Of happiness e’er gaineth more
Than only this—to have his own
He dreams, and as he dreams ’tis gone.
Thy fate, thine, Œdipus, beholding,
O luckless one, thy wretched fate,
And from it my opinion moulding
Naught mortal I congratulate.”
And he also exemplified the truth of Solon’s aphorism that no one should be congratulated before the end:—
“Ye who dwell in Thebes our city, look, behold this Œdipus,
He who solved the fam’d enigma, and did prove himself the best.