Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/29



Ismene, sister mine, my own dear sister,

Dost know, of all the woes of Œdipus

Bequeathed to thee and me; there ’s none that Zeus

Doth not fulfil for us while yet we live?

Nothing fraught with pain and misery,

With shame, disgrace and sorrow, not included

In thy afflictions and in mine? And now

This recent proclamation which they say

The Chieftain ’s made to all in Thebes? Hast heard?

Or hast thou not observed how that fell doom

Decreed to foes doth threaten those we love?

No word of joy, or pain, Antigone,

Concerning those we love has come to me

Since we two sisters, robbed of brothers twain,

Felled by a mutual blow, were left alone.

And since the Argive host’s evanishment

Within the night just fled, I scarcely know

If happier. now I should account myself

Or plunged in deeper woe and misery.

I knew it well; wherefore I brought thee hence,

Outside the gates, that thou mightst hear alone.

What? In thy countenance I see ill news.

True; for consigned to honored burial

By Creon is the one of our two brothers,

While reft of burial site the other lies,

Eteocles, they say, he has interred

With due observance, rite and ceremony,

That he be honored of the dead below,

Whereas our Polyneices’ hapless corpse,

I hear the King has publicly proclaimed

That none shall lay him in a grave, that none

Shall mourn; unwept, unburied he shall lie

To glut the maw of vultures, when they pause