OEDIPUS.
Where, where? what sayest thou?

ANTIGONE.
                              O father, father,
Would that some god might grant thee eyes to see
This best of men who brings us back again.

OEDIPUS.
My child! and are ye back indeed!

ANTIGONE.
                                   Yes, saved
By Theseus and his gallant followers.

OEDIPUS.
Come to your father’s arms, O let me feel
A child’s embrace I never hoped for more.

ANTIGONE.
Thou askest what is doubly sweet to give.

OEDIPUS.
Where are ye then?

ANTIGONE.
                    We come together both.

OEDIPUS.
My precious nurslings!

ANTIGONE.
                         Fathers aye were fond.

OEDIPUS.
Props of my age!

ANTIGONE.
               So sorrow sorrow props.

OEDIPUS.
I have my darlings, and if death should come,
Death were not wholly bitter with you near.
Cling to me, press me close on either side,
There rest ye from your dreary wayfaring.
Now tell me of your ventures, but in brief;
Brief speech suffices for young maids like you.

ANTIGONE.
Here is our savior; thou should’st hear the tale
From his own lips; so shall my part be brief.

OEDIPUS.
I pray thee do not wonder if the sight
Of children, given o’er for lost, has made
My converse somewhat long and tedious.
Full well I know the joy I have of them
Is due to thee, to thee and no man else;
Thou wast their sole deliverer, none else.
The gods deal with thee after my desire,
With thee and with this land! for fear of heaven
I found above all peoples most with you,
And righteousness and lips that cannot lie.
I speak in gratitude of what I know,
For all I have I owe to thee alone.
Give me thy hand, O Prince, that I may touch it,
And if thou wilt permit me, kiss thy cheek.
What say I? Can I wish that thou should’st touch
One fallen like me to utter wretchedness,
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand ills?
Oh no, I would not let thee if thou would’st.
They only who have known calamity
Can share it. Let me greet thee where thou art,
And still befriend me as thou hast till now.

THESEUS.
I marvel not if thou hast dallied long
In converse with thy children and preferred
Their speech to mine; I feel no jealousy,
I would be famous more by deeds than words.
Of this, old friend, thou hast had proof; my oath
I have fulfilled and brought thee back the maids
Alive and nothing harmed for all those threats.
And how the fight was won, ’twere waste of words
To boast—thy daughters here will tell thee all.
But of a matter that has lately chanced
On my way hitherward, I fain would have
Thy counsel—slight ’twould seem, yet worthy thought.
A wise man heeds all matters great or small.

OEDIPUS.
What is it, son of Aegeus? Let me hear.
Of what thou askest I myself know naught.

THESEUS.
’Tis said a man, no countryman of thine,
But of thy kin, hath taken sanctuary
Beside the altar of Poseidon, where
I was at sacrifice when called away.

OEDIPUS.
What is his country? what the suitor’s prayer?

THESEUS.
I know but one thing; he implores, I am told,
A word with thee—he will not trouble thee.

OEDIPUS.
What seeks he? If a suppliant, something grave.

THESEUS.
He only waits, they say, to speak with thee,
And then unharmed to go upon his way.

OEDIPUS.
I marvel who is this petitioner.

THESEUS.
Think if there be not any of thy kin
At Argos who might claim this boon of thee.

OEDIPUS.
Dear friend, forbear, I pray.

THESEUS.
                              What ails thee now?

OEDIPUS.
Ask it not of me.

THESEUS.
                    Ask not what? explain.

OEDIPUS.
Thy words have told me who the suppliant is.

THESEUS.
Who can he be that I should frown on him?

OEDIPUS.
My son, O king, my hateful son, whose words
Of all men’s most would jar upon my ears.

THESEUS.
Thou sure mightest listen. If his suit offend,
No need to grant it. Why so loth to hear him?

OEDIPUS.
That voice, O king, grates on a father’s ears;
I have come to loathe it. Force me not to yield.

THESEUS.
But he hath found asylum. O beware,
And fail not in due reverence to the god.

