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184 184 SOPHOCLES

Messenger. His own, in wrath against his father's

crime. 1261

Chorus. Ο prophet ! true, most true, those words of

thine. Messenger. Since things stand thus, we well may

counsel take. Chorus. Lo ! Creon's wife comes, sad Eurydice. She from the house approaches, hearing speech 1265 About her son, or else by accident.

Enter Eurydice.

Eurydice. I on my way, my friends, as suppliant bound, To pay my vows at Pallas' shrine, have heard Your words, and so I chanced to draw the bolt Of the half -opened door, when lo ! a sound me

Falls on my ears, of evil striking home. And terror-struck I fall in deadly swoon Back in my handmaids' arms ; yet tell it me, Tell the tale once again, for I shall hear, Bv long experience disciplined to grief. 1275

Messenger. Dear lady, I will tell thee : I was by. And will not leave one word of truth untold. Why should we smooth and gloze, where all too soon ΛΥβ should be found as liars ? Truth is still The only safety. Lo ! I went with him, 1280

Thy husband, in attendance, to the edge Of yonder plain, where still all ruthlessly The corpse of Polyneices lay exposed, Mangled by dogs. And, having prayed to her, The Goddess of all pathways,^ and to Pluto, 1285

1 Hecate, here apparently identified with Persephone, and named also as the Goddess who, beings the guardian of highways, was wroth with Thebes for the pollution caused by the unburied corpse of Polyneices.