’T is true, but alone shalt thou of all mortals
Pass down still alive through the Grave’s dark portals.
FIRST ANTISTROPHE.
Antigone.
I have heard of another in days of eld who died
A miserable death, the Phrygian foreign bride
Of the king,
How the stone did cling
Like the growth of embracing ivy around her;
There high on Sipylus’ crest, they say,
The daughter of Tantalus wastes away,
And the rain
As tears fall amain
From her eyelids.—Like mine is the fate that bound her.
SECOND SYSTEMA.
Yet she was immortal, and born divine,
While we are of earth, and of mortal line.
And surely for thee to have the renown
Of sharing the fate of a god, passing down
To Hades from life, and praise after death,—
This is something at least that comforteth.
SECOND STROPHE.
Antigone.
Alas! I am mocked! In the name of the gods of my sires,
Why torture the maiden before she expires,
O my city,
Men of wealth without pity?
Dircæan fount, Thebé’s holy domain,
My appeal to you will, I know, not be vain;
How I go unwept, you at least witness will bear,
For what reason
I pass to the prison,
No home with the dead, no home with the living can share.
THIRD SYSTEMA.
To the limit of rashness thou hast proceeded
’Gainst the throne where Law sits on high dashed unheeded
With measureless force—but bequeathed to thee
From thy father’s sin this ordeal may be.
