The Seven Plays in English Verse Part 7

Love, who in ambush of young maid's soft cheek All night keep'st watch!--Thou roamest over seas.

In lonely forest homes thou harbourest.

Who may avoid thee? None!

Mortal, Immortal, All are o'erthrown by thee, all feel thy frenzy.

Lightly thou draw'st awry 2 Righteous minds into wrong to their ruin Thou this unkindly quarrel hast inflamed 'Tween kindred men--Triumphantly prevails The heart-compelling eye of winsome bride, Compeer of mighty Law Throned, commanding.

Madly thou mockest men, dread Aphrodite.

LEADER OF CHORUS.

Ah! now myself am carried past the bound Of law, nor can I check the rising tear, When I behold Antigone even here Touching the quiet bourne where all must rest.

_Enter_ ANTIGONE _guarded._

ANT. Ye see me on my way, I 1 O burghers of my father's land!

With one last look on Helios' ray, Led my last path toward the silent strand.

Alive to the wide house of rest I go; No dawn for me may s.h.i.+ne, No marriage-blessing e'er be mine, No hymeneal with my praises flow!

The Lord of Acheron's unlovely sh.o.r.e Shall be mine only husband evermore.

CH. Yea, but with glory and fame,-- Not by award of the sword, Not with blighting disease, But by a law of thine own,-- Thou, of mortals alone, Goest alive to the deep Tranquil home of the dead.

ANT. Erewhile I heard men say, I 2 How, in far Phrygia, Thebe's friend, Tantalus' child, had dreariest end On heights of Sipylus consumed away: O'er whom the rock like clinging ivy grows, And while with moistening dew Her cheek runs down, the eternal snows Weigh o'er her, and the tearful stream renew That from sad brows her stone-cold breast doth steep.

Like unto her the G.o.d lulls me to sleep.

CH. But she was a G.o.ddess born, We but of mortal line; And sure to rival the fate Of a daughter of sires Divine Were no light glory in death.

ANT. O mockery of my woe! II 1 I pray you by our fathers' holy Fear, Why must I hear Your insults, while in life on earth I stand, O ye that flow In wealth, rich burghers of my bounteous land?

O fount of Dirce, and thou s.p.a.cious grove, Where Thebe's chariots move!

Ye are my witness, though none else be nigh, By what enormity of lawless doom, Without one friendly sigh, I go to the strong mound of yon strange tomb,-- All hapless, having neither part nor room With those who live or those who die!

CH. Thy boldness mounted high, And thou, my child, 'gainst the great pedestal Of Justice with unmeasured force didst fall.

Thy father's lot still presseth hard on thee.

ANT. That pains me more than all. II 2 Ah! thou hast touched my father's misery Still mourned anew, With all the world-famed sorrows on us rolled Since Cadmus old.

O cursed marriage that my mother knew!

O wretched fortune of my sire, who lay Where first he saw the day!

Such were the authors of my burdened life; To whom, with curses dowered, never a wife, I go to dwell beneath.

O brother mine, thy princely marriage-tie Hath been thy downfall, and in this thy death Thou hast destroyed me ere I die.

CH. 'Twas pious, we confess, Thy fervent deed. But he, who power would show, Must let no soul of all he rules transgress.

A self-willed pa.s.sion was thine overthrow.

ANT. Friendless, uncomforted of bridal lay, III Unmourned, they lead me on my destined way.

Woe for my life forlorn! I may not see The sacred round of yon great light Rising again to greet me from the night; No friend bemoans my fate, no tear hath fallen for me!

_Enter_ CREON.

CR. If criminals were suffered to complain In dirges before death, they ne'er would end.

Away with her at once, and closing her, As I commanded, in the vaulty tomb, Leave her all desolate, whether to die, Or to live on in that sepulchral cell.

We are guiltless in the matter of this maid; Only she shall not share the light of day.

