Part two, Thy son hast gone my liege in angry, haste fell'st the
wrath of youth beneath a smart Let him go vent his fury like a fiend.
These sisters twain he shall not say from death, surely thou mean'st not
to slay them both. I stand corrected. Only her who touch'd the body,
And what death is she to die? She shall be taken to some
desert place by man untrod, and in a rock hewn cave with food,
no more than to avoid the taint that homicide might bring on all the state
buried alive there, Let her call in aid the King of death, the
one god she reveres or learn too late a lesson learnt at last, tis
labor lost to reverence the dead. Love resistless in fight or yield at the
glance of thine eye. Love will pillowed all night on a maid as sheep
dost lie o'er the upland holds shann mortals not ye to thee mad are thy
subjets all and ev'n the wisest heart straight to folly will fall at a touch
of thy poison'd dart. Thou didst kindle the strife This faid o kinsman with
kin by the eyes, O were winsome wife and the yearning her heart to
win for as her conselt still enthron'd with justice above, Thou bendest man to
thy will o all invincible love, lo, I myself am borne aside from
justice. As I view this bride o sight an I in tears to drown
antigone so jung so fair. Thus hurri'down Death's bow'r with the dead to share,
friends, countrymen, my last farewell, I make my journey's done.
One last fond, lingering, longing look I take at the bright sun.
For death, who put'st a sleep, both young and old, hails my
young life and beckons me to Acoron's dark fold, an unwed wife. No
youths have sung the marriage song for me my bridal bread. No maids have
strewn with flowers from the lee tis death I wed. But bethink thee thou
art sped great and glorious to the dead. Thou the sort's edge hast not
taste it, No deceas'd thy frame hath waste it freely. Thou alone shalt
go living to the dead below. Nay, but the piteous tale I've heard
men tell of Tantalus, doom'd child chain'd upon syphilis, high rocky fell that
clung like ivy wild, drench'd by the pelting rain and whirling snow. Left
there to mine, while on her frozen breast the tears I flow. Her
fate is mine. She was sprung of God's divine mortals, We of mortal
line like, renowned with God's to gain, recompensest all thy pain. Take
this so last, thy tomb hers in life and death, thy doom alack
halack, ye mock me. Is it meet thus to insult me, living
to my face, cease by our country's alters. I entreat ye, lordly
rulers of a lordly race, who fount of dercy would embower'd plain where theban
chariots to victory's speed, mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my
bane, the friends who show no pity in my need. Was ever fate
like mine? Her monstrous doom within a rock built prison, sepulcherd to fade
and wither in a living tomb, and alien midst the living and the dead.
In thy boldness overrush madly, thou thy foot didst dash gain'st thy justice
althor stare thou a father's gig dost err at this thou touchest my most poignant
pain, my ill starred father's piteous disgrace, the taint of blood, the
hereditary stain that clings to all of Labdicus famed race, woe worth, the
monstrous marriage bed where lay a mother with the son her womb had borne.
Therein I was conceiv'd woe worth, the day fruit of incestuous sheets, a
maid forlorn, And now I pass, accursed and unwed, to meet them
as an alien there below. And thee O brother in marriage ill bestead.
Twas thy dead hand that dealt me this death blow really has her chains.
T is true, let right be paid when rights are due? Yet is
it e to disobey the power so hold by might? The sway thou hast
withstood authority a safe we grebel, Thou must die unwept, unwed, unfriended.
Hence I go no longer May I see the day's bright eye. Not
one friend's left to share my bitter woe, And o'er my ashes heave one
passing sigh. If wail and lamentation aught avail'd to stave off death, I
trow they'd never end away with her, and, having walled her up in
a rock vaulted tomb, as I ordain'd leave her alone at liberty to die,
or, if she choose to live in solitude, the tomb her dwelling.
