ANTIGONE.
O tomb, my bridal bower, O rock-hewn cell,
My home that art to be, whither I go
To meet my kin, of whom Persephone
In her dark mansion holds a multitude.
Last of the train and most unfortunate,
I now must die before my destined hour.
And yet my hope is sure that by my sire,
By thee, beloved mother, and by thee,
Dearest of brothers, welcomed I shall be.
This hand washed every corpse and decked it out
For sepulture; this hand upon each grave
Libations poured; and, Polynices, now
In tending thy remains I meet this doom.
Yet wisdom will approve my honouring thee:
Had I a mother been and lost a child,
Had I been wed and had my husband died,
I would not thus have braved the public ire.
What is my principle, perchance you ask?
My husband lost, I might have wed again,
I might in time have borne a second child;
But, with both sire and mother in the grave,
Hope of a second brother there is none.
Upon this principle I honoured thee,
Dearest of brothers; but to Creon seemed
A sinner and the worst of criminals.
And now he hales me to the place of death.
From marriage and of bridal hymn cut off,
Cut off from joys of love and motherhood,
And reft of friends, poor maiden as I am,
I must go down into a living grave.
And yet what law divine have I transgressed?
How could I look for succour to the gods?
Whither for comfort go, when piety
Is thus requited with the pains of sin?
If this is righteous in the eye of heaven,
I'll own the justice of my chastisement;
But if the sin be on the other side,
May they but bear that which they lay on me.
* * * * *
THE CATASTROPHE.
Creon, having been brought to repentance by the denunciations of the prophet Tiresias, sets out to bury the corpse of Polynices, and release Antigone from the cave of death. The issue is recounted by a messenger to the Queen Eurydice.
LINES 1155-1243.
MESSENGER.
Ye, that by Cadmus and Amphion's shrine
Do dwell, no mortal's life before its end
Will be by me pronounced blessed or unblessed.
Fortune is ever casting down the high,
Fortune is ever lifting up the low;
And none can prophesy what change may come.
Creon I deemed an enviable man:
He from our enemy had saved our state,
And, vested with a monarch's power supreme,
Ruled happy in the promise of his heir.
Now all is gone, for when a man has lost
The things that make life sweet, he lives in truth
No more, but is an animated corpse.
Have in your house what store of wealth you will,
Dwell in the state of sumptuous royalty,
Where joy is absent, I account the rest
Less than a shadow of a wreath of smoke.
CHORUS.
What evil has befallen our royal house?
MESSENGER.
Dead are some, others guilty of their death.
CHORUS.
Who is the murdered, who the murderer, say.
MESSENGER.
Haemon is dead, unnaturally slain.
CHORUS.
Slain by whose hand, his father's or his own?
MESSENGER.
His own, stung by his sire's cruel deed.
CHORUS.
O seer, thy prophesy has come too true.
MESSENGER.
So stands the case, whereon deliberate.
(Enter EURYDICE.)
CHORUS.
Yonder is the ill-starred Eurydice,
The Queen of Creon; from the house she comes
By chance, or brought by tidings of her son.
EURYDICE.
Citizens all, I overheard your words,
As from our portal I was setting forth
To pay my vows to Pallas at her fane.
Just as I drew the bolts that hold the door,
Sounds of disaster to our family
Smote on my ear. Affrighted, I fell back
In my attendants' arms and swooned away.
Repeat what then ye said; I am well schooled
In misery, and can bear to hear the worst.
MESSENGER.
Good lady, I was witness of the scene,
And nothing will suppress in my report.
Why tell a flattering tale, when soon the lie
Must be exposed? Plain truth is ever best.
I went as an attendant with the King
To yon high level where, a prey to dogs,
The uncared-for corpse of Polynices lay.
The corpse, with prayers put up to Hecate
And Pluto to look kindly on the dead,
We reverently washed, wrapped the remains
In fresh-plucked boughs, and burned them on a pyre.
Then on the dead we heaped his native earth.
Next to the maiden's bridal bower of death,
Within the hollowed rock, we took our way.
One of us hears afar a wailing shrill
Come from the spot where lay the unhallowed cell.
And running, tells to Creon what he heard.
To Creon's ear, as he drew nigh, was borne
A sound confused of weeping, and he cried
In bitterness, "Unhappy that I am,
Will my heart prove a prophet? Have I come
The most disastrous journey of my life?
Sure it is my son's voice that greets my ear.
Attendants, hasten to the cave of death,
Tear up the stones, creep to the chamber's mouth,
Tell me if Haemon's voice indeed I hear,
Or is it some illusion of my sense?"
We as our master in his anguish bade,
Looked in, and in the inmost cell we saw
The maiden hanging from the roof and dead,
A noose of shredded linen round her neck;
The youth, his arms folded around her waist,
Bewailing his lost bride, his marriage hour
Turned to despair, his father's cruelty.
Seeing him, Creon, with a bitter cry,
Moved towards him, and in anguish shrieked to him,
"My son, what hast thou done? what frantic thought
Possessed thy mind, how wast thou thus distraught?
Come forth, I do entreat thee, son, come forth."
Haemon, for answer, with eyes flashing rage,
Looked mute abhorrence, drew his two-edged sword,
And would have struck his father; but the King
Fled and escaped. Then on himself he turned
His wrath, and without more, into his breast
Drove to the hilt his sword, and conscious still,
Clung round the maiden with his failing arms,
While, swiftly welling from his wound, the blood
Spread over her pale cheek its crimson shower.
There lies he dead, with arms around the dead,
His marriage feast held in the world below,
Teaching by sad example that the worst
Of human evils is a mind distraught.