ANTIGONE.
O heed me, father, though I am young in years.
Let the prince have his will and pay withal
What in his eyes is service to the god;
For our sake also let our brother come.
If what he urges tend not to thy good
He cannot surely wrest perforce thy will.
To hear him then, what harm? By open words
A scheme of villainy is soon bewrayed.
Thou art his father, therefore canst not pay
In kind a son’s most impious outrages.
O listen to him; other men like thee
Have thankless children and are choleric,
But yielding to persuasion’s gentle spell
They let their savage mood be exorcised.
Look thou to the past, forget the present, think
On all the woe thy sire and mother brought thee;
Thence wilt thou draw this lesson without fail,
Of evil passion evil is the end.
Thou hast, alas, to prick thy memory,
Stern monitors, these ever-sightless orbs.
O yield to us; just suitors should not need
To be importunate, nor he that takes
A favor lack the grace to make return.

OEDIPUS.
Grievous to me, my child, the boon ye win
By pleading. Let it be then; have your way
Only if come he must, I beg thee, friend,
Let none have power to dispose of me.

THESEUS.
No need, Sir, to appeal a second time.
It likes me not to boast, but be assured
Thy life is safe while any god saves mine.
[Exit THESEUS]

CHORUS.
(Str.)
Who craves excess of days,
          Scorning the common span
          Of life, I judge that man
A giddy wight who walks in folly’s ways.
For the long years heap up a grievous load,
          Scant pleasures, heavier pains,
          Till not one joy remains
For him who lingers on life’s weary road
     And come it slow or fast,
          One doom of fate
          Doth all await,
          For dance and marriage bell,
          The dirge and funeral knell.
Death the deliverer freeth all at last.
(Ant.)
          Not to be born at all
          Is best, far best that can befall,
          Next best, when born, with least delay
          To trace the backward way.
For when youth passes with its giddy train,
     Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils,
          Pain, pain for ever pain;
          And none escapes life’s coils.
          Envy, sedition, strife,
Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.
Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage
          Of unregarded age,
Joyless, companionless and slow,
          Of woes the crowning woe.

(Epode)
Such ills not I alone,
He too our guest hath known,
E’en as some headland on an iron-bound shore,
Lashed by the wintry blasts and surge’s roar,
So is he buffeted on every side
By drear misfortune’s whelming tide,
          By every wind of heaven o’erborne
          Some from the sunset, some from orient morn,
          Some from the noonday glow.
Some from Rhipean gloom of everlasting snow.

ANTIGONE.
Father, methinks I see the stranger coming,
Alone he comes and weeping plenteous tears.

OEDIPUS.
Who may he be?

ANTIGONE.
               The same that we surmised.
From the outset—Polyneices. He is here.
[Enter POLYNEICES]

POLYNEICES.
Ah me, my sisters, shall I first lament
My own afflictions, or my aged sire’s,
Whom here I find a castaway, with you,
In a strange land, an ancient beggar clad
In antic tatters, marring all his frame,
While o’er the sightless orbs his unkept locks
Float in the breeze; and, as it were to match,
He bears a wallet against hunger’s pinch.
All this too late I learn, wretch that I am,
Alas! I own it, and am proved most vile
In my neglect of thee: I scorn myself.
But as almighty Zeus in all he doth
Hath Mercy for co-partner of this throne,
Let Mercy, father, also sit enthroned
In thy heart likewise. For transgressions past
May be amended, cannot be made worse.

Why silent? Father, speak, nor turn away,
Hast thou no word, wilt thou dismiss me then
In mute disdain, nor tell me why thou art wrath?
O ye his daughters, sisters mine, do ye
This sullen, obstinate silence try to move.
Let him not spurn, without a single word
Of answer, me the suppliant of the god.

ANTIGONE.
Tell him thyself, unhappy one, thine errand;
For large discourse may send a thrill of joy,
Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness,
And to the tongue-tied somehow give a tongue.