We in either case are guiltless as concerns this maiden's blood. Only on
earth, no lodging shall she find. Oh grave, O bridal bower,
O prison house hewn from the rock, my everlasting home. Whither I go
to join the mighty host of kinsfolk, perseffic's guests, long dead, the
last of all of all more miserable, I pass my destined span of years
cut short. And yet good hope is mine that I shall find a welcome
from my sire. Oh welcome too from thee my mother and my brother dear
from. With these hands I laved and dept your limbs in death, and
poured libations on your grave and last my poloneses unto THEE. I paid due
rights, and this my recompense. Yet am I justified in Wisdom's eyes.
For even had it been some child of mine or husband moldering in death's decay,
I had not wrought this deed despite the state. What is the law
I call an aid tis? Thus I argue, had it been a husband
dead, I might have wed another and have borne another child to take the
dead child's place. But now my sire and mother both are dead, no
second brother can be born for me. Thus, by the law of conscience,
I was led to honor thee dear brother, and was judged by Creon
guilty of an heinous crime. And now he drags me like a criminal,
a bride unwed, ammerst of marriage, song and marriage bed and joys of
motherhood, my friends, deserted to a living grave. What ordinance of Heaven
have I transgressed? Hereafter? Can I look to any god for succor call
on any man for help? Alas my piety is impious deemed well, if
such justice is approved of heaven, I shall be taught by suffering my sin.
But if the sin is theirs, O may vay suffer no worse ills
than the wrongs they do to me. Ungovernable will drives like a gale the
maiden. Still therefore am I? Guards who let her stay shall smart full
sore for their delay. Ah, woe is me this word I here brings
death most near. I have no comfort. What ye saith for tense,
no other thing than death my fatherland, city of Thebes, divine, ye,
gods of Thebes. Whence sprang my line, Look puissant lords of Thebes
on me the last of all your royal house, ye see martyred by men
of sin undone such meade my piety hath won exit antigony, like to thee
that maiden bride Dane I in her brass bunt tower on six chang'd the glad
sunlight for a sail her bridal bower. And yet she sprang of royal line,
my child, like thine and nur the seat by her conceiv'd of zeb's
descending in a golden show'r strange are the ways of fate her pow'r nor wealth,
nor arms wistand nor tow'r nor brass crowd. Ships that rest the sea
from fate can flee. Thus, Drius child, the rash Edonian king,
for words of high disdain, de Bacchus to a rocky dungeon, bring to
cool the madness of a fever'd brain. His frenzy pass'd, he learn'd at
last twas madness gives against a god to fling, For once he fain had
quench'd the Menod's fire, and of the tuneful nine provok'd the ire by the
iron rocks that guard the double Man on the sporus lone strand, where Stretcheth's
Salmidesov's plain in the wild throught young land. There on his borders are as
witness'd the vengeance by a jealous step paintain the gall that trickl'd from a spindle,
red the sightless, all its other step son's twain wasting away. They
mourn'd their picture's tomb, the blasted issue of their mother's womb. But she,
her lineage, could trace to great erect thev Thrays, daughter of Boreas
in her sire's vast caves, rear'd where the tempest raves swift as his horses
o'er the hills. She sped a child of gods. Yet she my child,
like thee by destiny that knows no death nor age. She too was
vanquish'd enter Arsius and Boy, princes of thieves, two wayfarers, as one
having betwixt us eyes for one we are here. The blind man cannot move
without a guide, What tidings old tyryseus, I will tell thee. And
when thou hearest, thou must heed the seer. Thus far I ne'er have
disobey'd thy read, So hast thou steer to the ship of state? A
right I know it, and I gladly own my debt. Bethink thee that
thou tread'st once again the razor edge of peril? What is this? Thy
words inspire a dread presentiment. The divination of my art shall tell. Sitting
upon my throne of augury, as is my wont, where every fowl of
heaven thine harborage upon mine ears was borne a jargon strange of twitterings, hoots
and screams. So knew I that each bud at the other tear with bloody
talons, for the whir of wings could signify nought else. Perturb'd in soul,
I straight essay'd the sacrifice by fire on blazing altars. But the god
of fire came not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped and sputter'd
in the ashes a foul oos gall bladders cracked and spatted up, The fat
melted and fell and left the thigh bones bar. Such are the signs talked
by this lad. I read as I guide others. So the boy guides
me the frustrate signs of oracles grown damn, oh king, thy wilful temper
ails the state. For all our shrine and altars are profan'd by what has
filled the bore of dogs and crows, the flesh of itapus unburied sun.
