The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oedipus Trilogy, by Sophocles ...

Wert not my father, I had said thou err'st.
CREON
Play not the spaniel, thou a woman's slave.
HAEMON
When thou dost speak, must no man make reply?
CREON
This passes bounds. By heaven, thou shalt not rate
And jeer and flout me with impunity.
Off with the hateful thing that she may die
At once, beside her bridegroom, in his sight.
HAEMON
Think not that in my sight the maid shall die,
Or by my side; never shalt thou again
Behold my face hereafter. Go, consort
With friends who like a madman for their mate.
[Exit HAEMON]
CHORUS
Thy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste.
Fell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.
CREON
Let him go vent his fury like a fiend:
These sisters twain he shall not save from death.
CHORUS
Surely, thou meanest not to slay them both?
CREON
I stand corrected; only her who touched
The body.
CHORUS
And what death is she to die?
CREON
She shall be taken to some desert place
By man untrod, and in a rock-hewn cave,
With food no more than to avoid the taint
That homicide might bring on all the State,
Buried alive. There let her call in aid
The King of Death, the one god she reveres,
Or learn too late a lesson learnt at last:
'Tis labor lost, to reverence the dead.
CHORUS
(Str.)
Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye,
Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie,
Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?
(Ant).
Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart