Chapter 4

CHORUS Love, never foiled in fight! 1 Warrior Love, that on Wealth workest havoc! Love, who in ambush of young maid's soft cheek All night keep'st watch!--Thou roamest over seas. In lonely forest homes thou harbourest. Who may avoid thee? None! Mortal, Immortal, All are o'erthrown by thee, all feel thy frenzy.

Lightly thou draw'st awry 2 Righteous minds into wrong to their ruin Thou this unkindly quarrel hast inflamed 'Tween kindred men--Triumphantly prevails The heart-compelling eye of winsome bride, Compeer of mighty Law Throned, commanding. Madly thou mockest men, dread Aphrodite.

LEADER OF CHORUS. Ah! now myself am carried past the bound Of law, nor can I check the rising tear, When I behold Antigone even here Touching the quiet bourne where all must rest.

_Enter_ ANTIGONE _guarded._

ANT. Ye see me on my way, I 1 O burghers of my father's land! With one last look on Helios' ray, Led my last path toward the silent strand. Alive to the wide house of rest I go; No dawn for me may shine, No marriage-blessing e'er be mine, No hymeneal with my praises flow! The Lord of Acheron's unlovely shore Shall be mine only husband evermore.

CH. Yea, but with glory and fame,-- Not by award of the sword, Not with blighting disease, But by a law of thine own,-- Thou, of mortals alone, Goest alive to the deep Tranquil home of the dead.

ANT. Erewhile I heard men say, I 2 How, in far Phrygia, Thebe's friend, Tantalus' child, had dreariest end On heights of Sipylus consumed away: O'er whom the rock like clinging ivy grows, And while with moistening dew Her cheek runs down, the eternal snows Weigh o'er her, and the tearful stream renew That from sad brows her stone-cold breast doth steep. Like unto her the God lulls me to sleep.

CH. But she was a goddess born, We but of mortal line; And sure to rival the fate Of a daughter of sires Divine Were no light glory in death.

ANT. O mockery of my woe! II 1 I pray you by our fathers' holy Fear, Why must I hear Your insults, while in life on earth I stand, O ye that flow In wealth, rich burghers of my bounteous land? O fount of Dirce, and thou spacious grove, Where Thebe's chariots move! Ye are my witness, though none else be nigh, By what enormity of lawless doom, Without one friendly sigh, I go to the strong mound of yon strange tomb,-- All hapless, having neither part nor room With those who live or those who die!

CH. Thy boldness mounted high, And thou, my child, 'gainst the great pedestal Of Justice with unmeasured force didst fall. Thy father's lot still presseth hard on thee.

ANT. That pains me more than all. II 2 Ah! thou hast touched my father's misery Still mourned anew, With all the world-famed sorrows on us rolled Since Cadmus old. O cursed marriage that my mother knew! O wretched fortune of my sire, who lay Where first he saw the day! Such were the authors of my burdened life; To whom, with curses dowered, never a wife, I go to dwell beneath. O brother mine, thy princely marriage-tie Hath been thy downfall, and in this thy death Thou hast destroyed me ere I die.

CH. 'Twas pious, we confess, Thy fervent deed. But he, who power would show, Must let no soul of all he rules transgress. A self-willed passion was thine overthrow.

ANT. Friendless, uncomforted of bridal lay, III Unmourned, they lead me on my destined way. Woe for my life forlorn! I may not see The sacred round of yon great light Rising again to greet me from the night; No friend bemoans my fate, no tear hath fallen for me!

_Enter_ CREON.

CR. If criminals were suffered to complain In dirges before death, they ne'er would end. Away with her at once, and closing her, As I commanded, in the vaulty tomb, Leave her all desolate, whether to die, Or to live on in that sepulchral cell. We are guiltless in the matter of this maid; Only she shall not share the light of day.

