non venirmi più a dire che non ho fatto ciò che era meglio, non darmi più consigli. Io non so con quali occhi, vedendo, avrei guardato mio padre, una volta disceso nell'Ade, o la misera madre: verso entrambi ho commesso atti, per cui non sarebbe bastato impiccarmi. O forse potevo desiderare la vista dei figli, nati come nacquero? No davvero, mai, per i miei occhi; e neppure la città, né le mura, né le sacre immagini degli dèi: di tutto ciò io sventuratissimo, l'uomo più illustre fra i Tebani, privai me stesso, proclamando che tutti scacciassero l'empio, l'individuo rivelato agli dèi impuro e figlio di Laio. Dopo avere denunziato così la mia infamia, dovevo guardare a fronte alta questi cittadini? No, affatto: anzi, se fosse stato possibile otturare nelle mie orecchie anche la fonte dell'udito, non avrei esitato a sbarrare del tutto questo misero corpo, così da essere sordo, oltre che cieco. È dolce per l'animo dimorare fuori dai mali. Ahi, Citerone, perché mi accogliesti? Perché, dopo avermi preso, non mi uccidesti subito, così che io non rivelassi mai agli uomini da chi sono nato? O Polibo e Corinto, e voi, che credevo antiche dimore degli avi, quale bellezza colma di male nutrivate in me: ora scopro d'essere uno sventurato, nato da sventurati! O tre strade e nascosta vallata, o querceto e gola alla convergenza delle tre vie, che beveste il sangue di mio padre, il mio, dalle mie stesse mani versato, vi ricordate di me? Quali delitti commisi presso di voi, e quali altri poi, giunto qui, ancora commisi! O nozze, voi mi generaste: e dopo avermi generato suscitaste ancora lo stesso seme, e mostraste padri, fratelli, figli, tutti dello stesso sangue; e spose insieme mogli e madri, e ogni cosa più turpe che esiste fra gli uomini. Ma, poiché ciò che non è bello fare non bisogna neppure dire, nascondetemi al più presto, per gli dèi, via di qui, o uccidetemi, o precipitatemi in mare, dove non mi vedrete mai più. Venite, non disdegnate di toccare un infelice; datemi ascolto, non temete: i miei mali nessun altro mortale può portarli, tranne me. Sofocle, Edipo Re [Esodo] ~ Sophocles,

870:Hypocrite Auteur mon semblable, mon frère (1) Our epoch takes a voluptuous satisfaction In that perspective of the action Which pictures us inhabiting the end Of everything with death for only friend. Not that we love death, Not truly, not the fluttering breath, The obscene shudder of the finished act— What the doe feels when the ultimate fact Tears at her bowels with its jaws. Our taste is for the opulent pause Before the end comes. If the end is certain All of us are players at the final curtain: All of us, silence for a time deferred, Find time before us for one sad last word. Victim, rebel, convert, stoic— Every role but the heroic— We turn our tragic faces to the stalls To wince our moment till the curtain falls. (2) A world ends when its metaphor has died. An age becomes an age, all else beside, When sensuous poets in their pride invent Emblems for the soul’s consent That speak the meanings men will never know But man-imagined images can show: It perishes when those images, though seen, No longer mean. (3) A world was ended when the womb Where girl held God became the tomb 20 Where God lies buried in a man: Botticelli’s image neither speaks nor can To our kind. His star-guided stranger Teaches no longer, by the child, the manger, The meaning of the beckoning skies. Sophocles, when his reverent actors rise To play the king with bleeding eyes, No longer shows us on the stage advance God’s purpose in the terrible fatality of chance. No woman living, when the girl and swan Embrace in verses, feels upon Her breast the awful thunder of that breast Where God, made beast, is by the blood confessed. Empty as conch shell by the waters cast The metaphor still sounds but cannot tell, And we, like parasite crabs, put on the shell And drag it at the sea’s edge up and down. This is the destiny we say we own. (4) But are we sure The age that dies upon its metaphor Among these Roman heads, these mediaeval towers, Is ours?— Or ours the ending of that story? The meanings in a man that quarry Images from blinded eyes And white birds and the turning skies To make a world of were not spent with these Abandoned presences. The journey of our history has not ceased: Earth turns us still toward the rising east, 21 The metaphor still struggles in the stone, The allegory of the flesh and bone Still stares into the summer grass That is its glass, The ignorant blood Still knocks at silence to be understood. Poets, deserted by the world before, Turn round into the actual air: Invent the age! Invent the metaphor! ~ Archibald MacLeish,

871:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer – Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus – Tragedies 4. Sophocles – Tragedies 5. Herodotus – Histories 6. Euripides – Tragedies 7. Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates – Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes – Comedies 10. Plato – Dialogues 11. Aristotle – Works 12. Epicurus – Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid – Elements 14. Archimedes – Works 15. Apollonius of Perga – Conic Sections 16. Cicero – Works 17. Lucretius – On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil – Works 19. Horace – Works 20. Livy – History of Rome 21. Ovid – Works 22. Plutarch – Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus – Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa – Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus – Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy – Almagest 27. Lucian – Works 28. Marcus Aurelius – Meditations 29. Galen – On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus – The Enneads 32. St. Augustine – On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njál 36. St. Thomas Aquinas – Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri – The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer – Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci – Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli – The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus – The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus – On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More – Utopia 44. Martin Luther – Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais – Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin – Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne – Essays 48. William Gilbert – On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes – Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser – Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon – Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare – Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei – Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler – Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey – On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan 57. René Descartes – Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton – Works 59. Molière – Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal – The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens – Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza – Ethics 63. John Locke – Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine – Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton – Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67. Daniel Defoe – Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift – A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve – The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley – Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope – Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu – Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire – Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson – The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets ~ Mortimer J Adler,

872:Reading list (1972 edition)[edit] 1. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey 2. The Old Testament 3. Aeschylus - Tragedies 4. Sophocles - Tragedies 5. Herodotus - Histories 6. Euripides - Tragedies 7. Thucydides - History of the Peloponnesian War 8. Hippocrates - Medical Writings 9. Aristophanes - Comedies 10. Plato - Dialogues 11. Aristotle - Works 12. Epicurus - Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus 13. Euclid - Elements 14.Archimedes - Works 15. Apollonius of Perga - Conic Sections 16. Cicero - Works 17. Lucretius - On the Nature of Things 18. Virgil - Works 19. Horace - Works 20. Livy - History of Rome 21. Ovid - Works 22. Plutarch - Parallel Lives; Moralia 23. Tacitus - Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania 24. Nicomachus of Gerasa - Introduction to Arithmetic 25. Epictetus - Discourses; Encheiridion 26. Ptolemy - Almagest 27. Lucian - Works 28. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations 29. Galen - On the Natural Faculties 30. The New Testament 31. Plotinus - The Enneads 32. St. Augustine - On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine 33. The Song of Roland 34. The Nibelungenlied 35. The Saga of Burnt Njal 36. St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica 37. Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy 38. Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales 39. Leonardo da Vinci - Notebooks 40. Niccolò Machiavelli - The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy 41. Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly 42. Nicolaus Copernicus - On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres 43. Thomas More - Utopia 44. Martin Luther - Table Talk; Three Treatises 45. François Rabelais - Gargantua and Pantagruel 46. John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion 47. Michel de Montaigne - Essays 48. William Gilbert - On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies 49. Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quixote 50. Edmund Spenser - Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene 51. Francis Bacon - Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis 52. William Shakespeare - Poetry and Plays 53. Galileo Galilei - Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences 54. Johannes Kepler - Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World 55. William Harvey - On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals 56. Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan 57. René Descartes - Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy 58. John Milton - Works 59. Molière - Comedies 60. Blaise Pascal - The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises 61. Christiaan Huygens - Treatise on Light 62. Benedict de Spinoza - Ethics 63. John Locke - Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education 64. Jean Baptiste Racine - Tragedies 65. Isaac Newton - Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics 66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology 67.Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe 68. Jonathan Swift - A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal 69. William Congreve - The Way of the World 70. George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge 71. Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man 72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws 73. Voltaire - Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary 74. Henry Fielding - Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones 75. Samuel Johnson - The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets    ~ Mortimer J Adler,

873:To The Memory Of My Beloved Author, Mr. William Shakespeare To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame; While I confess thy writings to be such As neither man nor muse can praise too much; 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these ways Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise; For seeliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right; Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance; Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seem'd to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd or whore Should praise a matron; what could hurt her more? But thou art proof against them, and indeed, Above th' ill fortune of them, or the need. I therefore will begin. Soul of the age! The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room: Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still while thy book doth live And we have wits to read and praise to give. That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, I mean with great, but disproportion'd Muses, For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee, I would not seek For names; but call forth thund'ring {AE}schylus, Euripides and Sophocles to us; Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead, To life again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, 142 Leave thee alone for the comparison Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Tri{'u}mph, my Britain, thou hast one to show To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age but for all time! And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm! Nature herself was proud of his designs And joy'd to wear the dressing of his lines, Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please, But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of Nature's family. Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art, My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His art doth give the fashion; and, that he Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame, Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn; For a good poet's made, as well as born; And such wert thou. Look how the father's face Lives in his issue, even so the race Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines In his well-turned, and true-filed lines; In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandish'd at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were To see thee in our waters yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza and our James! But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere Advanc'd, and made a constellation there! Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage Or influence, chide or cheer the drooping stage; Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourn'd like night, 143 And despairs day, but for thy volume's light. ~ Ben Jonson,

874:Invocation To The Muses Read by the poet at The Public Ceremonial of The Naional Institute of Arts and Letters at Carnegie Hall, New York, January 18th, 1941. Great Muse, that from this hall absent for long Hast never been, Great Muse of Song, Colossal Muse of mighty Melody, Vocal Calliope, With thine august and contrapuntal brow And thy vast throat builded for Harmony, For the strict monumental pure design, And the melodic line: Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters—be with me. If I address thee in archaic style— Words obsolete, words obsolescent, It is that for a little while The heart must, oh indeed must from this angry and out-rageous present Itself withdraw Into some past in which most crooked Evil, Although quite certainly conceived and born, was not as yet the Law. Archaic, or obsolescent at the least, Be thy grave speaking and the careful words of thy clear song, For the time wrongs us, and the words most common to our speech today Salute and welcome to the feast Conspicuous Evil— or against him all day long Cry out, telling of ugly deeds and most uncommon wrong. Be thou tonight with all beneath these rafters—be with me But oh, be more with those who are not free. Who, herded into prison camps all shame must suffer and all outrage see. Where music is not played nor sung, Though the great voice be there, no sound from the dry throat across the thickened tongue Comes forth; nor has he heart for it. Beauty in all things—no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it. Here it may dwell; And with your aid, Melpomene 68 And all thy sister-muses (for ye are, I think, daughters of Memory) Within the tortured mind as well. Reaped are those fields with dragon's-teeth so lately sown; Many the heaped men dying there - so close, hip touches thigh; yet each man dies alone. Music, what overtone For the soft ultimate sigh or the unheeded groan Hast thou—to make death decent, where men slip Down blood to death, no service of grieved heart or ritual lip Transferring what was recently a man and still is warm— Transferring his obedient limbs into the shallow grave where not again a friend shall greet him, Nor hatred do him harm . . . Nor true love run to meet him? In the last hours of him who lies untended On a cold field at night, and sees the hard bright stars Above his upturned face, and says aloud "How strange . . . my life is ended."— If in the past he loved great music much, and knew it well, Let not his lapsing mind be teased by well-beloved but ill- remembered bars Let the full symphony across the blood-soaked field By him be heard, most pure in every part, The lonely horror of whose painful death is thus repealed, Who dies with quiet tears upon his upturned face, making to glow with softness the hard stars. And bring to those who knew great poetry well Page after page that they have loved but have not learned by heart! We who in comfort to well-lighted shelves Can turn for all the poets ever wrote, Beseech you: Bear to those Who love high art no less than we ourselves, Those who lie wounded, those who in prison cast Strive to recall, to ease them, some great ode, and every stanza save the last. Recall—oh, in the dark, restore them The unremembered lines; make bright the page before them! Page after page present to these, In prison concentrated, watched by barbs of bayonet and wire, 69 Give ye to them their hearts' intense desire— The words of Shelley, Virgil, Sophocles. And thou, O lovely and not sad, Euterpe, be thou in this hall tonight! Bid us remember all we ever had Of sweet and gay delight— We who are free, But cannot quite be glad, Thinking of huge, abrupt disaster brought Upon so many of our kind Who treasure as do we the vivid look on the unfrightened face, The careless happy stride from place to place, And the unbounded regions of untrammelled thought Open as interstellar space To the exploring and excited mind. O Muses, O immortal Nine!— Or do ye languish? Can ye die? Must all go under?— How shall we heal without your help a world By these wild horses torn asunder? How shall we build anew? How start again? How cure, how even moderate this pain Without you, and you strong? And if ye sleep, then waken! And if ye sicken and do plan to die, Do not that now! Hear us, in what sharp need we cry! For we have help nowhere If not in you! Pity can much, and so a mighty mind, but cannot all things do!— By you forsaken, We shall be scattered, we shall be overtaken! Oh, come! Renew in us the ancient wonder, The grace of life, its courage, and its joy! Weave us those garlands nothing can destroy! Come! with your radiant eyes! with your throats of thunder! ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay,

875:The Journey Some of my friends (for friends I must suppose All, who, not daring to appear my foes, Feign great good-will, and not more full of spite Than full of craft, under false colours fight) Some of my friends (so lavishly I print) As more in sorrow than in anger, hint (Tho' that indeed will scarce admit a doubt) That I shall run my stock of genius out, My no great stock, and, publishing so fast, Must needs become a bankrupt at the last. Recover'd from the vanity of youth, I feel, alas! this melancholy truth, Thanks to each cordial, each advising friend, And am, if not too late, resolv'd to mend, Resolv'd to give some respite to my pen, Apply myself once more to books and men, View what is present, what is past review, And my old stock exhausted, lay in new. For twice six moons (let winds, turn'd porters, bear This oath to Heav'n), for twice six moons, I swear, No Muse shall tempt me with her siren lay, Nor draw me from Improvement's thorny way; Verse I abjure, nor will forgive that friend, Who in my hearing shall a rhyme commend. It cannot be--Whether I will, or no, Such as they are, my thoughts in measure flow. Convinc'd, determin'd, I in prose begin, But ere I write one sentence, verse creeps in, And taints me thro' and thro': by this good light, In verse I talk by day, I dream by night; If now and then I curse, my curses chime, Nor can I pray, unless I pray in rhyme, E'en now I err, in spite of common-sense, And my confession doubles my offence. Here is no lie, no gall, no art, no force; Mean are the words, and such as come of course, The subject not less simple than the lay; A plain, unlabour'd Journey of a day. Far from me now be ev'ry tuneful Maid, 241 I neither ask, nor can receive their aid. Pegasus turn'd into a common hack, Alone I jog, and keep the beaten track, Nor would I have the Sisters of the Hill Behold their bard in such a dishabille. Absent, but only absent for a time, Let them caress some dearer son of rhyme; Let them, as far as decency permits, Without suspicion, play the fool with wits, 'Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule, Wits are false things, there's danger in a fool. Let them, tho' modest, Gray more modest woo; Let them with Mason bleat, and bray, and coo; Let them with Franklin, proud of some small Greek, Make Sophocles disguis'd, in English speak; Let them with Glover o'er Medea doze; Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes, Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears, Melts, as they melt, and weeps with weeping peers; Let them with simple Whitehead, taught to creep Silent and soft, lay Fontenelle asleep; Let them with Browne contrive, to vulgar trick, To cure the dead, and make the living sick; Let them in charity to Murphy give Some old French piece, that he may steal and live; Let them with antic Foote subscriptions get, And advertise a Summer-house of Wit. Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, Let them their appetite for laughter feed; I on my Journey all alone proceed. If fashionable grown, and fond of pow'r, With hum'rous Scots let them disport their hour: Let them dance, fairy-like, round Ossian's tomb; Let them forge lies, and histories for Hume; Let them with Home, the very prince of verse, Make something like a Tragedy in Erse; Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil Let them with Ogilvie spin out a tale Of rueful length; Let them plain things obscure, Debase what's truly rich, and what is poor Make poorer still by jargon most uncouth; 242 With ev'ry pert, prim prettiness of youth Born of false Taste, with Fancy (like a child Not knowing what it cries for) running wild, With bloated style, by affectation taught, With much false colouring, and little thought, With phrases strange, and dialect decreed By reason never to have pass'd the Tweed, With words which Nature meant each other's foe, Forc'd to compound whether they will or no; With such materials let them, if they will, To prove at once their pleasantry and skill, Build up a bard to war 'gainst Common-Sense, By way of compliment to Providence; Let them with Armstrong, taking leave of Sense, Read musty lectures on Benevolence, Or con the pages of his gaping Day, Where all his former fame was thrown away, Where all but barren labour was forgot, And the vain stiffness of a letter'd Scot; Let them with Armstrong pass the term of light, But not one hour of darkness; when the night Suspends this mortal coil, when Memory wakes, When for our past misdoings Conscience takes A deep revenge, when by Reflection led, She draws his curtain, and looks Comfort dead, Let ev'ry Muse be gone; in vain he turns And tries to pray for sleep; an Etna burns, A more than Etna in his coward breast, And Guilt, with vengeance arm'd, forbids him rest: Tho' soft as plumage from young zephyr's wing, His couch seems hard, and no relief can bring. Ingratitude hath planted daggers there, No good man can deserve, no brave man bear. Thus, or in any better way they please, With these great men, or with great men like these, Let them their appetite for laughter feed I on my Journey all alone proceed. ~ Charles Churchill,

876:directed many of his own productions, and according to ancient critics, he is said to have brought the Furies onstage in so realistic a manner that women miscarried in the audience. Although ~ Aeschylus is said to have written over ninety plays, only seven have survived. His first extant work, The Suppliants, reveals a young ~ Aeschylus still struggling with the problems of choral drama. The tale revolves around the fifty daughers of Danaus who seek refuge in Argos from the attentions of the fifty sons of Aegyptus. His second extant drama, The Persians, recounts the battle of Salamis--in which ~ Aeschylus and his brother actually fought--and deals primarily with the reception of the news at the imperial court. This play contains the first "ghost scene" of extant drama. In his third surviving play, Prometheus Bound, ~ Aeschylus tackles the myth of Prometheus, the world's first humanitarian. As the play begins, the titan is being fastened against his will to a peak in the Caucasian mountains for giving mankind the gift of fire without the consent of the gods. Prometheus knows Zeus is destined to fall. In fact, he holds the secret of the Olympian's doom--a certain woman that will be his undoing--but Prometheus will not reveal her name. Even amid the fire from heaven that is hurled at him in a frightening climax, Prometheus remains fearless and silent. In Seven Against Thebes, ~ Aeschylus deals with themes of patricide and incest. He was not, however, willing to settle for the conventional explanation of the "family curse". Instead, ~ Aeschylus delved deeper, suggesting that heredity is nothing more than a predisposition--that the true cause of such "acts of wickedness" is ambition, greed, and a lack of moral fortitude. Thus, eliminating the gods as an excuse for wickedness, ~ Aeschylus demanded that men take responsibility for their actions. The Oresteia, a trilogy, was performed in 458 BC, less than two years before ~ Aeschylus ' death. Once again, he dealt with the tragedy of a royal house, a "hereditary curse" which began in a dim, legendary world in which Tantalus was cast into the pit of Tartarus for revealing to mankind the secrets of the gods. This situation paralleled events in ~ Aeschylus ' own life. He was reportedly charged with "impiety" for revealing the Eleusinian mysteries--the secret rites of the city of his birth--to outsiders. It is likely, however, that these charges were politically motivated, and he was not convicted. Legend has it that ~ Aeschylus met his death when an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it. Whatever the cause of his death, his life laid the groundwork the dramatic arts would need to flourish, and by the time of his death, there were two notable successors ready to take his place-- ~ Aeschylus claims at lines 1026-7 that he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." ~ Aeschylus goes on to say at lines 1039ff. that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous. Influence outside of Greek Culture ~ Aeschylus 's works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University) draws attention to Wagner's reverence of ~ Aeschylus . Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and ~ Aeschylus . The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and ~ Aeschylus 's Oresteia. A critic of his book however, while not denying that Wagner read and respected ~ Aeschylus , has described his arguments as unreasonable and forced. Sir J. T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his ~ Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that ~ Aeschylus , along with Sophocles, have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing href=" During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of ~ Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death to the crowd. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of his brother, President John F. Kennedy and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon, said: "My favorite poet was ~ Aeschylus . He once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The speech is considered to be Kennedy's finest. The quotation from ~ Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination A Prayer For Artemis STROPHE IV Though Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace; Nathless in every place Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race. ANTISTROPHE IV Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight, The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought; For wrapt in shadowy night, Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight, Extend the pathways of his secret thought. STROPHE V From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone To utter doom; but for their fall No force arrayeth he; for all That gods devise is without effort wrought. A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne By inborn energy achieves his thought. ANTISTROPHE V But let him mortal insolence behold:-How with proud contumacy rife, Wantons the stem in lusty life My marriage craving;--frenzy over-bold, Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate, By ruin taught their folly all too late. STROPHE VI Thus I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. ANTISTROPHE VI My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight Pollution were, death-laden, rude; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Alas for sorrow's murky brood! Where will this billow hurl me? Where? Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer; Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand, While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. STROPHE VII The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty brood, The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ANTISTROPHE VII Meeting my will with will divine, Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-Me, Artemis unstained, behold, Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield, Virgin thyself, a virgin shield; So our dread Mother's mighty brood The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ~ Aeschylus,

