ANTISTROPHE.

Thou too the upright mind to wrong pervertest,

Till mischief comes.

Thou too hast stirred this strife of kindred men.

Love, that was learned in the lustrous eyes

Of her whose bridal bed he coveted,

A son constrains,

Benching for him, with equal voice,

Beside the holiest laws: for there resistless
The goddess Aphrodite holds her revels.

(Antigone is led forth by the guards.)

(Anapastic Movement.)

I, even I, from the bondage of laws am
Carried away, as this spectacle greets me!
Fountains of tears no longer I check when I
See Antigone bound for the chamber where
All men are destined to slumber.

IX. FOURTH EPISODE AND FIRST KOMMOS.

ANTIGONE.

SEE me, ye citizens of my father-land,

Treading the last of paths,-the latest sun-light
Beholding now, and ne'er again. But Hades,
Who lays all men to rest, leads me still living

To the banks of Acheron ;

The Hymenæal strain denied me,

Nor hath any bridal hymn

Hymned me as yet; but Acheron will wed me.

805

τὰν Φρυγίαν ξέναν

Ταντάλου, Σιπύλῳ πρὸς ἄκρῳ

τὰν, κισσὸς ὡς ἀτενὴς, πετραία βλάστα δάμασεν

καί νιν

†ὄμβροι τακομέναν,

ὡς φάτις ἀνδρῶν,

χιών τ ̓ οὐδαμὰ λείπει,

τέγγει δ' ὑπ ̓ ὀφρύσι παγκλαύτοις δειράδας ᾧ με

δαίμων ὁμοιοτάταν κατευνάζει.

ΧΟΡΟΣ.

ἀλλὰ θεός τοι καί θεογεννής ἡμεῖς δὲ βροτοὶ καὶ θνητογενεῖς καί τοι φθιμενῳ τοῖς ἰσοθέοις ἔγκληρα λαχεῖν μέγ ̓ ἀκοῦσαι.

808

ΑΝΤΙΓΟΝΗ.

810

815

οἴμοι γελῶμαι. τί με, πρὸς θεῶν πατρῴων, στρ. β'.

οὐκ τοὐλομέναν ὑβρίζεις,

ἀλλ ̓ ἐπίφαντον ;

γρ. ὄμβρῳ.

815, 816

γρ. μέγ' ἀκοῦσαι τοῖς ἰσοθ. ἔγκληρα λαχεῖν.

CHORUS.

Nay, but renowned and freighted with praises,
To the dark recess of the dead thou departest.
Wasting disease has not smitten thy form,

Nor the meed of the sword thy portion has been.
Self-controlled and alive thou wilt go,

Thou only of mortals, to Hades !

ANTIGONE.

Erewhile I heard how piteously perished

That Phrygian dame, who came to rule among us,
The child of Tantalus,

Whom, clinging to her as the ivy clings,

A sprouting rock controlled,

And as she wastes away, the legend tells us,
She lacks nor rain nor snow,

But still, beneath her ever-weeping brows,
Bedeweth she her bosom :

Likest to her, fate leads me to my rest!

CHORUS.

A Goddess was she, and Gods were her fathers:
We are but mortals, and mortal our sires:
Bethink thee how great for a perishing soul,
To challenge the fame of the Godlike!

ANTIGONE.

Ah! I am laughed to scorn! why by my father's Gods

Dost so deride me ere my death,

While yet the sun beholds me?

SOPH. ANT.

G

ὦ πόλις, ὦ πόλεως πολυκτήμονες ἄνδρες·

ἰω Διρκαῖαι κρῆναι, Θήβας τ' εὐαρμάτου ἄλσος, ἔμπας

ξυμμάρτυρας υμμ ̓ ἐπικτῶμαι,

οἷα φίλων ἄκλαυτος, οἵοις νόμοις

πρὸς †έρμα τυμβόχωστον ἔρχομαι τάφου ποταινίου,

820

825

ἔψαυσας ἀλγεινοτάτας ἐμοὶ μερίμνας, ἀντιστ. β'.

πατρὸς τριπόλιστον τοἶτον,

τοῦ τε πρόπαντος

835

αμετέρου πότμου

κλεινοῖς Λαβδακίδαισιν.

ἰω ματρῷαι λέκτρων ἄται,

κοιμήματά τ' αὐτογέννητ ̓

ἀμῷ πατρὶ δυσμόρου ματρός,

οἴων ἐγώ ποθ ̓ ἁ ταλαίφρων ἔφυν

840

πρὸς οὓς ἀραῖος, ἄγαμος, ἅδ' ἐγὼ μέτοικος ἔρχομαι.

City, and citizens of high estate,

Ah! and ye streams of Dirke, and thou grove
Of Thebe car-renowned,

You at least I gain

For me as fellow-witnesses,

How by my friends unwept, by laws how cruel,

I go to the tomb-heapt mound of a strange sepulture. Ah woe is me!

Neither with these nor those a settler I;

The living deny and the dead disown me.

CHORUS.

To the height of boldness soaring
On Dirke's lofty throne, my child,
Full rudely hast thou stumbled.

'Tis some ancestral task thou art fulfilling.

ANTIGONE.

Most painful are the thoughts which thou hast harped—

My father's thrice-renowned tale of sorrow,

Which touches too the lot of all of us

The famed Labdakidæ.

Woe! woe! the curse of the maternal bed—

The incestuous nuptials of my ill-starred mother,
With her own son my father!

Ah! what a match was that

To which I owe my birth, unhappy me!

To them, under the curse, unblest by marriage,
I go an emigrant from life to death!