ANT. O grave! my bridal chamber, prison-house Eterne, deep-hollowed, whither I am led To find mine own,--of whom Persephone Hath now a mighty number housed in death:-- I last of all, and far most miserably, Am going, ere my days have reached their term! Yet lives the hope that, when I go, most surely Dear will my coming be, father, to thee, And dear to thee, my mother, and to thee, Brother! since with these very hands I decked And bathed you after death, and ministered The last libations. And I reap this doom For tending, Polynices, on thy corse. Indeed I honoured thee, the wise will say. For neither, had I children, nor if one I had married were laid bleeding on the earth, Would I have braved the city's will, or taken This burden on me. Wherefore? I will tell. A husband lost might be replaced; a son, If son were lost to me, might yet be born; But, with both parents hidden in the tomb, No brother may arise to comfort me. Therefore above all else I honoured thee, And therefore Creon thought me criminal, And bold in wickedness, O brother mine! And now by servile hands, for all to see, He hastens me away, unhusbanded, Before my nuptial, having never known Or married joy or tender motherhood. But desolate and friendless I go down Alive, O horror! to the vaults of the dead. For what transgression of Heaven's ordinance? Alas! how can I look to Heaven? on whom Call to befriend me? seeing that I have earned, By piety, the meed of impious?-- Oh! if this act be what the Gods approve, In death I may repent me of my deed; But if they sin who judge me, be their doom No heavier than they wrongly wreak on me!

CH. With unchanged fury beats the storm of soul That shakes this maiden.

CR. Then for that, be sure Her warders shall lament their tardiness.

ANT. Alas! I hear Death's footfall in that sound.

CR. I may not reassure thee.--'Tis most true.

ANT. O land of Thebe, city of my sires, Ye too, ancestral Gods! I go--I go! Even now they lead me to mine end. Behold! Founders of Thebes, the only scion left Of Cadmus' issue, how unworthily, By what mean instruments I am oppressed, For reverencing the dues of piety. [_Exit guarded_

CHORUS. Even Danae's beauty left the lightsome day. I 1 Closed in her strong and brass-bound tower she lay In tomb-like deep confine. Yet she was gendered, O my child! From sires of noblest line, And treasured for the Highest the golden rain. Fated misfortune hath a power so fell: Not wealth, nor warfare wild, Nor dark spray-dashing coursers of the main Against great Destiny may once rebel.

He too in darksome durance was compressed, I 2 King of Edonians, Dryas' hasty son[5], In eyeless vault of stone Immured by Dionysus' hest, All for a wrathful jest. Fierce madness issueth in such fatal flower. He found 'twas mad to taunt the Heavenly Power, Chilling the Maenad breast Kindled with Bacchic fire, and with annoy Angering the Muse that in the flute hath joy.

And near twin rocks that guard the Colchian sea, II 1 Bosporian cliffs 'fore Salmydessus rise, Where neighbouring Ares from his shrine beheld Phineus' two sons[6] by female fury quelled. With cursed wounding of their sight-reft eyes, That cried to Heaven to 'venge the iniquity. The shuttle's sharpness in a cruel hand Dealt the dire blow, not struck with martial brand.

But chiefly for her piteous lot they pined, II 2 Who was the source of their rejected birth. She touched the lineage of Erechtheus old; Whence in far caves her life did erst unfold, Cradled 'mid storms, daughter of Northern wind, Steed-swift o'er all steep places of the earth. Yet even on her, though reared of heavenly kind, The long-enduring Fates at last took hold.

_Enter_ TIRESIAS, _led by a boy._

TIRESIAS. We are come, my lords of Thebes, joint wayfarers, One having eyes for both. The blind must still Thus move in frail dependence on a guide.

CR. And what hath brought thee, old Tiresias, now?

TI. I will instruct thee, if thou wilt hear my voice.

CR. I have not heretofore rejected thee.

TI. Therefore thy pilotage hath saved this city.

CR. Grateful experience owns the benefit.

TI. Take heed. Again thou art on an edge of peril.

CR. What is it? How I shudder at thy word!

TI. The tokens of mine art shall make thee know. As I was sitting on that ancient seat Of divination, where I might command Sure cognisance of every bird of the air, I heard strange clamouring of fowl, that screeched In furious dissonance; and, I could tell, Talons were bloodily engaged--the whirr Of wings told a clear tale. At once, in fear, I tried burnt sacrifice at the high altar: Where from the offering the fire god refused To gleam; but a dank humour from the bones Dripped on the embers with a sputtering fume. The gall was spirited high in air, the thighs Lay wasting, bared of their enclosing fat. Such failing tokens of blurred augury This youth reported, who is guide to me, As I to others. And this evil state Is come upon the city from thy will: Because our altars--yea, our sacred hearths-- Are everywhere infected from the mouths Of dogs or beak of vulture that hath fed On Oedipus' unhappy slaughtered son. And then at sacrifice the Gods refuse Our prayers and savour of the thigh-bone fat-- And of ill presage is the thickening cry Of bird that battens upon human gore Now, then, my son, take thought. A man may err; But he is not insensate or foredoomed To ruin, who, when he hath lapsed to evil, Stands not inflexible, but heals the harm. The obstinate man still earns the name of fool. Urge not contention with the dead, nor stab The fallen. What valour is 't to slay the slain? I have thought well of this, and say it with care; And careful counsel, that brings gain withal, Is precious to the understanding soul.