877:Captain Craig I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig, Or called him by his name, or looked at him So curiously, or so concernedly, As they had looked at ashes; but a few— Say five or six of us—had found somehow The spark in him, and we had fanned it there, Choked under, like a jest in Holy Writ, By Tilbury prudence. He had lived his life And in his way had shared, with all mankind, Inveterate leave to fashion of himself, By some resplendent metamorphosis, Whatever he was not. And after time, When it had come sufficiently to pass That he was going patch-clad through the streets, Weak, dizzy, chilled, and half starved, he had laid Some nerveless fingers on a prudent sleeve, And told the sleeve, in furtive confidence, Just how it was: “My name is Captain Craig,” He said, “and I must eat.” The sleeve moved on, And after it moved others—one or two; For Captain Craig, before the day was done, Got back to the scant refuge of his bed And shivered into it without a curse— Without a murmur even. He was cold, And old, and hungry; but the worst of it Was a forlorn familiar consciousness That he had failed again. There was a time When he had fancied, if worst came to worst, And he could do no more, that he might ask Of whom he would. But once had been enough, And soon there would be nothing more to ask. He was himself, and he had lost the speed He started with, and he was left behind. There was no mystery, no tragedy; And if they found him lying on his back Stone dead there some sharp morning, as they might,— 82 Well, once upon a time there was a man— Es war einmal ein König, if it pleased him. And he was right: there were no men to blame: There was just a false note in the Tilbury tune— A note that able-bodied men might sound Hosannas on while Captain Craig lay quiet. They might have made him sing by feeding him Till he should march again, but probably Such yielding would have jeopardized the rhythm; They found it more melodious to shout Right on, with unmolested adoration, To keep the tune as it had always been, To trust in God, and let the Captain starve. He must have understood that afterwards— When we had laid some fuel to the spark Of him, and oxidized it—for he laughed Out loud and long at us to feel it burn, And then, for gratitude, made game of us: “You are the resurrection and the life,” He said, “and I the hymn the Brahmin sings; O Fuscus! and we’ll go no more a-roving.” We were not quite accoutred for a blast Of any lettered nonchalance like that, And some of us—the five or six of us Who found him out—were singularly struck. But soon there came assurance of his lips, Like phrases out of some sweet instrument Man’s hand had never fitted, that he felt “No penitential shame for what had come, No virtuous regret for what had been,— But rather a joy to find it in his life To be an outcast usher of the soul For such as had good courage of the Sun To pattern Love.” The Captain had one chair; And on the bottom of it, like a king, For longer time than I dare chronicle, Sat with an ancient ease and eulogized His opportunity. My friends got out, Like brokers out of Arcady; but I— May be for fascination of the thing, Or may be for the larger humor of it— 83 Stayed listening, unwearied and unstung. When they were gone the Captain’s tuneful ooze Of rhetoric took on a change; he smiled At me and then continued, earnestly: “Your friends have had enough of it; but you, For a motive hardly vindicated yet By prudence or by conscience, have remained; And that is very good, for I have things To tell you: things that are not words alone— Which are the ghosts of things—but something firmer. “First, would I have you know, for every gift Or sacrifice, there are—or there may be— Two kinds of gratitude: the sudden kind We feel for what we take, the larger kind We feel for what we give. Once we have learned As much as this, we know the truth has been Told over to the world a thousand times;— But we have had no ears to listen yet For more than fragments of it: we have heard A murmur now and then, and echo here And there, and we have made great music of it; And we have made innumerable books To please the Unknown God. Time throws away Dead thousands of them, but the God that knows No death denies not one: the books all count, The songs all count; and yet God’s music has No modes, his language has no adjectives.” “You may be right, you may be wrong,” said I; “But what has this that you are saying now— This nineteenth-century Nirvana-talk— To do with you and me?” The Captain raised His hand and held it westward, where a patched And unwashed attic-window filtered in What barren light could reach us, and then said, With a suave, complacent resonance: “There shines The sun. Behold it. We go round and round, And wisdom comes to us with every whirl We count throughout the circuit. We may say The child is born, the boy becomes a man, The man does this and that, and the man goes,— But having said it we have not said much, 84 Not very much. Do I fancy, or you think, That it will be the end of anything When I am gone? There was a soldier once Who fought one fight and in that fight fell dead. Sad friends went after, and they brought him home And had a brass band at his funeral, As you should have at mine; and after that A few remembered him. But he was dead, They said, and they should have their friend no more.— However, there was once a starveling child— A ragged-vested little incubus, Born to be cuffed and frighted out of all Capacity for childhood’s happiness— Who started out one day, quite suddenly, To drown himself. He ran away from home, Across the clover-fields and through the woods, And waited on a rock above a stream, Just like a kingfisher. He might have dived, Or jumped, or he might not; but anyhow, There came along a man who looked at him With such an unexpected friendliness, And talked with him in such a common way, That life grew marvelously different: What he had lately known for sullen trunks And branches, and a world of tedious leaves, Was all transmuted; a faint forest wind That once had made the loneliest of all Sad sounds on earth, made now the rarest music; And water that had called him once to death Now seemed a flowing glory. And that man, Born to go down a soldier, did this thing. Not much to do? Not very much, I grant you: Good occupation for a sonneteer, Or for a clown, or for a clergyman, But small work for a soldier. By the way, When you are weary sometimes of your own Utility, I wonder if you find Occasional great comfort pondering What power a man has in him to put forth? ‘Of all the many marvelous things that are, Nothing is there more marvelous than man,’ Said Sophocles; and he lived long ago; 85 ‘And earth, unending ancient of the gods He furrows; and the ploughs go back and forth, Turning the broken mould, year after year.’… “I turned a little furrow of my own Once on a time, and everybody laughed— As I laughed afterwards; and I doubt not The First Intelligence, which we have drawn In our competitive humility As if it went forever on two legs, Had some diversion of it: I believe God’s humor is the music of the spheres— But even as we draft omnipotence Itself to our own image, we pervert The courage of an infinite ideal To finite resignation. You have made The cement of your churches out of tears And ashes, and the fabric will not stand: The shifted walls that you have coaxed and shored So long with unavailing compromise Will crumble down to dust and blow away, And younger dust will follow after them; Though not the faintest or the farthest whirled First atom of the least that ever flew Shall be by man defrauded of the touch God thrilled it with to make a dream for man When Science was unborn. And after time, When we have earned our spiritual ears, And art’s commiseration of the truth No longer glorifies the singing beast, Or venerates the clinquant charlatan,— Then shall at last come ringing through the sun, Through time, through flesh, a music that is true. For wisdom is that music, and all joy That wisdom:—you may counterfeit, you think, The burden of it in a thousand ways; But as the bitterness that loads your tears Makes Dead Sea swimming easy, so the gloom, The penance, and the woeful pride you keep, Make bitterness your buoyance of the world. And at the fairest and the frenziedest Alike of your God-fearing festivals, 86 You so compound the truth to pamper fear That in the doubtful surfeit of your faith You clamor for the food that shadows eat. You call it rapture or deliverance,— Passion or exaltation, or what most The moment needs, but your faint-heartedness Lives in it yet: you quiver and you clutch For something larger, something unfulfilled, Some wiser kind of joy that you shall have Never, until you learn to laugh with God.” And with a calm Socratic patronage, At once half sombre and half humorous, The Captain reverently twirled his thumbs And fixed his eyes on something far away; Then, with a gradual gaze, conclusive, shrewd, And at the moment unendurable For sheer beneficence, he looked at me. “But the brass band?” I said, not quite at ease With altruism yet.—He made a sort Of reminiscent little inward noise, Midway between a chuckle and a laugh, And that was all his answer: not a word Of explanation or suggestion came From those tight-smiling lips. And when I left, I wondered, as I trod the creaking snow And had the world-wide air to breathe again,— Though I had seen the tremor of his mouth And honored the endurance of his hand— Whether or not, securely closeted Up there in the stived haven of his den, The man sat laughing at me; and I felt My teeth grind hard together with a quaint Revulsion—as I recognize it now— Not only for my Captain, but as well For every smug-faced failure on God’s earth; Albeit I could swear, at the same time, That there were tears in the old fellow’s eyes. I question if in tremors or in tears There be more guidance to man’s worthiness Than—well, say in his prayers. But oftentimes It humors us to think that we possess 87 By some divine adjustment of our own Particular shrewd cells, or something else, What others, for untutored sympathy, Go spirit-fishing more than half their lives To catch—like cheerful sinners to catch faith; And I have not a doubt but I assumed Some egotistic attribute like this When, cautiously, next morning I reduced The fretful qualms of my novitiate, For most part, to an undigested pride. Only, I live convinced that I regret This enterprise no more than I regret My life; and I am glad that I was born. That evening, at “The Chrysalis,” I found The faces of my comrades all suffused With what I chose then to denominate Superfluous good feeling. In return, They loaded me with titles of odd form And unexemplified significance, Like “Bellows-mender to Prince Æolus,” “Pipe-filler to the Hoboscholiast,” “Bread-fruit for the Non-Doing,” with one more That I remember, and a dozen more That I forget. I may have been disturbed, I do not say that I was not annoyed, But something of the same serenity That fortified me later made me feel For their skin-pricking arrows not so much Of pain as of a vigorous defect In this world’s archery. I might have tried, With a flat facetiousness, to demonstrate What they had only snapped at and thereby Made out of my best evidence no more Than comfortable food for their conceit; But patient wisdom frowned on argument, With a side nod for silence, and I smoked A series of incurable dry pipes While Morgan fiddled, with obnoxious care, Things that I wished he wouldn’t. Killigrew, Drowsed with a fond abstraction, like an ass, Lay blinking at me while he grinned and made 88 Remarks. The learned Plunket made remarks. It may have been for smoke that I cursed cats That night, but I have rather to believe As I lay turning, twisting, listening, And wondering, between great sleepless yawns, What possible satisfaction those dead leaves Could find in sending shadows to my room And swinging them like black rags on a line, That I, with a forlorn clear-headedness Was ekeing out probation. I had sinned In fearing to believe what I believed, And I was paying for it.—Whimsical, You think,—factitious; but “there is no luck, No fate, no fortune for us, but the old Unswerving and inviolable price Gets paid: God sells himself eternally, But never gives a crust,” my friend had said; And while I watched those leaves, and heard those cats, And with half mad minuteness analyzed The Captain’s attitude and then my own, I felt at length as one who throws himself Down restless on a couch when clouds are dark, And shuts his eyes to find, when he wakes up And opens them again, what seems at first An unfamiliar sunlight in his room And in his life—as if the child in him Had laughed and let him see; and then I knew Some prowling superfluity of child In me had found the child in Captain Craig And let the sunlight reach him. While I slept, My thought reshaped itself to friendly dreams, And in the morning it was with me still. Through March and shifting April to the time When winter first becomes a memory My friend the Captain—to my other friend’s Incredulous regret that such as he Should ever get the talons of his talk So fixed in my unfledged credulity— Kept up the peroration of his life, Not yielding at a threshold, nor, I think, 89 Too often on the stairs. He made me laugh Sometimes, and then again he made me weep Almost; for I had insufficiency Enough in me to make me know the truth Within the jest, and I could feel it there As well as if it were the folded note I felt between my fingers. I had said Before that I should have to go away And leave him for the season; and his eyes Had shone with well-becoming interest At that intelligence. There was no mist In them that I remember; but I marked An unmistakable self-questioning And a reticence of unassumed regret. The two together made anxiety— Not selfishness, I ventured. I should see No more of him for six or seven months, And I was there to tell him as I might What humorous provision we had made For keeping him locked up in Tilbury Town. That finished—with a few more commonplace Prosaics on the certified event Of my return to find him young again— I left him neither vexed, I thought, with us, Nor over much at odds with destiny. At any rate, save always for a look That I had seen too often to mistake Or to forget, he gave no other sign. That train began to move; and as it moved, I felt a comfortable sudden change All over and inside. Partly it seemed As if the strings of me had all at once Gone down a tone or two; and even though It made me scowl to think so trivial A touch had owned the strength to tighten them, It made me laugh to think that I was free. But free from what—when I began to turn The question round—was more than I could say: I was no longer vexed with Killigrew, Nor more was I possessed with Captain Craig; But I was eased of some restraint, I thought, 90 Not qualified by those amenities, And I should have to search the matter down; For I was young, and I was very keen. So I began to smoke a bad cigar That Plunket, in his love, had given me The night before; and as I smoked I watched The flying mirrors for a mile or so, Till to the changing glimpse, now sharp, now faint, They gave me of the woodland over west, A gleam of long-forgotten strenuous years Came back, when we were Red Men on the trail, With Morgan for the big chief Wocky-Bocky; And yawning out of that I set myself To face again the loud monotonous ride That lay before me like a vista drawn Of bag-racks to the fabled end of things. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

878:or Callistratus. Similarly, the hero in The Acharnians complains about Cleon "dragging me into court" over "last year's play" but here again it is not clear if this was said on behalf of ~ Aristophanes or Callistratus, either of whom might have been prosecuted by Cleon. Comments made by the Chorus on behalf of ~ Aristophanes in The Clouds have been interpreted as evidence that he can have been hardly more than 18 years old when his first play The Banqueters was produced. The second parabasis in Wasps appears to indicate that he reached some kind of temporary accommodation with Cleon following either the controversy over The Babylonians or a subsequent controversy over The Knights.[ It has been inferred from statements in The Clouds and Peace that ~ Aristophanes was prematurely bald. We know that ~ Aristophanes was probably victorious at least once at the City Dionysia (with Babylonians in 427)and at least three times at the Lenaia, with Acharnians in 425, Knights in 424, and Frogs in 405. Frogs in fact won the unique distinction of a repeat performance at a subsequent festival. We know that a son of ~ Aristophanes , Araros, was also a comic poet and he could have been heavily involved in the production of his father's play Wealth II in s is also thought to have been responsible for the posthumous performances of the now lost plays Aeolosicon II and Cocalus, and it is possible that the last of these won the prize at the City Dionysia in 387. It appears that a second son, Philippus, was twice victorious at the Lenaia and he could have directed some of Eubulus’ comedies.A third son was called either Nicostratus or Philetaerus, and a man by the latter name appears in the catalogue of Lenaia victors with two victories, the first probably in the late 370s. Plato's The Symposium appears to be a useful source of biographical information about ~ Aristophanes , but its reliability is open to doubt. It purports to be a record of conversations at a dinner party at which both ~ Aristophanes and Socrates are guests, held some seven years after the performance of The Clouds, the play in which Socrates was cruelly caricatured. One of the guests, Alcibiades, even quotes from the play when teasing Socrates over his appearance and yet there is no indication of any ill-feeling between Socrates and ~ Aristophanes . Plato's ~ Aristophanes is in fact a genial character and this has been interpreted as evidence of Plato's own friendship with him (their friendship appears to be corroborated by an epitaph for ~ Aristophanes , reputedly written by Plato, in which the playwright's soul is compared to an eternal shrine for the Graces). Plato was only a boy when the events in The Symposium are supposed to have occurred and it is possible that his ~ Aristophanes is in fact based on a reading of the plays. For example, conversation among the guests turns to the subject of Love and ~ Aristophanes explains his notion of it in terms of an amusing allegory, a device he often uses in his plays. He is represented as suffering an attack of hiccoughs and this might be a humorous reference to the crude physical jokes in his plays. He tells the other guests that he is quite happy to be thought amusing but he is wary of appearing ridiculous. This fear of being ridiculed is consistent with his declaration in The Knights that he embarked on a career of comic playwright warily after witnessing the public contempt and ridicule that other dramatists had incurred. ~ Aristophanes survived The Peloponnesian War, two oligarchic revolutions and two democratic restorations; this has been interpreted as evidence that he was not actively involved in politics despite his highly political plays. He was probably appointed to the Council of Five Hundred for a year at the beginning of the fourth century but such appointments were very common in democratic tes, in the trial leading up to his own death, put the issue of a personal conscience in those troubled times quite succinctly: "...he who will really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public one. ~ Aristophanes the Poet The language in ~ Aristophanes ' plays, and in Old Comedy generally, was valued by ancient commentators as a model of the Attic dialect. The orator Quintilian believed that the charm and grandeur of the Attic dialect made Old Comedy an example for orators to study and follow, and he considered it inferior in these respects only to the works of A full appreciation of ~ Aristophanes ' plays requires an understanding of the poetic forms he employed with virtuoso skill, and of their different rhythms and associations. There were three broad poetic forms: iambic dialogue, tetrameter verses and lyrics: Iambic dialogue: ~ Aristophanes achieves an effect resembling natural speech through the use of the iambic hexameter (corresponding to the effects achieved by English poets such as based on words that are similar rather than identical, and it has been observed that there could be more of them than scholars have yet been able to identify. Others are based on double meanings. Sometimes entire scenes are constructed on puns, as in The Acharnians with the Megarian farmer and his pigs: the Megarian farmer defies the Athenian embargo against Megarian trade, and tries to trade his daughters disguised as pigs, except "pig" was ancient slang for "vagina". Since the embargo against Megara was the pretext for the Peloponnesian War, ~ Aristophanes naturally concludes that this whole mess happened because of "three cunts". It can be argued that the most important feature of the language of the plays is imagery, particularly the use of similes, metaphors and pictorial expressions. In 'The Knights', for example, the ears of a character with selective hearing are represented as parasols that open and close.In The Frogs, Aeschylus is said to compose verses in the manner of a horse rolling in a sandpit. Some plays feature revelations of human perfectibility that are poetic rather than religious in character, such as the marriage of the hero Pisthetairos to Zeus's paramour in The Birds and the 'recreation' of old Athens, crowned with roses, at the end of The Knights. ~ Aristophanes and Old Comedy The Greek word for 'comedy' (komoidía) derives from the words for 'revel' and 'song' (komos and ode) and according to Aristotle comic drama actually developed from song. The first, official comedy at the City Dionysia was not staged until 487/6 BC, by which time tragedy had already been long established there. The first comedy at the Lenaia was staged later still, only about 20 years before the performance there of The Acharnians, the first of ~ Aristophanes ' surviving plays. According to Aristotle, comedy was slow to gain official acceptance because nobody took it seriously yet, only sixty years after comedy first appeared at 'The City Dionysia', ~ Aristophanes observed that producing comedies was the most difficult work of tition at the Dionysian festivals needed dramatic conventions for plays to be judged, but it also fuelled innovations. Developments were quite rapid and Aristotle was able to distinguish between 'old' and 'new' comedy by 330 BC. The trend from Old Comedy to New Comedy saw a move away from highly topical concerns with real individuals and local issues towards generalized situations and stock characters. This was partly due to the internationalization of cultural perspectives during and after the Peloponnesian War. For ancient commentators such as Plutarch, New Comedy was a more sophisticated form of drama than Old Comedy. However Old Comedy was in fact a complex and sophisticated dramatic form incorporating many approaches to humour and entertainment. In ~ Aristophanes ' early plays, the genre appears to have developed around a complex set of dramatic conventions and these were only gradually simplified and abandoned. The City Dionysia and the Lenaia were celebrated in honour of Dionysus, a god who represented Man's darker nature (Euripides' play The Bacchae offers the best insight into 5th Century ideas about this god). Old Comedy can be understood as a celebration of the exuberant sense of release inherent in his worship It was more interested in finding targets for satire than in any kind of advocacy. During the City Dionysia, a statue of the god was brought to the theatre from a temple outside the city and it remained in the theatre throughout the festival, overseeing the plays like a privileged member of the audience.[102] In The Frogs, the god appears also as a dramatic character and he enters the theatre ludicrously disguised as Hercules. He observes to the audience that every time he is on hand to hear a joke from a comic dramatist like Phrynichus (one of ~ Aristophanes ' rivals) he ages by more than a year. The scene opens the play and it is a reminder to the audience that nobody is above mockery in Old Comedy — not even its patron god and its practitioners! Gods, artists, politicians and ordinary citizens were legitimate targets, comedy was a kind of licensed buffoonery and there was no legal redress for anyone who was slandered in a play. There were some limits to the scope of the satire, but they are not easily defined. Impiety could be punished in 5th century Athens but absurdities implicit in traditional religion were open to ridicule. The polis was not allowed to be slandered but, as stated in the biography section of this article, that could depend on who was in the audience and which festival was involved. For convenience, Old Comedy, as represented by ~ Aristophanes ' early plays, is analysed below in terms of three broad characteristics — topicality, festivity and complexity. Dramatic structure contributes to the complexity of ~ Aristophanes ' plays. However it is associated with poetic rhythms and meters that have little relevance to English translations and it is therefore treated in a separate section. Influence and legacy The tragic dramatists, Sophocles and Euripides, died near the end of the Peloponnesian War and the art of tragedy thereafter ceased to develop, yet comedy did continue to develop after the defeat of Athens and it is possible that it did so because, in ~ Aristophanes , it had a master craftsman who lived long enough to help usher it into a new age. Indeed, according to one ancient source (Platonius, c.9th Century AD), one of ~ Aristophanes 's last plays, Aioliskon, had neither a parabasis nor any choral lyrics (making it a type of Middle Comedy), while Kolakos anticipated all the elements of New Comedy, including a rape and a recognition scene. ~ Aristophanes seems to have had some appreciation of his formative role in the development of comedy, as indicated by his comment in Clouds that his audience would be judged by other times according to its reception of his plays. Clouds was awarded third (i.e. last) place after its original performance and the text that has come down to the modern age was a subsequent draft that ~ Aristophanes intended to be read rather than circulation of his plays in manuscript extended their influence beyond the original audience, over whom in fact they seem to have had little or no practical influence: they did not affect the career of Cleon, they failed to persuade the Athenians to pursue an honourable peace with Sparta and it is not clear that they were instrumental in the trial and execution of Socrates, whose death probably resulted from public animosity towards the philosopher's disgraced associates (such as Alcibiades), exacerbated of course by his own intransigence during the plays, in manuscript form, have been put to some surprising uses — as indicated earlier, they were used in the study of rhetoric on the recommendation of Quintilian and by students of the Attic dialect in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD. It is possible that Plato sent copies of the plays to Dionysius of Syracuse so that he might learn about Athenian life and government. Latin translations of the plays by Andreas Divus (Venice 1528) were circulated widely throughout Europe in the Renaissance and these were soon followed by translations and adaptations in modern languages. Racine, for example, drew Les Plaideurs (1668) from The Wasps. winged." Drama 1909: Wasps, original Greek, Cambridge University undergraduate production, music by Vaughan Williams; 2004, July–October: The Frogs (musical), adapted by Nathan Lane, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, performed at The Vivian Beaumont Theatre Broadway; 1962-2006: various plays by students and staff, Kings College London, in the original Greek:Frogs 1962,1971,1988; Thesmophoriazusae 1965, 1974, 1985; Acharnians 1968, 1992, 2004; Clouds 1977, 1990; Birds 1982, 2000; Ecclesiazusae 2006; Peace 1970; Wasps 1981 2002: Lysistrata, adapted by Robert Brustein, music by Galt McDermot, performed by American Repertory Theatre, Boston U.S.A.; 10 2008, May–June: Frogs, adapted by David Greenspan, music by Thomas Cabaniss, performed by Classic Stage Company, New York, U.S.A. Literature The romantic poet, Percy Shelley, wrote a comic, lyrical drama (Swellfoot the Tyrrant) in imitation of ~ Aristophanes ' play The Frogs after he was reminded of the Chorus in that play by a herd of pigs passing to market under the window of his lodgings in San Giuliano, Italy. ~ Aristophanes (particularly in reference to The Clouds) is mentioned frequently by the character Menedemos in the Hellenic Traders series of novels by H N Turteltaub. A liberal version of the comedies have been published in comic book format, initially by "Agrotikes Ekdoseis" during the 1990s and republished over the years by other companies. The plot was written by Tasos Apostolidis and the sketches were of George Akokalidis. The stories feature either ~ Aristophanes narrating them, directing the play, or even as a character inside one of his stories. Electronic Media The Wasps, radio play adapted by David Pountney, music by Vaughan Williams, recorded 26–28 July 2005, Albert Halls, Bolten, in association with BBC, under Halle label; Acropolis Now is a comedy radio show for the BBC set in Ancient Greece. It features ~ Aristophanes , Socrates and many other famous Greeks. (Not to be confused with the Australian sitcom of the same name.) ~ Aristophanes is characterised as a celebrity playwright, and most of his plays have the title formula: One of Our [e.g] Slaves has an Enormous Knob (a reference to the exaggerated appendages worn by Greek comic actors) ~ Aristophanes Against the World was a radio play by Martyn Wade and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Loosely based on several of his plays, it featured Clive Merrison as ~ Aristophanes . In The Odd Couple, Oscar and Felix are on Password, and when the password is bird, Felix’s esoteric clue is "~ Aristophanes " because of his play The Birds. During the commercial break (having failed to guess the password and lost the round), Oscar orders Felix not to give any more Greek clues and angrily growls, "~ Aristophanes is ridiculous"! Then when it's Oscar’s turn to give the clue on the 11 team’s next shot, the password is ridiculous and Oscar angrily growls "~ Aristophanes ", to which Felix gleefully responds, "Ridiculous!" Music Satiric Dances for a Comedy by ~ Aristophanes is a three-movement piece for concert band composed by Norman Dello Joio. It was commissioned in commemoration of the Bicentennial of April 19, 1775 (the start of the American Revolutionary War) by the Concord (Massachusetts) Band. The commission was funded by the Town of Concord and assistance was given by the Eastern National Park and Monument Association in cooperation with the National Park Service. 12 A Parody On Euripides's Lyric Verse Halcyons ye by the flowing sea Waves that warble twitteringly, Circling over the tumbling blue, Dipping your down in its briny dew, Spi-i-iders in corners dim Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film, Shuttles echoing round the room Silver notes of the whistling loom, Where the light-footed dolphin skips Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships, Over the course of the racing steed Where the clustering tendrils breed Grapes to drown dull care in delight, Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night! I don't exactly see how that last line is to scan, But that's a consideration I leave to our musical man. ~ Aristophanes,

