Sophocles

And, fed of heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms morn by morn with fair clusters, crown of the Great Goddesses from of yore; and the crocus blooms with golden beam. Nor do the ever-flowing springs diminish, from which the waters of Cephisus wander; each day its pure current moves over the plains of the land’s swelling bosom, bringing fertility.

Stranger, in this land of goodly steeds thou hast come to earth’s fairest home, even to our white Colonus; where the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note in the covert of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god’s inviolate bowers, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by wind of any storm; where the reveller Dionysus ever walks the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed him.

O sunlight! O sacred soil of mine own Salamis, firm seat of my father’s hearth! O famous Athens, and thy race kindred to mine! And ye, springs and rivers of this land—and ye plains of Troy, I greet you also—farewell, ye who have cherished my life! This is the last word that Ajax speaks to you: henceforth he will speak in Hades with the dead.

Time the all-seeing hath found thee out in thy despite: he judgeth the monstrous marriage wherein begetter and begotten have long been one. Alas, thou child of Laïus, would, would that I had never seen thee! I wail as one who pours a dirge from his lips; sooth to speak, ’twas thou that gavest me new life, and through thee darkness hath fallen upon mine eyes.

And speech, and wind-swift thought, and all the moods that mould a state, hath he taught himself; and how to flee the arrows of the frost, when ’tis hard lodging under the clear sky, and the arrows of the rushing rain; yea, he hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come: only against Death shall he call for aid in vain; but from baffling maladies he hath devised escapes.

Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he hath crossed life’s border, free from pain.

Oh, oh! All brought to pass—all true! Thou light, may I now look my last on thee—I who have been found accursed in birth, accursed in wedlock, accursed in the shedding of blood!

For it was not Zeus that had published me that edict; not such are the laws set among men by the Justice who dwells with the gods below; nor deemed I that thy decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of heaven. For their life is not of to-day or yesterday, but from all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth. Not through dread of any human pride could I answer to the gods for breaking these. Die I must,—I knew that well (how should I not?)

There is a saying among men, put forth of old, that thou canst not rightly judge whether a mortal’s lot is good or evil, ere he die. But I, even before I have passed to the world of death, know well that my life is sorrowful and bitter; I, who in the house of my father Oeneus, while yet I dwelt at Pleuron, had such fear of bridals as never vexed any maiden of Aetolia.

Insolence breeds the tyrant. Insolence, once vainly glutted with many things that are neither timely nor profitable, climbs to the topmost height and plunges into sheer doom, where its feet are of no use. But I pray the god never to end the struggle that is good for the city. The god I will never cease to hold as my protector.