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

They find in thee to censure, what to praise.
Thy look doth fill with dread the citizen
And checks the frankness of his speech in things
Unpleasant for the king to hear; but I
Can hear them unperceived, how for this maid
The pedpte all make moan, “no woman e’er
Met death more undeserved, for glorious deeds
E’er met so foul a death, who could not leave
Her own dear brother uninterted, a prey
For carrion dogs and vultures lying there
Unheeded where he fell in bloody strife.
Should she for this no golden guerdon gain?
So speak the people guardedly, and still
The rumor spreads. There is no treasure prized
So highly as thy welfare, father, none
That mortal time affords so dear to me.
What greater ornament for children than
Their father’s glory and prosperity,
Or for the father than his children’s? Wear
Not, then, one way of thinking in thy heart,
That what thou sayst and nothing else is right.
For if a man assume that he alone
Is wise, in speech and judgment doth excel
All others, when his mind is opened as a book,
Naught else but emptiness is seen therein.
’T is no disgrace for e’en the wise to learn,
To yield convinced, and not be overstiff
In their opinions. By the swollen streams,
Thou seest the reeds that yielding bend their heads,
How they preserve themselves, whereas the trees,
That stiff resist the current, fall and die.
So too the sailor, if he tightly draws
The sheet, and keeps it taut and never slack,
Capsized, completes his voyage upside down.
Recede, then, from thy wrath and change thy mood.
If I, though younger, (and deemed competent
To offer an opinion) be allowed to speak,
I hold it best for man to be all-wise,
But since omniscience does not tip the scale
In human thinking, it is well to learn
From those who well can speak and well discern.