POLYNEICES.
Well dost thou counsel, and I will speak out.
First will I call in aid the god himself,
Poseidon, from whose altar I was raised,
With warrant from the monarch of this land,
To parley with you, and depart unscathed.
These pledges, strangers, I would see observed
By you and by my sisters and my sire.
Now, father, let me tell thee why I came.
I have been banished from my native land
Because by right of primogeniture
I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne
Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother,
Ousted me, not by weight of precedent,
Nor by the last arbitrament of war,
But by his popular acts; and the prime cause
Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee.
So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when
I came to Argos in the Dorian land
And took the king Adrastus’ child to wife,
Under my standard I enlisted all
The foremost captains of the Apian isle,
To levy with their aid that sevenfold host
Of spearmen against Thebes, determining
To oust my foes or die in a just cause.
Why then, thou askest, am I here today?
Father, I come a suppliant to thee
Both for myself and my allies who now
With squadrons seven beneath their seven spears
Beleaguer all the plain that circles Thebes.
Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer,
Amphiaraiis with his lightning lance;
Next an Aetolian, Tydeus, Oeneus’ son;
Eteoclus of Argive birth the third;
The fourth Hippomedon, sent to the war
By his sire Talaos; Capaneus, the fifth,
Vaunts he will fire and raze the town; the sixth
Parthenopaeus, an Arcadian born
Named of that maid, longtime a maid and late
Espoused, Atalanta’s true-born child;
Last I thy son, or thine at least in name,
If but the bastard of an evil fate,
Lead against Thebes the fearless Argive host.
Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire,
We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath
And favor one who seeks a just revenge
Against a brother who has banned and robbed him.
For victory, if oracles speak true,
Will fall to those who have thee for ally.
So, by our fountains and familiar gods
I pray thee, yield and hear; a beggar I
And exile, thou an exile likewise; both
Involved in one misfortune find a home
As pensioners, while he, the lord of Thebes,
O agony! makes a mock of thee and me.
I’ll scatter with a breath the upstart’s might,
And bring thee home again and stablish thee,
And stablish, having cast him out, myself.
This will thy goodwill I will undertake,
Without it I can scare return alive.

CHORUS.
For the king’s sake who sent him, Oedipus,
Dismiss him not without a meet reply.

OEDIPUS.
Nay, worthy seniors, but for Theseus’ sake
Who sent him hither to have word of me.
Never again would he have heard my voice;
But now he shall obtain this parting grace,
An answer that will bring him little joy.
O villain, when thou hadst the sovereignty
That now thy brother holdeth in thy stead,
Didst thou not drive me, thine own father, out,
An exile, cityless, and make we wear
This beggar’s garb thou weepest to behold,
Now thou art come thyself to my sad plight?
Nothing is here for tears; it must be borne
By me till death, and I shall think of thee
As of my murderer; thou didst thrust me out;
’Tis thou hast made me conversant with woe,
Through thee I beg my bread in a strange land;
And had not these my daughters tended me
I had been dead for aught of aid from thee.
They tend me, they preserve me, they are men
Not women in true service to their sire;
But ye are bastards, and no sons of mine.
Therefore just Heaven hath an eye on thee;
Howbeit not yet with aspect so austere
As thou shalt soon experience, if indeed
These banded hosts are moving against Thebes.
That city thou canst never storm, but first
Shall fall, thou and thy brother, blood-imbrued.
Such curse I lately launched against you twain,
Such curse I now invoke to fight for me,
That ye may learn to honor those who bear thee
Nor flout a sightless father who begat
Degenerate sons—these maidens did not so.
Therefore my curse is stronger than thy “throne,”
Thy “suppliance,” if by right of laws eterne
Primeval Justice sits enthroned with Zeus.
Begone, abhorred, disowned, no son of mine,
Thou vilest of the vile! and take with thee
This curse I leave thee as my last bequest:—
Never to win by arms thy native land,
No, nor return to Argos in the Vale,
But by a kinsman’s hand to die and slay
Him who expelled thee. So I pray and call
On the ancestral gloom of Tartarus
To snatch thee hence, on these dread goddesses
I call, and Ares who incensed you both
To mortal enmity. Go now proclaim
What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all,
Thy staunch confederates—this the heritage
that Oedipus divideth to his sons.

CHORUS.
Thy errand, Polyneices, liked me not
From the beginning; now go back with speed.

