Sleep on their eyes, for in them lives a great
Spirit and grows not old. [Antistrophe.
[They wonder if these sins be all due to pride and if Creon has guilty ambitions;
’Tis Pride that breeds the tyrant; drunken deep
With perilous things is she,
Which bring not peace: up, reeling, steep on steep
She climbs, till lo, the rock-edge, and the leap
To that which needs must be.
The land where the strong foot is no more strong!
Yet is there surely Pride
That saves a city; God preserve it long!
I judge not. Only through all maze of wrong
Be God, not man, my guide. [Strophe.
[Or if Tiresias can really be a lying prophet with no fear of God; they feel that all faith in oracles and the things of God is shaken.
Is there a priest who moves amid the altars
Ruthless in deed and word,
Fears not the presence of his god, nor falters
Lest Right at last be heard?
If such there be, oh, let some doom be given
Meet for his ill-starred pride,
Who will not gain his gain where Justice is,
Who will not hold his lips from blasphemies,
Who hurls rash hands amid the things of heaven
From man’s touch sanctified.
In a world where such things be,
What spirit hath shield or lance
50
