(4) λέγω δὲ νόμον τὸν μὲν ἴδιον, τὸν δὲ κοινόν,
ἴδιον μὲν τὸν (5) ἑκάστοις ὡρισμένον πρὸς αὑτούς, καὶ τοῦτον τὸν μὲν ἄγρα(6)φον, τὸν δὲ γεγραμμένον, κοινὸν δὲ τὸν κατὰ φύσιν.
ἔστι (7) γάρ τι ὃ μαντεύονται πάντες, φύσει κοινὸν δίκαιον καὶ (8) ἄδικον,
κἂν μηδεμία κοινωνία πρὸς ἀλλήλους ᾖ μηδὲ συν(9)θήκη,
οἷον καὶ ἡ Σοφοκλέους Ἀντιγόνη φαίνεται λέγουσα, (10) ὅτι δίκαιον ἀπειρημένου θάψαι τὸν Πολυνείκη, ὡς φύσει (11) ὂν τοῦτο δίκαιον·
(12) οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κἀχθές, ἀλλ’ ἀεί ποτε
(13) ζῇ τοῦτο, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου φάνη·
(14) καὶ ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς λέγει περὶ τοῦ μὴ κτείνειν τὸ ἔμ(15)ψυχον·
τοῦτο γὰρ οὐ τισὶ μὲν δίκαιον τισὶ δ’ οὐ δίκαιον,
(16) ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν πάντων νόμιμον διά τ’ εὐρυμέδοντος
(17) αἰθέρος ἠνεκέως τέταται διά τ’ ἀπλέτου αὐγῆς·
(18) καὶ ὡς ἐν τῷ Μεσσηνιακῷ λέγει Ἀλκιδάμας,
“ἐλευθέρους ἀφῆκε (19) πάντας θεός, οὐδένα δοῦλον ἡ φύσις πεποίηκεν”.
By the two kinds of law I mean particular law and universal law.
Particular law is that which each community lays down and applies to its own members: this is partly written and partly unwritten. Universal law is the law of Nature.
For there really is, as every one to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all men,
even on those who have no association or covenant with each other.
It is this that Sophocles’ Antigone clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in spite of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature.
Not of to—day or yesterday it is, But lives eternal: none can date its birth.
And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature,
says that doing this is not just for some people while unjust for others,
Nay, but, an all—embracing law, through the realms of the sky Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth’s immensity.
And as Alcidamas says in his Messeniac Oration ...
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