And there, hard by the crag of Sipylos,
As creeping ivy grows,
So crept the shoots of rock o'er life and breath;
And, as the rumour goes,
The showers ne'er leave her, wasting in her death,
Nor yet the drifting snows;
From weeping brows they drip on rocks beneath;
Thus God my life overthrows.
Chorus.
And yet a Goddess she, of birth divine,
And we frail mortals, and of mortal race;
And for weak woman it is highest grace
That fate the Gods have suffered should be thine.
Antigone.
Stroph. III.
Alas! ye mock at me;
Why thus laugh on?
As yet I still live here,
Not wholly gone.
Ο fellow citizens
Of city treasure-stored!
Ο streams of Dirkè's brook!
Ο grove of Thebes adored,
Where stand the chariots fair!—
I bid you witness give,
How, by my friends unwept,
I pass while yet I live,
To yonder heaped-up mound of new-made tomb;
Ah, miserable me!
Nor dwelling among men, nor with the dead,
