SOLON.

SOLON, an Athenian statesman and poet; born on the island of Salamis about 638 B. C. He is first heard of as the author and reciter of some stirring verses, which moved the Athenians to recover his native island from the Megarans, who had forcibly taken possession of it. In 594 B. c. he was made archon, and to him was given almost dictatoral power in reforming the laws and administration of Attica. Under him the community flourished. After finishing his rulership he travelled extensively. Returning to Athens, he witnessed the usurpation of the power of Pisistratus, whom he opposed. He died about 559. No draft of Solon's laws has come down to us, and their exact character is to some extent disputed. Of his poetry, only a few fragments are extant.

SOLON SPEAKS HIS MIND TO THE ATHENIANS.

NEVER shall this our city fall by fate

Of Zeus and the blest gods from her estate,
So noble a warder, Pallas Athena, stands

With hands uplifted at the city's gate.

But her own citizens do strip and slay,
Led by the folly of their hearts astray,

And the unjust temper of her demagogues,
Whose pride will tumble to its fall some day.

For they know not to hold in check their greed,
Nor soberly on the spread feast to feed;

But still by lawless deeds enrich themselves,
And spare not for the gods' or people's need.

They take but a thief's count of thine and mine;
They care no whit for Justice's holy shrine,

Who sits in silence, knowing what things are done,

Yet in the end brings punishment condign.

See this incurable sore the State consume!
Oh, rapid are her strides to slavery's doom,
Who stirs up civil strife and sleeping war
That cuts down many a young man in his bloom.

Such are the evils rife at home; while lo,
To foreign shores in droves the poor-folk go,

Sold, and perforce bound with disfiguring chains, And knowing all the shame that bondsmen know.

So from the assembly-place to each fireside
The evil spreads; and though the court-doors bide
Its bold assault, over the wall it leaps

And finds them that in inmost chambers hide.

Thus to the Athenians to speak, constrains
My soul: Ill fares the State where License reigns;
But Law brings order and concordant peace,
And fastens, on the unjust, speedy chains.

She tames, and checks, and chastens; blasts the bud
Of springing folly; cools the intemperate blood;

Makes straight the crooked; - she draws after her All right and wisdom like a tide at flood.

TWO FRAGMENTS.

I GAVE the people freedom clear
But neither flattery nor fear;

I told the rich and noble race

To crown their state with modest grace:
And placed a shield in either's hand,
Wherewith in safety both might stand.

THE people love their rulers best
When neither cringed to nor opprest.

REMEMBRANCE AFTER DEATH.

LET not a death unwept, unhonored, be
The melancholy fate allotted me!
But those who love me living when I die
Still fondly keep some cherished memory!

SOPHOCLES.

SOPHOCLES, an eminent Greek dramatic poet; born at Colonus, a village near Athens, in 496 B. c.; died in 405 B. C. He was of good family, and received the best education of his time. He was a contemporary of Eschylus and Euripides, being thirty years younger than the former, and fifteen years older than the latter. At twenty-six he came forward as a competitor for the dramatic prize at the great festival of Bacchus, Æschylus being one of his rivals. The first prize was awarded to Sophocles. He continued to exhibit plays for more than forty years, sometimes gaining the first place, and never falling to the third. He produced more than a hundred dramas, of which only the seven following have come down to us: "Edipus the King;" "Edipus at Colonus;" "Antigone; ""The Death of Ajax;" "The Maidens of Trachis;" "Philoctetes ;" and "Electra."

THE DOOM OF KING EDIPUS.

(From "Edipus Tyrannus." Translated by Edward Fitzgerald.)

