But no matter what, she will be stripped of her home
here above.AntigoneTomb, bridal-chamber, deep-dug eternal prison where I go to find my own,
whom in the greatest numbers destruction has seized and Persephone has
welcomed among the dead! Last of
them all and in by far the most shameful circumstances, I will descend,
even before the fated term of my life is spent. But I cherish strong
hopes that I will arrive welcome to my father, and pleasant to you,
Mother, and welcome, dear brother, to you. For, when each of you died, with my own hands I washed
and dressed you and poured drink-offerings at your graves. But now,
Polyneices, it is for tending your corpse that I win such reward as
this. And yet I honored you rightly, as the wise understand.Never, if I had been a mother of children, or if a
husband had been rotting after death, would I have taken that burden
upon myself in violation of the citizens’ will. For the sake of what
law, you ask, do I say that? A husband lost, another might have been
found, and if
bereft of a child, there could be a second from some other man. But when
father and mother are hidden in Hades, no brother could ever bloom for
me again. Such was the law whereby I held you first in honor, but for
that Creon judged me guilty of wrongdoingand of dreadful outrage, dear brother! And now he leads
me thus in his hands’ strong grasp, when I have enjoyed no marriage bed
or bridal song and have not received any portion of marriage or the
nurture of children. But deserted by friends,