879:The Bush I wonder if the spell, the mystery, That like a haze about your silence clings, Moulding your void until we seem to see Tangible Presences of Deathless Things, Patterned but little to our spirits' woof, Yet from our love or hate not all aloof, Can. be the matrix where are forming slowly Troy tales of Old Australia, to refine Eras to come of ordered melancholy 'Neath lily-pale Perfection's anodyne. For Troy hath ever been, and Homer sang Its younger story for a lodging's fee, While o'er Scamander settlers' axes rang Amid the Bush where Ilium was to be. For Cretan Art, dim centuries before, Minoan Dream-times some Briseis bore. Sumerian Phoebus by a willowed water Song-built a Troy for far Chaldea, where The sons of God, beholding Leda's daughter, Bartered eternal thrones for love of her. Across each terraced aeon Time hath sowed With green tautology of vanished years, Gaping aghast or webbed with shining lode, Achilles' anger's earthquake-rift appears. The towers that Phoebus builds can never fall: Desire that Helen lights can never pall: Yea, wounded Love hath still but gods to fly to, When lust of war inflames Diomedes: Must some Australian Hector vainly die, too? Captives in ships? (0 change that omen, Trees!) Yea, Mother Bush, in your deep dreams abide Cupids alert for man and maid unborn, Apprentice Pucks amid your saplings hide, And wistful gorges wait a Roland horn: Wallet of Sigurd shall this swag replace, And centaurs curvet where those brumbies race. 39 That drover's tale of love shall greaten duly Through magic prisms of a myriad years, Till bums Isolde to Tristram's fervour newly, Or Launcelot to golden Guinevere's. The miner cradling washdirt by the creek, Or pulled through darkness dripping to the plat: The navvy boring tunnels through the peak: The farmer grubbing box-trees on the flat: The hawker camping by the roadside spring: The hodman on the giddy scaffolding: Moths that around the fashion windows flutter: The racecourse spider and the betting fly: The children romping by the city gutter, While baby crows to every passer-byFrom these rough blocks strewn o'er our ancient stream Sculptors shall chisel brownie, fairy, faun, Any myrmidons of some Homeric dream From Melbourne mob and Sydney push be drawn. The humdrum lives that now we tire of, then Romance shall be, and 'we heroic men Treading the vestibule of Golden Ages, The Isthmus of the Land of Heart's Desire: For lo! the Sybil's final volume's pages Ope with our Advent, close when we expire. Forgetful Change in one 'antiquity' Boreal gleams shall drown, and southern glows; Out of some singing woman's heart-break plea Australia's dawn shall flush with Sappho's rose: Strong Shirlow's hand shall trace Mantegna's line, And Soma foam from Victor Daley's wine: Scholars to be our prehistoric drama From Esson's 'Woman Tamer' shall restore, Or find in Gilbert's 'Lotus Stream and Lama' An Austral Nile and Buddhas we adore. The sunlit Satyrs follow Hugh McCrae, Quinn spans the ocean with a Celtic ford, And Williamson the Pan-pipe learns to play From magpie-songs our schoolboy ears ignored: 40 A sweeter woe no keen of Erin gave Than Kendall sings o'er Araluen's grave: Tasmanian Wordsworth to his chapel riding The Burning Bush and Ardath mead shall pass, Or, from the sea-coast of Bohemia gliding On craft of dream, behold a shepherd lass. Jessie Mackay on Southern Highlands sees The elves deploy in kem and gallowglass: Our Gilbert Murray writes 'Euripides': Pirani merges in Pythagoras: Marsyas plunges into Lethe, flayed, From Rhadamanthine Stephens' steady blade: While Benvenuto Morton, drunk with singing, Sees salamanders in a bush-fire's bed, And Spencer sails from Alcheringa bringing Intaglios, totems and Books of the Dead. On Southern fiords shall Brady's Long Snakes hiss, Heavy with brides he wins to Viking troth: O'Reilly's Sydney shall be Sybaris, While Melbourne's Muses sup their Spartan broth: Murdoch, Zenobia's counsellor, in time, Redacts from Burke his book on The Sublime: By Way was Homer into Greek translated: And Shakespeare's self is Sophocles so plain They know the kerb whereon the Furies waited Outside the Mermaid Inn in Brogan's Lane. Vane shall divide with Vern Eureka's fame; Tillett and Mann are Tyler then and Cade: Dowie's entwines with Cagliostro's name, And in Tarpeia's, lo, those fair forms fade Who drug the poor, for social bread and wine, And lift the furtive latch to Catiline: There, where the Longmore-featured Gracchi hurry, And Greek-browed Higinbotham walks, anon, The 'wealthy lower orders' leap the Murray Before the stockwhip cracks of Jardine Don. Cleons in 'Windsor dress at Syracuse Their thin plebeians' promised meal delay; 41 And Archibald begets Australia's Muse Upon an undine red of Chowder Bay: Paterson's swan draws Amphitrite's car, And Sidon learns from Young what purples are: Rose Scott refutes dogmatic Cyril gaily, Hypatia turns the anti-suffrage flank, And Herod's daughter sools her 'morning daily' On John the Baptist by the Yarra Bank. Yon regal bustard, fading hence ere long, Shall seem the guide we followed to the Grail; This lyre-bird on his dancing-mound of song Our mystagogue of some Bacchantic vale, Where feathered Pan guffaws 'Evoe!' above, And Maenad curlews shriek their midnight love: That trailing flight of distant swans is bearing Sarpedon's soul to its eternal joy: This ibis, from the very Nile, despairing, Memnon our own would warn from fatal Troy. Primeval gnomes distilled the golden bribes That have impregnated your musing waste with men; But shall the spell of your pathetic tribes Curl round, in time, our fairer limbs again? Through that long tunnel of your gloom, I see Gardens of a metropolis to be! Out of the depths the mountain ash is soaring To embryon gods of what unsounded space? Out of the heights what influence is pouring Thin desolation on your haunted face? Many there are who see no higher lot For all your writhing centuries of toil Than that the avaricious plough should blot Their wilding burgeon, and the red brand spoil Your cyclopean garniture, to sow The cheap parterres of Europe on your woe. They weave all sorceries but yours, and borrow The tinkling spells of alien winds and seas To drown the chord of purifying sorrow, Bom ere the world, that pulses through your trees. 42 For, save when we, in not o'er-subtle mood, Hear magpies warbling soft November in, Or, hand in hand with Love, a dreaming wood Or bouldered crest of crisper April win, Your harps, unblurred by glozing strings, intone The dirges that behind Creation moan'Where, riding reinless billows, new lives dash on The souring beach of yesterday's decay, Where Love's chord leaps from mandrake shrieks of passion, And groping gods mould man from quivering clay. (Is Nature deaf and blind and dumb? A cruse Unfilled of wine? Clay for an unbreathed soul? Alien to man, till his desires transfuse Their flames through wind and water, leaf and bole, And each crude fane elaborately fit With oracles that echo all his wit? The living wilds of Greece saw death returning When Pan that men had made fell from his throne: Till through her sap our very blood is churning The Bush her lonely alien woe shall moan! Or is she reticent but to be kind? Whispers she not beneath her mask of clods'Who asks he shall receive, who seeks shall find, Who knocks shall open every door of God's?' Dumb Faith's, blind Hope's eternal consort she, Gravid with all that is on earth to be; Corn, wine and oil in hungry granite hiding, All Beauty under sober wings of clay, All life beneath her dead heart long abiding, Yea, all the gods her sons and she obey!) What sin's wan expiation strewed your Vast With mounded pillage of what conquering fire? Slumbering throes of what prodigious Past Exhale these lingering ghosts of its desire? Sunshine that bleached corruption out, that glare? Desolate blue of Purgatory, there? Flagellant winds through guilty Eden scouring? Sahara drowning Prester John's domain? Satumian dam her progeny devouring? Hath dawn-time Hun these footprints left? Hath Cain? 43 Even the human wave, that shall at length To man's endurance key your strident surge, Sings in your poignant tones and sombre strength, And makes, as yet, its own your primal dirge: A gun-shot startles dawn back from the sky, And mourning tea-trees echo Gordon's sigh: Nardoo with Burke's faint sweat is dank for ever: Spectral a tribe round poisoned rations shrieks: Till doomday Leichhardt walks die Never Never: Pensive, of Boake, the circling stock-whip speaks. The wraiths unseen of roadside crimes unnamed About that old-time shanty's ruins roam: This squatter's fenceless acres hide ashamed The hearth and battered zinc of Naboth's home: Deserted 'yam-holes' pit your harmonies With sloughing pock-marks of the gold-disease: The sludgy creek 'mid hungry rushes rambles, Where teal once dived and lowan raised her mound: That tree, with crows, o'erlooks the township shambles: These paddocks, ordure-smeared, the city bound. 0 yield not all to factory and farm! For we, who drew a milk no stranger knows From her scant paps, yearn for the acrid charm That gossamers the Bush Where No Tree Grows. And we have ritual moments when we crave For worship in some messmate-pillared nave, Where contrite 'bears' for woodland sins are kneeling, And, 'mid the censers of the mountain musk, Acolyte bell-birds the Angelus are pealing, And boobooks moan lone vespers in the dusk, And you have Children of the Dreaming Star, Who care but little for the crowded ways Where meagre spirits' vapid prizes are, Or for the paddocked ease of dreamless days And hedges clipped of every sunny growth That plights the soul to God in daily troth: Their wayward love prefers your desolation, Or (where the human trail hath seared its charm) 44 The briar-rose on some abandoned 'station', To all the tilled obedience of the farm. Vineyards that purblind thrift shall never glean The weedy waste and thistly gully hold: No mint shall melt to currency unclean Yon river-rounded hillock's Cape-broom gold: The onion-grass upon that dark green slope Returns our gaze from eyes of heliotrope: But more we seek your underflowered expanses Of scrub monotonous, or, where, O Bush, The craters of your fiery noon's romances, Like great firm bosoms, through the bare plains push. As many. Mother, are your moods and forms As all the sons who love you. Here, you mow Careering grounds for every brood of storms The wild sea-mares to desert stallions throw; Anon, up through a sea of sand you glance With green ephemeral exuberance, And then quick seeds dive deep to years of slumber From hot-hoofed drought's precipitate return: There, league on league, the snow's cold fingers number The shrinking nerves of supple-jack and fern. To other eyes and ears you are a great Pillared cathedral tremulously green, An odorous and hospitable gate To genial mystery, the happy screen Of truants or of lovers rambling there 'Neath sun-shot boughs o'er miles of maidenhair. Wee rubies dot the leaflets of the cherries, The wooing wagtails hop from log to bough, The bronzewing comes from Queensland for the berries, The bell-bird by the creek is calling now. And you can ride, an Eastern queen, they say, By living creatures sumptuously borne, With all barbaric equipages gay, Beneath the torrid blue of Capricorn. That native lotus is the very womb That was the Hindoo goddess' earthly tomb. 45 The gang-gang screams o'er cactus wildernesses, Palm trees are there, and swampy widths of rice, Unguents and odours ooze from green recesses, The jungles blaze with birds of Paradise. But I, in city exile, hear you sing Of saplinged hill and box-tree dotted plain, Or silver-grass that prays the North Wind's wing Convey its sigh to the loitering rain: And Spring is half distraught with wintry gusts, Summer the daily spoil of tropic lusts The sun and she too fiercely shared together Lingering thro' voluptuous Hindoo woods, But o'er my windless, soft autumnal weather The peace that passes understanding broods. When, now, they say 'The Bush!', I see the top Delicate amber leanings of the gum Flutter, or flocks of screaming green leeks drop Silent, where in the shining morning hum The gleaning bees for honey-scented hours 'Mid labyrinthine leaves and white gum flowers. Cantering midnight hoofs are nearing, nearing, The straining bullocks flick the harpy flies, The 'hatter' weeds his melancholy clearing, The distant cow-bell tinkles o'er the rise. You are the brooding comrade of our way, Whispering rumour of a new Unknown, Moulding us white ideals to obey, Steeping whate'er we learn in lore your own, And freshening with unpolluted light The squalid city's day and pallid night, Till we become ourselves distinct, Australian, (Your native lightning charging blood and nerve), Stripped to the soul of borrowed garments, alien To that approaching Shape of God you serve. Brooding, brooding, your whispers murmur plain That searching for the clue to mystery In grottos of decrepitude is vain, That never shall the eye of prophet see 46 In crooked Trade's tumultuous streets the plan Of templed cities adequate to man. Brooding, brooding, you make us Brahmins waiting (While uninspired pass on the hurtling years), Faithful to dreams your spirit is creating, Till Great Australia, born of you, appears. For Great Australia is not yet: She waits (Where o'er the Bush prophetic auras play) The passing of these temporary States, Flaunting their tawdry flags of far decay. Her aureole above the alien mists Beacons our filial eyes to mountain trysts: 'Mid homely trees with all ideals fruited, She shelters us till Trade's Simoom goes by, And slakes our thirst from cisterns unpolluted . For ages cold in brooding deeps of sky. We love our brothers, and to heal their woe Pluck simples from the known old gardens still: We love our kindred over seas, and grow Their symbols tenderly o'er plain and hill; We feel their blood rebounding in our hearts, And speak as they would speak our daily parts: But under all we know, we know that only A virgin womb unsoiled by ancient fear Can Saviours bear. So, we, your Brahmins, lonely, Deaf to the barren tumult, wait your Year. The Great Year's quivering dawn pencils the Night To be the morning of our children's prime, And weave from rays of yet ungathered Light A richer noon than e'er apparelled Time. If it must be, as Tuscan wisdom knew, Babylon's seer, and wistful Egypt too, That mellow afternoon shall pensive guide us Down somnolent Decay's ravine to rest, Then you, reborn, 0 Mother Bush, shall hide us All the long night at your dream-laden breast. Australian eyes that heed your lessons know Another world than older pilgrims may: 47 Prometheus chained in Kosciusko's snow Sees later gods than Zeus in turn decay: Boundless plateaux expand the spirit's sight, Resilient gales uphold her steeper flight: And your close beating heart, 0 savage Mother, Throbs secret words of joy and starker pain Than reach the ears all old deceptions smother In Lebanon, or e'en in Westermain. We marvel not, who hear your undersong, And catch a glimpse in rare exalted hours Of something like a Being gleam along Festooned arcades of flossie creeper flowers, Or, toward the mirk, seem privileged to share The silent rapture of the trees at prayerWe marvel not that seers in other ages, With eyes unstrained by peering logic, saw The desolation glow with Koran pages, Or Sinai stones with Tables of the Law. Homers are waiting in the gum trees now, Far driven from the tarnished Cyclades: More Druids to your green enchantment bow Than 'neath unfaithful Mona's vanished trees: A wind hath spirited from ageing France To our fresh hills the carpet of Romance: Heroes and maids of old with young blood tingling In ampler gardens grow their roses new: And races long apart their manas mingling Prepare the cradle of an Advent due. And those who dig the mounded eld for runes To read Religion's tangled cipher, here, Where all Illusion haunts the fainting noons Of days hysteric with the tireless leer Of ravenous enamoured suns, shall find How May a flings her mantle o'er the mind, Till sober sand to shining water changes, Dodona whispers from the she-oak groves, Afreets upon the tempest cross the ranges, And Fafnir through the bunyip marshes roves. 48 Once, when Uranian Love appeared to glow Through that abysmal Night that bounds our reignLove that a man may scarcely feel and know i Quite the same world as other men againWith earthward-streaming frontier wraiths distraught, Your oracles, 0 Mother Bush, I sought: But found, dismayed, that eerie light revealing Those wraiths already in your depths on sleuth, Termagant Scorns along your hillsides stealing, Remorse unbaring slow her barbed tooth. My own thoughts first from far dispersion flew Back to their sad creator, with the crops Of woes in flower and all the harvests due Till tiring Time the fearful seeding stops: In pigmy forms of friends and foes, anon In my own image, they came, stung, were gone: And then I heard the voice of Him Who Questions, Knowing the faltered answer ere it came, Chilling the soul by hovering suggestions Of wan damnation at a wince of blame. And all your leaves in symbols were arranged, Despairs long dead would leap from bough to bough, A gum-tree buttress to a goblin changed Grinning the warmth of some old broken vow: Furtive desires for scarce-remembered maids Glanced in a fearful bo-peep from your shades: Till you became a purgatory cleansing With rosy flakes in form of manikins, To fiercer shame within my soul condensing, The dim pollution of forgotten sins. And She, the human symbol of that Love, Would, as my cleansed eyes forgot their fear, Comrade beside me. Comforter above, With sunny smile ubiquitous appear: Run on before me to the nooks we knew, Walk hand in hand as glad young lovers do, Gravely reprove me toying with temptation, Show me the eyes and ears in roots and clods, Bend with me o'er some blossom's revelation, 49 Or read from clouds the judgments of the gods. My old ideals She would tune until The grating note of self no longer rang: She drove the birds of gloom and evil will Out of the cote wherein my poems sang. Time at Her wand annulled his calendar, And Space his fallacy of Near and Far, For through my Bush along with me She glided, And crowded days of Beauty made more fair, Though lagging weeks and ocean widths divided Her mortal casing from Her Presence there. Her wetted finger oped my shuttered eyes To boyhood's scership of the Real again: Upon the Bush descended from the skies The rapt-up Eden of primordial men: August Dominions through the vistas strode: On white-maned clouds the smiling cherubs rode: Maltreated Faith restored my jangled hearing Till little seraphs sang from chip and clod: And prayers were radiant children that, unfearing, Floated as kisses to the lips of God. It matters not that for some purpose wise Myopic Reason censored long ago The revelations of that Paradise, When, back of all I feel or will or know, Its silent angels beacon through the Dark And point to harbours new my drifted ark. Nor need we dread the fogs that round us thicken Questing the Bush for Grails decreed for man, When Powers our fathers saw unseen still quicken Eyes that were ours before the world began. 'Twas then I saw the Vision of the Ways, And 'mid their gloom and glory seemed to live, Threaded the coverts of the Dark Road's maze, Toiled up, with tears, the Track Retributive, And, on the Path of Grace, beheld aglow The love-lit Nave of all that wheeled below. And She who flowered, my Mystic Rose, in Heaven, 50 And lit the Purging Mount, my Guiding Star, Trudged o'er the marl, my mate, through Hell's wan levin, Nor shrank, like lonely Dante's love, afar. High towered a cloud over one leafy wild, And to a bridged volcano grew. Above, A great Greek group of father, mother, child, Illumed a narrow round with radiant love. Below, a smoke-pool thick with faces swirled, The mutinous omen. of an Under-world, Defeated, plundered, blackened, but preparing, E'en though that calm, white dominance fell down, To overflow the rim, and, sunward faring, Shape myriad perfect groups from slave and clown. Or thus I read the symbol, though 'twas sent To hound compunction on my wincing pride, That dreamed of raceless brotherhood, content Though all old Charm dissolved and Glory died. For often signs will yield their deeper signs, Virginal Bush, in your untrodden shrines, Than where the craven ages' human clamour Distorts the boldest oracle with fear, Or where dissolving wizards dew with glamour Arden, Broceliande, or Windermere. Once while my mother by a spreading tree Our church's sober rubric bade me con, My vagrant eyes among the boughs would see Forbidden wings and •wizard aprons on Father's 'wee people' from their Irish glades Brighten and darken with your lights and shades. And I would only read again those stern leaves For whispered bribe that, when their tale I told, We would go and look for fairies in the fern-leaves And red-capped leprechauns with crocks of gold. Anon, my boyhood saw how Sunbursts flamed Or filmy hinds lured on a pale Oisin, Where lithe indignant saplings crowding claimed The digger's ravage for their plundered queen: And heard within yon lichened 'mullock-heap' 51 Lord Edward's waiting horsemen moan in sleep: Or flew the fragrant path of swans consoling Lir's exiled daughter wandering with me, And traced below the Wattle River rolling Exuberant and golden toward the sea. Here, would the •wavering wings of heat uplift Some promontory till the tree-crowned pile Above a phantom sea would swooning drift, St. Brendan's vision of the Winged Isle: Anon, the isle divides again, again, Till archipelagos poise o'er the main. There, lazy fingers of a breeze have scattered The distant blur of factory chimney smoke hi poignant groups of all the young lives shattered To feed the ravin of a piston-stroke! Or when I read the tale of what you were Beyond these hungry eyes' home-keeping view, I peopled petrel rocks with Sirens fair, In Maid Mirage the Fairy Morgan knew, Steered Quetzalcoatl's skiff to coral coasts, On Chambers' Pillar throned the Olympian hosts, Heard in white sulphur-crested parrots' screeches Remorseful Peris vent their hopeless rage, Atlantis' borders traced on sunken beaches, m Alcheringa found the Golden Age. Sibyl and Siren, with alternate breaths You read our foetal nation's boon and bane, And lure to trysts of orgiastic Deaths Adventurous love that listens to your strain: Pelsarts and Vanderdeckens of the world Circle your charms or at your feet are hurled: And, Southern witch, whose glamour drew De Quiros O'er half the earth for one unyielded kiss, Were yours the arms that healed the scalded Eros When Psyche's curious lamp darkened their bliss? Ye, who would challenge when we claim to see The bush alive with Northern wealth of wings, Forget that at a common mother's knee 52 We learned, with you, the lore of Silent Things. There is no New that is not older far Than swirling cradle of the first-born star: Our youngest hearts prolong the far pulsation And churn the brine of the primordial sea: The foetus writes the précis of Creation: Australia is the whole world's legatee. Imagination built her throne in us Before your present bodies saw the sky: Your myths were counters of our abacus, And in your brain developed long our eye: We from the misty folk have also sprung Who saw the gnomes and heard the Ever Young: Do Southern skies the fancy disinherit Of moly flower and Deva-laden breeze? Do nerves attuned by old defect and merit Their timbre lose by crossing tropic seas? All mysteries ye claim as yours alone Have wafted secrets over oceans here: Our living soil Antiquity hath sown With just the corn and tares ye love and fear: Romance and song enthral us just as you, Nor change of zenith changes spirit too: Our necks as yours are sore with feudal halters: To the Pole ye know our compasses are set; And shivering years that huddled round your altars Beneath our stars auspicious tremble yet. Who fenced the nymphs in European vales? Or Pan tabooed from all but Oxford dreams? Warned Shakespeare off from foreign Plutarch's tales? Or tethered Virgil to Italian themes? And when the body sailed from your control Think ye we left behind in bond the soul? Whate'er was yours is ours in equal measure, The Temple was not built for you alone, Altho' 'tis ours to grace the common treasure With Lares and Penates of our own! Ye stole yourselves from gardens fragrant long 53 The sprouting seed-pods of your choicest blooms, And wove the splendid garments of your song From Viking foam on grave Hebraic looms: 'Twas Roman nerve and rich Hellenic lymph Changed your pale pixie to a nubile nymph: Yea, breathed at dawn around Atlantis' islands, Wind-home o'er some Hesperidean road, The morning clouds on dim Accadian highlands Spring-fed the Nile that over Hellas flowed! As large-eyed Greek amid Sicilian dews Saw Dis, as ne'er before, pursue the Maid, Or, safe 'neath screening billows, Arethuse Alpheus' rugged sleuth unsoiled evade: We shall complete the tale ye left half-told, Under the ocean lead your fountains old, To slake our sceptic thirst with haunted water, And tame our torrents with a wedding kiss, Shall loose, mayhap, the spell on Ceres' daughter, And show, unclouded, God in very Dis. (Yet, there are moods and mornings when I hear, Above the music of the Bush's breath, The rush of alien breezes far and near Drowning her oracles to very death: Exotic battle-cries the silence mar, Seductive perfumes drive the gum-scent far; And organ-tones august a moment show me Miltonic billows and Homeric gales Until I feel the older worlds below me, And all her wonder trembles, thins and fails.) Yea, you are all that we may be, and yet In us is all you are to be for aye! The Giver of the gifts that we shall get? An empty womb that waits the wedding day? Thus drifting sense by age-long habit buoyed Plays round the thought that knows all nature void! And so, my song alternate would believe her Idiot Bush and Daughter of the Sun, A worthless gift apart from the receiver, An empty womb, but in a Deathless One. 54 To shapes we would of Freedom, Truth and Joy Shall we your willing plasm mould for man: Afresh rebuild the world, and thus destroy What only Ragnarok in Europe can: There is no Light but in your dark blendes sleeps, Drops from your stars or through your ether leaps: Yea, you are Nature, Chaos since Creation, Waiting what human Word to chord in song? Matrix inert of what auspicious nation? For what far bees your nectar hiving long? Exhausted manas of the conquering North Shall rise refreshed to vivid life again At your approach, and in your lap pour forth Grateful the gleanings of his mighty reign: As, when a tropic heat-king southward crawls, Blistering the ranges, till he hears the calls Of some cold high-browed bride, her streaming tresses, Sprinkled with rose-buds, make his wild eyes thrill To such desire for her superb caresses He yields his fiery treasures to her will. 'Where is Australia, singer, do you know? These sordid farms and joyless factories, Mephitic mines and lanes of pallid woe? Those ugly towns and cities such as these With incense sick to all unworthy power, And all old sin in full malignant flower? No! to her bourn her children still are faring: She is a Temple that we are to build: For her the ages have been long preparing: She is a prophecy to be fulfilled! All that we love in olden lands and lore Was signal of her coming long ago! Bacon foresaw her, Campanella, More And Plato's eyes were with her star aglow! Who toiled for Truth, whate'er their countries were, Who fought for Liberty, they yearned for her! No corsair's gathering ground, or tryst for schemers, 55 No chapman Carthage to a huckster Tyre, She is the Eldorado of old dreamers, The Sleeping Beauty of the world's desire! She is the scroll on which we are to write Mythologies our own and epics new: She is the port of our propitious flight From Ur idolatrous and Pharaoh's crew. She is our own, unstained, if worthy we, By dream, or god, or star we would not see: Her crystal beams all but the eagle dazzle; Her wind-wide ways none but the strong-winged sail: She is Eutopia, she is Hy-Brasil, The watchers on the tower of morning hail I Yet she shall be as we, the Potter, mould: Altar or tomb, as we aspire, despair: What wine we bring shall she, the chalice, hold: What word we write shall she, the script, declare: Bandage our eyes, she shall be Memphis, Spain: Barter our souls, she shall be Tyre again: And if we pour on her the red oblation All o'er the world shall Asshur's buzzards throng: Love-lit, her Chaos shall become Creation: And dewed with dream, her silence flower in song. ~ Bernard O'Dowd,

880:The Rosciad Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse Boldly defies all mean and partial views; With honest freedom plays the critic's part, And praises, as she censures, from the heart. Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair. The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage No longer whine in love, and rant in rage; The monarch quits his throne, and condescends Humbly to court the favour of his friends; For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps, And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps. Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome, To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume; In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war, And show where honour bled in every scar. But though bare merit might in Rome appear The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here; We form our judgment in another way; And they will best succeed, who best can pay: Those who would gain the votes of British tribes, Must add to force of merit, force of bribes. What can an actor give? In every age Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage; Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player, Appear as often as their image there: They can't, like candidate for other seat, Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat. Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon, And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune: But what they have they give; could Clive do more, Though for each million he had brought home four? Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair, And hopes the friends of humour will be there; In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat For those who laughter love, instead of meat; Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be, In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea; 259 Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives, And at the New, pours water on the leaves. The town divided, each runs several ways, As passion, humour, interest, party sways. Things of no moment, colour of the hair, Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair, A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced, Conciliate favour, or create distaste. From galleries loud peals of laughter roll, And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll. Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart, Palmer! oh! Palmer tops the jaunty part. Seated in pit, the dwarf with aching eyes, Looks up, and vows that Barry's out of size; Whilst to six feet the vigorous stripling grown, Declares that Garrick is another Coan. When place of judgment is by whim supplied, And our opinions have their rise in pride; When, in discoursing on each mimic elf, We praise and censure with an eye to self; All must meet friends, and Ackman bids as fair, In such a court, as Garrick, for the chair. At length agreed, all squabbles to decide, By some one judge the cause was to be tried; But this their squabbles did afresh renew, Who should be judge in such a trial:--who? For Johnson some; but Johnson, it was fear'd, Would be too grave; and Sterne too gay appear'd; Others for Franklin voted; but 'twas known, He sicken'd at all triumphs but his own: For Colman many, but the peevish tongue Of prudent Age found out that he was young: For Murphy some few pilfering wits declared, Whilst Folly clapp'd her hands, and Wisdom stared. To mischief train'd, e'en from his mother's womb, Grown old in fraud, though yet in manhood's bloom, Adopting arts by which gay villains rise, And reach the heights which honest men despise; Mute at the bar, and in the senate loud, Dull 'mongst the dullest, proudest of the proud; A pert, prim, prater of the northern race, Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face, 260 Stood forth,--and thrice he waved his lily hand, And thrice he twirled his tye, thrice stroked his band:-At Friendship's call (thus oft, with traitorous aim, Men void of faith usurp Faith's sacred name) At Friendship's call I come, by Murphy sent, Who thus by me develops his intent: But lest, transfused, the spirit should be lost, That spirit which, in storms of rhetoric toss'd, Bounces about, and flies like bottled beer, In his own words his own intentions hear. Thanks to my friends; but to vile fortunes born, No robes of fur these shoulders must adorn. Vain your applause, no aid from thence I draw; Vain all my wit, for what is wit in law? Twice, (cursed remembrance!) twice I strove to gain Admittance 'mongst the law-instructed train, Who, in the Temple and Gray's Inn, prepare For clients' wretched feet the legal snare; Dead to those arts which polish and refine, Deaf to all worth, because that worth was mine, Twice did those blockheads startle at my name, And foul rejection gave me up to shame. To laws and lawyers then I bade adieu, And plans of far more liberal note pursue. Who will may be a judge--my kindling breast Burns for that chair which Roscius once possess'd. Here give your votes, your interest here exert, And let success for once attend desert. With sleek appearance, and with ambling pace, And, type of vacant head, with vacant face, The Proteus Hill put in his modest plea,-Let Favour speak for others, Worth for me.-For who, like him, his various powers could call Into so many shapes, and shine in all? Who could so nobly grace the motley list, Actor, Inspector, Doctor, Botanist? Knows any one so well--sure no one knows-At once to play, prescribe, compound, compose? Who can--but Woodward came,--Hill slipp'd away, Melting, like ghosts, before the rising day. With that low cunning, which in fools supplies, And amply too, the place of being wise, 261 Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave To qualify the blockhead for a knave; With that smooth falsehood, whose appearance charms, And Reason of each wholesome doubt disarms, Which to the lowest depths of guile descends, By vilest means pursues the vilest ends; Wears Friendship's mask for purposes of spite, Pawns in the day, and butchers in the night; With that malignant envy which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail, Which merit and success pursues with hate, And damns the worth it cannot imitate; With the cold caution of a coward's spleen, Which fears not guilt, but always seeks a screen, Which keeps this maxim ever in her view-What's basely done, should be done safely too; With that dull, rooted, callous impudence, Which, dead to shame and every nicer sense, Ne'er blush'd, unless, in spreading Vice's snares, She blunder'd on some virtue unawares; With all these blessings, which we seldom find Lavish'd by Nature on one happy mind, A motley figure, of the Fribble tribe, Which heart can scarce conceive, or pen describe, Came simpering on--to ascertain whose sex Twelve sage impannell'd matrons would perplex. Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both; Of neuter gender, though of Irish growth; A six-foot suckling, mincing in Its gait; Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate; Fearful It seem'd, though of athletic make, Lest brutal breezes should too roughly shake Its tender form, and savage motion spread, O'er Its pale cheeks, the horrid manly red. Much did It talk, in Its own pretty phrase, Of genius and of taste, of players and of plays; Much too of writings, which Itself had wrote, Of special merit, though of little note; For Fate, in a strange humour, had decreed That what It wrote, none but Itself should read; Much, too, It chatter'd of dramatic laws, Misjudging critics, and misplaced applause; 262 Then, with a self-complacent, jutting air, It smiled, It smirk'd, It wriggled to the chair; And, with an awkward briskness not Its own, Looking around, and perking on the throne, Triumphant seem'd; when that strange savage dame, Known but to few, or only known by name, Plain Common-Sense appear'd, by Nature there Appointed, with plain Truth, to guard the chair, The pageant saw, and, blasted with her frown, To Its first state of nothing melted down. Nor shall the Muse, (for even there the pride Of this vain nothing shall be mortified) Nor shall the Muse (should Fate ordain her rhymes, Fond, pleasing thought! to live in after-times) With such a trifler's name her pages blot; Known be the character, the thing forgot: Let It, to disappoint each future aim, Live without sex, and die without a name! Cold-blooded critics, by enervate sires Scarce hammer'd out, when Nature's feeble fires Glimmer'd their last; whose sluggish blood, half froze, Creeps labouring through the veins; whose heart ne'er glows With fancy-kindled heat;--a servile race, Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules; With solemn consequence declared that none Could judge that cause but Sophocles alone. Dupes to their fancied excellence, the crowd, Obsequious to the sacred dictate, bow'd. When, from amidst the throng, a youth stood forth, Unknown his person, not unknown his worth; His look bespoke applause; alone he stood, Alone he stemm'd the mighty critic flood. He talk'd of ancients, as the man became Who prized our own, but envied not their fame; With noble reverence spoke of Greece and Rome, And scorn'd to tear the laurel from the tomb. But, more than just to other countries grown, Must we turn base apostates to our own? Where do these words of Greece and Rome excel, That England may not please the ear as well? 263 What mighty magic's in the place or air, That all perfection needs must centre there? In states, let strangers blindly be preferr'd; In state of letters, merit should be heard. Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day; Foe to restraint, from place to place she flies, And may hereafter e'en in Holland rise. May not, (to give a pleasing fancy scope, And cheer a patriot heart with patriot hope) May not some great extensive genius raise The name of Britain 'bove Athenian praise; And, whilst brave thirst of fame his bosom warms, Make England great in letters as in arms? There may--there hath,--and Shakspeare's Muse aspires Beyond the reach of Greece; with native fires Mounting aloft, he wings his daring flight, Whilst Sophocles below stands trembling at his height. Why should we then abroad for judges roam, When abler judges we may find at home? Happy in tragic and in comic powers, Have we not Shakspeare?--Is not Jonson ours? For them, your natural judges, Britons, vote; They'll judge like Britons, who like Britons wrote. He said, and conquer'd--Sense resumed her sway, And disappointed pedants stalk'd away. Shakspeare and Jonson, with deserved applause, Joint-judges were ordain'd to try the cause. Meantime the stranger every voice employ'd, To ask or tell his name. Who is it? Lloyd. Thus, when the aged friends of Job stood mute, And, tamely prudent, gave up the dispute, Elihu, with the decent warmth of youth, Boldly stood forth the advocate of Truth; Confuted Falsehood, and disabled Pride, Whilst baffled Age stood snarling at his side. The day of trial's fix'd, nor any fear Lest day of trial should be put off here. Causes but seldom for delay can call In courts where forms are few, fees none at all. The morning came, nor find I that the Sun, As he on other great events hath done, 264 Put on a brighter robe than what he wore To go his journey in, the day before. Full in the centre of a spacious plain, On plan entirely new, where nothing vain, Nothing magnificent appear'd, but Art With decent modesty perform'd her part, Rose a tribunal: from no other court It borrow'd ornament, or sought support: No juries here were pack'd to kill or clear, No bribes were taken, nor oaths broken here; No gownsmen, partial to a client's cause, To their own purpose turn'd the pliant laws; Each judge was true and steady to his trust, As Mansfield wise, and as old Foster just. In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, A noble wildness flashing from his eyes, Sat Shakspeare: in one hand a wand he bore, For mighty wonders famed in days of yore; The other held a globe, which to his will Obedient turn'd, and own'd the master's skill: Things of the noblest kind his genius drew, And look'd through Nature at a single view: A loose he gave to his unbounded soul, And taught new lands to rise, new seas to roll; Call'd into being scenes unknown before, And passing Nature's bounds, was something more. Next Jonson sat, in ancient learning train'd, His rigid judgment Fancy's flights restrain'd; Correctly pruned each wild luxuriant thought, Mark'd out her course, nor spared a glorious fault. The book of man he read with nicest art, And ransack'd all the secrets of the heart; Exerted penetration's utmost force, And traced each passion to its proper source; Then, strongly mark'd, in liveliest colours drew, And brought each foible forth to public view: The coxcomb felt a lash in every word, And fools, hung out, their brother fools deterr'd. His comic humour kept the world in awe, And Laughter frighten'd Folly more than Law. But, hark! the trumpet sounds, the crowd gives way, And the procession comes in just array. 265 Now should I, in some sweet poetic line, Offer up incense at Apollo's shrine, Invoke the Muse to quit her calm abode, And waken Memory with a sleeping Ode. For how shall mortal man, in mortal verse, Their titles, merits, or their names rehearse? But give, kind Dulness! memory and rhyme, We 'll put off Genius till another time. First, Order came,--with solemn step, and slow, In measured time his feet were taught to go. Behind, from time to time, he cast his eye, Lest this should quit his place, that step awry. Appearances to save his only care; So things seem right, no matter what they are. In him his parents saw themselves renew'd, Begotten by Sir Critic on Saint Prude. Then came drum, trumpet, hautboy, fiddle, flute; Next snuffer, sweeper, shifter, soldier, mute: Legions of angels all in white advance; Furies, all fire, come forward in a dance; Pantomime figures then are brought to view, Fools, hand in hand with fools, go two by two. Next came the treasurer of either house; One with full purse, t'other with not a sous. Behind, a group of figures awe create, Set off with all the impertinence of state; By lace and feather consecrate to fame, Expletive kings, and queens without a name. Here Havard, all serene, in the same strains, Loves, hates, and rages, triumphs and complains; His easy vacant face proclaim'd a heart Which could not feel emotions, nor impart. With him came mighty Davies: on my life, That Davies hath a very pretty wife! Statesman all over, in plots famous grown, He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone. Next Holland came: with truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies,--a hero should not walk. As if with Heaven he warr'd, his eager eyes Planted their batteries against the skies; Attitude, action, air, pause, start, sigh, groan, He borrow'd, and made use of as his own. 266 By fortune thrown on any other stage, He might, perhaps, have pleased an easy age; But now appears a copy, and no more, Of something better we have seen before. The actor who would build a solid fame, Must Imitation's servile arts disclaim; Act from himself, on his own bottom stand; I hate e'en Garrick thus at second-hand. Behind came King.--Bred up in modest lore, Bashful and young, he sought Hibernia's shore; Hibernia, famed, 'bove every other grace, For matchless intrepidity of face. From her his features caught the generous flame, And bid defiance to all sense of shame. Tutor'd by her all rivals to surpass, 'Mongst Drury's sons he comes, and shines in Brass. Lo, Yates! Without the least finesse of art He gets applause--I wish he'd get his part. When hot Impatience is in full career, How vilely 'Hark ye! hark ye!' grates the ear; When active fancy from the brain is sent, And stands on tip-toe for some wish'd event, I hate those careless blunders, which recall Suspended sense, and prove it fiction all. In characters of low and vulgar mould, Where Nature's coarsest features we behold; Where, destitute of every decent grace, Unmanner'd jests are blurted in your face, There Yates with justice strict attention draws, Acts truly from himself, and gains applause. But when, to please himself or charm his wife, He aims at something in politer life, When, blindly thwarting Nature's stubborn plan, He treads the stage by way of gentleman, The clown, who no one touch of breeding knows, Looks like Tom Errand dress'd in Clincher's clothes. Fond of his dress, fond of his person grown, Laugh'd at by all, and to himself unknown, Prom side to side he struts, he smiles, he prates, And seems to wonder what's become of Yates. Woodward, endow'd with various tricks of face, Great master in the science of grimace, 267 From Ireland ventures, favourite of the town, Lured by the pleasing prospect of renown; A speaking harlequin, made up of whim, He twists, he twines, he tortures every limb; Plays to the eye with a mere monkey's art, And leaves to sense the conquest of the heart. We laugh indeed, but, on reflection's birth, We wonder at ourselves, and curse our mirth. His walk of parts he fatally misplaced, And inclination fondly took for taste; Hence hath the town so often seen display'd Beau in burlesque, high life in masquerade. But when bold wits,--not such as patch up plays, Cold and correct, in these insipid days,-Some comic character, strong featured, urge To probability's extremest verge; Where modest Judgment her decree suspends, And, for a time, nor censures, nor commends; Where critics can't determine on the spot Whether it is in nature found or not, There Woodward safely shall his powers exert, Nor fail of favour where he shows desert; Hence he in Bobadil such praises bore, Such worthy praises, Kitely scarce had more. By turns transform'd into all kind of shapes, Constant to none, Foote laughs, cries, struts, and scrapes: Now in the centre, now in van or rear, The Proteus shifts, bawd, parson, auctioneer. His strokes of humour, and his bursts of sport, Are all contain'd in this one word--distort. Doth a man stutter, look a-squint, or halt? Mimics draw humour out of Nature's fault, With personal defects their mirth adorn, And bang misfortunes out to public scorn. E'en I, whom Nature cast in hideous mould, Whom, having made, she trembled to behold, Beneath the load of mimicry may groan, And find that Nature's errors are my own. Shadows behind of Foote and Woodward came; Wilkinson this, Obrien was that name. Strange to relate, but wonderfully true, That even shadows have their shadows too! 268 With not a single comic power endued, The first a mere, mere mimic's mimic stood; The last, by Nature form'd to please, who shows, In Johnson's Stephen, which way genius grows, Self quite put off, affects with too much art To put on Woodward in each mangled part; Adopts his shrug, his wink, his stare; nay, more, His voice, and croaks; for Woodward croak'd before. When a dull copier simple grace neglects, And rests his imitation in defects, We readily forgive; but such vile arts Are double guilt in men of real parts. By Nature form'd in her perversest mood, With no one requisite of art endued, Next Jackson came--Observe that settled glare, Which better speaks a puppet than a player; List to that voice--did ever Discord hear Sounds so well fitted to her untuned ear? When to enforce some very tender part, The right hand slips by instinct on the heart, His soul, of every other thought bereft, Is anxious only where to place the left; He sobs and pants to soothe his weeping spouse; To soothe his weeping mother, turns and bows: Awkward, embarrass'd, stiff, without the skill Of moving gracefully, or standing still, One leg, as if suspicious of his brother, Desirous seems to run away from t'other. Some errors, handed down from age to age, Plead custom's force, and still possess the stage. That's vile: should we a parent's faults adore, And err, because our fathers err'd before? If, inattentive to the author's mind, Some actors made the jest they could not find; If by low tricks they marr'd fair Nature's mien, And blurr'd the graces of the simple scene, Shall we, if reason rightly is employ'd, Not see their faults, or seeing, not avoid? When Falstaff stands detected in a lie, Why, without meaning, rolls Love's glassy eye? Why? There's no cause--at least no cause we know-It was the fashion twenty years ago. 269 Fashion!--a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse. To copy beauties, forfeits all pretence To fame--to copy faults, is want of sense. Yet (though in some particulars he fails, Some few particulars, where mode prevails) If in these hallow'd times, when, sober, sad, All gentlemen are melancholy mad; When 'tis not deem'd so great a crime by half To violate a vestal as to laugh, Rude mirth may hope, presumptuous, to engage An act of toleration for the stage; And courtiers will, like reasonable creatures, Suspend vain fashion, and unscrew their features; Old Falstaff, play'd by Love, shall please once more, And humour set the audience in a roar. Actors I've seen, and of no vulgar name, Who, being from one part possess'd of fame, Whether they are to laugh, cry, whine, or bawl, Still introduce that favourite part in all. Here, Love, be cautious--ne'er be thou betray'd To call in that wag Falstaff's dangerous aid; Like Goths of old, howe'er he seems a friend, He'll seize that throne you wish him to defend. In a peculiar mould by Humour cast, For Falstaff framed--himself the first and last-He stands aloof from all--maintains his state, And scorns, like Scotsmen, to assimilate. Vain all disguise--too plain we see the trick, Though the knight wears the weeds of Dominic; And Boniface disgraced, betrays the smack, In _anno Domini_, of Falstaff sack. Arms cross'd, brows bent, eyes fix'd, feet marching slow, A band of malcontents with spleen o'erflow; Wrapt in Conceit's impenetrable fog, Which Pride, like Phoebus, draws from every bog, They curse the managers, and curse the town Whose partial favour keeps such merit down. But if some man, more hardy than the rest, Should dare attack these gnatlings in their nest, At once they rise with impotence of rage, Whet their small stings, and buzz about the stage: 270 'Tis breach of privilege! Shall any dare To arm satiric truth against a player? Prescriptive rights we plead, time out of mind; Actors, unlash'd themselves, may lash mankind. What! shall Opinion then, of nature free, And liberal as the vagrant air, agree To rust in chains like these, imposed by things, Which, less than nothing, ape the pride of kings? No--though half-poets with half-players join To curse the freedom of each honest line; Though rage and malice dim their faded cheek, What the Muse freely thinks, she'll freely speak; With just disdain of every paltry sneer, Stranger alike to flattery and fear, In purpose fix'd, and to herself a rule, Public contempt shall wait the public fool. Austin would always glisten in French silks; Ackman would Norris be, and Packer, Wilkes: For who, like Ackman, can with humour please; Who can, like Packer, charm with sprightly ease? Higher than all the rest, see Bransby strut: A mighty Gulliver in Lilliput! Ludicrous Nature! which at once could show A man so very high, so very low! If I forget thee, Blakes, or if I say Aught hurtful, may I never see thee play. Let critics, with a supercilious air, Decry thy various merit, and declare Frenchman is still at top; but scorn that rage Which, in attacking thee, attacks the age. French follies, universally embraced, At once provoke our mirth, and form our taste. Long, from a nation ever hardly used, At random censured, wantonly abused, Have Britons drawn their sport; with partial view Form'd general notions from the rascal few; Condemn'd a people, as for vices known, Which from their country banish'd, seek our own. At length, howe'er, the slavish chain is broke, And Sense, awaken'd, scorns her ancient yoke: Taught by thee, Moody, we now learn to raise Mirth from their foibles; from their virtues, praise. 271 Next came the legion which our summer Bayes, From alleys, here and there, contrived to raise, Flush'd with vast hopes, and certain to succeed, With wits who cannot write, and scarce can read. Veterans no more support the rotten cause, No more from Elliot's worth they reap applause; Each on himself determines to rely; Be Yates disbanded, and let Elliot fly. Never did players so well an author fit, To Nature dead, and foes declared to wit. So loud each tongue, so empty was each head, So much they talk'd, so very little said, So wondrous dull, and yet so wondrous vain, At once so willing, and unfit to reign, That Reason swore, nor would the oath recall, Their mighty master's soul inform'd them all. As one with various disappointments sad, Whom dulness only kept from being mad, Apart from all the rest great Murphy came-Common to fools and wits, the rage of fame. What though the sons of Nonsense hail him Sire, Auditor, Author, Manager, and Squire, His restless soul's ambition stops not there; To make his triumphs perfect, dub him Player. In person tall, a figure form'd to please, If symmetry could charm deprived of ease; When motionless he stands, we all approve; What pity 'tis the thing was made to move. His voice, in one dull, deep, unvaried sound, Seems to break forth from caverns under ground; From hollow chest the low sepulchral note Unwilling heaves, and struggles in his throat. Could authors butcher'd give an actor grace, All must to him resign the foremost place. When he attempts, in some one favourite part, To ape the feelings of a manly heart, His honest features the disguise defy, And his face loudly gives his tongue the lie. Still in extremes, he knows no happy mean, Or raving mad, or stupidly serene. In cold-wrought scenes, the lifeless actor flags; In passion, tears the passion into rags. 272 Can none remember? Yes--I know all must-When in the Moor he ground his teeth to dust, When o'er the stage he Folly's standard bore, Whilst Common-Sense stood trembling at the door. How few are found with real talents blest! Fewer with Nature's gifts contented rest. Man from his sphere eccentric starts astray: All hunt for fame, but most mistake the way. Bred at St Omer's to the shuffling trade, The hopeful youth a Jesuit might have made; With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn'd without sense, and venerably dull; Or, at some banker's desk, like many more, Content to tell that two and two make four; His name had stood in City annals fair, And prudent Dulness mark'd him for a mayor. What, then, could tempt thee, in a critic age, Such blooming hopes to forfeit on a stage? Could it be worth thy wondrous waste of pains To publish to the world thy lack of brains? Or might not Reason e'en to thee have shown, Thy greatest praise had been to live unknown? Yet let not vanity like thine despair: Fortune makes Folly her peculiar care. A vacant throne, high-placed in Smithfield, view. To sacred Dulness and her first-born due, Thither with haste in happy hour repair, Thy birthright claim, nor fear a rival there. Shuter himself shall own thy juster claim, And venal Ledgers puff their Murphy's name; Whilst Vaughan, or Dapper, call him which you will, Shall blow the trumpet, and give out the bill. There rule, secure from critics and from sense, Nor once shall Genius rise to give offence; Eternal peace shall bless the happy shore, And little factions break thy rest no more. From Covent Garden crowds promiscuous go, Whom the Muse knows not, nor desires to know; Veterans they seem'd, but knew of arms no more Than if, till that time, arms they never bore: Like Westminster militia train'd to fight, They scarcely knew the left hand from the right. 273 Ashamed among such troops to show the head, Their chiefs were scatter'd, and their heroes fled. Sparks at his glass sat comfortably down To separate frown from smile, and smile from frown. Smith, the genteel, the airy, and the smart, Smith was just gone to school to say his part. Ross (a misfortune which we often meet) Was fast asleep at dear Statira's feet; Statira, with her hero to agree, Stood on her feet as fast asleep as he. Macklin, who largely deals in half-form'd sounds, Who wantonly transgresses Nature's bounds, Whose acting's hard, affected, and constrain'd, Whose features, as each other they disdain'd, At variance set, inflexible and coarse, Ne'er know the workings of united force, Ne'er kindly soften to each other's aid, Nor show the mingled powers of light and shade; No longer for a thankless stage concern'd, To worthier thoughts his mighty genius turn'd, Harangued, gave lectures, made each simple elf Almost as good a speaker as himself; Whilst the whole town, mad with mistaken zeal, An awkward rage for elocution feel; Dull cits and grave divines his praise proclaim, And join with Sheridan's their Macklin's name. Shuter, who never cared a single pin Whether he left out nonsense, or put in, Who aim'd at wit, though, levell'd in the dark, The random arrow seldom hit the mark, At Islington, all by the placid stream Where city swains in lap of Dulness dream, Where quiet as her strains their strains do flow, That all the patron by the bards may know, Secret as night, with Rolt's experienced aid, The plan of future operations laid, Projected schemes the summer months to cheer, And spin out happy folly through the year. But think not, though these dastard chiefs are fled, That Covent Garden troops shall want a head: Harlequin comes their chief! See from afar The hero seated in fantastic car! 274 Wedded to Novelty, his only arms Are wooden swords, wands, talismans, and charms; On one side Folly sits, by some call'd Fun, And on the other his arch-patron, Lun; Behind, for liberty athirst in vain, Sense, helpless captive, drags the galling chain: Six rude misshapen beasts the chariot draw, Whom Reason loathes, and Nature never saw, Monsters with tails of ice, and heads of fire; 'Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.' Each was bestrode by full as monstrous wight, Giant, dwarf, genius, elf, hermaphrodite. The Town, as usual, met him in full cry; The Town, as usual, knew no reason why: But Fashion so directs, and Moderns raise On Fashion's mouldering base their transient praise. Next, to the field a band of females draw Their force, for Britain owns no Salique law: Just to their worth, we female rights admit, Nor bar their claim to empire or to wit. First giggling, plotting chambermaids arrive, Hoydens and romps, led on by General Clive. In spite of outward blemishes, she shone, For humour famed, and humour all her own: Easy, as if at home, the stage she trod, Nor sought the critic's praise, nor fear'd his rod: Original in spirit and in ease, She pleased by hiding all attempts to please: No comic actress ever yet could raise, On Humour's base, more merit or more praise. With all the native vigour of sixteen, Among the merry troop conspicuous seen, See lively Pope advance, in jig, and trip Corinna, Cherry, Honeycomb, and Snip: Not without art, but yet to nature true, She charms the town with humour just, yet new: Cheer'd by her promise, we the less deplore The fatal time when Olive shall be no more. Lo! Vincent comes! With simple grace array'd, She laughs at paltry arts, and scorns parade: Nature through her is by reflection shown, Whilst Gay once more knows Polly for his own. 275 Talk not to me of diffidence and fear-I see it all, but must forgive it here; Defects like these, which modest terrors cause, From Impudence itself extort applause. Candour and Reason still take Virtue's part; We love e'en foibles in so good a heart. Let Tommy Arne,--with usual pomp of style, Whose chief, whose only merit's to compile; Who, meanly pilfering here and there a bit, Deals music out as Murphy deals out wit,-Publish proposals, laws for taste prescribe, And chaunt the praise of an Italian tribe; Let him reverse kind Nature's first decrees, And teach e'en Brent a method not to please; But never shall a truly British age Bear a vile race of eunuchs on the stage; The boasted work's call'd national in vain, If one Italian voice pollutes the strain. Where tyrants rule, and slaves with joy obey, Let slavish minstrels pour the enervate lay; To Britons far more noble pleasures spring, In native notes whilst Beard and Vincent sing. Might figure give a title unto fame, What rival should with Yates dispute her claim? But justice may not partial trophies raise, Nor sink the actress' in the woman's praise. Still hand in hand her words and actions go, And the heart feels more than the features show; For, through the regions of that beauteous face We no variety of passions trace; Dead to the soft emotions of the heart, No kindred softness can those eyes impart: The brow, still fix'd in sorrow's sullen frame, Void of distinction, marks all parts the same. What's a fine person, or a beauteous face, Unless deportment gives them decent grace? Bless'd with all other requisites to please, Some want the striking elegance of ease; The curious eye their awkward movement tires; They seem like puppets led about by wires. Others, like statues, in one posture still, Give great ideas of the workman's skill; 276 Wond'ring, his art we praise the more we view, And only grieve he gave not motion too. Weak of themselves are what we beauties call, It is the manner which gives strength to all; This teaches every beauty to unite, And brings them forward in the noblest light; Happy in this, behold, amidst the throng, With transient gleam of grace, Hart sweeps along. If all the wonders of external grace, A person finely turn'd, a mould of face, Where--union rare--expression's lively force With beauty's softest magic holds discourse, Attract the eye; if feelings, void of art, Rouse the quick passions, and inflame the heart; If music, sweetly breathing from the tongue, Captives the ear, Bride must not pass unsung. When fear, which rank ill-nature terms conceit, By time and custom conquer'd, shall retreat; When judgment, tutor'd by experience sage, Shall shoot abroad, and gather strength from age; When Heaven, in mercy, shall the stage release From the dull slumbers of a still-life piece; When some stale flower, disgraceful to the walk, Which long hath hung, though wither'd, on the stalk, Shall kindly drop, then Bride shall make her way, And merit find a passage to the day; Brought into action, she at once shall raise Her own renown, and justify our praise. Form'd for the tragic scene, to grace the stage With rival excellence of love and rage; Mistress of each soft art, with matchless skill To turn and wind the passions as she will; To melt the heart with sympathetic woe, Awake the sigh, and teach the tear to flow; To put on frenzy's wild, distracted glare, And freeze the soul with horror and despair; With just desert enroll'd in endless fame, Conscious of worth superior, Cibber came. When poor Alicia's madd'ning brains are rack'd, And strongly imaged griefs her mind distract, Struck with her grief, I catch the madness too, My brain turns round, the headless trunk I view! 277 The roof cracks, shakes, and falls--new horrors rise, And Reason buried in the ruin lies! Nobly disdainful of each slavish art, She makes her first attack upon the heart; Pleased with the summons, it receives her laws, And all is silence, sympathy, applause. But when, by fond ambition drawn aside, Giddy with praise, and puff'd with female pride, She quits the tragic scene, and, in pretence To comic merit, breaks down nature's fence, I scarcely can believe my ears or eyes, Or find out Cibber through the dark disguise. Pritchard, by Nature for the stage design'd, In person graceful, and in sense refined; Her art as much as Nature's friend became, Her voice as free from blemish as her fame, Who knows so well in majesty to please, Attemper'd with the graceful charms of ease? When, Congreve's favoured pantomime to grace, She comes a captive queen, of Moorish race; When love, hate, jealousy, despair, and rage With wildest tumults in her breast engage, Still equal to herself is Zara seen; Her passions are the passions of a queen. When she to murder whets the timorous Thane, I feel ambition rush through every vein; Persuasion hangs upon her daring tongue, My heart grows flint, and every nerve's new strung. In comedy--Nay, there, cries Critic, hold; Pritchard's for comedy too fat and old: Who can, with patience, bear the gray coquette, Or force a laugh with over-grown Julett? Her speech, look, action, humour, all are just, But then, her age and figure give disgust. Are foibles, then, and graces of the mind, In real life, to size or age confined? Do spirits flow, and is good-breeding placed In any set circumference of waist? As we grow old, doth affectation cease, Or gives not age new vigour to caprice? If in originals these things appear, Why should we bar them in the copy here? 278 The nice punctilio-mongers of this age, The grand minute reformers of the stage, Slaves to propriety of every kind, Some standard measure for each part should find, Which, when the best of actors shall exceed, Let it devolve to one of smaller breed. All actors, too, upon the back should bear Certificate of birth; time, when; place, where; For how can critics rightly fix their worth, Unless they know the minute of their birth? An audience, too, deceived, may find, too late, That they have clapp'd an actor out of date. Figure, I own, at first may give offence, And harshly strike the eye's too curious sense; But when perfections of the mind break forth, Humour's chaste sallies, judgment's solid worth; When the pure genuine flame by Nature taught, Springs into sense and every action's thought; Before such merit all objections fly-Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick's six feet high. Oft have I, Pritchard, seen thy wondrous skill, Confess'd thee great, but find thee greater still; That worth, which shone in scatter'd rays before, Collected now, breaks forth with double power. The 'Jealous Wife!' on that thy trophies raise, Inferior only to the author's praise. From Dublin, famed in legends of romance For mighty magic of enchanted lance, With which her heroes arm'd, victorious prove, And, like a flood, rush o'er the land of Love, Mossop and Barry came--names ne'er design'd By Fate in the same sentence to be join'd. Raised by the breath of popular acclaim, They mounted to the pinnacle of fame; There the weak brain, made giddy with the height, Spurr'd on the rival chiefs to mortal fight. Thus sportive boys, around some basin's brim, Behold the pipe-drawn bladders circling swim; But if, from lungs more potent, there arise Two bubbles of a more than common size, Eager for