ANT. O grave! my bridal chamber, prison-house Eterne, deep-hollowed, whither I am led To find mine own,--of whom Persephone Hath now a mighty number housed in death:-- I last of all, and far most miserably, Am going, ere my days have reached their term!

Yet lives the hope that, when I go, most surely Dear will my coming be, father, to thee, And dear to thee, my mother, and to thee, Brother! since with these very hands I decked And bathed you after death, and ministered The last libations. And I reap this doom For tending, Polynices, on thy corse.

Indeed I honoured thee, the wise will say.

For neither, had I children, nor if one I had married were laid bleeding on the earth, Would I have braved the city's will, or taken This burden on me. Wherefore? I will tell.

A husband lost might be replaced; a son, If son were lost to me, might yet be born; But, with both parents hidden in the tomb, No brother may arise to comfort me.

Therefore above all else I honoured thee, And therefore Creon thought me criminal, And bold in wickedness, O brother mine!

And now by servile hands, for all to see, He hastens me away, unhusbanded, Before my nuptial, having never known Or married joy or tender motherhood.

But desolate and friendless I go down Alive, O horror! to the vaults of the dead.

For what transgression of Heaven's ordinance?

Alas! how can I look to Heaven? on whom Call to befriend me? seeing that I have earned, By piety, the meed of impious?-- Oh! if this act be what the G.o.ds approve, In death I may repent me of my deed; But if they sin who judge me, be their doom No heavier than they wrongly wreak on me!

CH. With unchanged fury beats the storm of soul That shakes this maiden.

CR. Then for that, be sure Her warders shall lament their tardiness.

ANT. Alas! I hear Death's footfall in that sound.

CR. I may not rea.s.sure thee.--'Tis most true.

ANT. O land of Thebe, city of my sires, Ye too, ancestral G.o.ds! I go--I go!

Even now they lead me to mine end. Behold!

Founders of Thebes, the only scion left Of Cadmus' issue, how unworthily, By what mean instruments I am oppressed, For reverencing the dues of piety. [_Exit guarded_

CHORUS.

Even Danae's beauty left the lightsome day. I 1 Closed in her strong and bra.s.s-bound tower she lay In tomb-like deep confine.

Yet she was gendered, O my child!

From sires of n.o.blest line, And treasured for the Highest the golden rain.

Fated misfortune hath a power so fell: Not wealth, nor warfare wild, Nor dark spray-das.h.i.+ng coursers of the main Against great Destiny may once rebel.

He too in darksome durance was compressed, I 2 King of Edonians, Dryas' hasty son[5], In eyeless vault of stone Immured by Dionysus' hest, All for a wrathful jest.

Fierce madness issueth in such fatal flower.

He found 'twas mad to taunt the Heavenly Power, Chilling the Maenad breast Kindled with Bacchic fire, and with annoy Angering the Muse that in the flute hath joy.

And near twin rocks that guard the Colchian sea, II 1 Bosporian cliffs 'fore Salmydessus rise, Where neighbouring Ares from his shrine beheld Phineus' two sons[6] by female fury quelled.

With cursed wounding of their sight-reft eyes, That cried to Heaven to 'venge the iniquity.

The shuttle's sharpness in a cruel hand Dealt the dire blow, not struck with martial brand.

But chiefly for her piteous lot they pined, II 2 Who was the source of their rejected birth.

She touched the lineage of Erechtheus old; Whence in far caves her life did erst unfold, Cradled 'mid storms, daughter of Northern wind, Steed-swift o'er all steep places of the earth.

Yet even on her, though reared of heavenly kind, The long-enduring Fates at last took hold.

_Enter_ TIRESIAS, _led by a boy._

TIRESIAS. We are come, my lords of Thebes, joint wayfarers, One having eyes for both. The blind must still Thus move in frail dependence on a guide.

CR. And what hath brought thee, old Tiresias, now?

TI. I will instruct thee, if thou wilt hear my voice.

CR. I have not heretofore rejected thee.