Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/204

174 174 SOPHOCLES

Chorus. Ah me ! this word of thine loos

Tells of death drawing nigh. Creon. I cannot bid thee hope

For other end than this. Antigone. Ο citadel of Thebes, my native land, Ye Gods of ancient days, loio

I go, and linger not. Behold me, Ο ye senators of Thebes, The last, lone scion of the kingly race. What things I suffer, and from whom they come, Revering still the laws of reverence. 1015

l^Cruards lead Antigone away.

Strophe I.

Chorus. So did the form of Danae bear of old,^

In brazen palace hid.

To lose the light of heaven. And in her tomb-like chamber was enclosed : Yet she, Ο child, was noble in her race, 1020

And well she stored the golden shower of Zeus. But great and dread the might of Destiny :

Nor kingly wealth, nor war.

Nor tower, nor dark-hulled ships

Beaten by waves, escape. 1025

Antistrophe I.

So too was shut, enclosed in dungeon cave, Bitter and fierce in mood, The son of Dryas,^ king

^ Danae, though shnt up hy her father Acrisius, received the golden shower of Zeus, and became the mother of Perseus. See page 70.

- The son of Dryas was Lycurgus, who appears in the Iliad, vi. 130, as having, like Penthens, opposed the worship of Dionysus ; he has thus fallen under the Λvrath of Zeus, who deprived him of sight, and en- tombed him in a cavern. The Muses are here mentioned as the com- panions and nurses of Dionysus.