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epode
In such years is yon hapless one, not I alone: and as some cape
that fronts the North is lashed on every side by the waves of winter,
so he also is fiercely lashed evermore by the dread troubles that break
on him like billows, some from the setting of the sun, some from the
rising, some in the region of the noon-tide beam, some from the
gloom-wrapped hills of the North.
ANTIGONE
Lo, yonder, methinks, I see the stranger coming hither,—yea, without
attendants, my father,—the tears streaming from his eyes.
Who is he?
OEDIPUS
ANTIGONE
The same who was in our thoughts from the first;—Polyneices hath
come to us.
(POLYNEICES enters, on the spectators' left.)
POLYNEICES
Ah me, what shall I do? Whether shall I weep first for mine own sorrows,
sisters, or for mine aged sire's, as I see them yonder? Whom I have
found in a strange land, an exile here with you twain, clad in such raiment,
whereof the foul squalor hath dwelt with that aged form so long, a very
blight upon his flesh,—while above the sightless eyes the unkempt hair
flutters in the breeze; and matching with these things, meseems, is the
food that he carries, hapless one, against hunger's pinch.
Wretch that I ami I learn all this too late: and I bear witness that I
am proved the vilest of men in all that touches care for thee:—from mine
own lips hear what I am. But, seeing that Zeus himself, in all that he
doeth, hath Mercy for the sharer of his throne, may she come to thy side
also, my father; for the faults can be healed, but can never more be Made
worse.
(A pause)
Why art thou silent? . . . Speak, father:—turn not away from me.
Hast thou not even an answer for me? Wilt thou dismiss me in mute
scorn, without telling wherefore thou art wroth?
0 ye, his daughters, sisters mine, strive ye, at least, to move our sire's
implacable, inexorable silence, that he send me not away dishonoured,—
who am the suppliant of the god,—in such wise as this, with no word of
response.