POLYNEICES.
Woe worth my journey and my baffled hopes!
Woe worth my comrades! What a desperate end
To that glad march from Argos! Woe is me!
I dare not whisper it to my allies
Or turn them back, but mute must meet my doom.
My sisters, ye his daughters, ye have heard
The prayers of our stern father, if his curse
Should come to pass and ye some day return
To Thebes, O then disown me not, I pray,
But grant me burial and due funeral rites.
So shall the praise your filial care now wins
Be doubled for the service wrought for me.

ANTIGONE.
One boon, O Polyneices, let me crave.

POLYNEICES.
What would’st thou, sweet Antigone? Say on.

ANTIGONE.
Turn back thy host to Argos with all speed,
And ruin not thyself and Thebes as well.

POLYNEICES.
That cannot be. How could I lead again
An army that had seen their leader quail?

ANTIGONE.
But, brother, why shouldst thou be wroth again?
What profit from thy country’s ruin comes?

POLYNEICES.
’Tis shame to live in exile, and shall I
The elder bear a younger brother’s flouts?

ANTIGONE.
Wilt thou then bring to pass his prophecies
Who threatens mutual slaughter to you both?

POLYNEICES.
Aye, so he wishes:—but I must not yield.

ANTIGONE.
O woe is me! but say, will any dare,
Hearing his prophecy, to follow thee?

POLYNEICES.
I shall not tell it; a good general
Reports successes and conceals mishaps.

ANTIGONE.
Misguided youth, thy purpose then stands fast!

POLYNEICES.
’Tis so, and stay me not. The road I choose,
Dogged by my sire and his avenging spirit,
Leads me to ruin; but for you may Zeus
Make your path bright if ye fulfill my hest
When dead; in life ye cannot serve me more.
Now let me go, farewell, a long farewell!
Ye ne’er shall see my living face again.

ANTIGONE.
Ah me!

POLYNEICES.
          Bewail me not.

ANTIGONE.
                         Who would not mourn
Thee, brother, hurrying to an open pit!

POLYNEICES.
If I must die, I must.

ANTIGONE.
                         Nay, hear me plead.

POLYNEICES.
It may not be; forbear.

ANTIGONE.
                         Then woe is me,
If I must lose thee.

POLYNEICES.
                    Nay, that rests with fate,
Whether I live or die; but for you both
I pray to heaven ye may escape all ill;
For ye are blameless in the eyes of all.
[Exit POLYNEICES]

CHORUS.
(Str. 1)
     Ills on ills! no pause or rest!
     Come they from our sightless guest?
     Or haply now we see fulfilled
     What fate long time hath willed?
     For ne’er have I proved vain
     Aught that the heavenly powers ordain.
     Time with never sleeping eye
     Watches what is writ on high,
     Overthrowing now the great,
     Raising now from low estate.
Hark! How the thunder rumbles! Zeus defend us!

OEDIPUS.
Children, my children! will no messenger
Go summon hither Theseus my best friend?

ANTIGONE.
And wherefore, father, dost thou summon him?

OEDIPUS.
This winged thunder of the god must bear me
Anon to Hades. Send and tarry not.

CHORUS.
(Ant. 1)
Hark! with louder, nearer roar
The bolt of Zeus descends once more.
My spirit quails and cowers: my hair
Bristles for fear. Again that flare!
What doth the lightning-flash portend?
Ever it points to issues grave.
Dread powers of air! Save, Zeus, O save!

OEDIPUS.
Daughters, upon me the predestined end
Has come; no turning from it any more.

ANTIGONE.
How knowest thou? What sign convinces thee?

OEDIPUS.
I know full well. Let some one with all speed
Go summon hither the Athenian prince.

CHORUS.
(Str. 2)
Ha! once more the deafening sound
Peals yet louder all around
If thou darkenest our land,
Lightly, lightly lay thy hand;
Grace, not anger, let me win,
If upon a man of sin
I have looked with pitying eye,
Zeus, our king, to thee I cry!

OEDIPUS.
Is the prince coming? Will he when he comes
Find me yet living and my senses clear!

