And now when the whole city is held subject to a violent plague, come, we ask, with purifying feet over steep Parnassus, or over the groaning straits!

ChorusO Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver!

Enter Messenger, on the spectators’ left.MessengerNeighbors of the house of Cadmus and of Amphion, there is no station of human life that I would ever praise or blame as being settled. Fortune sets upright and Fortune sinks the lucky and unlucky from day to day, and no one can prophesy to men concerning the order that has just been established. For Creon, as I saw it, was once blest: he had saved this land of Cadmus from its enemies; and having won sole and total dominion in the land, he guided it on a straight course and flourished in his noble crop of children. And now all this has been lost. When a man has forfeited his pleasures, I do not reckon his existence as life, but consider him just a breathing corpse. Heap up riches in your house, if you wish! Live with a tyrant’s pomp! But if there is no joyalong with all of that, I would not pay even the shadow of smoke for all the rest, compared with joy.ChorusWhat is this new grief for our princes that you have come to report?MessengerThey are dead, and the living are guilty of the deaths.ChorusWho is the murderer? Who the murdered? Tell us.MessengerHaemon is dead—his blood was shed by no strange hand.ChorusWas it his father’s, or his own ?MessengerHe did it by his own, enraged with his father for the murder.ChorusAh, prophet, how true, then, you have proved your word!MessengerKnowing that these things are so, you must consider the rest.ChorusWait, I see the unhappy Eurydice, Creon’s wife, nearby. She comes from the house either knowing of her son, or merely by chance.Enter Eurydice.EurydicePeople of Thebes, I heard your words as I was on my way to the gates to address divine Pallas with my prayers. At one and the same time I was loosening the bolts of the gate to open it, and the sound of a blow to our house struck my ear. In terror I sank back into the arms of my handmaids, and my senses fled. But repeat what your news was, for I shall hear it with ears that are no strangers to sorrow.