Chor. Where are his daughters, and the friends that led them?
Mess. Not far are they. Their voices wailing loud
Give token clear that they are drawing nigh.
Enter Antigone and Ismene.
Strophe.
Antig. Ah me! 'tis ours to mourn,1670
All desolate and sad,
Not once or twice alone,
Our father's taint of blood,
For whom long time we bore our constant toil
In many a land, and now at last must tell,
Seeing and suffering both,
Woes strange and wonderful.
Chor. What is it then?
Antig. That, friends, ye well may guess.
Chor. Has he then gone?
Antig. As thou might'st wish to go:
How else? since he was one
Whom neither din of war,1680
Nor fell disease approached;
Whom, with, strange darkling fate
The land of shadows clasped,
So borne away from us;
And lo! upon our eyes
There falls the night of death!
For how, on some far land
Wandering, or ocean wave,
Shall we now live our life intolerable?
Ism. I know not that indeed!
But oh! that Hades dark and murderous1690
Would take me in my woe,