Therefore the angry gods abominate our litanies and our burnt offerings. Therefore no birds
trill out a happy note gorch'd with the carnival of human gore. Oh,
ponder this, my son. To err is common to all men. But
the man who, having err'd, hugs not his errors, but repents and
seeks the cure is not a wastrel, nor unwise no fool. The sword
goes like the obstinate fool. Let death disarm thy vengeance, Oh forbear to
vex the dead. What glory ye wilt thou win by slaying twice the slain?
I mean thee well Counsel's most welcome. If I promise, gain old
man, ye all, let fly at me your shafts like archers at a
target. Yea ye set your soothsayer on me. Peddlers are ye all,
and I the merchandise ye buy and sell, go to and make your profit
where ye will, silver of sardist change for gold of end. Ye will
not purchase this man's burial, not though the winged ministers of Zeus should bear
him in their talons to his throne. Not e in awe of prodigy,
so dire would I permit his burial. For I know no human soilure can
assail the gods. This too, I know Tyresus dires the fall of craft
and cunning when it tries to gloss foul treachery with fair words for filthy gain.
Alas doth any know and lay to heart? Is this the prelude to
some hackneed saw? How far good counsel is the best of goods, true
as unwisdom is the worst of ills. Thou art infected with that ill thyself.
I will not band the insults with thee seer. And yet thou say'st
my prophecies of fraughts. Prophets are all a money getting tribe, and kings
are all a luca loving race. Dost know at whom thou glancest me thy
Lord, Lord of the State and Savior thanks to me skill'd prophet art Thou,
but too wrong inclined take heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal the
mystery deep hidden in my breast. Say on, but see it be not
said for gain such thou me sink till now hast judg'd my words. Be
sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits. No, then, for sure
the coursers of the sun, not many times, shall run their race before
thou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins in quittance of thy murder,
life for life. For that, thou hast entomb'd a living soul,
and sent below a denisan of earth, and wrong'd the nether gods by leaving
here a corpse, unlaved, unwept, unsepulchred. Herein thou hast no part
nor in the gods in Heaven, And thou usurp'st a power not thine.
For this, the avenging spirits of heaven and Hell, who dark the steps
of sin, are on thy trail. What these have suffer'd, thou shalt
suffer too. And now consider whether bought by gold high prophesy for yet a
little while, and sound of lamentation shall be heard of men and women through
thy desolate halls, and all thy neighbor states or leagues, to avenge their
mangl'd warriors who have found a grave. I the more of wolf or hound
or winged bird that flying homewards taints their city's heir. These are the shafts
that, like a bowman, I provoked to anger, loosen at thy breast
unerring and their smart Thou shalt not shun, oh boy, lead me home
that he may and his bleed on younger man and learn to curb his tongue
with gentler manners than his present mood. Exit tiweesius, my liege, that
man hath gone for telling woe. And oh believe me, since these chrissled
locks were like the raven. Never have I known the prophets warning to the
state to fail. I know it too, and it perplexes me to yield
his grievous But the obstinate soul that fights with fate is smitten grievously. Some
Normania fievs list to good advice. What should I do? Advise me?
I will heed go free the maiden from her rockyr cell and for the unburied
outlaw bild a tomb. Is that your counsel, you would have me yield,
yea king. This instant vengeance of the gods is swift to overtake the
impenitent. Ah. What a wrench it is to sacrifice my heart's resolve.
