CreonAh, the blunders of an unthinking
mind, blunders of rigidity, yielding death! Oh, you witnesses of the
killers and the killed, both of one family! What misery arises from my reasonings! Haemon, you have
died after a young life, youngest and last of my sons! O God! You have
departed not by your foolishness, but by my own!
ChorusAh, how late you seem to see the
right!CreonGod, I have mastered the bitter lesson! But then, then, I think, some god
struck me on my head with a crushing weight, and drove me into savage
paths, —ah!—and overthrew my
joy to be trampled on! Ah, the labors men must toil through!Enter the Messenger from the house.MessengerMy master, you have come, I
think, like one whose hands are not empty, but who has a ready store:
first, you carry that burden visible in your arms; second, you will soon look upon further
sufferings inside your house.
CreonWhat worse suffering is still to follow upon these sufferings?MessengerYour wife is dead, true mother of that corpse, poor lady, by wounds newly
cut.
CreonO harbor of Hades, hard to
purify! Why, why do you ruin
me? Herald of evil, of grief, what word do you say? Ah, you have done in
a dead man anew! What are you saying, boy? What is this you report to
me God no!—what new slaughter, my wife’s doom, is heaped
upon this ruin?The doors of the palace are opened, and the corpse of Eurydice is
disclosed.ChorusThe sight is at hand. It is no longer hidden inside.
CreonAh, misery! There I see a new, a
second evil! What destiny, ah, what, can still await me? I have just now
taken my son in my arms, and now I see another corpse before
me! Oh, tormented mother! Oh,
my son!MessengerBy the altar, with a
sharp-whetted sword, she struck until her eyes went slack and dark.
Before that she bewailed the noble fate of Megareus who died earlier,
and then the fate of this boy, and also, with her last breath,she called down evil fortune upon you,
the slayer of her sons.
CreonAh, no! I tremble with fear. Why
does no one strike me full on my chest with a two-edged sword?