Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/103

Rh And thee, my sister, and my brother dead.

Loved, he became my foe: but loved—yet loved!

Bury me, mother, and thou, sister mine,

In native soil, and our chafed city's wrath

Appease ye, that I win thus much at least

Of fatherland, though I have lost mine home.

And close thou up mine eyelids with thine hand,

Mother;"—himself on his eyes layeth it—

"And fare ye well: the darkness wraps me round."

So both together breathed their sad life forth.

And when the mother saw this woeful chance,

Grief-frenzied, from the dead she snatched a sword,

And wrought a horror: for through her mid-neck

She drives the steel, and with her best-beloved

Lies dead, embracing with her arms the twain.

Leapt to their feet the hosts with wrangling cries,—

We shouting that our lord was conqueror,

They, theirs. And strife there was between the chiefs,

These crying, "First smote Polyneikes' spear!"

Those, "Both be dead: with none the victory rests!"

Antigonê from the field had stol'n the while.

Then rushed the foe to arms: but Kadmus' folk

By happy forethought under shield had halted.

So we forestalled the Argive host, and fell

Suddenly on them yet unfenced for fight.

Was none withstood us: huddled o'er the plain

Fled they, and streamed the blood from slain untold