CR. I am your mark, and ye with one consent All shoot your shafts at me. Nought left untried, Not even the craft of prophets, by whose crew I am bought and merchandised long since. Go on! Traffic, get gain, electrum from the mine Of Lydia, and the gold of Ind! Yet know, Grey-beard! ye ne'er shall hide him in a tomb. No, not if heaven's own eagle chose to snatch And bear him to the throne supreme for food, Even that pollution should not daunt my heart To yield permission for his funeral. For well know I defilement ne'er can rise From man to God. But, old Tiresias, hear! Even wisest spirits have a shameful fall That fairly speak base words for love of gain.

TI. Ah! where is wisdom? who considereth?

CR. Wherefore? what means this universal doubt?

TI. How far the best of riches is good counsel!

CR. As far as folly is the mightiest bane.

TI. Yet thou art sick of that same pestilence.

CR. I would not give the prophet blow for blow.

TI. What blow is harder than to call me false?

CR. Desire of money is the prophet's plague.

TI. And ill-sought lucre is the curse of kings.

CR. Know'st thou 'tis of thy sovereign thou speak'st this?

TI. Yea, for my aid gives thee to sway this city.

CR. Far seeing art thou, but dishonest too.

TI. Thou wilt provoke the utterance of my tongue To that even thought refused to dwell upon.

CR. Say on, so thou speak sooth, and not for gain.

TI. You think me likely to seek gain from you?

CR. You shall not make your merchandise on me!

TI. Not many courses of the racing sun Shalt thou fulfil, ere of thine own true blood Thou shalt have given a corpse in recompense For one on earth whom thou hast cast beneath, Entombing shamefully a living soul, And one whom thou hast kept above the ground And disappointed of all obsequies, Unsanctified and godlessly forlorn. Such violence the powers beneath will bear Not even from the Olympian gods. For thee The avengers wait. Hidden but near at hand, Lagging but sure, the Furies of the grave Are watching for thee to thy ruinous harm, With thine own evil to entangle thee. Look well to it now whether I speak for gold! A little while, and thine own palace-halls Shall flash the truth upon thee with loud noise Of men and women, shrieking o'er the dead. And all the cities whose unburied sons, Mangled and torn, have found a sepulchre In dogs or jackals or some ravenous bird That stains their incense with polluted breath, Are forming leagues in troublous enmity. Such shafts, since thou hast stung me to the quick, I like an archer at thee in my wrath Have loosed unerringly--carrying their pang, Inevitable, to thy very heart. Now, sirrah! lead me home, that his hot mood Be spent on younger objects, till he learn To keep a safer mind and calmer tongue. [_Exit_

CH. Sire, there is terror in that prophecy. He who is gone, since ever these my locks, Once black, now white with age, waved o'er my brow, Hath never spoken falsely to the state.

CR. I know it, and it shakes me to the core. To yield is dreadful: but resistingly To face the blow of fate, is full of dread.

CH. The time calls loud on wisdom, good my lord.

CR. What must I do? Advise me. I will obey.

CH. Go and release the maiden from the vault, And make a grave for the unburied dead.

CR. Is that your counsel? Think you I will yield?

CH. With all the speed thou mayest: swift harms from heaven With instant doom o'erwhelm the froward man.

CR. Oh! it is hard. But I am forced to this Against myself. I cannot fight with Destiny.

CH. Go now to do it. Trust no second hand.

CR. Even as I am, I go. Come, come, my people. Here or not here, with mattocks in your hands Set forth immediately to yonder hill! And, since I have ta'en this sudden turn, myself, Who tied the knot, will hasten to unloose it. For now the fear comes over me, 'tis best To pass one's life in the accustomed round. [_Exeunt_

CHORUS. O God of many a name! I 1 Filling the heart of that Cadmeian bride With deep delicious pride, Offspring of him who wields the withering flame! Thou for Italia's good Dost care, and 'midst the all-gathering bosom wide[7] Of Deo dost preside; Thou, Bacchus, by Ismenus' winding waters 'Mongst Thebe's frenzied daughters, Keep'st haunt, commanding the fierce dragon's brood.

