Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/62

58 You ’ll stir me up to tell my soul’s dread secret.

Unlock your bosom—only not for gain.

No gain for you in what I ’ll say, methinks.

In me you shall not traffic for your profit.

(solemnly). And you shall not live through the time marked out

By many rapid courses of the sun,

Before you will have rendered up a corpse

In one of thine own blood, in recompense

For corpse, since children of the world above

You thrust to Hades’ realm below, and lodged

A living soul dishonored in the grave,

And keep a man, belonging to the gods

Beneath, still lying in the world above,

A corpse unburied and unsanctified,

Bereft of all the honors due the dead.

Nor you, nor e’en the gods in Heaven, can

Lay claim to him, since he belongs to none

Except the nether gods, whom you offend.

For this the fiends of Hades and of Heaven,

Destroying and avenging Furies, lie

In wait for you, that you may now be caught,

Entangled likewise in the net of ruin.

Think you my speech is prompted by a bribe?

Consider well. A time will come, and soon,

When shrieks of men and women’s wailings loud

Shall in your house resound,—nay more, the realms

Are roused against you in tumultuous hate

Whose mangled sons wild beasts of prey and dogs

Have consecrated, or some wingéd bird

That soared aloft and bore pollution back

To hearths at home, from corpses in the field.

Such shafts unerring for your heart have I

Discharged in anger—for I feel the smart

Of your provoking words—and you will feel

The pang of every barb the archer sends.

Boy, lead me home, and leave him here to vent

His rage on younger men, that he may learn

Henceforth a tongue more temperate to nourish,

A better mind within his breast to cherish.