ANTIGONE.
What solemn charge would’st thou impress on him?

OEDIPUS.
For all his benefits I would perform
The promise made when I received them first.

CHORUS.
(Ant. 2)
          Hither haste, my son, arise,
          Altar leave and sacrifice,
          If haply to Poseidon now
          In the far glade thou pay’st thy vow.
          For our guest to thee would bring
          And thy folk and offering,
          Thy due guerdon. Haste, O King!
[Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS.
Wherefore again this general din? at once
My people call me and the stranger calls.
Is it a thunderbolt of Zeus or sleet
Of arrowy hail? a storm so fierce as this
Would warrant all surmises of mischance.

OEDIPUS.
Thou com’st much wished for, Prince, and sure some god
Hath bid good luck attend thee on thy way.

THESEUS.
What, son of Laius, hath chanced of new?

OEDIPUS.
My life hath turned the scale. I would do all
I promised thee and thine before I die.

THESEUS.
What sign assures thee that thine end is near?

OEDIPUS.
The gods themselves are heralds of my fate;
Of their appointed warnings nothing fails.

THESEUS.
How sayest thou they signify their will?

OEDIPUS.
This thunder, peal on peal, this lightning hurled
Flash upon flash, from the unconquered hand.

THESEUS.
I must believe thee, having found thee oft
A prophet true; then speak what must be done.

OEDIPUS.
O son of Aegeus, for this state will I
Unfold a treasure age cannot corrupt.
Myself anon without a guiding hand
Will take thee to the spot where I must end.
This secret ne’er reveal to mortal man,
Neither the spot nor whereabouts it lies,
So shall it ever serve thee for defense
Better than native shields and near allies.
But those dread mysteries speech may not profane
Thyself shalt gather coming there alone;
Since not to any of thy subjects, nor
To my own children, though I love them dearly,
Can I reveal what thou must guard alone,
And whisper to thy chosen heir alone,
So to be handed down from heir to heir.
Thus shalt thou hold this land inviolate
From the dread Dragon’s brood. 7 The justest State
By countless wanton neighbors may be wronged,
For the gods, though they tarry, mark for doom
The godless sinner in his mad career.
Far from thee, son of Aegeus, be such fate!
But to the spot—the god within me goads—
Let us set forth no longer hesitate.
Follow me, daughters, this way. Strange that I
Whom you have led so long should lead you now.
Oh, touch me not, but let me all alone
Find out the sepulcher that destiny
Appoints me in this land. Hither, this way,
For this way Hermes leads, the spirit guide,
And Persephassa, empress of the dead.
O light, no light to me, but mine erewhile,
Now the last time I feel thee palpable,
For I am drawing near the final gloom
Of Hades. Blessing on thee, dearest friend,
On thee and on thy land and followers!
Live prosperous and in your happy state
Still for your welfare think on me, the dead.
[Exit THESEUS followed by ANTIGONE and ISMENE]

CHORUS.
(Str.)
          If mortal prayers are heard in hell,
          Hear, Goddess dread, invisible!
          Monarch of the regions drear,
               Aidoneus, hear, O hear!
          By a gentle, tearless doom
          Speed this stranger to the gloom,
          Let him enter without pain
          The all-shrouding Stygian plain.
          Wrongfully in life oppressed,
          Be he now by Justice blessed.

(Ant.)
          Queen infernal, and thou fell
          Watch-dog of the gates of hell,
          Who, as legends tell, dost glare,
          Gnarling in thy cavernous lair
          At all comers, let him go
          Scathless to the fields below.
          For thy master orders thus,
          The son of earth and Tartarus;
          In his den the monster keep,
          Giver of eternal sleep.
[Enter MESSENGER]

MESSENGER.
Friends, countrymen, my tidings are in sum
That Oedipus is gone, but the event
Was not so brief, nor can the tale be brief.

CHORUS.
What, has he gone, the unhappy man?

MESSENGER.
                                   Know well
That he has passed away from life to death.

CHORUS.
How? By a god-sent, painless doom, poor soul?

