Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence! 
For so shall men remark, in such an act 20
Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,
Thy recognition of the use of life;
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate
To help on life in straight ways, broad enough
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest. 
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower—­
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth,
Or when the general work ’mid good acclaim
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect—­ 30
Didst ne’er engage in work for mere work’s sake—­
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope
Of some eventual rest a-top of it,
Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed,
Thou first of men mightst look out to the East: 
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun. 
For this, I promise on thy festival
To pour libation, looking o’er the sea,
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak
Thy great words, and describe thy royal face—­ 40
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,
Within the eventual element of calm.

Thy letter’s first requirement meets me here. 
It is as thou hast heard:  in one short life
I, Cleon, have effected all those things
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate. 
That epos on thy hundred plates of gold
Is mine—­and also mine the little chant,
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net. 50
The image of the sun-god on the phare,
Men turn from the sun’s self to see, is mine;
The Poecile, o’er-storied its whole length,
As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too. 
I know the true proportions of a man
And woman also, not observed before;
And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again. 
For music—­why, I have combined the moods, 60
Inventing one.  In brief, all arts are mine;
Thus much the people know and recognize,
Throughout our seventeen islands.  Marvel not. 
We of these latter days, with greater mind
Than our forerunners, since more composite,
Look not so great, beside their simple way,
To a judge who only sees one way at once,
One mind-point and no other at a time—­
Compares the small part of a man of us
With some whole man of the heroic age, 70
Great in his way—­not ours, nor meant for ours. 
And ours is greater, had we skill to know: 
For, what we call this life of men on earth,
This sequence of the soul’s achievements here
Being, as I find much reason to conceive,
Intended to be viewed eventually. 
As a great whole, not analyzed to parts,
But each part having reference to all—­
How shall a certain part, pronounced complete,
Endure effacement by another part?