What froward will of man, O Zeus! can check thy might?  II 1
Not all-enfeebling sleep, nor tireless months divine,
Can touch thee, who through ageless time
Rulest mightily Olympus’ dazzling height. 
This was in the beginning, and shall be
      Now and eternally,
Not here or there, but everywhere,
A law of misery that shall not spare.

For Hope, that wandereth wide, comforting many a head, II 2
Entangleth many more with glamour of desire: 
Unknowing they have trode the fire. 
Wise was the famous word of one who said,
’Evil oft seemeth goodness to the mind
      An angry God doth blind.’ 
Few are the days that such as he
May live untroubled of calamity.

LEADER OF CHORUS. 
Lo, Haemon, thy last offspring, now is come,
Lamenting haply for the maiden’s doom,
Say, is he mourning o’er her young life lost,
Fiercely indignant for his bridal crossed?

Enter HAEMON.

CR.  We shall know soon, better than seers could teach us. 
Can it be so, my son, that thou art brought
By mad distemperature against thy sire,
On hearing of the irrevocable doom
Passed on thy promised bride?  Or is thy love
Thy father’s, be his actions what they may?

HAEMON.  I am thine, father, and will follow still
Thy good directions; nor would I prefer
The fairest bride to thy wise government.

CR.  That, O my son! should be thy constant mind,
In all to bend thee to thy father’s will. 
Therefore men pray to have around their hearths
Obedient offspring, to requite their foes
With harm, and honour whom their father loves;
But he whose issue proves unprofitable,
Begets what else but sorrow to himself
And store of laughter to his enemies? 
Make not, my son, a shipwreck of thy wit
For a woman.  Thine own heart may teach thee this;—­
There’s but cold comfort in a wicked wife
Yoked to the home inseparably.  What wound
Can be more deadly than a harmful friend? 
Then spurn her like an enemy, and send her
To wed some shadow in the world below! 
For since of all the city I have found
Her only recusant, caught in the act,
I will not break my word before the State. 
I will take her life.  At this let her invoke
The god of kindred blood!  For if at home
I foster rebels, how much more abroad? 
Whoso is just in ruling his own house,
Lives rightly in the commonwealth no less: 
But he that wantonly defies the law,
Or thinks to dictate to authority,
Shall have no praise from me.  What power soe’er
The city hath ordained, must be obeyed
In little things and great things, right or wrong. 
The man who so obeys, I have good hope
Will govern and be governed as he ought,
And in the storm of battle at my side
Will stand a faithful and a trusty comrade. 
But what more fatal than the lapse of rule?