Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/37



. Own sister of my blood, one life with me,

Ismenè, have the tidings caught thine ear?

Say, hath not Heaven decreed to execute

On thee and me, while yet we are alive,

All the evil Oedipus bequeathed? All horror,

All pain, all outrage, falls on us! And now

The General’s proclamation of to-day—

Hast thou not heard?—Art thou so slow to hear When harm from foes threatens the souls we love?

. No word of those we love, Antigone,

Painful or glad, hath reached me, since we two

Were utterly deprived of our two brothers,

Cut off with mutual stroke, both in one day.

And since the Argive host this now-past night

Is vanished, I know nought beside to make me

Nearer to happiness or more in woe.

. I knew it well, and therefore led thee forth

The palace gate, that thou alone mightst hear.

. Speak on! Thy troubled look bodes some dark news.

. Why, hath not Creon, in the burial-rite,

Of our two brethren honoured one, and wrought

On one foul wrong? Eteocles, they tell,

With lawful consecration he lays out,

And after covers him in earth, adorned

With amplest honours in the world below.

But Polynices, miserably slain,

They say ’tis publicly proclaimed that none

Must cover in a grave, nor mourn for him;

But leave him tombless and unwept, a store

Of sweet provision for the carrion fowl

That eye him greedily. Such righteous law

Good Creon hath pronounced for thy behoof—