Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/84

56

I will find gold.

Father, thou sayest well:

Haste then. Unto thy sister will I go,—

Jocasta, on whose bosom first I lay,

Reft of my mother, left an orphan lone,—

To bid her farewell, ere I flee for life.

On then: pass in, be hindrance not in thee.

[Exit Kreon. Maidens, how well I have stilled my father's fear

By guileful words, to attain the end I would!

Me would he steal hence, robbing Thebes of hope,

Branding me coward! This might one forgive

In age; but no forgiveness should be mine

If I betray the city of my birth.

Doubt not but I will go and save the town,

And give my soul to death for this land's sake.

'Twere shame that men no oracles constrain,

Who have not fall'n into the net of fate,

Shoulder to shoulder stand, blench not from death,

Fighting before the towers for fatherland,

And I, betraying father, brother, yea,

My city, craven-like flee forth the land—

A dastard manifest, where'er I dwell!

By Zeus star-throned, by Ares, slaughter's lord,

Who set on high in lordship over Thebes

The Dragon-brood that cleft the womb of earth,

Go will I, on the ramparts' height will stand,

And o'er the Dragon's gloomy chasm-cave,