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What fresh woes bring'st thou to the royal house? MESSENGER Both dead, and they who live deserve to die. CHORUS Who is the slayer, who the victim? speak. MESSENGER Haemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand. CHORUS What mean ye? by his father's or his own? MESSENGER His own; in anger for his father's crime. CHORUS O prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass. MESSENGER So stands the case; now 'tis for you to act. CHORUS Lo! from the palace gates I see approaching Creon's unhappy wife, Eurydice. Comes she by chance or learning her son's fate? [Enter EURYDICE] EURYDICE Ye men of Thebes, I overheard your talk. As I passed out to offer up my prayer To Pallas, and was drawing back the bar To open wide the door, upon my ears There broke a wail that told of household woe Stricken with terror in my handmaids' arms I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale To one not unacquaint with misery. MESSENGER Dear mistress, I was there and will relate The perfect truth, omitting not one word. Why should we gloze and flatter, to be proved Liars hereafter? Truth is ever best. Well, in attendance on my liege, your lord, I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled, Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer To Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways, With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire. Then laved with lustral waves the mangled corse, Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre, And to his memory piled a mighty mound Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock, The bridal chamber of the maid and Death, We sped, about to enter. But a guard Heard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail,
And ran back to our lord to tell the news. But as he nearer drew a hollow sound Of lamentation to the King was borne. He groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint: "Am I a prophet? miserable me! Is this the saddest path I ever trod? 'Tis my son's voice that calls me. On press on, My henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb Where rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in And tell me if in truth I recognize The voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived." So at the bidding of our distraught lord We looked, and in the craven's vaulted gloom I saw the maiden lying strangled there, A noose of linen twined about her neck; And hard beside her, clasping her cold form, Her lover lay bewailing his dead bride Death-wedded, and his father's cruelty. When the King saw him, with a terrible groan He moved towards him, crying, "O my son What hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance Has reft thee of thy reason? O come forth, Come forth, my son; thy father supplicates." But the son glared at him with tiger eyes, Spat in his face, and then, without a word, Drew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed His father flying backwards. Then the boy, Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent Fell on his sword and drove it through his side Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined With his expiring gasps. So there they lay Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites Are consummated in the halls of Death: A witness that of ills whate'er befall Mortals' unwisdom is the worst of all. [Exit EURYDICE] CHORUS What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone Without a word importing good or ill. MESSENGER I marvel too, but entertain good hope. 'Tis that she shrinks in public to lament Her son's sad ending, and in privacy Would with her maidens mourn a private loss. Trust me, she is discreet and will not err. CHORUS I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, Is no less ominous than excessive grief. MESSENGER Well, let us to the house and solve our doubts, Whether the tumult of her heart conceals Some fell design. It may be thou art right:
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The
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Explain your mood and purport. Is i
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King Phoebus bids us straitly extir
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If in the days of old when we nigh
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But may they waste and pine, as now
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TEIRESIAS I will not vex myself nor
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The trusty Creon, my familiar frien
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That I have missed the mark, hencef
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Therein thou judgest rightly, but t
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The thing he counts most precious,
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CHORUS No, by the leader of the hos
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OEDIPUS What memories, what wild tu
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My mother and my sire and questione
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Then topples o'er and lies in ruin
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OEDIPUS What? let me have it, stran
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OEDIPUS Yea, lest the god's word be
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Afield or in the city? answer strai
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HERDSMAN I was, a thrall, not purch
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HERDSMAN Well then--it was a child
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SECOND MESSENGER My tale is quickly
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The double weight of past and prese
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Thy prayer by action or advice, for
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Such are the gibes that men will ca
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Creon enters with an armed guard wh
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Tell me the awful name I should inv
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Of cities, pity this dishonored sha
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Follow with blind steps, father, as
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CHORUS O wretched me! Begone! OEDIP
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OEDIPUS Well, may he come with bles
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To suffer, first in act and then in
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They knew it, yet the ignoble greed
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And I shall then be bold to stand t
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OEDIPUS Horrors from the boundless
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OEDIPUS Yea, the last boon is warra
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What wouldst thou here? I shall not
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Oh land extolled above all lands, '
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Not for a man indeed with wits like
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OEDIPUS Where art thou, daughter? A
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CHORUS Haste ye princes, sound the
Page 79 and 80: Me then unborn, begotten by no sire
Page 81 and 82: (Ant. 1) Haply on swiftest steed, O
Page 83 and 84: What say I? Can I wish that thou sh
Page 85 and 86: Grievous to me, my child, the boon
Page 87 and 88: But by his popular acts; and the pr
Page 89 and 90: To Thebes, O then disown me not, I
Page 91 and 92: Bristles for fear. Again that flare
Page 93 and 94: For this way Hermes leads, the spir
Page 95 and 96: That no man might endure to look up
Page 97 and 98: ANTIGONE ISMENE Is fain? ANTIGONE I
Page 99 and 100: Charged me straitly that no moral S
Page 101 and 102: ANTIGONE Ismene, sister of my blood
Page 103 and 104: ISMENE My poor, fond sister, how I
Page 105 and 106: Again, when Oedipus restored our St
Page 107 and 108: What say'st thou? Who hath dared to
Page 109 and 110: (Str. 1) Many wonders there be, but
Page 111 and 112: CREON Speak, girl, with head bent l
Page 113 and 114: Surely, if good and evil fare alive
Page 115 and 116: Thy choice with evil-doers to do il
Page 117 and 118: But who begets unprofitable sons, H
Page 119 and 120: Am I to rule for others, or myself?
Page 121 and 122: Straight to folly will fall, at a t
Page 123 and 124: Are guiltless as concerns this maid
Page 125 and 126: By Destiny That knows not death nor
Page 127 and 128: Dost know at whom thou glancest, me
Page 129: (Ant. 1) Thee on the two-crested ro
Page 133 and 134: CREON (Ant. 2) Alas! another added
Page 135 and 136: subject to the trademark license, e
Page 137 and 138: "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other form
Page 139 and 140: Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c)
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