Antigone

height, or over the moaning strait! (antistrophe 2) O thou with whom the stars rejoice as they move, the stars whose breath is fire; O master of the voices of the night; son begotten of Zeus; appear, O king, with thine attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance before thee, the giver of good gifts, Iacchus! (Enter MESSENGER, on the spectators' left.) MESSENGER Dwellers by the house of Cadmus and of Amphion, there is no estate of mortal life that I would ever praise or blame as settled. Fortune raises and Fortune humbles the lucky or unlucky from day to day, and no one can prophesy to men concerning those things which are established. For CREON was blest once, as I count bliss; he had saved this land of Cadmus from its foes; he was clothed with sole dominion in the land; he reigned, the glorious sire of princely children. And now all hath been lost. For when a man hath forfeited his pleasures, I count him not as living,-I hold him but a breathing corpse. Heap up riches in thy house, if thou wilt; live in kingly state; yet, if there be no gladness therewith, I would not give the shadow of a vapour for all the rest, compared with joy. LEADER OF THE CHORUS And what is this new grief that thou hast to tell for our princes? MESSENGER Death; and the living are guilty for the dead. LEADER And who is the slayer? Who the stricken? Speak. MESSENGER Haemon hath perished; his blood hath been shed by no stranger.

MESSENGER Haemon hath perished; his blood hath been shed by no stranger. LEADER By his father's hand, or by his own? MESSENGER By his own, in wrath with his sire for the murder. LEADER O prophet, how true, then, hast thou proved thy word! MESSENGER These things stand thus; ye must consider of the rest. LEADER Lo, I see the hapless Eurydice, Creon's wife, approaching; she comes from the house by chance, haply,-or because she knows the tidings of her son. (Enter EURYDICE from the palace.) EURYDICE People of Thebes, I heard your words as I was going forth, to salute the goddess Pallas with my prayers. Even as I was loosing the fastenings of the gate, to open it, the message of a household woe smote on mine ear: I sank back, terror-stricken, into the arms of my handmaids, and my senses fled. But say again what the tidings were; I shall hear them as one who is no stranger to sorrow. MESSENGER Dear lady, I will witness of what I saw, and will leave no word of the truth untold. Why, indeed, should I soothe thee with words in which must presently be found false? Truth is ever best.-I attended thy lord as his guide to the furthest part of the plain, where the body of Polyneices, torn by dogs, still lay unpitied. We prayed the goddess of the roads, and Pluto, in mercy to restrain their wrath; we washed the dead with holy washing; and with freshly-plucked boughs we solemnly burned such relics as there were. We raised a high

boughs we solemnly burned such relics as there were. We raised a high mound of his native earth; and then we turned away to enter the maiden's nuptial chamber with rocky couch, the caverned mansion of the bride of Death. And, from afar off, one of us heard a voice of loud wailing at that bride's unhallowed bower; and came to tell our master Creon. And as the king drew nearer, doubtful sounds of a bitter cry floated around him; he groaned, and said in accents of anguish, 'Wretched that I am, can my foreboding be true? Am I going on the wofullest way that ever I went? My son's voice greets me.-Go, my servants,-haste ye nearer, and when ye have reached the tomb, pass through the gap, where the stones have been wrenched away, to the cell's very mouth,-and look. and see if 'tis Haemon's voice that I know, or if mine ear is cheated by the gods.' This search, at our despairing master's word, we went to make; and in the furthest part of the tomb we descried her hanging by the neck, slung by a thread-wrought halter of fine linen: while he was embracing her with arms thrown around her waist, bewailing the loss of his bride who is with the dead, and his father's deeds, and his own ill-starred love. But his father, when he saw him, cried aloud with a dread cry and went in, and called to him with a voice of wailing:-'Unhappy, what deed hast thou done! What thought hath come to thee? What manner of

deed hast thou done! What thought hath come to thee? What manner of mischance hath marred thy reason? Come forth, my child! I pray thee-I implore!' But the boy glared at him with fierce eyes, spat in his face, and, without a word of answer, drew his cross-hilted sword:-as his father rushed forth in flight, he missed his aim;-then, hapless one, wroth with himself, he straightway leaned with all his weight against his sword, and drove it, half its length, into his side; and, while sense lingered, he clasped the maiden to his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, sent forth on her pale cheek the swift stream of the oozing blood. Corpse enfolding corpse he lies; he hath won his nuptial rites, poor youth, not here, yet in the halls of Death; and he hath witnessed to mankind that, of all curses which cleave to man, ill counsel is the sovereign curse. (EURYDICE retires into the house.) LEADER What wouldst thou augur from this? The lady hath turned back, and is gone, without a word, good or evil. MESSENGER I, too, am startled; yet I nourish the hope that, at these sore tidings of her son, she cannot deign to give her sorrow public vent, but in the privacy of the house will set her handmaids to mourn the household grief. For she is not untaught of discretion, that she should err. LEADER I know not; but to me, at least, a strained silence seems to portend peril, no less than vain abundance of lament.