But fate is ill to fight. Go trust not others. Do it quick
thyself. I go hot foot, bestir ye one, and all my henchmen
get ye axes, speed away to yonder eminence. I too will go for
all my resolution. This way sways twas I that bound, I too will
set her free. Almost I am persuaded. It is best to keep through
life the law ordained of old exit Creon Thou by many names, adored child
of serves, the god of thunder, of a theban bride, the wonder
fairy, talious guardian lord in the deep and bosomed glades of the Eleusinian queen,
haunt of revelers, men and maids. Dionysus, Thou art seen whereas
men astrolls his waters, where the dragon's teeth were sown, where the bacchanals
thy daughters round thee rome. There thy home TheBus o Bacchus is thine own
thee on the two crested rock, lurid flaming torches sea, where Corisian maidens
flock thee the springs of Castaly, thy nieces Pastian ivy, clad by shores
with cluster'd vineyards, glad there to thee the hymn rings out, and through
our streets we thebans shout all hold to thee, Ibi ibi o as thou
lov'st this city best of all, to THEE and to thy mother live in
stricken in our thye need we call thou seest, with what the plague our
towns folk sicken? Thy ready help we crave, whether adown Parnassian heights descending
or o'er the roaring straits. Thy swift was wending. Save us, Oh,
save brightest of all the orbs that breathe forth light, authentic son of
Zev's immortal King, leader of all the voices of the night, Come,
and thy train of thiads. We THEE bring thy maddened brown who danced before
thee all night long, and shout thy hand might swee I v I v
enter messenger attend o ye who dwell beside the halls of Cadmus and Amphion.
No man's life as of one Tenor would I praise or blame for fortune with
a constant ebb and rise, casts down and raises high and low alike,
And none can read immortal's horoscope. Take creon, he methought, if any
man was enviable, he had saved this land of Cadmus from our enemies,
and attained a mom mark's powers, and ruled the state supreme, while a
right noble issue crowned his bliss. Now all is gone and wasted. For
a life without life's joys, I count a living death. He'll tell me
he has ample store of wealth, the pomp and circumstance of kings. But
if these give no pleasure, all the rest I count the shadow of a
shade. Nor would I weigh his wealth and power against a dram of joy?
What fresh woes bring'st thou to the royal house? Both dead and they
who live deserve to die? Who is the slayer? Who the victim?
Speak? Ayman? His blood shed by no stranger hand? What mean ye
by his father's or his own? His own? In anger for his father's
crime? Oh prophet, What thou spakest comes to pass. So stands the
case. Now tis for you to act. No. From the palace gates
I see approaching cray unhappy wife. Every dacher comes, she by chance or
learning her son's fate. Enter uridity, ye, men of thebes. I
overheard your talk as I passed out to offer up my prayer to palace,
and was drawing back the bar to open wide the door. Upon my ears,
there broke a wail that told of household woe. Stricken with terror in
my handmaid's arms, I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale to one
not unacquaint with misery, dear mistress. I was there, and will relate
the perfect truth, omitting not one word. Why should we glows and flatter
to be proved liars? Hereafter? Truth is ever best well in attendance on
my liege, your lord, I crossed the plain to its utmost margin,
where the course of Polynesius Non and mauld was lying. Yet we offered first
a prayer to Pluto and the Goddess of cross ways, with contrite hearts to
deprea hate their ire. Then laved with lustral waves the mangled course, laid
it on fresh lopped branches, lit a pyre, and to his memory piled
a mighty mound of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock, the bridal
chamber of the maid and death, we sped about to enter, but a
guard heard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail, and ran back to
our lord to tell the news. But as he nearer drew, a hollow
sound of lamentation to the king was born. He groaned and uttered, Then
this bitter plaint, am I a prophet, miserable me? Is this the
saddest path I ever trod? Tis my son's voice that calls me on,
Press on my henchman, haste with double speed to the tomb, where rocks
down torn have made a gap. Look in and tell me if in truth
I recognized the voice of Hayman, or am heaven deceived? So at the
bidding of our distraught lord, we looked, and in the cavern's vaulted gloom,
I saw the maiden lying strangled. There a noose of linen twined about
her neck, and hard beside her, clasping her cold form. Her lover
lay, bewailing his dead bride, death wedded, and his father's cruelty.
