in so much suffering on steep Sipylus—how, like
clinging ivy, the sprouting stone subdued her. And the rains, as men
tell, do not leave her melting form, nor does the snow, but beneath her weeping lids she dampens her
collar. Most like hers is the god-sent fate that leads me to my
rest.
ChorusYet she was a goddess, as you
know, and the offspring of gods, while we are mortals and mortal-born. Still it is a great thing for a
woman who has died to have it said of her that she shared the lot of the
godlike in her life, and afterwards, in death.
AntigoneAh, you mock me! In the name of our fathers’ gods, why do you not
wait to abuse me until after I have gone, and not to my face, O my city,
and you, her wealthy citizens? Ah, spring of Dirce, and you holy ground
of Thebes whose chariots are
many, you, at least, will bear
me witness how unwept by loved ones, and by what laws I go to the
rock-closed prison of my unheard-of tomb! Ah, misery! I have no home among men or with the shades, no
home with the living or with the dead. ChorusYou have rushed headlong to the
far limits of daring, and against the high throne of Justiceyou have fallen, my daughter, fallen
heavily. But in this ordeal you are paying for some paternal crime.
AntigoneYou have touched on my most bitter
thought and moved my ever-renewed pity for my father and for the
entire doom ordained for us, the famed house of Labdacus. Oh, the
horrors of our mother’s bed! Oh, the slumbers of the wretched mother
at the side of her own son, my own father! What manner of parents
gave me my miserable being! It is to them that I go like this, accursed
and unwed, to share their home. Ah, my brother, the marriage you made was doomed, and by dying you
killed me still alive!
ChorusYour pious action shows a certain
reverence, but an offence against power can no way be tolerated by him
who has power in his keeping. Your
self-willed disposition is what has destroyed you.
AntigoneUnwept, unfriended, without
marriage-song, I am led in misery on this journey that cannot be put
off. No longer is it permitted me, unhappy girl,