CHORUS.
STROPHE.
O Love, unconquered in fight, the rich thou dost raid;
Thou makest thy couch in the night on the cheeks of a maid;
And thou rangest over the sea, in the rural home;
And no one escapes thee where’er thou dost roam;
Neither god nor mortal man thy will can resist;
Thou assailest, inspiring with frenzy, the one thou dost list.
E’en the souls of the just to their ruin thou turnest astray:
’T is thou that this feud hast excited ’mong kinsmen to-day;
The love-light so clear in the eyes of the bride is victorious,
It sits high enthroned by the side of the laws ever glorious,
The unwritten laws acknowledged by men.—Aphrodite
Is working her will, invincible, mighty.
Chorus. But I myself am carried amain
Past the bound of laws, and cannot restrain
The gush of the tears as I behold
Antigone passing now to the hall
Where Death receives and lodges all.
FIRST STROPHE.
Antigone.
Ye behold me, citizens of my native land,
Setting forth on my last journey, to that strand
Where I gaze
A farewell to these rays
Of the sun, where the light I never again shall see;
Dread Hades, who layeth all men to sleep, doth lead
Me still living to Acheron’s shore; no marriage my meed,
And no song
To which bridals belong
Hath been mine, for Acheron’s bride I shall be.
FIRST SYSTEMA.
Yea, but with glory and praise
Dost thou depart to end thy days,
Ne’er smitten with wasting disease,
Nor finding the wage of the sword; but to these
Who live in the silent home of the dead
