Antigone
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 3: The Antigone. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- But now, witnessing this, I too am carried beyond the bounds of loyalty. The power fails me to keep back my streaming tears any longer, when I see Antigone making her way to the chamber where all are laid to rest,
- now her bridal chamber.
- Citizens of my fatherland, see me setting out on my last journey, looking at my last sunlight,
- and never again. No, Hades who lays all to rest leads me living to Acheron’s shore, though I have not had my due portion of the chant that brings the bride, nor has any hymn been mine
- for the crowning of marriage. Instead the lord of Acheron will be my groom.
- Then in glory and with praise you depart to that deep place of the dead, neither struck by wasting sickness,
- nor having won the wages of the sword. No, guided by your own laws and still alive, unlike any mortal before, you will descend to Hades.