[4] But the doctrine, which it expresses, is
contradictory of the whole tenor of the story; and the correct
deduction is much more justly summed up by Seneca, in the stoical
maxim of necessity:
_Fatis agimur, cedite Fatis;
Non solicitae possunt curae,
Mutare rati stamina fusi;
Quicquid patimur mortale genus,
Quicquid facimus venit ex alto;
Servatque sua decreta colus,
Lachesis dura revoluta manu._
Some degree of poetical justice might have been preserved, and a
valuable moral inculcated, had the conduct of OEdipus, in his combat
with Laius, been represented as atrocious, or, at least,
unwarrantable; as the sequel would then have been a warning, how
impossible it is to calculate the consequences or extent of a single
act of guilt. But, after all, Dryden perhaps extracts the true moral,
while stating our insufficiency to estimate the distribution of good
and evil in human life, in a passage, which, in excellent poetry,
expresses more sound truth, than a whole shelf of philosophers:
The Gods are just--
But how can finite measure infinite?
Reason! alas, it does not know itself!
Yet man, vain man, would, with this, short-lined plummet,
Fathom the vast abyss of heavenly justice.
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