SOPH. CED. TYR.

Thou, the golden chaplet fair

Braiding mid thy clustering hair,
To thy native haunts repair,

Thy name that gave;

'Thou, whose brow the wine-lees stain, Thou, to whom, on star-lit plain,

Evoe! sing the frenzied train,

Bacchus the brave!

With thy torch of pine defy,
(Hated by the powers on high,)
War's unhallowed Deity:

Haste thee to save!

77

SOPH. D. TYR. 856.

ARGUMENT.

THE Thebans, in order to remove the pestilence which afflicted them, were enjoined by Apollo to discover the murderer of Laius their former king. Circumstances led to the belief, that Œdipus, then supposed to be the son of Polybus, was the guilty person; but this seemed contrary to a former oracle of Apollo, which declared that Laius should be slain by his own son. The Chorus, apprehensive lest this apparent contradiction should cause scepticism, describe in the following Ode the immutability of Divine law, and the evil consequences of pride; they pray that their own city may remain free from this sin, and that Jove may vindicate the truth of the suspected oracle.

SOPH. CED. TYR. 856.

MAY Fate accord to me,

In word and deed, that hallowed purity,'
Whose laws were framed on high,

Born in the heavenly chambers of the sky;

(') This passage recalls to our mind the following beautiful lines from Wordsworth's Excursion:

66

But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,

And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,

Duty exists;-immutably survive,

For our support, the measures and the forms,

Which an abstract Intelligence supplies,

Whose kingdom is, where time and space are not."

P. 134.

See also the well-known passage of Sophocles, Antig. 449.
οὐδὲ σθένειν τοσοῦτον ᾠόμην τὰ σὰ
κηρύγμαθ' ὥστ ̓ ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ θεῶν
νόμιμα δύνασθαι θνητὸν ἄνθ ̓ ὑπερδραμεῖν.
οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε καχθὲς, ἀλλ ̓ ἀεὶ πότε
ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου 'φάνη.

I never deemed decrees by mortals given
Annul the sure, unwritten laws of Heaven:
Nor of to-day nor yesterday they came,
Through immemorial ages still the same;
Their vital strength still fresh, their date unknown,
Nor changed by Senates, nor by Kings o'erthrown.

G