to portend peril, no less than vain abundance of lament. MESSENGER Well, I will enter the house, and learn whether indeed she is not hiding some repressed purpose in the depths of a passionate heart. Yea, thou sayest well: excess of silence, too, may have a perilous meaning. (The MESSENGER goes into the palace. Enter CREON, on the spectators' left, with attendants, carrying the shrouded body of HAEMON on bier. The following lines between CREON and the CHORUS are chanted responsively.) CHORUS Lo, yonder the king himself draws near, bearing that which tells too clear a tale,-the work of no stranger's madness,-if we may say it,-but of his own misdeeds. CREON (strophe 1) Woe for the sins of a darkened soul, stubborn sins, fraught with death! Ah, ye behold us, the sire who hath slain, the son who hath perished! Woe is me, for the wretched blindness of my counsels! Alas, my son, thou hast died in thy youth, by a timeless doom, woe is me!-thy spirit hath fled,-not by thy folly, but by mine own! CHORUS (strophe 2) Ah me, how all too late thou seemest to see the right! CREON Ah me, I have learned the bitter lesson! But then, methinks, oh then, some god smote me from above with crushing weight, and hurled me into ways of cruelty, woe is me,-overthrowing and trampling on my joy! Woe, woe, for the troublous toils of men! (Enter MESSENGER from the house.) MESSENGER Sire, thou hast come, methinks, as one whose hands are

MESSENGER Sire, thou hast come, methinks, as one whose hands are not empty, but who hath store laid up besides; thou bearest yonder burden with thee-and thou art soon to look upon the woes within thy house. CREON And what worse ill is yet to follow upon ills? MESSENGER Thy queen hath died, true mother of yon corpse-ah, hapless lady by blows newly dealt. CREON (antistrophe 1) Oh Hades, all-receiving whom no sacrifice can appease! Hast thou, then, no mercy for me? O thou herald of evil, bitter tidings, what word dost thou utter? Alas, I was already as dead, and thou hast smitten me anew! What sayest thou, my son? What is this new message that thou bringest-woe, woe is me!-Of a wife's doom-of slaughter headed on slaughter? CHORUS Thou canst behold: 'tis no longer hidden within. (The doors of the palace are opened, and the corpse of EURYDICE is disclosed.) CREON (antistrophe 2) Ah me,-yonder I behold a new, a second woe! What destiny, ah what, can yet await me? I have but now raised my son in my arms,-and there, again, I see a corpse before me! Alas, alas, unhappy mother! Alas, my child! MESSENGER There, at the altar, self-stabbed with a keen knife, she suffered her darkening eyes to close, when she had wailed for the noble fate of Megareus who died before, and then for his fate who lies there,-and when, with her last breath, she had invoked evil fortunes upon thee, the slayer of thy sons.

upon thee, the slayer of thy sons. CREON (strophe 3) Woe, woe! I thrill with dread. Is there none to strike me to the heart with two-edged sword?-O miserable that I am, and steeped in miserable anguish! MESSENGER Yea, both this son's doom, and that other's, were laid to thy charge by her whose corpse thou seest. CREON And what was the manner of the violent deed by which she passed away? MESSENGER Her own hand struck her to the heart, when she had learned her son's sorely lamented fate. CREON (strophe 4) Ah me, this guilt can never be fixed on any other of mortal kind, for my acquittal! I, even I, was thy slayer, wretched that I am-I own the truth. Lead me away, O my servants, lead me hence with all speed, whose life is but as death! CHORUS Thy counsels are good, if there can be good with ills; briefest is best, when trouble is in our path. CREON (antistrophe 3) Oh, let it come, let it appear, that fairest of fates for me, that brings my last day,-aye, best fate of all! Oh, let it come, that I may never look upon to-morrow's light. CHORUS These things are in the future; present tasks claim our care: the ordering of the future rests where it should rest. CREON All my desires, at least, were summed in that prayer. CHORUS Pray thou no more; for mortals have no escape from destined woe. CREON (antistrophe 4) Lead me away, I pray you; a rash, foolish man; who have slain thee, ah my son, unwittingly, and thee, too, my wife-unhappy that I am!

I know not which way I should bend my gaze, or where I should seek support; for all is amiss with that which is in my hands,-and yonder, again, a crushing fate hath leapt upon my head. (As CREON is being conducted into the palace, the LEADER OF THE CHORUS speaks the closing verses.) LEADER Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise. THE END