Thee o'er the forked hill I 2 The pinewood flame beholds, where Bacchai rove, Nymphs of Corycian grove, Hard by the flowing of Castalia's rill. To visit Theban ways, By bloomy wine-cliffs flushing tender bright 'Neath far Nyseian height Thou movest o'er the ivy-mantled mound, While myriad voices sound Loud strains of 'Evoe!' to thy deathless praise.

For Thebe thou dost still uphold, II 1 First of cities manifold, Thou and the nymph whom lightning made Mother of thy radiant head. Come then with healing for the violent woe That o'er our peopled land doth largely flow, Passing the high Parnassian steep Or moaning narrows of the deep!

Come, leader of the starry quire II 2 Quick-panting with their breath of fire! Lord of high voices of the night, Child born to him who dwells in light, Appear with those who, joying in their madness, Honour the sole dispenser of their gladness, Thyiads of the Aegean main Night-long trooping in thy train.

_Enter_ Messenger.

MESS. Neighbours of Cadmus and Amphion's halls, No life of mortal, howsoe'er it stand, Shall once have praise or censure from my mouth; Since human happiness and human woe Come even as fickle Fortune smiles or lours; And none can augur aught from what we see. Creon erewhile to me was enviable, Who saved our Thebe from her enemies; Then, vested with supreme authority, Ruled her aright; and flourish'd in his home With noblest progeny. What hath he now? Nothing. For when a man is lost to joy, I count him not to live, but reckon him A living corse. Riches belike are his, Great riches and the appearance of a King; But if no gladness come to him, all else Is shadow of a vapour, weighed with joy.

CH. What new affliction heaped on sovereignty Com'st thou to tell?

MESS. They are dead; and they that live Are guilty of the death.

CH. The slayer, who? And who the slain? Declare.

MESS. Haemon is dead, And by a desperate hand.

CH. His own, or Creon's?

MESS. By his own hand, impelled with violent wrath At Creon for the murder of the maid.

CH. Ah, Seer! how surely didst thou aim thy word!

MESS. So stands the matter. Make of it what ye list.

CH. See, from the palace cometh close to us Creon's unhappy wife, Eurydice. Is it by chance, or heard she of her son?

_Enter_ EURYDICE.

EURYDICE. Ye men of Thebes, the tidings met mine ear As I was coming forth to visit Pallas With prayerful salutation. I was loosening The bar of the closed gate, when the sharp sound Of mine own sorrow smote against my heart, And I fell back astonied on my maids And fainted. But the tale? tell me once more; I am no novice in adversity.

MESS. Dear lady, I will tell thee what I saw, And hide no grain of truth: why should I soothe Thy spirit with soft tales, when the harsh fact Must prove me a liar? Truth is always best. I duly led the footsteps of thy lord To the highest point of the plain, where still was lying, Forlorn and mangled by the dogs, the corse Of Polynices. We besought Persephone And Pluto gently to restrain their wrath, And wash'd him pure and clean, and then we burned The poor remains with brushwood freshly pulled, And heaped a lofty mound of his own earth Above him. Then we turned us to the vault, The maiden's stony bride-chamber of death. And from afar, round the unhallowed cell, One heard a voice of wailing loud and long, And went and told his lord: who coming near Was haunted by the dim and bitter cry, And suddenly exclaiming on his fate Said lamentably, 'My prophetic heart Divined aright. I am going, of all ways That e'er I went, the unhappiest to-day. My son's voice smites me. Go, my men, approach With speed, and, where the stones are torn away, Press through the passage to that door of death, Look hard, and tell me, if I hear aright The voice of Haemon, or the gods deceive me.' Thus urged by our despairing lord, we made Th' espial. And in the farthest nook of the vault We saw the maiden hanging by the neck With noose of finest tissue firmly tied, And clinging to her on his knees the boy, Lamenting o'er his ruined nuptial-rite, Consummated in death, his father's crime And his lost love. And when the father saw him, With loud and dreadful clamour bursting in He went to him and called him piteously: 'What deed is this, unhappy youth? What thought O'ermaster'd thee? Where did the force of woe O'erturn thy reason? O come forth, my son, I beg thee!' But with savage eyes the youth Glared scowling at him, and without a word Plucked forth his two-edged blade. The father then Fled and escaped: but the unhappy boy, Wroth with himself, even where he stood, leant heavily Upon his sword and plunged it in his side.-- And while the sense remained, his slackening arm Enfolded still the maiden, and his breath, Gaspingly drawn and panted forth with pain, Cast ruddy drops upon her pallid face; Then lay in death upon the dead, at last Joined to his bride in Hades' dismal hall:-- A monument unto mankind, that rashness Is the worst evil of this mortal state. [_Exit_ EURYDICE

CH. What augur ye from this? The queen is gone Without word spoken either good or bad.

