JEAN COCTEAU
Ils n'attendaient plus rien de la tendresse humaine
Et cherchaient à chasser d'un effort douloureux
L'Ange noir qui se couche à plat ventre sur eux
Et qui les considère avant qu'il les emmène.
HOW THE YOUNG MEN DIED IN HELLAS
A FRAGMENT
[ TRANSLATION ]
Antigone went wailing to the dust.
She reverenced not the face of Death like these
To whom it came as no enfeebling peace
But a command relentless and august.
These grieved not at the beauty of the morn,
Nor that the sun was on the ripening flower;
Smiling they faced the sacrificial hour,
Blithe nightingales against the fatal thorn.
They grieved not that their feet no more should rove
The Athenian porticoes in twilight leisure,
Where Pallas, drunk with summer's gold and azure,
Brooded above the fountains like a dove.
They grieved not for the theatre's
high-banked tiers,
Where restlessly the noisy crowd leans over,
With laughter and with jostling, to discover
[ 11 ]