MESSENGER.
Thy question hits the marvel of the tale.
How he moved hence, you saw him and must know;
Without a friend to lead the way, himself
Guiding us all. So having reached the abrupt
Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs,
He paused at one of the converging paths,
Hard by the rocky basin which records
The pact of Theseus and Peirithous.
Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock,
The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb,
Midway he sat and loosed his beggar’s weeds;
Then calling to his daughters bade them fetch
Of running water, both to wash withal
And make libation; so they clomb the steep;
And in brief space brought what their father bade,
Then laved and dressed him with observance due.
But when he had his will in everything,
And no desire was left unsatisfied,
It thundered from the netherworld; the maids
Shivered, and crouching at their father’s knees
Wept, beat their breast and uttered a long wail.
He, as he heard their sudden bitter cry,
Folded his arms about them both and said,
“My children, ye will lose your sire today,
For all of me has perished, and no more
Have ye to bear your long, long ministry;
A heavy load, I know, and yet one word
Wipes out all score of tribulations—love.
And love from me ye had—from no man more;
But now must live without me all your days.”
So clinging to each other sobbed and wept
Father and daughters both, but when at last
Their mourning had an end and no wail rose,
A moment there was silence; suddenly
A voice that summoned him; with sudden dread
The hair of all stood up and all were ’mazed;
For the call came, now loud, now low, and oft.
“Oedipus, Oedipus, why tarry we?
Too long, too long thy passing is delayed.”
But when he heard the summons of the god,
He prayed that Theseus might be brought, and when
The Prince came nearer: “O my friend,” he cried,
“Pledge ye my daughters, giving thy right hand—
And, daughters, give him yours—and promise me
Thou never wilt forsake them, but do all
That time and friendship prompt in their behoof.”
And he of his nobility repressed
His tears and swore to be their constant friend.
This promise given, Oedipus put forth
Blind hands and laid them on his children, saying,
“O children, prove your true nobility
And hence depart nor seek to witness sights
Unlawful or to hear unlawful words.
Nay, go with speed; let none but Theseus stay,
Our ruler, to behold what next shall hap.”
So we all heard him speak, and weeping sore
We companied the maidens on their way.
After brief space we looked again, and lo
The man was gone, evanished from our eyes;
Only the king we saw with upraised hand
Shading his eyes as from some awful sight,
That no man might endure to look upon.
A moment later, and we saw him bend
In prayer to Earth and prayer to Heaven at once.
But by what doom the stranger met his end
No man save Theseus knoweth. For there fell
No fiery bold that reft him in that hour,
Nor whirlwind from the sea, but he was taken.
It was a messenger from heaven, or else
Some gentle, painless cleaving of earth’s base;
For without wailing or disease or pain
He passed away—and end most marvelous.
And if to some my tale seems foolishness
I am content that such could count me fool.

CHORUS.
Where are the maids and their attendant friends?

MESSENGER.
They cannot be far off; the approaching sound
Of lamentation tells they come this way.
[Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE]

ANTIGONE.
(Str. 1)
Woe, woe! on this sad day
     We sisters of one blasted stock
     must bow beneath the shock,
Must weep and weep the curse that lay
     On him our sire, for whom
In life, a life-long world of care
     ’Twas ours to bear,
     In death must face the gloom
     That wraps his tomb.
What tongue can tell
That sight ineffable?

CHORUS.
What mean ye, maidens?

ANTIGONE.
                         All is but surmise.

CHORUS.
Is he then gone?

ANTIGONE.
                    Gone as ye most might wish.
Not in battle or sea storm,
But reft from sight,
By hands invisible borne
To viewless fields of night.
Ah me! on us too night has come,
The night of mourning. Wither roam
O’er land or sea in our distress
Eating the bread of bitterness?

ISMENE.
I know not. O that Death
Might nip my breath,
And let me share my aged father’s fate.
I cannot live a life thus desolate.

CHORUS.
Best of daughters, worthy pair,
What heaven brings ye needs must bear,
Fret no more ’gainst Heaven’s will;
Fate hath dealt with you not ill.

