By spears laid low. So, victors in the fight,
Our triumph-trophy some 'gan rear to Zeus;
And, some from Argive corpses stripping shields,
Within our battlements the spoils we sent.1475
And others with Antigonê bear on
The dead twain hither for their friends to mourn.
So hath the strife had end for Thebes in part
Most happily, in part most haplessly.
Chorus.
Not a grief for the hearing alone1480
Is the bale of the house: ye may see
Here, now, yon corpses three
By the palace, in death as one,
To the life that is darkness gone.
Enter procession bearing corpses, with Antigone.
Antigone.
Never a veil o'er the tresses I threw
O'er my soft cheek sweeping,
Nor for maidenhood's shrinking I hid from view
The hot blood leaping
'Neath mine eyes, when I rushed in the bacchanal dance for the dead,
When I cast on the earth the tiring that bound mine head,1490
Loose flinging my bright robe saffron of hue—
I, by whom corpses with wailing are grave ward led.
Well wast thou named, Polyneikes![1]—Ah Thebes, woe's me!—
- ↑ i.e. The man of much strife (cf. l. 636).
