Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/55

SOPHOCLES. ’T is true, but alone shalt thou of all mortals

Pass down still alive through the Grave’s dark portals.

Antigone.

I have heard of another in days of eld who died

A miserable death, the Phrygian foreign bride

Of the king,

How the stone did cling

Like the growth of embracing ivy around her;

There high on Sipylus’ crest, they say,

The daughter of Tantalus wastes away,

And the rain

As tears fall amain

From her eyelids.—Like mine is the fate that bound her.

Yet she was immortal, and born divine,

While we are of earth, and of mortal line.

And surely for thee to have the renown

Of sharing the fate of a god, passing down

To Hades from life, and praise after death,—

This is something at least that comforteth.

Antigone.

Alas! I am mocked! In the name of the gods of my sires,

Why torture the maiden before she expires,

O my city,

Men of wealth without pity?

Dircæan fount, Thebé’s holy domain,

My appeal to you will, I know, not be vain;

How I go unwept, you at least witness will bear,

For what reason

I pass to the prison,

No home with the dead, no home with the living can share.

To the limit of rashness thou hast proceeded

’Gainst the throne where Law sits on high dashed unheeded

With measureless force—but bequeathed to thee

From thy father’s sin this ordeal may be.