I, EDIPUS, albeit no Theban born,

By Thebes herself enthroned her sovereign King,
Thus to the citizens of Thebes proclaim:
That whosoever of them knows by whom
King Laius, son of Labdacus, was slain,
Forthwith let him disclose it undismayed;
Yea, though the criminal himself he were,
Let not the dread of deadly consequence
Revolt him from confession of the crime;
For he shall suffer nothing worse than this, –
Instant departure from the city, but
Uninjured, uninsulted, unpursued;
For though feloniously a king he slew,

Yet haply as a stranger unaware

That king was Laius; and thus the crime

Half cleared of treason, half absolved by time.

Nor, on the other hand, if any knows

Another guilty, let him not for love,

Or fear, or whatsoever else regard,

Flinch from a revelation that shall win

More from myself than aught he fears to lose-
Nay, as a second savior of the State

Shall after me be called; and who should not
Save a whole people at the cost of one?

But Him- that one who would not at the cost
Of self-confession save himself and all

Him- were he nearest to my heart and hearth
Nearest and dearest- thus do I renounce:
That from the very moment that he stands,
By whatsoever, or by whom, revealed,
No man shall him bespeak, at home, abroad,
Sit with at table, nor by altar stand,
But, as the very Pestilence he were
Incarnate which this people now devours,
Him slay at once, or hoot and hunt him forth
With execration from the city walls.

But if, in spite of promise or of threat,

The man who did, or knows who did, this deed,
Still hold it in his bosom unrevealed.

That man - and he is here among us now-
Man's vengeance may escape when he fors wears
Participation in the crime, but

The Gods', himself involving in the Curse
Which, with myself and every man in Thebes,
He shall denounce upon the criminal,
The Gods invoking to withhold from him
That issue of the earth by which he lives,
That issue of the womb by which himself
Lives after him; that in the deadly curse
By which his fellows perish he and his
May perish, or, if worse there be, by worse!
CHORUS. Beside Apollo's altar standing here,

That oath I swear, that neither I myself

Nor did myself, nor know who did this deed;

And in the curse I join on him who did,

Or, knowing him who did, will not reveal.

EDIPUS. T is well: and, all the city's seven gates closed, Thus solemnly shall every man in Thebes

Before the altars of his country swear.

CHORUS. Well have you done, O Master, in so far

As human hand and wit may reach; and lo!

The sacred Seer of Thebes, Tiresias,

To whom, next to God himself, we look

For Heaven's assistance, at your summons comes,
In his prophetic raiment, staff in hand,
Approaching, gravely guided as his wont,
But with a step, methinks, unwonted slow.

Enter TIRESIAS.

Tiresias, Minister and Seer of God,
Who, blind to all that others see without,
See that within to which all else are blind;
Sequestered as you are with Deity,
You know, what others only know too well,
The mortal sickness that confounds us all;
But you alone can tell the remedy.

For since the God whose Minister you are
Bids us, if Thebes would be herself again,
Revenge the murder of King Laius

By retribution on the murderer,

Who undetected walks among us now;

TIRESIAS. Alas! how worse than vain to be well armed When the man's weapon turns upon himself!

EDIPUS. I know not upon whom that arrow lights. TIRESIAS. If not on him that summoned, then on him Who, summoned, came. There is one remedy;

Let those who hither led me lead me hence.

EDIPUS. Is not your King a Minister of Zeus,
As you of Phoebus, and the King of Thebes
Not more to be insulted or defied

Than any Priest or Augur in his realm ?

TIRESIAS. Implore, denounce, and threaten as you may, What unrevealed I would, I will not say.

EDIPUS. You will not! Mark then how, default of your Interpretation, I interpret you:

Either not knowing what you feign to know,
You lock your tongue in baffled ignorance;
Or, knowing that which you will not reveal,
I do suspect Suspect! why, stand you not
Self-accused, self-convicted, and by me

Denounced as he, that knowing him who did,
Will not reveal - nay, might yourself have done
The deed that you with some accomplice planned,
Could those blind eyes have aimed the murderous hand?
TIRESIAS. You say so! Now then, listen in your turn
To that one word which, as it leaves my lips,

By your own Curse upon the Criminal