FIRST ANTISTROPHE.
Creon. Oh, Woe!
Oh, haven of Hades insatiate,
Art thou merciless, merciless still?
No means to atone, to ingratiate—
Thou must kill, and kill, and kill?
Can this be so,
As thou hast said?
Such a tale of woe!
My wife is dead?
Bitter the news,
Bitter the woe!
No mercy wilt choose
Me ever to show,
But wilt slay once more?
What sayest my son?
Still more to repent?
O, my heart is rent!
Wife, also gone?
My wife now, my son before!
SECOND ANTISTROPHE.
Creon. Alas!
Alas, what stroke of fate awaits me yet?
Another, a new woe is here.
Is there aught left of ill? I had scarcely upraised
My poor dead child,
Frantic and wild
As I was with grief, when again I am dazed
By the sight of another bier.
Alas, poor mother, poor. child, what a fate have you met!
Messenger.
There at the altar she with whetted knife
Relaxing eyes to darkness, closed her life;
First loud bewailed Megareus’ fate,
Then Hæmon’s here, and last on thee breathed hate
And curses, still invoking evils dire
For her slain children on their murderous sire.