honour, they for fight prepare, Bubble meets bubble, and both sink to air. 279 Mossop attach'd to military plan, Still kept his eye fix'd on his right-hand man; Whilst the mouth measures words with seeming skill, The right hand labours, and the left lies still; For he, resolved on Scripture grounds to go, What the right doth, the left-hand shall not know, With studied impropriety of speech, He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach; To epithets allots emphatic state, Whilst principals, ungraced, like lackeys wait; In ways first trodden by himself excels, And stands alone in indeclinables; Conjunction, preposition, adverb join To stamp new vigour on the nervous line; In monosyllables his thunders roll, He, she, it, and we, ye, they, fright the soul. In person taller than the common size, Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes! When labouring passions, in his bosom pent, Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent; Spectators, with imagined terrors warm, Anxious expect the bursting of the storm: But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell, His voice comes forth, like Echo from her cell, To swell the tempest needful aid denies, And all adown the stage in feeble murmurs dies. What man, like Barry, with such pains, can err In elocution, action, character? What man could give, if Barry was not here, Such well applauded tenderness to Lear? Who else can speak so very, very fine, That sense may kindly end with every line? Some dozen lines before the ghost is there, Behold him for the solemn scene prepare: See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb, Puts the whole body into proper trim:-From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art, Five lines hence comes a ghost, and, ha! a start. When he appears most perfect, still we find Something which jars upon and hurts the mind: Whatever lights upon a part are thrown, We see too plainly they are not his own: 280 No flame from Nature ever yet he caught, Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught: He raised his trophies on the base of art, And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part. Quin, from afar, lured by the scent of fame, A stage leviathan, put in his claim, Pupil of Betterton and Booth. Alone, Sullen he walk'd, and deem'd the chair his own: For how should moderns, mushrooms of the day, Who ne'er those masters knew, know how to play? Gray-bearded veterans, who, with partial tongue, Extol the times when they themselves were young, Who, having lost all relish for the stage, See not their own defects, but lash the age, Received, with joyful murmurs of applause, Their darling chief, and lined his favourite cause. Far be it from the candid Muse to tread Insulting o'er the ashes of the dead: But, just to living merit, she maintains, And dares the test, whilst Garrick's genius reigns, Ancients in vain endeavour to excel, Happily praised, if they could act as well. But, though prescription's force we disallow, Nor to antiquity submissive bow; Though we deny imaginary grace, Founded on accidents of time and place, Yet real worth of every growth shall bear Due praise; nor must we, Quin, forget thee there. His words bore sterling weight; nervous and strong, In manly tides of sense they roll'd along: Happy in art, he chiefly had pretence To keep up numbers, yet not forfeit sense; No actor ever greater heights could reach In all the labour'd artifice of speech. Speech! is that all? And shall an actor found An universal fame on partial ground? Parrots themselves speak properly by rote, And, in six months, my dog shall howl by note. I laugh at those who, when the stage they tread, Neglect the heart, to compliment the head; With strict propriety their cares confined To weigh out words, while passion halts behind: 281 To syllable-dissectors they appeal, Allow them accent, cadence,--fools may feel; But, spite of all the criticising elves, Those who would make us feel, must feel themselves. His eyes, in gloomy socket taught to roll, Proclaim'd the sullen 'habit of his soul:' Heavy and phlegmatic he trod the stage, Too proud for tenderness, too dull for rage. When Hector's lovely widow shines in tears, Or Rowe's gay rake dependent virtue jeers, With the same cast of features he is seen To chide the libertine, and court the queen. From the tame scene, which without passion flows, With just desert his reputation rose; Nor less he pleased, when, on some surly plan, He was, at once, the actor and the man. In Brute he shone unequall'd: all agree Garrick's not half so great a Brute as he. When Cato's labour'd scenes are brought to view, With equal praise the actor labour'd too; For still you'll find, trace passions to their root, Small difference 'twixt the Stoic and the Brute. In fancied scenes, as in life's real plan, He could not, for a moment, sink the man. In whate'er cast his character was laid, Self still, like oil, upon the surface play'd. Nature, in spite of all his skill, crept in: Horatio, Dorax, Falstaff,--still 'twas Quin. Next follows Sheridan. A doubtful name, As yet unsettled in the rank of fame: This, fondly lavish in his praises grown, Gives him all merit; that allows him none; Between them both, we'll steer the middle course, Nor, loving praise, rob Judgment of her force. Just his conceptions, natural and great, His feelings strong, his words enforced with weight. Was speech-famed Quin himself to hear him speak, Envy would drive the colour from his cheek; But step-dame Nature, niggard of her grace, Denied the social powers of voice and face. Fix'd in one frame of features, glare of eye, Passions, like chaos, in confusion lie; 282 In vain the wonders of his skill are tried To form distinctions Nature hath denied. His voice no touch of harmony admits, Irregularly deep, and shrill by fits. The two extremes appear like man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife. His action's always strong, but sometimes such, That candour must declare he acts too much. Why must impatience fall three paces back? Why paces three return to the attack? Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, Unless in motion semicircular? Why must the hero with the Nailor vie, And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or eye? In Royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame To fright a king so harmless and so tame? But, spite of all defects, his glories rise, And art, by judgment form'd, with nature vies. Behold him sound the depth of Hubert's soul, Whilst in his own contending passions roll; View the whole scene, with critic judgment scan, And then deny him merit, if you can. Where he falls short, 'tis Nature's fault alone; Where he succeeds, the merit's all his own. Last Garrick came. Behind him throng a train Of snarling critics, ignorant as vain. One finds out--He's of stature somewhat low-Your hero always should be tall, you know; True natural greatness all consists in height. Produce your voucher, Critic.--Serjeant Kite. Another can't forgive the paltry arts By which he makes his way to shallow hearts; Mere pieces of finesse, traps for applause-'Avaunt! unnatural start, affected pause!' For me, by Nature form'd to judge with phlegm, I can't acquit by wholesale, nor condemn. The best things carried to excess are wrong; The start may be too frequent, pause too long: But, only used in proper time and place, Severest judgment must allow them grace. 283 If bunglers, form'd on Imitation's plan, Just in the way that monkeys mimic man, Their copied scene with mangled arts disgrace, And pause and start with the same vacant face, We join the critic laugh; those tricks we scorn Which spoil the scenes they mean them to adorn. But when, from Nature's pure and genuine source, These strokes of acting flow with generous force, When in the features all the soul's portray'd, And passions, such as Garrick's, are display'd, To me they seem from quickest feelings caught-Each start is nature, and each pause is thought. When reason yields to passion's wild alarms, And the whole state of man is up in arms, What but a critic could condemn the player For pausing here, when cool sense pauses there? Whilst, working from the heart, the fire I trace, And mark it strongly flaming to the face; Whilst in each sound I hear the very man, I can't catch words, and pity those who can. Let wits, like spiders, from the tortured brain Fine-draw the critic-web with curious pain; The gods,--a kindness I with thanks must pay,-Have form'd me of a coarser kind of clay; Not stung with envy, nor with spleen diseased, A poor dull creature, still with Nature pleased: Hence to thy praises, Garrick, I agree, And, pleased with Nature, must be pleased with thee. Now might I tell how silence reign'd throughout, And deep attention hush'd the rabble rout; How every claimant, tortured with desire, Was pale as ashes, or as red as fire; But loose to fame, the Muse more simply acts, Rejects all flourish, and relates mere facts. The judges, as the several parties came, With temper heard, with judgment weigh'd each claim; And, in their sentence happily agreed, In name of both, great Shakspeare thus decreed:-If manly sense, if Nature link'd with Art; If thorough knowledge of the human heart; If powers of acting vast and unconfined; If fewest faults with greatest beauties join'd; 284 If strong expression, and strange powers which lie Within the magic circle of the eye; If feelings which few hearts like his can know, And which no face so well as his can show, Deserve the preference--Garrick! take the chair; Nor quit it--till thou place an equal there. ~ Charles Churchill,

881:MANTIS EIM ESQLWN AGWNWN --Oedip. Colon. TO HIS EXCELLENCY PRINCE ALEXANDER MAVROCORDATO LATE SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO THE HOSPODAR OF WALLACHIA THE DRAMA OF HELLAS IS INSCRIBED AS AN IMPERFECT TOKEN OF THE ADMIRATION, SYMPATHY, AND FRIENDSHIP OF THE AUTHOR. PROLOGUE TO HELLAS Herald of Eternity. It is the day when all the sons of God Wait in the roofless senate-house, whose floor Is Chaos, and the immovable abyss Frozen by His steadfast word to hyaline... The shadow of God, and delegate Of that before whose breath the universe Is as a print of dew.            Hierarchs and kings Who from your thrones pinnacled on the past Sway the reluctant present, ye who sit Pavilioned on the radiance or the gloom Of mortal thought, which like an exhalation Steaming from earth, conceals the...of heaven Which gave it birth,...assemble here Before your Father's throne; the swift decree Yet hovers, and the fiery incarnation Is yet withheld, clothd in which it shall ...annul The fairest of those wandering isles that gem The sapphire space of interstellar air, That green and azure sphere, that earth enwrapped Less in the beauty of its tender light Than in an atmosphere of living spirit Which interpenetrating all the... ...it rolls from realm to realm And age to age, and in its ebb and flow Impels the generations To their appointed place, Whilst the high Arbiter Beholds the strife, and at the appointed time Sends His decrees veiled in eternal... Within the circuit of this pendent orb There lies an antique region, on which fell The dews of thought in the world's golden dawn Earliest and most benign, and from it sprung Temples and cities and immortal forms And harmonies of wisdom and of song, And thoughts, and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair. And when the sun of its dominion failed, And when the winter of its glory came, The winds that stripped it bare blew on and swept That dew into the utmost wildernesses In wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawed The unmaternal bosom of the North. Haste, sons of God,...for ye beheld, Reluctant, or consenting, or astonished, The stern decrees go forth, which heaped on Greece Ruin and degradation and despair. A fourth now waits: assemble, sons of God, To speed or to prevent or to suspend, If, as ye dream, such power be not withheld, The unaccomplished destiny... Chorus. The curtain of the Universe Is rent and shattered, The splendour-wingd worlds disperse Like wild doves scattered.   Space is roofless and bare, And in the midst a cloudy shrine, Dark amid thrones of light. In the blue glow of hyaline Golden worlds revolve and shine. In...flight From every point of the Infinite, Like a thousand dawns on a single night The splendours rise and spread; And through thunder and darkness dread Light and music are radiated, And in their pavilioned chariots led By living wings high overhead The giant Powers move, Gloomy or bright as the thrones they fill... A chaos of light and motion Upon that glassy ocean... The senate of the Gods is met, Each in his rank and station set;   There is silence in the spaces Lo! Satan, Christ, and Mahomet Start from their places! Christ.              Almighty Father! Low-kneeling at the feet of Destiny. . . There are two fountains in which spirits weep When mortals err, Discord and Slavery named, And with their bitter dew two Destinies Filled each their irrevocable urns; the third, Fiercest and mightiest, mingled both, and added Chaos and Death, and slow Oblivion's lymph, And hate and terror, and the poisoned rain. . . The Aurora of the nations. By this brow Whose pores wept tears of blood, by these wide wounds, By this imperial crown of agony, By infamy and solitude and death, For this I underwent, and by the pain Of pity for those who would...for me The unremembered joy of a revenge, For this I feltby Plato's sacred light, Of which my spirit was a burning morrow By Greece and all she cannot cease to be, Her quenchless words, sparks of immortal truth, Stars of all nighther harmonies and forms, Echoes and shadows of what Love adores In thee, I do compel thee, send forth Fate, Thy irrevocable child: let her descend, A seraph-wingd Victory [arrayed] In tempest of the omnipotence of God Which sweeps through all things. From hollow leagues, from Tyranny which arms Adverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies To stamp, as on a wingd serpent's seed, Upon the name of Freedom; from the storm Of faction, which like earthquake shakes and sickens The solid heart of enterprise; from all By which the holiest dreams of highest spirits Are stars beneath the dawn...                  She shall arise Victorious as the world arose from Chaos! And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed Their presence in the beauty and the light Of Thy first smile, O Father,as they gather The spirit of Thy love which paves for them Their path o'er the abyss, till every sphere Shall be one living Spirit,-- so shall Greece-- Satan. Be as all things beneath the empyrean, Mine! Art thou eyeless like old Destiny, Thou mockery-king, crowned with a wreath of thorns? Whose sceptre is a reed, the broken reed Which pierces thee! whose throne a chair of scorn; For seest thou not beneath this crystal floor The innumerable worlds of golden light Which are my empire, and the least of them ...which thou wouldst redeem from me? Know'st thou not them my portion? Or wouldst rekindle the...strife Which our great Father then did arbitrate Which he assigned to his competing sons Each his apportioned realm?                Thou Destiny, Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence Of Him who sends thee forth, whate'er thy task, Speed, spare not to accomplish, and be mine Thy trophies, whether Greece again become The fountain in the desert whence the earth Shall drink of freedom, which shall give it strength To suffer, or a gulf of hollow death To swallow all delight, all life, all hope. Go, thou Vicegerent of my will, no less Than of the Father's; but lest thou shouldst faint, The wingd hounds, Famine and Pestilence, Shall wait on thee, the hundred-forkd snake Insatiate Superstition still shall... The earth behind thy steps, and War shall hover Above, and Fraud shall gape below, and Change Shall flit before thee on her dragon wings, Convulsing and consuming, and I add Three vials of the tears which daemons weep When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death Pass triumphing over the thorns of life, Sceptres and crowns, mitres and swords and snares, Trampling in scorn, like Him and Socrates. The first is Anarchy; when Power and Pleasure, Glory and science and security, On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree, Then pour it forth, and men shall gather ashes. The second Tyranny-- Christ.            Obdurate spirit! Thou seest but the Past in the To-come. Pride is thy error and thy punishment. Boast not thine empire, dream not that thy worlds Are more than furnace-sparks or rainbow-drops Before the Power that wields and kindles them. True greatness asks not space, true excellence Lives in the Spirit of all things that live, Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine... Mahomet. Haste thou and fill the waning crescent With beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow Of Christian night rolled back upon the West, When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow...                        Wake, thou Word Of God, and from the throne of Destiny Even to the utmost limit of thy way May Triumph........... Be thou a curse on them whose creed Divides and multiplies the most high God. HELLAS DRAMATIS PERSONAE Mahmud. Hassan. Daood. Ahasuerus, a Jew. Chorus of Greek Captive Women. The Phantom of Mahomet II. Messengers, Slaves, and Attendants. Scene, Constantinople. Time, Sunset. Scene--A Terrace on the Seraglio. Mahmud sleeping, an Indian Slave sitting beside his Couch. Chorus of Greek Captive Women. We strew these opiate flowers   On thy restless pillow, They were stripped from Orient bowers,   By the Indian billow.    Be thy sleep    Calm and deep, Like theirs who fellnot ours who weep! Indian. Away, unlovely dreams!   Away, false shapes of sleep! Be his, as Heaven seems,   Clear, and bright, and deep! Soft as love, and calm as death, Sweet as a summer night without a breath. Chorus. Sleep, sleep! our song is laden   With the soul of slumber; It was sung by a Samian maiden,   Whose lover was of the number    Who now keep    That calm sleep Whence none may wake, where none shall weep. Indian. I touch thy temples pale!   I breathe my soul on thee! And could my prayers avail,   All my joy should be Dead, and I would live to weep, So thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep. Chorus.   Breathe low, low The spell of the mighty mistress now! When Conscience lulls her sated snake, And Tyrants sleep, let Freedom wake.   Breathe lowlow The words which, like secret fire, shall flow Through the veins of the frozen earthlow, low! Semichorus I. Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed,but it returneth! Semichorus II. Yet were life a charnel where Hope lay coffined with Despair; Yet were truth a sacred lie, Love were lust Semichorus I.          If Liberty Lent not life its soul of light, Hope its iris of delight, Truth its prophet's robe to wear, Love its power to give and bear. Chorus. In the great morning of the world, The Spirit of God with might unfurled The flag of Freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted from Imaus, Before an earthquake's tread. So from Time's tempestuous dawn Freedom's splendour burst and shone: Thermopylae and Marathon Caught, like mountains beacon-lighted, The springing Fire.The wingd glory On Philippi half-alighted, Like an eagle on a promontory. Its unwearied wings could fan The quenchless ashes of Milan.[1] From age to age, from man to man, It lived; and lit from land to land Florence, Albion, Switzerland. Then night fell; and, as from night, Reassuming fiery flight, From the West swift Freedom came, Against the course of Heaven and doom, A second sun arrayed in flame, To burn, to kindle, to illume. From far Atlantis its young beams Chased the shadows and the dreams. France, with all her sanguine steams, Hid, but quenched it not; again Through clouds its shafts of glory rain From utmost Germany to Spain. As an eagle fed with morning Scorns the embattled tempest's warning, When she seeks her aerie hanging In the mountain-cedar's hair, And her brood expect the clanging Of her wings through the wild air, Sick with famine:Freedom, so To what of Greece remaineth now Returns; her hoary ruins glow Like Orient mountains lost in day; Beneath the safety of her wings Her renovated nurslings prey, And in the naked lightenings Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes. Let Freedom leavewhere'er she flies, A Desert, or a Paradise: Let the beautiful and the brave Share her glory, or a grave. Semichorus I. With the gifts of gladness Greece did thy cradle strew; Semichorus II. With the tears of sadness Greece did thy shroud bedew! Semichorus I. With an orphan's affection She followed thy bier through Time; Semichorus II. And at thy resurrection Reappeareth, like thou, sublime! Semichorus I. If Heaven should resume thee, To Heaven shall her spirit ascend; Semichorus II. If Hell should entomb thee, To Hell shall her high hearts bend. Semichorus I. If Annihilation Semichorus II. Dust let her glories be! And a name and a nation Be forgotten, Freedom, with thee! Indian. His brow grows darkerbreathe notmove not! He startshe shuddersye that love not, With your panting loud and fast, Have awakened him at last. Mahmud (starting from his sleep). Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate! What! from a cannonade of three short hours? 'Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus Cannot be practicable yetwho stirs? Stand to the match; that when the foe prevails One spark may mix in reconciling ruin The conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower Into the gapwrench off the roof! (Enter Hassan.)                   Ha! what! The truth of day lightens upon my dream And I am Mahmud still. Hassan.             Your Sublime Highness Is strangely moved. Mahmud.           The times do cast strange shadows On those who watch and who must rule their course, Lest they, being first in peril as in glory, Be whelmed in the fierce ebb:and these are of them. Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me As thus from sleep into the troubled day; It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, Leaving no figure upon memory's glass. Would thatno matter. Thou didst say thou knewest A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle Of strange and secret and forgotten things. I bade thee summon him:'tis said his tribe Dream, and are wise interpreters of dreams. Hassan. The Jew of whom I spake is old,so old He seems to have outlived a world's decay; The hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean Seem younger still than he;his hair and beard Are whiter than the tempest-sifted snow; His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct With light, and to the soul that quickens them Are as the atoms of the mountain-drift To the winter wind:but from his eye looks forth A life of unconsumd thought which pierces The Present, and the Past, and the To-come. Some say that this is he whom the great prophet Jesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery, Mocked with the curse of immortality. Some feign that he is Enoch: others dream He was pre-adamite and has survived Cycles of generation and of ruin. The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, Deep contemplation, and unwearied study, In years outstretched beyond the date of man, May have attained to sovereignty and science Over those strong and secret things and thoughts Which others fear and know not. Mahmud.                  I would talk With this old Jew. Hassan.           Thy will is even now Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'Mid the Demonesi, less accessible Than thou or God! He who would question him Must sail alone at sunset, where the stream Of Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles, When the young moon is westering as now, And evening airs wander upon the wave; And when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle, Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water, Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud 'Ahasuerus!' and the caverns round Will answer 'Ahasuerus!' If his prayer Be granted, a faint meteor will arise Lighting him over Marmora, and a wind Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest, And with the wind a storm of harmony Unutterably sweet, and pilot him Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus: Thence at the hour and place and circumstance Fit for the matter of their conference The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare Win the desired communionbut that shout Bodes [A shout within. Mahmud.     Evil, doubtless; like all human sounds. Let me converse with spirits. Hassan.                 That shout again.                 Mahmud. This Jew whom thou hast summoned Hassan.                   Will be here                   Mahmud. When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked He, I, and all things shall compelenough! Silence those mutineersthat drunken crew, That crowd about the pilot in the storm. Ay! strike the foremost shorter by a head! They weary me, and I have need of rest. Kings are like starsthey rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose. [Exeunt severally. Chorus[2]. Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away.   But they are still immortal   Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,   Clothe their unceasing flight   In the brief dust and light Gathered around their chariots as they go;   New shapes they still may weave,   New gods, new laws receive, Bright or dim are they as the robes they last   On Death's bare ribs had cast.    A power from the unknown God,   A Promethean conqueror, came; Like a triumphal path he trod   The thorns of death and shame.   A mortal shape to him   Was like the vapour dim Which the orient planet animates with light;   Hell, Sin, and Slavery came,   Like bloodhounds mild and tame, Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight;   The moon of Mahomet   Arose, and it shall set: While blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon The cross leads generations on.   Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep   From one whose dreams are Paradise Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,   And Day peers forth with her blank eyes;   So fleet, so faint, so fair,   The Powers of earth and air Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem:   Apollo, Pan, and Love,   And even Olympian Jove Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them;   Our hills and seas and streams,   Dispeopled of their dreams, Their watrs turned to blood, their dew to tears,   Wailed for the golden years.   Enter Mahmud, Hassan, Daood, and others. Mahmud. More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory, And shall I sell it for defeat? Daood.                  The Janizars Clamour for pay. Mahmud.          Go! bid them pay themselves With Christian blood! Are there no Grecian virgins Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy? No infidel children to impale on spears? No hoary priests after that Patriarch[3] Who bent the curse against his country's heart, Which clove his own at last? Go! bid them kill, Blood is the seed of gold. Daood.               It has been sown, And yet the harvest to the sicklemen Is as a grain to each. Mahmud.             Then, take this signet, Unlock the seventh chamber in which lie The treasures of victorious Solyman, An empire's spoil stored for a day of ruin. O spirit of my sires! is it not come? The prey-birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep; But these, who spread their feast on the red earth, Hunger for gold, which fills not.See them fed; Then, lead them to the rivers of fresh death. [Exit Daood. O miserable dawn, after a night More glorious than the day which it usurped! O faith in God! O power on earth! O word Of the great prophet, whose o'ershadowing wings Darkened the thrones and idols of the West, Now bright!For thy sake cursd be the hour, Even as a father by an evil child, When the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph From Caucasus to White Ceraunia! Ruin above, and anarchy below; Terror without, and treachery within; The Chalice of destruction full, and all Thirsting to drink; and who among us dares To dash it from his lips? and where is Hope? Hassan. The lamp of our dominion still rides high; One God is GodMahomet is His prophet. Four hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits Of utmost Asia, irresistibly Throng, like full clouds at the Sirocco's cry; But not like them to weep their strength in tears: They bear destroying lightning, and their step Wakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm, And reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus, Tmolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen With horrent arms; and lofty ships even now, Like vapours anchored to a mountain's edge, Freighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala The convoy of the ever-veering wind. Samos is drunk with blood;the Greek has paid Brief victory with swift loss and long despair. The false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far, When the fierce shout of 'Allah-illa-Allah!' Rose like the war-cry of the northern wind Which kills the sluggish clouds, and leaves a flock Of wild swans struggling with the naked storm. So were the lost Greeks on the Danube's day! If night is mute, yet the returning sun Kindles the voices of the morning birds; Nor at thy bidding less exultingly Than birds rejoicing in the golden day, The Anarchies of Africa unleash Their tempest-wingd cities of the sea, To speak in thunder to the rebel world. Like sulphurous clouds, half-shattered by the storm, They sweep the pale Aegean, while the Queen Of Ocean, bound upon her island-throne, Far in the West, sits mourning that her sons Who frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee: Russia still hovers, as an eagle might Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane Hang tangled in inextricable fight, To stoop upon the victor;for she fears The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine. But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave Loves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover, Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood Crouch round. What Anarch wears a crown or mitre, Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold, Whose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foes? Our arsenals and our armouries are full; Our forts defy assault; ten thousand cannon Lie ranged upon the beach, and hour by hour Their earth-convulsing wheels affright the city; The galloping of fiery steeds makes pale The Christian merchant; and the yellow Jew Hides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth. Like clouds, and like the shadows of the clouds, Over the hills of Anatolia, Swift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry Sweep;the far flashing of their starry lances Reverberates the dying light of day. We have one God, one King, one Hope, one Law; But many-headed Insurrection stands Divided in itself, and soon must fall. Mahmud. Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable: Look, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud Which leads the rear of the departing day; Wan emblem of an empire fading now! See how it trembles in the blood-red air, And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent Shrinks on the horizon's edge, while, from above, One star with insolent and victorious light Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams, Like arrows through a fainting antelope, Strikes its weak from to death. Hassan.                  Even as that moon Renews itself Mahmud.         Shall we be not renewed! Far other bark than ours were needed now To stem the torrent of descending time: The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord Stalks through the capitals of armd kings, And spreads his ensign in the wilderness: Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls, Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust; And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear Cower in their kingly densas I do now. What were Defeat when Victory must appal? Or Danger, when Security looks pale? How said the messengerwho, from the fort Islanded in the Danube, saw the battle Of Bucharest?that Hassan.            