ANTIGONE.
(Ant. 1)
Love can turn past pain to bliss,
     What seemed bitter now is sweet.
Ah me! that happy toil is sweet.
     The guidance of those dear blind feet.
Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom,
     E’en in the tomb
Never shalt thou lack of love repine,
     Her love and mine.

CHORUS.
His fate—

ANTIGONE.
          Is even as he planned.

CHORUS.
How so?

ANTIGONE.
He died, so willed he, in a foreign land.
Lapped in kind earth he sleeps his long last sleep,
     And o’er his grave friends weep.
How great our lost these streaming eyes can tell,
     This sorrow naught can quell.
Thou hadst thy wish ’mid strangers thus to die,
     But I, ah me, not by.

ISMENE.
Alas, my sister, what new fate
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
Befalls us orphans desolate?

CHORUS.
His end was blessed; therefore, children, stay
Your sorrow. Man is born to fate a prey.

ANTIGONE.
(Str. 2)
Sister, let us back again.

ISMENE.
Why return?

ANTIGONE.
               My soul is fain—

ISMENE.
Is fain?

ANTIGONE.
          To see the earthy bed.

ISMENE.
Sayest thou?

ANTIGONE.
               Where our sire is laid.

ISMENE.
Nay, thou can’st not, dost not see—

ANTIGONE.
Sister, wherefore wroth with me?

ISMENE.
Know’st not—beside—

ANTIGONE.
                    More must I hear?

ISMENE.
Tombless he died, none near.

ANTIGONE.
Lead me thither; slay me there.

ISMENE.
How shall I unhappy fare,
Friendless, helpless, how drag on
A life of misery alone?

CHORUS.
(Ant. 2)
Fear not, maids—

ANTIGONE.
                    Ah, whither flee?

CHORUS.
Refuge hath been found.

ANTIGONE.
                         For me?

CHORUS.
Where thou shalt be safe from harm.

ANTIGONE.
I know it.

CHORUS.
          Why then this alarm?

ANTIGONE.
How again to get us home
I know not.

CHORUS.
               Why then this roam?

ANTIGONE.
Troubles whelm us—

CHORUS.
                    As of yore.

ANTIGONE.
Worse than what was worse before.

CHORUS.
Sure ye are driven on the breakers’ surge.

ANTIGONE.
Alas! we are.

CHORUS.
               Alas! ’tis so.

ANTIGONE.
Ah whither turn, O Zeus? No ray
Of hope to cheer the way
Whereon the fates our desperate voyage urge.
[Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS.
Dry your tears; when grace is shed
On the quick and on the dead
By dark Powers beneficent,
Over-grief they would resent.

ANTIGONE.
Aegeus’ child, to thee we pray.

THESEUS.
What the boon, my children, say.

ANTIGONE.
With our own eyes we fain would see
Our father’s tomb.

THESEUS.
                    That may not be.

ANTIGONE.
What say’st thou, King?

THESEUS.
                         My children, he
Charged me straitly that no moral
Should approach the sacred portal,
Or greet with funeral litanies
The hidden tomb wherein he lies;
Saying, “If thou keep’st my hest
Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest.”
The God of Oaths this promise heard,
And to Zeus I pledged my word.

ANTIGONE.
Well, if he would have it so,
We must yield. Then let us go
Back to Thebes, if yet we may
Heal this mortal feud and stay
The self-wrought doom
That drives our brothers to their tomb.

THESEUS.
Go in peace; nor will I spare
Ought of toil and zealous care,
But on all your needs attend,
Gladdening in his grave my friend.

CHORUS.
Wail no more, let sorrow rest,
All is ordered for the best.

FOOTNOTES

4 (return)
[ The Greek text for the passages marked here and later in the text have been lost.]

5 (return)
[ To avoid the blessing, still a secret, he resorts to a commonplace; literally, “For what generous man is not (in befriending others) a friend to himself?”]

6 (return)
[ Creon desires to bury Oedipus on the confines of Thebes so as to avoid the pollution and yet offer due rites at his tomb. Ismene tells him of the latest oracle and interprets to him its purport, that some day the Theban invaders of Athens will be routed in a battle near the grave of Oedipus.]

7 (return)
[ The Thebans sprung from the Dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus.]

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