Must let no soul of all he rules transgress.
A self willed passion 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 Persephonè
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,
