Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/39

66–99]

Indulgence, seeing I am enforced in this,

Will yield submission to the powers that rule,

Small wisdom were it to overpass the bound.

. I will not urge you! no! nor if now you list

To help me, will your help afford me joy.

Be what you choose to be! This single hand

Shall bury our lost brother. Glorious

For me to take this labour and to die!

Dear to him will my soul be as we rest

In death, when I have dared this holy crime.

My time for pleasing men will soon be over;

Not so my duty toward the Dead! My home

Yonder will have no end. You, if you will,

May pour contempt on laws revered on High.

. Not from irreverence. But I have no strength

To strive against the citizens’ resolve.

. Thou, make excuses! I will go my way

To raise a burial-mound to my dear brother.

. Oh, hapless maiden, how I fear for thee!

. Waste not your fears on me! Guide your own fortune.

. Ah! yet divulge thine enterprise to none,

But keep the secret close, and so will I.

. O Heavens! Nay, tell! I hate your silence worse;

I had rather you proclaimed it to the world.

. You are ardent in a chilling enterprise.

. I know that I please those whom I would please.

. Yes, if you thrive; but your desire is bootless.

. Well, when I fail I shall be stopt, I trow!

. One should not start upon a hopeless quest.

. Speak in that vein if you would earn my hate

And aye be hated of our lost one. Peace!

Leave my unwisdom to endure this peril;

Fate cannot rob me of a noble death.

. Go, if you must—Not to be checked in folly,

But sure unparalleled in faithful love!