ANT. He hath no right to bar me from mine own.
ISM. Ah, sister, think but how our father fell,
Hated of all and lost to fair renown,
Through self-detected crimes—with his own hand,
Self-wreaking, how he dashed out both his eyes:
Then how the mother-wife, sad two-fold name!
With twisted halter bruised her life away,
Last, how in one dire moment our two brothers
With internecine conflict at a blow
Wrought out by fratricide their mutual doom.
Now, left alone, O think how beyond all
Most piteously we twain shall be destroyed,
If in defiance of authority
We traverse the commandment of the King!
We needs must bear in mind we are but women,
Never created to contend with men;
Nay more, made victims of resistless power,
To obey behests more harsh than this to-day.
I, then, imploring those beneath to grant
[page 5][66-99] Indulgence, seeing I am enforced in this,
Will yield submission to the powers that rule,
Small wisdom were it to overpass the bound.
ANT. I will not urge you! no! nor if now you list
To help me, will your help afford me joy.
Be what you choose to be! This single hand
Shall bury our lost brother. Glorious
For me to take this labour and to die!
Dear to him will my soul be as we rest
In death, when I have dared this holy crime.
My time for pleasing men will soon be over;
Not so my duty toward the Dead! My home
Yonder will have no end. You, if you will,
May pour contempt on laws revered on High.
ISM. Not from irreverence. But I have no strength
To strive against the citizens’ resolve.
ANT. Thou, make excuses! I will go my way
To raise a burial-mound to my dear brother.
ISM. Oh, hapless maiden, how I fear for thee!
ANT. Waste not your fears on me! Guide your own fortune.
ISM. Ah! yet divulge thine enterprise to none,
But keep the secret close, and so will I.
ANT. O Heavens! Nay, tell! I hate your silence worse;
I had rather you proclaimed it to the world.
ISM. You are ardent in a chilling enterprise.