Ibrahim's scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle A light and a destruction. Mahmud.               Ay! the day Was ours: but how? Hassan.            The light Wallachians, The Arnaut, Servian, and Albanian allies Fled from the glance of our artillery Almost before the thunderstone alit. One half the Grecian army made a bridge Of safe and slow retreat, with Moslem dead; The other Mahmud.       Speaktremble not.       Hassan.                  Islanded By victor myriads, formed in hollow square With rough and steadfast front, and thrice flung back The deluge of our foaming cavalry; Thrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines. Our baffled army trembled like one man Before a host, and gave them space; but soon, From the surrounding hills, the batteries blazed, Kneading them down with fire and iron rain: Yet none approached; till, like a field of corn Under the hook of the swart sickleman, The band, intrenched in mounds of Turkish dead, Grew weak and few.Then said the Pacha, 'Slaves, Render yourselvesthey have abandoned you What hope of refuge, or retreat, or aid? We grant your lives.' 'Grant that which is thine own!' Cried one, and fell upon his sword and died! Another'God, and man, and hope abandon me; But I to them, and to myself, remain Constant:'he bowed his head, and his heart burst. A third exclaimed, 'There is a refuge, tyrant, Where thou darest not pursue, and canst not harm Shouldst thou pursue; there we shall meet again.' Then held his breath, and, after a brief spasm, The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment Among the slaindead earth upon the earth! So these survivors, each by different ways, Some strange, all sudden, none dishonourable, Met in triumphant death; and when our army Closed in, while yet wonder, and awe, and shame Held back the base hyaenas of the battle That feed upon the dead and fly the living, One rose out of the chaos of the slain: And if it were a corpse which some dread spirit Of the old saviours of the land we rule Had lifted in its anger, wandering by; Or if there burned within the dying man Unquenchable disdain of death, and faith Creating what it feigned;I cannot tell But he cried, 'Phantoms of the free, we come! Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike To dust the citadels of sanguine kings, And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew; O ye who float around this clime, and weave The garment of the glory which it wears, Whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped, Lies sepulchred in monumental thought; Progenitors of all that yet is great, Ascribe to your bright senate, O accept In your high ministrations, us, your sons Us first, and the more glorious yet to come! And ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale When the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread, The vultures and the dogs, your pensioners tame, Are overgorged; but, like oppressors, still They crave the relic of Destruction's feast. The exhalations and the thirsty winds Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death; Heaven's light is quenched in slaughter: thus, where'er Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets, The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast Of these dead limbs,upon your streams and mountains, Upon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops, Where'er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly, Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down With poisoned lightFamine, and Pestilence, And Panic, shall wage war upon our side! Nature from all her boundaries is moved Against ye: Time has found ye light as foam. The Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake Their empire o'er the unborn world of men On this one cast;but ere the die be thrown, The renovated genius of our race, Proud umpire of the impious game, descends, A seraph-wingd Victory, bestriding The tempest of the Omnipotence of God, Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom, And you to oblivion!'More he would have said, But Mahmud.    Diedas thou shouldst ere thy lips had painted Their ruin in the hues of our success. A rebel's crime, gilt with a rebel's tongue! Your heart is Greek, Hassan. Hassan.                It may be so: A spirit not my own wrenched me within, And I have spoken words I fear and hate; Yet would I die for Mahmud.            Live! oh live! outlive Me and this sinking empire. But the fleet Hassan. Alas! Mahmud.     The fleet which, like a flock of clouds Chased by the wind, flies the insurgent banner! Our wingd castles from their merchant ships! Our myriads before their weak pirate bands! Our arms before their chains! our years of empire Before their centuries of servile fear! Death is awake! Repulse is on the waters! They own no more the thunder-bearing banner Of Mahmud; but, like hounds of a base breed, Gorge from a stranger's hand, and rend their master. Hassan. Latmos, and Ampelos, and Phanae saw The wreck Mahmud.       The caves of the Icarian isles Told each to the other in loud mockery, And with the tongue as of a thousand echoes, First of the sea-convulsing fightand, then, Thou darest to speaksenseless are the mountains: Interpret thou their voice! Hassan.                My presence bore A part in that day's shame. The Grecian fleet Bore down at daybreak from the North, and hung As multitudinous on the ocean line, As cranes upon the cloudless Thracian wind. Our squadron, convoying ten thousand men, Was stretching towards Nauplia when the battle Was kindled. First through the hail of our artillery The agile Hydriote barks with press of sail Dashed:ship to ship, cannon to cannon, man To man were grappled in the embrace of war, Inextricable but by death or victory. The tempest of the raging fight convulsed To its crystlline depths that stainless sea, And shook Heaven's roof of golden morning clouds, Poised on an hundred azure mountain-isles. In the brief trances of the artillery One cry from the destroyed and the destroyer Rose, and a cloud of desolation wrapped The unforeseen event, till the north wind Sprung from the sea, lifting the heavy veil Of battle-smokethen victoryvictory! For, as we thought, three frigates from Algiers Bore down from Naxos to our aid, but soon The abhorrd cross glimmered behind, before, Among, around us; and that fatal sign Dried with its beams the strength in Moslem hearts, As the sun drinks the dew.What more? We fled! Our noonday path over the sanguine foam Was beaconed,and the glare struck the sun pale, By our consuming transports: the fierce light Made all the shadows of our sails blood-red, And every countenance blank. Some ships lay feeding The ravening fire, even to the water's level; Some were blown up; some, settling heavily, Sunk; and the shrieks of our companions died Upon the wind, that bore us fast and far, Even after they were dead. Nine thousand perished! We met the vultures legioned in the air Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind; They, screaming from their cloudy mountain-peaks, Stooped through the sulphurous battle-smoke and perched Each on the weltering carcase that we loved, Like its ill angel or its damnd soul, Riding upon the bosom of the sea. We saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast. Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea, And ravening Famine left his ocean cave To dwell with War, with us, and with Despair. We met night three hours to the west of Patmos, And with night, tempest Mahmud.               Cease!               Enter a Messenger. Messenger.                  Your Sublime Highness, That Christian hound, the Muscovite Ambassador, Has left the city.If the rebel fleet Had anchored in the port, had victory Crowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome, Panic were tamer.Obedience and Mutiny, Like giants in contention planet-struck, Stand gazing on each other.There is peace In Stamboul. Mahmud.        Is the grave not calmer still? Its ruins shall be mine. Hassan.              Fear not the Russian: The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay Against the hunter.Cunning, base, and cruel, He crouches, watching till the spoil be won, And must be paid for his reserve in blood. After the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian That which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion Of blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields, Rivers and seas, like that which we may win, But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves! Enter second Messenger. Second Messenger. Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens, Navarin, Artas, Monembasia, Corinth, and Thebes are carried by assault, And every Islamite who made his dogs Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves Passed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood, Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death; But like a fiery plague breaks out anew In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale In its own light. The garrison of Patras Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope But from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant, His wishes still are weaker than his fears, Or he would sell what faith may yet remain From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway; And if you buy him not, your treasury Is empty even of promiseshis own coin. The freedman of a western poet-chief[4] Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels, And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont: The agd Ali sits in Yanina A crownless metaphor of empire: His name, that shadow of his withered might, Holds our besieging army like a spell In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny; He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors The ruins of the city where he reigned Childless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped The costly harvest his own blood matured, Not the sower, Aliwho has bought a truce From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads Of Indian gold. Enter a third Messenger. Mahmud.         What more?         Third Messenger.               The Christian tribes Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness Are in revolt;Damascus, Hems, Aleppo Tremble;the Arab menaces Medina, The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar, And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed, Who denies homage, claims investiture As price of tardy aid. Persia demands The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians Refuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus, Like mountain-twins that from each other's veins Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm, Shake in the general fever. Through the city, Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek, And prophesyings horrible and new Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still. A Dervise, learnd in the Koran, preaches That it is written how the sins of Islam Must raise up a destroyer even now. The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West[5], Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory, But in the omnipresence of that Spirit In which all live and are. Ominous signs Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky: One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun; It has rained blood; and monstrous births declare The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord. The army encamped upon the Cydaris Was roused last night by the alarm of battle, And saw two hosts conflicting in the air, The shadows doubtless of the unborn time Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm Which swept the phantoms from among the stars. At the third watch the Spirit of the Plague Was heard abroad flapping among the tents; Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead. The last news from the camp is, that a thousand Have sickened, and Enter a fourth Messenger. Mahmud.            And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow Of some untimely rumour, speak! Fourth Messenger.                  One comes Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood: He stood, he says, on Chelonites' Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groan Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendour of the moon, When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer, Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams, And smoke which strangled every infant wind That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air. At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds Over the sea-horizon, blotting out All objectssave that in the faint moon-glimpse He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral And two the loftiest of our ships of war, With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven, Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed; And the abhorrd cross Enter an Attendant. Attendant.              Your Sublime Highness, The Jew, who Mahmud.        Could not come more seasonably: Bid him attend. I'll hear no more! too long We gaze on danger through the mist of fear, And multiply upon our shattered hopes The images of ruin. Come what will! To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps Set in our path to light us to the edge Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught Which He inflicts not in whose hand we are. [Exeunt. Semichorus I. Would I were the wingd cloud Of a tempest swift and loud!   I would scorn   The smile of morn And the wave where the moonrise is born!   I would leave   The spirits of eve A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave From other threads than mine! Bask in the deep blue noon divine.    Who would? Not I.    Semichorus II. Whither to fly? Semichorus I. Where the rocks that gird th'Aegean Echo to the battle paean   Of the free   I would flee A tempestuous herald of victory!   My golden rain   For the Grecian slain Should mingle in tears with the bloody main, And my solemn thunder-knell Should ring to the world the passing-bell   Of Tyranny!   Semichorus II. Ah king! wilt thou chain The rack and the rain? Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane? The storms are free,   But we   Chorus. O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime, Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare! Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime, These brows thy branding garland bear,   But the free heart, the impassive soul    Scorn thy control!    Semichorus I. Let there be light! said Liberty, And like sunrise from the sea, Athens arose!Around her born, Shone like mountains in the morn Glorious states;and are they now Ashes, wrecks, oblivion? Semichorus II.              Go, Where Thermae and Asopus swallowed Persia, as the sand does foam; Deluge upon deluge followed, Discord, Macedon, and Rome: And lastly thou! Semichorus I.          Temples and towers, Citadels and marts, and they Who live and die there, have been ours, And may be thine, and must decay; But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystlline sea Of thought and its eternity; Her citizens, imperial spirits, Rule the present from the past, On all this world of men inherits Their seal is set. Semichorus II.            Hear ye the blast, Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls From ruin her Titanian walls? Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones Of Slavery? Argos, Corinth, Crete Hear, and from their mountain thrones The daemons and the nymphs repeat The harmony. Semichorus I.       I hear! I hear!       Semichorus II. The world's eyeless charioteer,   Destiny, is hurrying by! What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds Beneath her earthquake-footed steeds? What eagle-wingd victory sits At her right hand? what shadow flits Before? what splendour rolls behind?   Ruin and renovation cry 'Who but We?' Semichorus I.        I hear! I hear! The hiss as of a rushing wind, The roar as of an ocean foaming, The thunder as of earthquake coming.   I hear! I hear! The crash as of an empire falling, The shrieks as of a people calling 'Mercy! mercy!'How they thrill! Then a shout of 'kill! kill! kill!' And then a small still voice, thus Semichorus II.                     For Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind, The foul cubs like their parents are, Their den is in the guilty mind, And Conscience feeds them with despair. Semichorus I. In sacred Athens, near the fane Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood: Serve not the unknown God in vain, But pay that broken shrine again, Love for hate and tears for blood. Enter Mahmud and Ahasuerus. Mahmud. Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we. Ahasuerus. No more! Mahmud.     But raised above thy fellow-men By thought, as I by power. Ahasuerus.               Thou sayest so.               Mahmud. Thou art an adept in the difficult lore Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest The flowers, and thou measurest the stars; Thou severest element from element; Thy spirit is present in the Past, and sees The birth of this old world through all its cycles Of desolation and of loveliness, And when man was not, and how man became The monarch and the slave of this low sphere, And all its narrow circlesit is much I honour thee, and would be what thou art Were I not what I am; but the unborn hour, Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms, Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor any Mighty or wise. I apprehended not What thou hast taught me, but I now perceive That thou art no interpreter of dreams; Thou dost not own that art, device, or God, Can make the Future presentlet it come! Moreover thou disdainest us and ours; Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest. Ahasuerus. Disdain thee?not the worm beneath thy feet! The Fathomless has care for meaner things Than thou canst dream, and has made pride for those Who would be what they may not, or would seem That which they are not. Sultan! talk no more Of thee and me, the Future and the Past; But look on that which cannot changethe One, The unborn and the undying. Earth and ocean, Space, and the isles of life or light that gem The sapphire floods of interstellar air, This firmament pavilioned upon chaos, With all its cressets of immortal fire, Whose outwall, bastioned impregnably Against the escape of boldest thoughts, repels them As Calpe the Atlantic cloudsthis Whole Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers, With all the silent or tempestuous workings By which they have been, are, or cease to be, Is but a vision;all that it inherits Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams; Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less The Future and the Past are idle shadows Of thought's eternal flightthey have no being: Nought is but that which feels itself to be. Mahmud. What meanest thou? Thy words stream like a tempest Of dazzling mist within my brainthey shake The earth on which I stand, and hang like night On Heaven above me. What can they avail? They cast on all things surest, brightest, best, Doubt, insecurity, astonishment. Ahasuerus. Mistake me not! All is contained in each. Dodona's forest to an acorn's cup Is that which has been, or will be, to that Which isthe absent to the present. Thought Alone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion, Reason, Imagination, cannot die; They are, what that which they regard appears, The stuff whence mutability can weave All that it hath dominion o'er, worlds, worms, Empires, and superstitions. What has thought To do with time, or place, or circumstance? Wouldst thou behold the Future?ask and have! Knock and it shall be openedlook, and lo! The coming age is shadowed on the Past As on a glass. Mahmud.        Wild, wilder thoughts convulse My spiritDid not Mahomet the Second Win Stamboul? Ahasuerus.        Thou wouldst ask that giant spirit The written fortunes of thy house and faith. Thou wouldst cite one out of the grave to tell How what was born in blood must die. Mahmud.                     Thy words Have power on me! I see Ahasuerus.               What hearest thou?               Mahmud. A far whisper Terrible silence. Ahasuerus.          What succeeds?          Mahmud.                  The sound As of the assault of an imperial city[6], The hiss of inextinguishable fire, The roar of giant cannon; the earthquaking Fall of vast bastions and precipitous towers, The shock of crags shot from strange enginery, The clash of wheels, and clang of armd hoofs, And crash of brazen mail as of the wreck Of adamantine mountainsthe mad blast Of trumpets, and the neigh of raging steeds, The shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood, And one sweet laugh, most horrible to hear, As of a joyous infant waked and playing With its dead mother's breast, and now more loud The mingled battle-cry,ha! hear I not 'En toutwi nikh!' 'Allah-illa-Allah!'? Ahasuerus. The sulphurous mist is raisedthou seest Mahmud.                        A chasm, As of two mountains, in the wall of Stamboul; And in that ghastly breach the Islamites, Like giants on the ruins of a world, Stand in the light of sunrise. In the dust Glimmers a kingless diadem, and one Of regal port has cast himself beneath The stream of war. Another proudly clad In golden arms spurs a Tartarian barb Into the gap, and with his iron mace Directs the torrent of that tide of men, And seemshe isMahomet! Ahasuerus.               What thou seest Is but the ghost of thy forgotten dream. A dream itself, yet less, perhaps, than that Thou call'st reality. Thou mayst behold How cities, on which Empire sleeps enthroned, Bow their towered crests to mutability. Poised by the flood, e'en on the height thou holdest, Thou mayst now learn how the full tide of power Ebbs to its depths.Inheritor of glory, Conceived in darkness, born in blood, and nourished With tears and toil, thou seest the mortal throes Of that whose birth was but the same. The Past Now stands before thee like an Incarnation Of the To-come; yet wouldst thou commune with That portion of thyself which was ere thou Didst start for this brief race whose crown is death, Dissolve with that strong faith and fervent passion Which called it from the uncreated deep, Yon cloud of war, with its tempestuous phantoms Of raging death; and draw with mighty will The imperial shade hither. [Exit Ahasuerus. The Phantom of Mahomet the Second appears. Mahmud.               Approach!               Phantom.                    I come Thence whither thou must go! The grave is fitter To take the living than give up the dead; Yet has thy faith prevailed, and I am here. The heavy fragments of the power which fell When I arose, like shapeless crags and clouds, Hang round my throne on the abyss, and voices Of strange lament soothe my supreme repose, Wailing for glory never to return. A later Empire nods in its decay: The autumn of a greener faith is come, And wolfish change, like winter, howls to strip The foliage in which Fame, the eagle, built Her aerie, while Dominion whelped below. The storm is in its branches, and the frost Is on its leaves, and the blank deep expects Oblivion on oblivion, spoil on spoil, Ruin on ruin:Thou art slow, my son; The Anarchs of the world of darkness keep A throne for thee, round which thine empire lies Boundless and mute; and for thy subjects thou, Like us, shalt rule the ghosts of murdered life, The phantoms of the powers who rule thee now Mutinous passions, and conflicting fears, And hopes that sate themselves on dust, and die! Stripped of their mortal strength, as thou of thine. Islam must fall, but we will reign together Over its ruins in the world of death: And if the trunk be dry, yet shall the seed Unfold itself even in the shape of that Which gathers birth in its decay. Woe! woe! To the weak people tangled in the grasp Of its last spasms. Mahmud.           Spirit, woe to all! Woe to the wronged and the avenger! Woe To the destroyer, woe to the destroyed! Woe to the dupe, and woe to the deceiver! Woe to the oppressed, and woe to the oppressor! Woe both to those that suffer and inflict; Those who are born and those who die! but say, Imperial shadow of the thing I am, When, how, by whom, Destruction must accomplish Her consummation! Phantom.          Ask the cold pale Hour, Rich in reversion of impending death, When he shall fall upon whose ripe gray hairs Sit Care, and Sorrow, and Infirmity The weight which Crime, whose wings are plumed with years, Leaves in his flight from ravaged heart to heart Over the heads of men, under which burthen They bow themselves unto the grave: fond wretch! He leans upon his crutch, and talks of years To come, and how in hours of youth renewed He will renew lost joys, and Voice without.                 Victory! Victory!                 [The Phantom vanishes. Mahmud. What sound of the importunate earth has broken My mighty trance? Voice without.          Victory! Victory!          Mahmud. Weak lightning before darkness! poor faint smile Of dying Islam! Voice which art the response Of hollow weakness! Do I wake and live? Were there such things, or may the unquiet brain, Vexed by the wise mad talk of the old Jew, Have shaped itself these shadows of its fear? It matters not!for nought we see or dream, Possess, or lose, or grasp at, can be worth More than it gives or teaches: Come what may, The Future must become the Past, and I As they were to whom once this present hour, This gloomy crag of time to which I cling, Seemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy Never to be attained.I must rebuke This drunkenness of triumph ere it die, And dying, bring despair. Victory! poor slaves! Exit Mahmud. Voice without. Shout in the jubilee of death! The Greeks Are as a brood of lions in the net Round which the kingly hunters of the earth Stand smiling. Anarchs, ye whose daily food Are curses, groans, and gold, the fruit of death, From Thule to the girdle of the world, Come, feast! the board groans with the flesh of men; The cup is foaming with a nation's blood, Famine and Thirst await! eat, drink, and die! Semichorus I. Victorious Wrong, with vulture scream, Salutes the rising sun, pursues the flying day! I saw her, ghastly as a tyrant's dream, Perch on the trembling pyramid of night, Beneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay In visions of the dawning undelight.   Who shall impede her flight?   Who rob her of her prey?   Voice without. Victory! Victory! Russia's famished eagles Dare not to prey beneath the crescent's light. Impale the remnant of the Greeks! despoil! Violate! make their flesh cheaper than dust! Semichorus II. Thou voice which art The herald of the ill in splendour hid! Thou echo of the hollow heart Of monarchy, bear me to thine abode When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed: Oh, bear me to those isles of jaggd cloud Which float like mountains on the earthquake, mid The momentary oceans of the lightning, Or to some toppling promontory proud Of solid tempest whose black pyramid, Riven, overhangs the founts intensely bright'ning Of those dawn-tinted deluges of fire Before their waves expire, When heaven and earth are light, and only light   In the thunder-night!   Voice without. Victory! Victory! Austria, Russia, England, And that tame serpent, that poor shadow, France, Cry peace, and that means death when monarchs speak. Ho, there! bring torches, sharpen those red stakes, These chains are light, fitter for slaves and poisoners Than Greeks. Kill! plunder! burn! let none remain. Semichorus I.    Alas! for Liberty! If numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years, Or fate, can quell the free!    Alas! for Virtue, when Torments, or contumely, or the sneers    Of erring judging men   Can break the heart where it abides. Alas! if Love, whose smile makes this obscure world splendid,   Can change with its false times and tides,    Like hope and terror,     Alas for Love! And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended, If thou canst veil thy lie-consuming mirror Before the dazzled eyes of Error, Alas for thee! Image of the Above. Semichorus II.   Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn   Through many an hostile Anarchy! At length they wept aloud, and cried, 'The Sea! the Sea!'   Through exile, persecution, and despair,    Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become    The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair: But Greece was as a hermit-child,   Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built To woman's growth, by dreams so mild,   She knew not pain or guilt; And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble    When ye desert the free    If Greece must be A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, And build themselves again impregnably    In a diviner clime, To Amphionic music on some Cape sublime, Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. Semichorus I. Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made; Let the free possess the Paradise they claim; Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed With our ruin, our resistance, and our name! Semichorus II. Our dead shall be the seed of their decay, Our survivors be the shadow of their pride, Our adversity a dream to pass away Their dishonour a remembrance to abide! Voice without. Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends The keys of ocean to the Islamite. Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled, And British skill directing Othman might, Thunder-strike rebel victory. Oh, keep holy This jubilee of unrevengd blood! Kill! crush! despoil! Let not a Greek escape! Semichorus I. Darkness has dawned in the East On the noon of time: The death-birds descend to their feast From the hungry clime. Let Freedom and Peace flee far To a sunnier strand, And follow Love's folding-star To the Evening land! Semichorus II.     The young moon has fed      Her exhausted horn       With the sunset's fire:     The weak day is dead,      But the night is not born; And, like loveliness panting with wild desire While it trembles with fear and delight, Hesperus flies from awakening night, And pants in its beauty and speed with light Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free!    Guide us far, far away, To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day     Thou art hidden   From waves on which weary Noon   Faints in her summer swoon,   Between kingless continents sinless as Eden,   Around mountains and islands inviolably     Pranked on the sapphire sea.     Semichorus I. Through the sunset of hope, Like the shapes of a dream, What Paradise islands of glory gleam!   Beneath Heaven's cope, Their shadows more clear float by The sound of their oceans, the light of their sky, The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe Burst, like morning on dream, or like Heaven on death,   Through the walls of our prison; And Greece, which was dead, is arisen! Chorus[7]. The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore. Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew. Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give. Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst[8], more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. Oh, cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last! Hellas was composed at Pisa in the autumn of 1821, and dispatched to London, November 11. It was published, with the author's name, by C. & J. Ollier in the spring of 1822. A transcript of the poem by Edward Williams is in the Rowfant Library. Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'Hellas was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:-- ''But Greece and her foundations are Built below the tide of war, Based on the crystalline sea Of thought and its eternity.''' ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas - A Lyrical Drama ,