MESS. I, too, am struck with dread. But hope consoles me, That having heard the affliction of her son, Her pride forbids to publish her lament Before the town, but to her maids within She will prescribe to mourn the loss of the house. She is too tried in judgement to do ill.

CH. I cannot tell. The extreme of silence, too, Is dangerous, no less than much vain noise.

MESS. Well, we may learn, if there be aught unseen Suppressed within her grief-distempered soul, By going within the palace. Ye say well: There is a danger, even in too much silence.

CH. Ah! look where sadly comes our lord the King, Bearing upon his arm a monument-- If we may speak it--of no foreign woe, But of his own infirmity the fruit.

_Enter_ CREON _with the body of_ HAEMON.

CR. O error of my insensate soul, I 1 Stubborn, and deadly in the fateful end! O ye who now behold Slayer and slain of the same kindred blood! O bitter consequence of seeming-wise decree! Alas, my son! Strange to the world wert thou, and strange the fate That took thee off, that slew thee; woe is me! Not for thy rashness, but my folly. Ah me!

CH. Alas for him who sees the right too late!

CR. Alas! I have learnt it now. But then upon my head Some God had smitten with dire weight of doom; And plunged me in a furious course, woe is me! Discomforting and trampling on my joy. Woe! for the bitterness of mortal pain!

_Enter_ 2nd Messenger.

2ND MESS. My lord and master. Thou art master here Of nought but sorrows. One within thine arms Thou bear'st with thee, and in thy palace hall Thou hast possession of another grief, Which soon thou shalt behold.

CR. What more of woe, Or what more woeful, sounds anew from thee?

2ND MESS. The honoured mother of that corse, thy queen, Is dead, and bleeding with a new-given wound.

CR. O horrible! O charnel gulf I 2 Of death on death, not to be done away, Why harrowest thou my soul? Ill boding harbinger of woe, what word Have thy lips uttered? Oh, thou hast killed me again, Before undone! What say'st? What were thy tidings? Woe is me! Saidst thou a slaughtered queen in yonder hall Lay in her blood, crowning the pile of ruin?

CH. No longer hidden in the house. Behold! [_The Corpse of_ EURYDICE _is disclosed_

CR. Alas! Again I see a new, a second woe. What more calamitous stroke of Destiny Awaits me still? But now mine arms enfold My child, and lo! yon corse before my face! Ah! hapless, hapless mother, hapless son!

2ND MESS. She with keen knife before the altar place[8] Closed her dark orbs; but first lamented loud The glorious bed of buried Megareus[9], And then of Haemon; lastly clamoured forth The curse of murdered offspring upon thee.

CR. Ay me! Ay me! II 1 I am rapt with terror. Is there none to strike me With doubly sharpened blade a mortal blow? Ah! I am plunged in fathomless distress.

2ND MESS. The guilt of this and of the former grief By this dead lady was denounced on thee.

CR. Tell us, how ended she her life in blood?

2ND MESS. Wounding herself to the heart, when she had heard The loud lamented death of Haemon here.

CR. O me! This crime can come On no man else, exempting me. I slew thee--I, O misery! I say the truth, 'twas I! My followers, Take me with speed--take me away, away! Me, who am nothing now.

CH. Thou sayest the best, if there be best in woe. Briefest is happiest in calamity.

CR. Ah! let it come, II 2 The day, most welcome of all days to me, That brings the consummation of my doom. Come! Come! I would not see another sun.

CH. Time will determine that. We must attend To present needs. Fate works her own dread work.

CR. All my desire was gathered in my prayer.

CH. But prayer is bootless. For to mortal men There is no saviour from appointed woe.

CR. Take me away, the vain-proud man that slew Thee, O my son! unwittingly,--and thee! Me miserable, which way shall I turn, Which look upon? Since all that I can touch Is falling,--falling,--round me, and o'erhead Intolerable destiny descends.