When the king saw him with a terrible groan. He moved towards him,
crying, O, my son, what hast thou done? What ailed thee?
What mischance has reft thee of thy reason? Oh, come forth,
come forth, my son, Thy father supplicates. But the son glared at
him with tiger eyes, spat in his face, and then, without a
word, drew his two hilted sword and smote, but missed his father,
flying backwards. Then the boy, wroth with himself, poor wretch, incuntinent,
fell on his sword and drove it through his side home. But yet
breathing, clasped in his lax arms, the maid her pallid cheek incarnadined with
his expiring gasps. So there they lay two corpses, one in death.
His marriage rights are consummated in the halls of death, A witness that of
ills whate'er befall mortals. Unwisdom is the worst of all, exit euridicy,
What makest thou of this? The queen has gone without a word, importing
good or ill I marvel too, but entertain good. Hope tis that she
shrinks in public to lament her son's sad ending, and in privacy would with
her maidens mourn a private loss. Trust me. She is discreet and will
not err I know not, but strange silence, so I deem, is
no less ominous than excessive grief. Well led us to the house and solve
our doubts. Whether the tumult of her heart conceals some fell design, it
may be thou art right. Unnatural silence signifies no good lo the king himself
appears evidence. He with him bears gainst himself army. I quake gainst a
king such charge to make, but almost own that guilt is his and his
alone. Woe for sin of minds, perverse, deadly, fraught with mortal
curse. Behold us slain and slayers, all akin woe for my counsel,
dire conceiv'd in sin alas my son life scarce begun, Thou hast undone.
The fault was mine mine only O my son too late. Thou seemest to
perceive the truth by sorrow school'd heavy the hand of God, thorny and rough
the paths my feet have trod, humbled my pride, my pleasure turn'd to
pain, poor mortals, How we labor all in vain, enter second messenger,
sorrow saw thine, my Lord and more to come, one lying at
thy feet. Another, yet more grievous waits THEE when thou comest home.
What woe is lacking to my tale of woes? Thy wife, the mother
of thy dead son, here lie stricken by a fresh inflicted blow. How
bottomless the pit dost claim me too? O? Death? What is this
word? He saith, this woeful messenger say? Is it fit to slay
anew a man already slain? Is death at work again? Stroke upon stroke?
First son, then mother slain? Look for thyself she lies for all
to you alas another added woe. I see what more remains to crown my
agony? A minute past I clasp'd a lifeless son, and now another victim.
Death has won unhappy mother, most un happy son. Beside the altar,
on a keen aged sword, she fell and closed her eyes in night,
but erst she mourned for Megarevs, who nobly died long since, then
for her son. With her last breath she cursed THEE, the slayerer of
her child. I shudder with a fright, or for a two edged sword
to slay outright a wretch like me made one with misery? Tis true that
thou wert charg'd by the dead queen as author of both deaths hers and her
sons. In what wise was her self destruction Wrought hearing the loud lament above
her son, with her own hand, she stabbed herself to the heart.
I am the guilty cause I did the deed, thy murderer, yea,
I guilty. Plead my henchmen, lead me hence away away a cipher less
than nothing. No delay, well said, if in disaster all diswell is
past endure, demand the speed is ture, Come fate, a friend at
need. Come with all speed, Come my best friend, and speed my
end away away. Let me not look upon another day. This for the
morrow to us, our present needs that they whom it concerns, must take
in hand. I join your prayer that echoes my desire. Oh pray not
prayers are idle from the doom, a fate for mortus refuge is there none
away with me, A worthless wretch who slew unwitting thee my son, thy
mother too whither to turn. I know not every way leads but astray,
And on my head I feel the heavy weight of crushing fate of happiness.
The chiefest part is a wise heart, and to defraud the gods. In
aught with parrods, fraud swelling words of high flown might mightily the gods to
smite chastismant for errors. Past wisdom brings to age at last end Apart two.
End of Antigony by Sophocles