Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Jebb 1917).djvu/178

166 . And what is this new grief that thou hast to tell for our princes?

. Death; and the living are guilty for the dead.

. And who is the slayer? Who the stricken? Speak.

. Haemon hath perished; his blood hath been shed by no stranger.

. By his father's hand, or by his own?

. By his own, in wrath with his sire for the murder.

. O prophet, how true, then, hast thou proved thy word!

. These things stand thus; ye must consider of the rest.

. Lo, I see the hapless Eurydicè, Creon's wife, approaching; she comes from the house by chance, haply,—or because she knows the tidings of her son.

. People of Thebes, I heard your words as I was going forth, to salute the goddess Pallas with my prayers. Even as I was loosing the fastenings of the gate, to open it, the message of a household woe smote on mine ear: I sank back, terror-stricken, into the arms of my handmaids, and my senses fled. But say again what the tidings were; I shall hear them as one who is no stranger to sorrow.

. Dear lady, I will witness of what I saw, and will leave no word of the truth untold. Why, indeed, should I soothe thee with words in which I must presently be found false? Truth is ever best.—I attended