Page:Sophocles - Seven Plays, 1900.djvu/63

913–952]

Therefore above all else I honoured thee,

And therefore Creon thought me criminal,

And bold in wickedness, O brother mine!

And now by servile hands, for all to see,

He hastens me away, unhusbanded,

Before my nuptial, having never known

Or married joy or tender motherhood.

But desolate and friendless I go down

Alive, O horror! to the vaults of the dead.

For what transgression of Heaven’s ordinance?

Alas! how can I look to Heaven? on whom

Call to befriend me? seeing that I have earned,

By piety, the meed of impious?—

Oh! if this act be what the Gods approve,

In death I may repent me of my deed;

But if they sin who judge me, be their doom

No heavier than they wrongly wreak on me!

. With unchanged fury beats the storm of soul

That shakes this maiden.

. Then for that, be sure

Her warders shall lament their tardiness.

. Alas! I hear Death’s footfall in that sound.

. I may not reassure thee.—’Tis most true.

. O land of Thebè, city of my sires,

Ye too, ancestral Gods! I go—I go!

Even now they lead me to mine end. Behold!

Founders of Thebes, the only scion left

Of Cadmus’ issue, how unworthily,

By what mean instruments I am oppressed,

For reverencing the dues of piety.

Even Danaë’s beauty left the lightsome day.

Closed in her strong and brass-bound tower she lay

In tomb-like deep confine.

Yet she was gendered, O my child!

From sires of noblest line,

And treasured for the Highest the golden rain.

Fated misfortune hath a power so fell:

Not wealth, nor warfare wild,