THE PHŒNICIAN MAIDENS.
71
Kreon.
Alas!
Terrible ills for me and for Thebes dost thou tell—1340
Chorus.
O halls of Oedipus, have ye heard this?
Kreon.
Of sons that by the selfsame fate have died!
Chorus.
Their very stones might weep, could they but know.
Kreon.
Woe's me, the disaster, when fate's stroke heavily fell!
Woe for my sorrows! Ah, unhappy I!1345
Messenger.
Ah, didst thou know the evils more than these!
Kreon.
What can be more calamitous than these?
Messenger.
Dead is thy sister—dead with her two sons.
Chorus.
Upraise, upraise the lamentation-strain,1350
Down on the head let blows of white hands rain!
Kreon.
Hapless Jocasta, what an end of life
And marriage hast thou proved the Sphinx's riddle!