882:The Door Of Humility ENGLAND We lead the blind by voice and hand, And not by light they cannot see; We are not framed to understand The How and Why of such as He; But natured only to rejoice At every sound or sign of hope, And, guided by the still small voice, In patience through the darkness grope; Until our finer sense expands, And we exchange for holier sight The earthly help of voice and hands, And in His light behold the Light. Let there be Light! The self-same Power That out of formless dark and void Endued with life's mysterious dower Planet, and star, and asteroid; That moved upon the waters' face, And, breathing on them His intent, Divided, and assigned their place To, ocean, air, and firmament; That bade the land appear, and bring Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower, Cattle that graze, and birds that sing, Ordained the sunshine and the shower; That, moulding man and woman, breathed In them an active soul at birth In His own image, and bequeathed To them dominion over Earth; That, by whatever is, decreed 418 His Will and Word shall be obeyed, From loftiest star to lowliest seed;The worm and me He also made. And when, for nuptials of the Spring With Summer, on the vestal thorn The bridal veil hung flowering, A cry was heard, and I was born. II To be by blood and long descent A member of a mighty State, Whose greatness, sea-girt, but unpent By ocean, makes the world more great; That, ranging limitless, hath won A Rule more wide than that of Rome, And, journeying onward with the sun, In every zone hath found a home; That, keeping old traditions fast, Still hails the things that are to be, And, firmly rooted in the Past, On Law hath grafted Liberty;That is a birthright nobler far Than princely claim or Right Divine From far-off rapine, wanton war, And I could feel this birthright mine. And not the lowliest hand that drives Or share or loom, if so it be Of British strain, but thence derives A patent of nobility. III The guiding of the infant years Onward to good, away from guile, A mother's humanising tears, A father's philosophic smile; 419 Refining beauty, gentle ways, The admonitions of the wise, The love that watches, helps, and prays, And pities, but doth ne'er despise; An ancient Faith, abiding hope, The charity that suffers long, But flames with sacred zeal to cope With man's injustice, nature's wrong; Melodious leisure, learnëd shelf, Discourse of earnest, temperate mind, The playful wit that of itself Flashes, but leaves no wound behind; The knowledge gleaned from Greece and Rome, From studious Teuton, sprightly Gaul, The lettered page, the mellow tome, And poets' wisdom more than all;These, when no lips severe upbraid, But counsel rather than control, In budding boyhood lend their aid To sensibility of soul. IV But, more than mentor, mother, sire, Can lend to shape the future man With help of learning or of lyre, Of ancient rule, or modern plan, Is that which with our breath we bring Into the world, we know not whence, That needs nor care nor fostering, Because an instinct and a sense. And days and years are all forgot When Nature's aspect, growth, and grace, And veering moods, to me were not The features of the Loved One's face. 420 The The The The cloud whose shadow skims the lake, shimmering haze of summer noon, voice of April in the brake, silence of the mounting moon, Swaying of bracken on the hill, The murmur of the vagrant stream, These motions of some unseen Will, These babblings of some heavenly dream, Seemed tokens of divine desire To hold discourse with me, and so To touch my lips with hallowed fire, And tell me things I ought to know. I gazed and listened, all intent, As to the face and voice of Fate, But what they said, or what they meant, I could surmise not, nor translate. They did but lure me to unrest, Unanswered questioning, longings vain, As when one scans some palimpsest No erudition can explain; But left me with a deep distaste For common speech, that still did seem More meaningless than mountain waste, Less human than the far-off stream. So that a stranger in the land Wherein I moved, where'er I went, I dwelt, whom none could understand, Or exorcise my discontent. And I to them, and they to me Seemed from two different planets come, And, save to flower and wild-bird's glee, My heart was deaf, my soul was dumb. 421 But slowly dawned a happier time When I began to apprehend, And catch, as in some poet's rhyme, The intimations of a friend; When Nature spake no unknown tongue, But language kindred to my thought, Till everything She said, I sung, In notes unforced, in words unsought. And I to Her so closely drew, The seasons round, in mind and mood, I felt at length as if we knew Self-same affection, self-same feud: That both alike scorned worldly aim, Profit, applause, parade, and pride, Whereby the love of generous fame And worthy deeds grows petrified. I did as yet not understand Nature is far more vast than I, Deep as the ocean, wide as land, And overarching as the sky; And but responded to my call, And only felt and fed my need, Because She doth the same for all Who to her pity turn and plead. VI Shall man have mind, and Nature none, Shall I, not she, have soul and heart? Nay, rather, if we be not one, Each is of each the counterpart. She too may have within her breast A conscience, if not like to yours, A sense of rightness ill at rest, Long as her waywardness endures. 422 And hence her thunder, earthquakes, hail, Her levin bolts, her clouds' discharge: She sins upon a larger scale, Because She is herself more large. Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain The heart of man, and wrecked his years, The pity of the April rain, And late repentance of her tears. She is no better, worse, than we; We can but say she seems more great, That half her will, like ours, is free, And half of it is locked in Fate. Nor need we fear that we should err Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,That there must be a God for Her, If that there be a God for us. VII The chiming of the Sabbath bell, The silence of the Sabbath fields, Over the hamlet cast a spell To which the gracious spirit yields. Sound is there none of wheel or wain, Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge, No shout is heard in rustic lane, No axe resounds in timbered gorge. No flail beats time on granary floor, The windmill's rushing wings are stayed, And children's glee rings out no more From hedgerow bank or primrose glade. The big-boned team that firm and slow Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray; The basking covey seem to know None will invade their peace to-day. 423 And speckless swains, and maidens neat, Through rustic porch, down cottage stair, Demurely up the village street Stream onward to the House of Prayer. They kneel as they were taught to kneel In childhood, and demand not why, But, as they chant or answer, feel A vague communion with the sky. VIII But when the impetuous mind is spurred To range through epochs great but gone, And, heedless of dogmatic word, With fearless ardour presses on, Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine, With point by Logic beaten out, And, questioning tenets deemed divine With human challenge, human doubt, Hoists Reason's sail, and for the haze Of ocean quits Tradition's shore, Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays, Then comes and kneels, but prays no more; And only for the love he bears To those who love him, and who reared His frame to genuflexion, shares In ritual, vain, if still revered. His Gods are many or are none, Saturn and Mithra, Christ and Jove, Consorting, as the Ages run, With Vestal choir or Pagan drove. Abiding still by Northern shores, He sees far off on Grecian coast Veiled Aphrodite, but adores Minerva and Apollo most. 424 Beauty of vision, voice, and mind, Enthrall him so, that unto him All Creeds seem true, if he but find Siren, or saint, or seraphim. And thus once more he dwells apart, His inward self enswathed in mist, Blending with poet's pious heart The dreams of pagan Hedonist. IX If Beauty be the Spirit's quest, Its adoration, creed, and shrine, Wherein its restlessness finds rest, And earthly type of the Divine, Must there for such not somewhere be A blending of all beauteous things In some one form wherein we see The sum of our imaginings? The smile on mountain's musing brow, Sunrise and sunset, moon and star, Wavelets around the cygnet's prow, Glamour anear and charm afar; The silence of the silvery pool, Autumn's reserve and Summer's fire, Slow vanishings of Winter's rule To free full voice of April's choir;The worshippers of Beauty find In maiden form, and face, and tress; Faint intimations of her mind And undulating loveliness. Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow! Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing! 425 Gone is the Winter, fled the snow, And all that lives is flushed with Spring. Harry the woods, young truant folk, For flowers to deck your cottage sills, And, underneath my orchard oak, Cluster, ye golden daffodils! Unfettered by domestic vow, Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves, And coo upon the self-same bough, Inseparable turtle-doves. Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky, And with the choir of Heaven rejoice! You cannot be more glad than I, Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice: Who see Her cheek more crimson glow, And through Her veins love's current stream, And feel a fear She doth but know Is kin to joy and dawning dream. Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow! Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing! Gone from the world are want and woe, And I myself am one with Spring. XI They err who say that Love is blind, Or, if it be, 'tis but in part, And that, if for fair face it find No counterpart in mind and heart, It dwells on that which it beholds, Fair fleshly vision void of soul, Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds, Longing's fulfilment, end, and whole. Were such my hapless carnal lot, I too might evanescent bliss 426 Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot, Then leave for some fresh loveliness. But April gaze, and Summer tress, With something of Autumnal thought, In Her seem blent to crown and bless A bond I long in dreams have sought. She looks as though She came to grace The earth, from world less soiled than this, Around her head and virgin face Halo of heavenly holiness. XII He who hath roamed through various lands, And, wheresoe'er his steps are set, The kindred meaning understands Of spire, and dome, and minaret; By Roman river, Stamboul's sea, In Peter's or Sophia's shrine, Acknowledges with reverent knee The presence of the One Divine; Who, to the land he loves so well Returning, towards the sunset hour Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell In lichened roof and grey church-tower; Round whose foundations, side by side, Sleep hamlet wit and village sage, While loud the blackbird cheers his bride Deep in umbrageous Vicarage. XIII Was it that sense which some aver Foreshadows Fate it doth not see, That gave unwittingly to Her The name, for ever dear to me, 427 Borne by that tearful Mother whom, Nigh unto Ostia's shelving sand, Augustine laid in lonely tomb, Ere sailing for his Afric land? But I at least should have foreseen, When Monica to me had grown Familiar word, that names may mean More than by word and name is shown; That nought can keep two lives apart More than divorce 'twixt mind and mind, Even though heart be one with heart;Alas! Alas! Yes, Love is blind. XIV How could I think of jarring Creeds, And riddles that unread remain, Or ask if Heaven's indulgence heeds Broils born of man's polemic brain, And pause because my venturous mind Had roamed through tracks of polar thought, Whence mightiest spirits turn back blind, Since finding not the thing they sought, When Love, with luring gifts in hand, Beauty, refinement, smile, caress, Heart to surmise and understand, And crowning grace of holiness, Stood there before me, and, with gaze I had been purblind not to see, Said, ``I to you will, all my days, Give what you yearn to give to me''? Must both then sorrow, while we live, Because, rejoicing, I forgot Something there was I could not give, Because, alas! I had it not. 428 XV She comes from Vicarage Garden, see! Radiant as morning, lithe and tall, Fresh lilies in her hand, but She The loveliest lily of them all. The thrushes in their fluting pause, The bees float humming round her head, Earth, air, and heaven shine out because They hear her voice, and feel her tread. Up in the fretted grey church-tower, That rustic gaze for miles can see, The belfry strikes the silvery hour, Announcing her propinquity. And I who, fearful to be late, Passed long since through the deerpark pale, And loitered by the churchyard gate, Once more exclaim, ``Hail! loved one! hail!'' We pass within, and up the nave, Husht, because Heaven seems always there, Wend choirward, where, devoutly grave, She kneels, to breathe a silent prayer. She takes the flowers I too have brought, Blending them deftly with her own, And ranges them, as quick as thought, Around the white-draped altar-throne. How could she know my gaze was not On things unseen, but fixed on Her, That, as She prayed, I all forgot The worship in the worshipper?While She beheld, as in a glass, The Light Divine, that I but sought Sight of her soul?-Alas! Alas! Love is yet blinder than I thought. 429 XVI Who hath not seen a little cloud Up from the clear horizon steal, And, mounting lurid, mutter loud Premonitory thunder-peal? Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf Trembles and writhes, as if in pain, And then the sky, o'ercharged with grief, Bursts into drenching tears of rain. I through the years had sought to hide My darkening doubts from simple sight. 'Tis sacrilegious to deride Faith of unquestioning neophyte. And what, methought, is Doubt at best? A sterile wind through seeded sedge Blowing for nought, an empty nest That lingers in a leafless hedge. Pain, too, there is we should not share With others lest it mar their joy; There is a quiet bliss in prayer None but the heartless would destroy. But just as Love is quick divined From heightened glow or visage pale, The meditations of the Mind Disclose themselves through densest veil. And 'tis the unloving and least wise Who through life's inmost precincts press, And with unsympathetic eyes Outrage our sacred loneliness. Then, when their sacrilegious gaze The mournful void hath half surmised, To some more tender soul they raise The veil of ignorance it prized. 430 XVII `What though I write farewell I could Not utter, lest your gaze should chide, 'Twill by your love be understood My love is still, dear, at your side. ``Nor must we meet to speak goodbye, Lest that my Will should lose its choice, And conscience waver, for then I Should see your face and hear your voice. ``But, when you find yourself once more, Come back, come back and look for me, Beside the little lowly door, The Doorway of Humility.'' XVIII There! Peace at last! The far-off roar Of human passion dies away. ``Welcome to our broad shade once more,'' The waning woodlands seem to say: The music of the vagrant wind, That wandered aimlessly, is stilled; The songless branches all remind That Summer's glory is fulfilled. The fluttering of the falling leaves Dimples the leaden pool awhile; So Age impassively receives Youth's tale of troubles with a smile. Thus, as the seasons steal away, How much is schemed, how little done, What splendid plans at break of day! What void regrets at set of sun! The world goes round, for you, for me, For him who sleeps, for him who strives, And the cold Fates indifferent see 431 Crowning or failure of our lives. Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze! Grow, sedges, sere on every pool! Let each old glowing impulse freeze, Let each old generous project cool! It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth, Self-sacrifice nor friendship true, Makes venal devotees of earth Prostrate themselves and worship you. The consciousness of sovran powers, The stubborn purpose, steadfast will, Have ever, in this world of ours, Achieved success, achieve it still. Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit; Great voices in the distance call. If this be peace, enough of it! I go. Fall, unseen foliage, fall! XIX Nay, but repress rebellious woe! In grief 'tis not that febrile fool, Passion, that can but overthrow, But Resignation, that should rule. In patient sadness lurks a gift To purify the life it stings, And, as the days move onward, lift The lonely heart to loftier things; Bringing within one's ripening reach The sceptre of majestic Thought, Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach The Wisdom to oneself it taught. And unto what can man aspire, On earth, more worth the striving for, Than to be Reason's loftier lyre, 432 And reconciling monitor; To strike a more resounding string And deeper notes of joy and pain, Than such as but lamenting sing, Or warble but a sensuous strain: So, when my days are nearly sped, And my last harvest labours done, That I may have around my head The halo of a setting sun. Yet even if be heard above Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim, Better one hour of perfect love Than an eternity of Fame! XX Where then for grief seek out the cure? What scenes will bid my smart to cease? High peaks should teach one to endure, And lakes secluded bring one peace. Farewell awhile, then, village bells, Autumnal wood and harvest wain! And welcome, as it sinks or swells, The music of the mighty main, That seems to say, now loud, now low, Rising or falling, sweet or shrill, ``I pace, a sentry, to and fro, To guard your Island fortress still.'' The roses falter on their stalk, The late peach reddens on the wall, The flowers along the garden walk Unheeded fade, unheeded fall. My gates unopened drip with rain, The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor, And, listening for my voice in vain, 433 Waileth along the corridor. Within the old accustomed place Where we so oft were wont to be, Kneeling She prays, while down her face The fruitless tears fall silently. SWITZERLAND XXI Rain, wind, and rain. The writhing lake Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke: The mountains veil their heads, and make Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak. Through where the arching pinewoods make Dusk cloisters down the mountain side, The loosened avalanches take Valeward their way, with death for guide, And toss their shaggy manes and fling To air their foam and tawny froth, From ledge and precipice bound and spring, With hungry roar and deepening wrath; Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed, And, rage for further ravin stayed, They slumber, satiated, husht, Upon the ruins they have made. I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone, Gaze on the spears of serried rain, That faster, nigher, still are blown, Then stream adown the window pane. The peasant's goatskin garments drip, As home he wends with lowered head, Shakes off the drops from lid and lip, Then slinks within his châlet shed. 434 The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse, The boats rock idly by the shore; Only the swollen torrents course With faster feet and fuller roar. Mournful, I shape a mournful song, And ask the heavens, but ask in vain, ``How long, how long?'' Ah! not so long As, in my heart, rain, wind, and rain. XXII I ask the dark, the dawn, the sun, The domeward-pointing peaks of snow, Lofty and low alike, but none Will tell me what I crave to know. My mind demands, ``Whence, Whither, Why?'' From mountain slope and green defile, And wait the answer. The replyA far-off irresponsive smile. I ask the stars, when mortals sleep, The pensive moon, the lonely winds; But, haply if they know, they keep The secret of secluded minds. Shall I in Straining Where in Where in vain, then, strive to find, towards merely fancied goal? the lily lurks the mind, the rose discern the soul? More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake, The mountains yet more heartless seem, And life's unceasing quest and ache Only a dream within a dream. We know no more, though racked with thought Than he who, in yon châlet born, Gives not the riddle, Life, a thought, But lays him down and sleeps till morn. 435 Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel, So suffer from a wider curse Than Eden's outcasts, for I feel An exile in the universe. The rudeness of his birth enures His limbs to every season's stings, And, never probing, so endures The sadness at the heart of things. When lauwine growls, and thunder swells, Their far-off clamour sounds to me But as the noise of clanging bells Above a silent sanctuary. It is their silence that appals, Their aspect motionless that awes, When searching spirit vainly calls On the effect to bare the Cause. I get no answer, near or far; The mountains, though they soar so high, And scale the pathless ether, are No nearer unto God than I. There dwells nor mystery nor veil Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod; I, gazing on their frontage pale, See but the waning ghost of God. Is Faith then but a drug for sleep, And Hope a fondly soothing friend That bids us, when it sees us weep, Wait for the End that hath no end? Then do I hear voice unforgot Wailing across the distance dim, ``Think, dear! If God existeth not, Why are you always seeking Him?'' XXIII 436 Like glowing furnace of the forge, How the winds rise and roar, as they Up twisting valley, craggy gorge, Seek, and still seek, to storm their way; Then, baffled, up the open slope With quickening pulses scale and pant, Indomitably bent to cope With bristling fronts of adamant. All through the day resounds the strife, Then doth at sunset hour subside: So the fierce passions of our life Slowly expire at eventide. By Nature we are ne'er misled; We see most truly when we dream. A singer wise was he who said, ``Follow the gleam! Follow the gleam!'' XXIV I dreamed, last night, again I stood, Silent, without the village shrine, While She in modest maidenhood Left, fondly clasped, her hand in mine. And, with a face as cerecloth white, And tears like those that by the bier Of loved one lost make dim the sight, She poured her sorrows in mine ear. ``I love your voice, I love your gaze, But there is something dearer still, The faith that kneels, the hope that prays, And bows before the Heavenly Will. ``Not where hills rise, or torrents roll, Seek Him, nor yet alone, apart; He dwells within the troubled soul, His home is in the human heart. 437 ``Withal, the peaceful mountains may 'Twixt doubt and yearning end the strife: So ponder, though you cannot pray, And think some meaning into life: ``Nor like to those that cross the main To wander witless through strange land, Hearing unmastered tongues, disdain The speech they do not understand. ``Firm stands my faith that they who sound The depths of doubt Faith yet will save: They are like children playing round A still remembered mother's grave; ``Not knowing, when they wax more old, And somewhat can her vision share, She will the winding-sheet unfold, And beckon them to evening prayer.'' Then, with my hand betwixt her hands, She laid her lips upon my brow, And, as to one who understands, Said, ``Take once more my vestal vow. ``No other gaze makes mine to glow, No other footstep stirs my heart, To me you only dearer grow, Dearer and nearer, more apart. ``Whene'er you come with humble mind, The little Door stands open wide, And, bending low, you still will find Me waiting on the other side.'' Her silence woke me. . . . To your breast Fold me, O sleep! and seal mine ears; That She may roam through my unrest Till all my dreams are drenched with tears! XXV 438 Why linger longer, subject, here, Where Nature sits and reigns alone, Inspiring love not, only fear, Upon her autocratic throne? Her edicts are the rigid snow, The wayward winds, the swaying branch; She hath no pity to bestow, Her law the lawless avalanche. Though soon cascades will bound and sing, That now but drip with tears of ice, And upland meadows touched by Spring Blue gentian blend with edelweiss, Hence to the Land of youthful dreams, The Land that taught me all I know. Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams; Yet take my thanks before I go. You gave me shelter when I fled, But sternly bade me stem my tears, Nor aimless roam with rustling tread 'Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years. ITALY XXVI Upon the topmost wheel-track steep, The parting of two nations' ways, Athwart stone cross engraven deep, The name ``Italia'' greets the gaze! I trembled, when I saw it first, With joy, my boyish longings fed, The headspring of my constant thirst, The altar of my pilgrim tread. Now once again the magic word, So faintly borne to Northern home, Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard 439 Beneath some universal dome. The forests soften to a smile, A smile the very mountains wear, Through mossy gorge and grassed defile Torrents race glad and debonair. From casement, balcony and door, Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine, And sun-bronzed faces bask before Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine. Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers Take, like their lords, no heed of time. Hark! now the evening star appears, Ave Maria belfries chime. The maidens knit, and glance, and sing, With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress, And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring, Seem burgeoning into tenderness. On waveless lake where willows weep, The Borromean Islands rest As motionless as babe asleep Upon a slumbering Mother's breast. O Land of sunshine, song, and Love! Whether thy children reap or sow, Of Love they chant on hills above, Of Love they sing in vale below. But what avail the love-linked hands, And love-lit eyes, to them that roam Passionless through impassioned lands, Since they have left their heart at home! XXVII Among my dreams, now known as dreams In this my reawakened life, I thought that by historic streams, 440 Apart from stress, aloof from strife, By rugged paths that twist and twine Through olive slope and chesnut wood Upward to mediaeval shrine, Or high conventual brotherhood, Along the mountain-curtained track Round peaceful lake where wintry bands Halt briefly but to bivouac Ere blustering on to Northern lands;Through these, through all I first did see, With me to share my raptures none, That nuptialled Monica would be My novice and companion: That we should float from mere to mere, And sleep within some windless cove, With nightingales to lull the ear, From ilex wood and orange grove; Linger at hamlets lost to fame, That still wise-wandering feet beguile, To gaze on frescoed wall or frame Lit by Luini's gracious smile. Now, but companioned by my pain, Among each well-remembered scene I can but let my Fancy feign The happiness that might have been; Imagine that I hear her voice, Imagine that I feel her hand, And I, enamoured guide, rejoice To see her swift to understand. Alack! Imagination might As lief with rustic Virgil roam, Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight At Pliny's philosophic home; 441 Hear one majestically trace Rome's world-wide sway from wattled wall, And read upon the other's face The omens of an Empire's fall. XXVIII Like moonlight seen through forest leaves, She shines upon me from afar, What time men reap the ripened sheaves, And Heaven rains many a falling star. I gaze up to her lofty height, And feel how far we dwell apart: O if I could, this night, this night, Fold her full radiance to my heart! But She in Heaven, and I on earth, Still journey on, but each alone; She, maiden Queen of sacred birth, Who with no consort shares her throne. XXIX What if She ever thought She saw The self within myself prefer Communion with the silent awe Of far-off mountains more than Her; That Nature hath the mobile grace To make life with our moods agree, And so had grown the Loved One's face, Since it nor checked nor chided me; Or from the tasks that irk and tire I sought for comfort from the Muse, Because it grants the mind's desire All that familiar things refuse. How vain such thought! The face, the form, Of mountain summits but express, Clouded or clear, in sun or storm, 442 Feebly Her spirit's loftiness. Did I explore from pole to pole, In Nature's aspect I should find But faint reflections of Her soul, Dim adumbrations of Her mind. O come and test with lake, with stream, With mountain, which the stronger be, Thou, my divinest dearest dream, My Muse, and more than Muse, to me! XXX They tell me that Jehovah speaks In silent grove, on lonely strand, And summit of the mountain peaks; Yet there I do not understand. The stars, disdainful of my thought, Majestic march toward their goal, And to my nightly watch have brought No explanation to my soul. The truth I seek I cannot find, In air or sky, on land or sea; If the hills have their secret mind, They will not yield it up to me: Like one who lost mid lonely hills Still seeks but cannot find his way, Since guide is none save winding rills, That seem themselves, too, gone astray. And so from rise to set of sun, At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze, I but behold the face of One Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays. What know I that She doth not know? What I know not, She understands: With heavenly gifts She overflows, 443 While I have only empty hands. O weary wanderer! Best forego This questioning of wind and wave. For you the sunshine and the snow, The womb, the cradle, and the grave. XXXI How blest, when organ concords swell, And anthems are intoned, are they Who neither reason nor rebel, But meekly bow their heads and pray. And such the peasants mountain-bred, Who hail to-day with blithe accord Her Feast Who to the Angel said, ``Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!'' Downward they wind from pastoral height, Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers, To wend to shrine more richly dight, And bring their gift of wilding flowers; Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs, And lay these at Her statue's base, Who never, deem they, intercedes Vainly before the Throne of Grace. Shall I, because I stand apart, A stranger to their pious vows, Scorn their humility of heart That pleads before the Virgin Spouse, Confiding that the Son will ne'er, If in His justice wroth with them, Refuse to harken to Her prayer Who suckled Him in Bethlehem? Of all the intercessors born By man's celestial fancy, none 444 Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn, Lowly and lone, as She hath done. The maiden faithful to Her shrine Bids demons of temptation flee, And mothers fruitful as the vine Retain their vestal purity. Too trustful love, by lust betrayed, And by cold worldlings unforgiven, Unto Her having wept and prayed, Faces its fate, consoled and shriven. The restless, fiercely probing mind No honey gleans, though still it stings. What comfort doth the spirit find In Reason's endless reasonings? They have no solace for my grief, Compassion none for all my pain: They toss me like the fluttering leaf, And leave me to the wind and rain. XXXII If Conscience be God's Law to Man, Then Conscience must perforce arraign Whatever falls beneath the ban Of that allotted Suzerain. And He, who bids us not to swerve, Whither the wayward passions draw, From its stern sanctions, must observe The limits of the self-same Law. Yet, if obedient Conscience scan The sum of wrongs endured and done Neither by act nor fault of Man, They rouse it to rebellion. Life seems of life by life bereft 445 Through some immitigable curse, And Man sole moral being left In a non-moral Universe. My Conscience would my Will withstand, Did Will project a world like this: Better Eternal vacuum still, Than murder, lust, and heartlessness! If Man makes Conscience, then being good Is only being worldly wise, And universal brotherhood A comfortable compromise. O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod! O groans of fratricidal strife! Who will explain the ways of God, That I may be at peace with life! The moral riddle 'tis that haunts, Primeval and unending curse, Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts A Heaven-created Universe. Yet whence came Life, and how begin? Rolleth the globe by choice or chance? Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in This prison-house of ignorance! FLORENCE XXXIII City acclaimed ere Dante's days Fair, and baptized in field of flowers, Once more I scan with tender gaze Your glistening domes, your storied towers. I feel as if long years had flown Since first with eager heart I came, 446 And, girdled by your mountain zone, Found you yet fairer than your fame. It was the season purple-sweet When figs are plump, and grapes are pressed, And all your sons with following feet Bore a dead Poet to final rest. You seemed to fling your gates ajar, And softly lead me by the hand, Saying, ``Behold! henceforth you are No stranger in the Tuscan land.'' And though no love my love can wean From native crag and cradling sea, Yet Florence from that hour hath been More than a foster-nurse to me. When mount I terraced slopes arrayed In bridal bloom of peach and pear, While under olive's phantom shade Lupine and beanflower scent the air, The wild-bees hum round golden bay, The green frog sings on fig-tree bole, And, see! down daisy-whitened way Come the slow steers and swaying pole. The fresh-pruned vine-stems, curving, bend Over the peaceful wheaten spears, And with the glittering sunshine blend Their transitory April tears. O'er wall and trellis trailed and wound, Hang roses blushing, roses pale; And, hark! what was that silvery sound? The first note of the nightingale. Curtained, I close my lids and dream Of Beauty seen not but surmised, And, lulled by scent and song, I seem Immortally imparadised. 447 When from the deep sweet swoon I wake And gaze past slopes of grape and grain, Where Arno, like some lonely lake, Silvers the far-off seaward plain, I see celestial sunset fires That lift us from this earthly leaven, And darkly silent cypress spires Pointing the way from hill to Heaven. Then something more than mortal steals Over the wavering twilight air, And, messenger of nightfall, peals From each crowned peak a call to prayer. And now the last meek prayer is said, And, in the hallowed hush, there is Only a starry dome o'erhead, Propped by columnar cypresses. XXXIV Re-roaming through this palaced town, I suddenly, 'neath grim-barred pile, Catch sight of Dante's awful frown, Or Leonardo's mystic smile; Then, swayed by memory's fancy, stroll To where from May-day's flaming pyre Savonarola's austere soul Went up to Heaven in tongues of fire; Or Buonarroti's plastic hand Made marble block from Massa's steep Dawn into Day at his command, Then plunged it into Night and Sleep. No later wanderings can dispel The glamour of the bygone years; And, through the streets I know so well, 448 I scarce can see my way for tears. XXXV A sombre shadow seems to fall On comely altar, transept fair; The saints are still on frescoed wall, But who comes thither now for prayer? Men throng from far-off stranger land, To stare, to wonder, not to kneel, With map and guide-book in their hand To tell them what to think and feel. They scan, they prate, they marvel why The figures still expressive glow, Oblivious they were painted by Adoring Frà Angelico. Did Dante from his tomb afar Return, his wrongs redressed at last, And see you, Florence, as you are, Half alien to your gracious Past, Finding no Donatello now, No reverent Giotto 'mong the quick, To glorify ascetic vow Of Francis or of Dominic; Self-exiled by yet sterner fate Than erst, he would from wandering cease, And, ringing at monastic gate, Plead, ``I am one who craves for peace.'' And what he sought but ne'er could find, Shall I, less worthy, hope to gain, The freedom of the tranquil mind, The lordship over loss and pain? More than such peace I found when I Did first, in unbound youth, repair 449 To Tuscan shrine, Ausonian sky. I found it, for I brought it there. XXXVI Yet Art brings peace, itself is Peace, And, as I on these frescoes gaze, I feel all fretful tumults cease And harvest calm of mellower days. For Soul too hath its seasons. Time, That leads Spring, Summer, Autumn, round, Makes our ephemeral passions chime With something permanent and profound. And, as in Nature, April oft Strives to revert to wintry hours, But shortly upon garth and croft Re-sheds warm smiles and moistening showers, Or, for one day, will Autumn wear The gayer garments of the Spring, And then athwart the wheatfields bare Again her graver shadows fling; So, though the Soul hath moods that veer, And seem to hold no Rule in awe, Like the procession of the year, It too obeys the sovran Law. Nor Art itself brings settled peace, Until the mind is schooled to know That gusts subside and tumults cease Only in sunset's afterglow. Life's contradictions vanish then, Husht thought replacing clashing talk Among the windy ways of men. 'Tis in the twilight Angels walk. 450 ROME XXXVII The last warm gleams of sunset fade From cypress spire and stonepine dome, And, in the twilight's deepening shade, Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome. Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell; The steers lie loosed from wain and plough; The vagrant monk is in his cell, The meek nun-novice cloistered now. Pedant's presumptuous voice no more Vexes the spot where Caesar trod, And o'er the pavement's soundless floor Come banished priest and exiled God. The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among The regal hillside's tangled scrubs, With doting gaze and fondling tongue Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs. Yet once again Evander leads Æneas to his wattled home, And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds, Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome. From out the tawny dusk one hears The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids, The rush to arms, then swift the tears That separate the clashing blades. The Lictors with their fasces throng To quell the Commons' rising roar, As Tullia's chariot flames along, Splashed with her murdered father's gore. Her tresses free from band or comb, Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall, 451 And fresh as Fiumicino's foam, Mounts her pentelic pedestal. With languid lids, and lips apart, And curving limbs like wave half-furled, Unarmed she dominates the heart, And without sceptre sways the world. Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes, Or, changed of mien and healed of scars, Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains. With waves of song from wakening lyre Apollo routs the wavering night, While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir Wind chanting up the Sacred Height, Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed, And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam, Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed, And frowns against the foes of Rome. You cannot kill the Gods. They still Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned, Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill, And renovate their rites profaned. Diana's hounds still lead the chase, Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea, And still man's spirit soars through space On feathered heels of Mercury. No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire; The Flamen's robes are still as white As ere the Salii's armoured choir Were drowned by droning anchorite. The saint may seize the siren's seat, The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun; Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet, The Olympian Presence be withdrawn. 452 Here, even in the noontide glare, The Gods, recumbent, take their ease; Go look, and you will find them there, Slumbering behind some fallen frieze. But most, when sunset glow hath paled, And come, as now, the twilight hour, In vesper vagueness dimly veiled I feel their presence and their power. What though their temples strew the ground, And to the ruin owls repair, Their home, their haunt, is all around; They drive the cloud, they ride the air. And, when the planets wend their way Along the never-ageing skies, ``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say; ``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.'' Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers Through marble fissures, granite rents; Only Imagination rears Imperishable monuments. Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine, Level the altar, fire the fane: There is no razing the Divine; The Gods return, the Gods remain. XXXVIII Christ is arisen. The place wherein They laid Him shows but cerements furled, And belfry answers belfry's din To ring the tidings round the world. Grave Hierarchs come, an endless band, In jewelled mitre, cope embossed, Who bear Rome's will to every land 453 In all the tongues of Pentecost. Majestic, along marble floor, Walk Cardinals in blood-red robe, Martyrs for Faith and Christ no more, Who gaze as though they ruled the globe. With halberds bare and doublets slashed, Emblems that war will never cease, Come martial guardians, unabashed, And march afront the Prince of Peace. Then, in his gestatorial Chair See Christ's vicegerent, bland, benign, To crowds all prostrate as in prayer Lean low, and make the Holy Sign. Then trumpets shrill, and organ peals, Throughout the mighty marble pile, Whileas a myriad concourse kneels In dense-packed nave and crowded aisle. Hark to the sudden hush! Aloft From unseen source in empty dome Swells prayerful music silvery-soft, Borne from far-off celestial Home. Then, when the solemn rite is done, The worshippers stream out to where Dance fountains glittering in the sun, While expectation fills the air. Now on high balcony He stands, And-save for the Colonna curse,Blesses with high-uplifted hands The City and the Universe. Christ is arisen! But scarce as when, On the third day of death and gloom, Came ever-loving Magdalen With tears and spices to His tomb. 454 XXXIX The Tiber winds its sluggish way Through niggard tracts whence Rome's command Once cast the shadow of her sway, O'er Asian city, Afric sand. Nor even yet doth She resign Her sceptre. Still the spell is hers, Though she may seem a rifled shrine 'Mid circumjacent sepulchres. One after one, they came, they come, Gaul, Goth, Savoy, to work their will; She answers, when She most seems dumb, ``I wore the Crown, I wear it still. ``From Jove I first received the gift, I from Jehovah wear it now, Nor shall profane invader lift The diadem from off my brow. ``The Past is mine, and on the Past The Future builds; and Time will rear The next strong structure on the last, Where men behold but shattered tier. ``The Teuton hither hies to teach, To prove, disprove, to delve and probe. Fool! Pedant! Does he think to reach The deep foundations of the globe?'' For me, I am content to tread On Sabine dust and Gothic foe. Leave me to deepening silent dread Of vanished Empire's afterglow. In this Imperial wilderness Why rashly babble and explore? O, let me know a little less, So I may feel a little more! 455 XL For upward of one thousand years, Here men and women prayed to Jove, With smiles and incense, gifts and tears, In secret shrine, or civic grove; And, when Jove did not seem to heed, Sought Juno's mediatorial power, Or begged fair Venus intercede And melt him in his amorous hour. Sages invoked Minerva's might; The Poet, ere he struck the lyre, Prayed to the God of Song and Light To touch the strings with hallowed fire. With flaming herbs were altars smoked Sprinkled with blood and perfumed must, And gods and goddesses invoked To second love or sanction lust. And did they hear and heed the prayer, Or, through that long Olympian reign, Were they divinities of air Begot of man's fantastic brain? In Roman halls their statues still Serenely stand, but no one now Ascends the Capitolian Hill, To render thanks, or urge the vow. Through now long centuries hath Rome Throned other God, preached other Creed, That here still have their central home, And feed man's hope, content his need. Against these, too, will Time prevail? No! Let whatever gestates, be, Secure will last the tender tale 456 From Bethlehem to Calvary. Throughout this world of pain and loss, Man ne'er will cease to bend his knee To Crown of Thorns, to Spear, to Cross, And Doorway of Humility. XLI If Reason be the sole safe guide In man implanted from above, Why crave we for one only face, Why consecrate the name of Love? Faces there are no whit less fair, Yet ruddier lip, more radiant eye, Same rippling smile, same auburn hair, But not for us. Say, Reason, why. Why bound our hearts when April pied Comes singing, or when hawthorn blows? Doth logic in the lily hide, And where's the reason in the rose? Why weld our keels and launch our ships, If Reason urge some wiser part, Kiss England's Flag with dying lips And fold its glories to the heart? In this gross world we touch and see, If Reason be no trusty guide, For world unseen why should it be The sole explorer justified? The homing swallow knows its nest, Sure curves the comet to its goal, Instinct leads Autumn to its rest, And why not Faith the homing soul? Is Reason so aloof, aloft, It doth not 'gainst itself rebel, 457 And are not Reason's reasonings oft By Reason proved unreasonable? He is perplexed no more, who prays, ``Hail, Mary Mother, full of grace!'' O drag me from Doubt's endless maze, And let me see my Loved One's face! XLII ``Upon this rock!'' Yet even here Where Christian God ousts Pagan wraith, Rebellious Reason whets its spear, And smites upon the shield of Faith. On sacred mount, down seven-hilled slopes, Fearless it faces foe and friend, Saying to man's immortal hopes, ``Whatso began, perforce must end.'' Not men alone, but gods too, die; Fanes are, like hearths, left bare and lone; This earth will into fragments fly, And Heaven itself be overthrown. Why then should Man immortal be? He is but fleeting form, to fade, Like momentary cloud, or sea Of waves dispersed as soon as made. Yet if 'tis Force, not Form, survives, Meseems therein that one may find Some comfort for distressful lives; For, if Force ends not, why should Mind? Is Doubt more forceful than Belief? The doctor's cap than friar's cowl? O ripeness of the falling leaf! O wisdom of the moping owl! Man's Mind will ever stand apart 458 From Science, save this have for goal The evolution of the heart, And sure survival of the Soul. XLIII The Umbilicum lonely stands Where once rose porch and vanished dome; But he discerns who understands That every road may lead to Rome. Enthroned in Peter's peaceful Chair, The spiritual Caesar sways A wider Realm of earth and air Than trembled at Octavian's gaze. His universal arms embrace The saint, the sinner, and the sage, And proffer refuge, comfort, grace To tribulation's pilgrimage. Here scientific searchers find Precursors for two thousand years, Who in a drouthy world divined Fresh springs for human doubts and fears. Here fair chaste Agnes veils her face From prowlers of the sensual den, And pity, pardon, and embrace Await repentant Magdalen. Princess and peasant-mother wend To self-same altar, self-same shrine, And Cardinal and Patriarch bend Where lepers kneel, and beggars whine. And is there then, in my distress, No road, no gate, no shrine, for me? The answer comes, ``Yes, surely, yes! The Doorway of Humility.'' 459 O rival Faiths! O clamorous Creeds! Would you but hush your strife in prayer, And raise one Temple for our needs, Then, then, we all might worship there. But dogma new with dogma old Clashes to soothe the spirit's grief, And offer to the unconsoled Polyglot Babel of Belief! XLIV The billows roll, and rise, and break, Around me; fixedly shine the stars In clear dome overhead, and take Their course, unheeding earthly jars. Yet if one's upward gaze could be But stationed where the planets are, The star were restless as the sea, The sea be tranquil as the star. Hollowed like cradle, then like grave, Now smoothly curved, now shapeless spray, Withal the undirected wave Forms, and reforms, and knows its way. Then, waters, bear me on where He, Ere death absolved at Christian font, Removed Rome's menaced majesty Eastward beyond the Hellespont. Foreseeing not what Fate concealed, But Time's caprice would there beget, That Cross would unto Crescent yield, Caesar and Christ to Mahomet. Is it then man's predestined state To search for, ne'er to find, the Light? Arise, my Star, illuminate These empty spaces of the Night! 460 XLV Last night I heard the cuckoo call Among the moist green glades of home, And in the Chase around the Hall Saw the May hawthorn flower and foam. Deep in the wood where primrose stars Paled before bluebell's dazzling reign, The nightingale's sad sobbing bars Rebuked the merle's too joyful strain. The kine streamed forth from stall and byre, The foal frisked round its mother staid, The meads, by sunshine warmed, took fire, And lambs in pasture, bleating, played. The uncurbed rivulets raced to where The statelier river curled and wound, And trout, of human step aware, Shot through the wave without a sound. Adown the village street, as clear As in one's wakeful mid-day hours, Beheld I Monica drawing near, Her vestal lap one crib of flowers. Lending no look to me, she passed By the stone path, as oft before, Between old mounds Spring newly grassed, And entered through the Little Door. Led by her feet, I hastened on, But, ere my feverish steps could get To the low porch, lo! Morning shone On Moslem dome and minaret! CONSTANTINOPLE 461 XLVI Now Vesper brings the sunset hour, And, where crusading Knighthood trod, Muezzin from his minaret tower Proclaims, ``There is no God but God!'' Male God who shares his godhead with No Virgin Mother's sacred tear, But finds on earth congenial kith In wielders of the sword and spear: Male God who on male lust bestows The ruddy lip, the rounded limb, And promises, at battle's close, Houri, not saint nor seraphim. Swift through the doubly-guarded stream, Shoots the caïque 'neath oarsmen brisk, While from its cushioned cradle gleam The eyes of yashmaked odalisque. Unchanged adown the changing years, Here where the Judas blossoms blaze, Against Sophia's marble piers The scowling Muslim lean and gaze; And still at sunset's solemn hour, Where Christ's devout Crusader trod, Defiant from the minaret's tower Proclaim, ``There is no God but God!'' XLVII Three rival Rituals. One revered In that loved English hamlet where, With flowers in Vicarage garden reared, She decks the altar set for prayer: Another, where majestic Rome, With fearless Faith and flag unfurled 462 'Gainst Doubt's ephemeral wave and foam, Demands obedience from the world. The third, where now I stand, and where Two hoary Continents have met, And Islam guards from taint and tare Monistic Creed of Mahomet. Yet older than all three, but banned To suffer still the exile's doom From shrine where Turkish sentries stand, And Christians wrangle round Christ's tomb. Where then find Creed, divine or dead, All may embrace, and none contemn?Remember Who it was that said, ``Not here, nor at Jerusalem!'' ATHENS XLVIII To Acrocorinth's brow I climb, And, lulled in retrospective bliss, Descry, as through the mists of time, Faintly the far Acropolis. Below me, rivers, mountains, vales, Wide stretch of ancient Hellas lies: Symbol of Song that never fails, Parnassus communes with the skies. I linger, dream-bound by the Past, Till sundown joins time's deep abyss, Then skirt, through shadows moonlight-cast, Lone strand of sailless Salamis, Until Eleusis gleams through dawn, Where, though a suppliant soul I come, The veil remains still unwithdrawn, 463 And all the Oracles are dumb. So onward to the clear white Light, Where, though the worshippers be gone, Abides on unmysterious height The calm unquestioning Parthenon. Find I, now there I stand at last, That naked Beauty, undraped Truth, Can satisfy our yearnings vast, The doubts of age, the dreams of youth; That, while we ask, in futile strife, From altar, tripod, fount, or well, Form is the secret soul of life, And Art the only Oracle; That Hera and Athena, linked With Aphrodite, hush distress, And, in their several gifts distinct, Withal are Triune Goddesses? That mortal wiser then was He Who gave the prize to Beauty's smile, Divides his gifts among the Three, And thuswise baffles Discord's guile? But who is wise? The nobler twain, Who the restraining girdle wear, Contend too often all in vain With sinuous curve and frolic hair. Just as one sees in marble, still, Pan o'er Apollo's shoulder lean, Suggesting to the poet's quill The sensual note, the hint obscene. Doth then the pure white Light grow dim, And must it be for ever thus? Listen! I hear a far-off Hymn, Veni, Creator, Spiritus! 464 XLIX The harvest of Hymettus drips As sweet as when the Attic bees Swarmed round the honey-laden lips Of heavenly-human Sophocles. The olives are as green in grove As in the days the poets bless, When Pallas with Poseidon strove To be the City's Patroness. The wine-hued main, white marble frieze, Dome of blue ether over all, One still beholds, but nowhere sees Panathenaic Festival. O'erhead, no Zeus or frowns or nods, Olympus none in air or skies; Below, a sepulchre of Gods, And tombs of dead Divinities. Yet, are they dead? Still stricken blind, Tiresiaslike, are they that see, With bold uncompromising mind, Wisdom in utter nudity; Experiencing a kindred fate With the First Parents of us all, Jehovah thrust through Eden's Gate, When Knowledge brought about their Fall. Hath Aphrodite into foam, Whence She first flowered, sunk back once more, And doth She nowhere find a home, Or worship, upon Christian shore? Her shrine is in the human breast, To find her none need soar or dive. Goodness or Loveliness our quest, The ever-helpful Gods survive. 465 Hellas retorts, when Hebrew gibes At Gods of levity and lust, ``God of Judaea's wandering tribes Was jealous, cruel, and unjust.'' Godhead, withal, remains the same, And Art embalms its symbols still; As Poets, when athirst for Fame, Still dream of Aganippe's rill. Why still pursue a bootless quest, And wander heartsore farther East, Because unanswered, south or west, By Pagan seer or Christian priest? Brahma and Buddha, what have they To offer to my shoreless search? ``Let Contemplation be,'' they say, ``Your ritual, Nothingness your Church. ``Passion and purpose both forsake, Echoes from non-existent wall; We do but dream we are awake, Ourselves the deepest dream of all. ``We dream we think, feel, touch, and see, And what these are, still dreaming, guess, Though there is no Reality Behind their fleeting semblances.'' Thus the East answers my appeal, Denies, and so illudes, my want. Alas! Could I but cease to feel, Brahma should be my Hierophant. But, hampered by my Western mind, I cannot set the Spirit free From Matter, but Illusion find, 466 Of all, the most illusory. DELPHI LI The morning mists that hid the bay And curtained mountains fast asleep, Begin to feel the touch of day, And roll from off both wave and steep. In floating folds they curve and rise, Then slowly melt and merge in air, Till high above me glow the skies, And cloudless sunshine everywhere. Parnassus wears nor veil nor frown, Windless the eagle wings his way, As I from Delphi gaze adown On Salona and Amphissa. It was the sovran Sun that drew Aloft and scattered morning haze, And now fills all the spacious blue With its own glorifying rays. And, no less sovran than the sun, Imagination brings relief Of morning light to shadows dun, To heart's distress, and spirit's grief. Parnassus boasts no loftier peak Than Poet's heavenward song; which, though Harbouring among the sad and weak, Lifteth aloft man's griefs below. Though sun-bronzed Phocian maidens lave Their kerchiefs in Castalia's spring, The Muses linger round its wave, And aid the pilgrim sent to sing. 467 And, listening there, I seem to hear The unseen Oracle say, ``Be strong: Subdue the sigh, repress the tear, And let not sorrow silence Song. ``You now have learnt enough from pain; And, if worse anguish lurk behind, Breathe in it some unselfish strain, And with grief's wisdom aid your kind. ``Who but of his own suffering sings, Is like an eagle, robbed, distressed, That vainly shrieks and beats its wings, Because it cannot find its nest. ``Let male Imagination wed The orphan, Sorrow, to console Its virgin loneness, whence are bred Serenity and self-control. ``Hence let the classic breezes blow You to your Land beyond the sea, That you may make, for others' woe, Your own a healing melody; ``To wintry woe no more a slave, But, having dried your April tears, Behold a helpful harvest wave From ridges of the fallow years.'' LII Rebuked thus by the stately Past, Whose solemn choruses endure Through voices new and visions vast, And centuries of sepulture, Because, serene, it never blinked At sheen or shadow of the sun, But Hades and Olympus linked 468 With Salamis and Marathon; Which held despondency at bay And, while revering Fate's decree, Reconciled with majestic lay Man to the Human Tragedy; To Gods of every land I vowed, Judaea, Hellas, Mecca, Rome, No more to live by sorrow bowed, But, wending backward to my home, Thenceforth to muse on woe more wide Than individual distress, The loftier Muses for my guide, Minerva for my monitress; Nor yet to scorn the tender aid Of Christian martyr, virgin, sage, And, meekly pondering in the shade, Proffer ripe counsel to my Age. And, haply, since 'tis Song alone Can baffle death, and conquer time, Maiden unborn in days unknown, Under the leaves of fragrant lime, Scanning the verse that here is writ, While cherishing some secret smart Of love or loss, may glean from it Some comfort for her weary heart; And, gently warned, grave minds may own The world hath more to bear than they, And, while I dream 'neath mossy stone, Repeat my name, and love my lay. LIII Scarce to the all-indwelling Power That vow was uttered, ere there came 469 A messenger in boyhood's flower, Winged with his search, his face aflame. From Amphissa he straight had clomb, Thridding that devious mountain land, With letter from my far-off home, And written by my Loved One's hand. ``Come to me where I drooping lie. None yet have died of Love, they say: Withal, I sometimes think that I Have prayed and sighed my life away. ``I want your absolution, dear, For whatso wrong I may have done; My conscience waneth less severe, In softness of the setting sun. ``'Twas I, 'twas I, far more than you, That stood in need, as now I see, Stooping, to enter meekly through The Doorway of Humility. ``In vain I turn to Throne of Grace, Where sorrows cease, and tears are dry; I fain once more would see your face, And hear your voice, before I die.'' ENGLAND LIV The oak logs smoulder on my hearth, Though round them hums no household talk; The roses in the garden-garth Hang mournfully on curving stalk. My wolf-hound round me leaps and bays, That wailed lost footsteps when I went: He little knows the grief that weighs 470 On my return from banishment. Half Autumn now, half Summer yet, For Nature hath a human heart, It seems as though they, having met, To take farewell, are loth to part. The splendour of the Year's decline Hath not yet come. One still can see Late honeysuckle intertwine With Maiden's-Bower and briony. The bracken-fronds, fast yellowing, tower From out sere needles of the pine; Now hawkweed blooms where foxgloves flower, And bramble where once eglantine. And, as I wend with hurrying feet Across the park, along the lane That leads unto the hamlet street, And cradle of my bliss and bane, In cottage plots on either side, O'er mignonette and fragrant stock Soar tiger-lilies lithe and tall, And homely-sheltered hollyhock. And when I reach the low grey wall That skirts God's-acre on the hill, I see, awaiting my recall, The Little Door stand open still. A dip, a slight descent, and then Into the Vicarage Walk I passed; It seemed as though the tongues of men Had left it since I saw it last. Round garden-plot, in westering sun, Her agëd parents slowly stepped: Her Mother had the face of one Who oft hath prayed, and oft hath wept. 471 She wore the silent plaintive grace Of Autumn just before its close, And on her slowly fading face The pathos of November rose. With pitying gaze and accents kind, ``Go in,'' she said, ``and mount the stair; And you through open door will find That Monica awaits you there.'' LV I mounted. At half-open door Pausing, I softly called her name, As one would pause and halt before Heaven's Gateway. But no answer came. She lies, methought, in Sleep's caress, So, passing in, I seemed to see, So saintly white the vision, less A chamber than a Sanctuary. Vestured in white, on snow-white bed, She lay, as dreaming something sweet, Madonna lilies at her head, Madonna lilies at her feet. A thought, I did not dare to speak,``Is this the sleep of life or death?'' And, with my cheek against her cheek, Listening, I seemed to hear her breath. 'Twas Love's last blindness not to see Her sinless soul had taken wing Unto the Land, if such there be, Where saints adore, and Seraphs sing. And yet I felt within my heart, Though lids were closed and lips were dumb, That, for Love's sake, her soul in part Had lingered here, till I should come. 472 I kissed her irresponsive hand, I laid my lips on her cold brow, That She, like me, should understand 'Twas thus I sealed our nuptial vow. And then I saw upon her breast A something writ, she fain had said Had I been near, to me addressed, Which, kneeling down, I took and read. LVI ``I prayed I might prolong my years Till you could come and hush my sighs, And dry my penitential tears; But Heaven hath willed it otherwise: ``That I may expiate the wrong By me inflicted on us both, When, yet Love's novice, feebly strong, I sinned against Love's sovran troth. ``Now Death, the mirror unto Life, Shows me that nought should keep apart Those who, though sore perplexed by strife 'Twixt Faith and Doubt, are one in heart. ``For Doubt is one with Faith when they, Who doubt, for Truth's sake suffering live; And Faith meanwhile should hope and pray, Withholding not what Love can give. ``We lead the blind by voice and hand, And not by light they cannot see; We are not framed to understand The How and Why of such as He, ``But natured only to rejoice At every sound or sign of hope, And, guided by the still small voice, 473 In patience through the darkness grope; ``Until our finer sense expands, And we exchange for holier sight The earthly help of voice and hands, And in His light behold the Light. ``Had my poor Love but been more wise, I should have ta'en you to my breast, Striving to hush your plaintive cries, And rock your Reason back to rest. ``But, though alone you now must tread Where we together should have trod, In loneliness you may be led, Through faith in me, to Faith in God. ``With tranquil purpose, fervent mind, Foster, while you abide on earth, And humbly proffer to your kind, The gift assigned to you at birth. ``As in the far-off boyish year When did your singing voice awake, Disinterestedly revere And love it for its own great sake. ``And when life takes autumnal hues, With fervent reminiscence woo All the affections of the Muse, And write the poem lived by you. ``And should, until your days shall end, You still the lyric voice retain, With its seductive music blend A graver note, a loftier strain. ``While buoyant youth and manhood strong Follow where Siren sounds entice, The Deities of Love and Song, Rapture and loveliness, suffice. 474 ``But when decay, and pain, and loss, Remind one of the Goal forgot, And we in turn must bear the Cross, The Pagan Gods can help us not. ``Nor need you then seek, far and near, More sumptuous shrines on alien strand, But with domestic mind revere The Ritual of your native Land. ``The Little Door stands open wide, And, if you meekly pass therethrough, Though I no longer kneel inside, I shall be hovering near to you. ``Farewell! till you shall learn the whole Of what we here but see in part. Now I to God commend my soul, And unto you I leave my heart.'' LVII I wended up the slope once more To where the Church stands lone and still, And passed beneath the Little Door, My will the subject of Her will. The sunset rays through pictured pane Fell, fretted into weft and woof, On transept, nave, and aisle, to wane On column cold and vaulted roof. Within the carven altar screen Were lilies tall, and white, and fair, So like to those I late had seen, It seemed She must be sleeping there. Mutely I knelt, with bended brow And shaded eyes, but heart intent, To learn, should any teach me now, What Life, and Love, and Sorrow meant. 475 And there remained until the shroud Of dusk foretold the coming night; And then I rose, and prayed aloud, ``Let there be Light! Let there be Light!'' ~ Alfred Austin,