ISM.  What can I do for thee now, even now?

ANT.  Save your own life.  I grudge not your escape.

ISM.  Alas! and must I be debarred thy fate?

ANT.  Life was the choice you made.  Mine was to die.

ISM.  I warned thee——­

ANT.  Yes, your prudence is admired
On earth.  My wisdom is approved below.

ISM.  Yet truly we are both alike in fault.

ANT.  Fear not; you live.  My life hath long been given
To death, to be of service to the dead.

CR.  Of these two girls, the one hath lost her wits: 
The other hath had none since she was born.

ISM.  My lord, in misery, the mind one hath
Is wont to be dislodged, and will not stay.

CR.  You have ta’en leave of yours at any rate,
When you cast in your portion with the vile.

ISM.  What can life profit me without my sister?

CR.  Say not ‘my sister’; she is nothing now.

ISM.  What? wilt thou kill thy son’s espousal too?

CR.  He may find other fields to plough upon.

ISM.  Not so as love was plighted ’twixt them twain.

CR.  I hate a wicked consort for my son.

ANT.  O dearest Haemon! how thy father wrongs thee!

CR.  Thou and thy marriage are a torment to me.

CH.  And wilt thou sever her from thine own son?

CR.  ’Tis death must come between him and his joy,

CH.  All doubt is then resolved:  the maid must die,

CR.  I am resolved; and so, ’twould seem, are you. 
In with her, slaves!  No more delay!  Henceforth
These maids must have but woman’s liberty
And be mewed up; for even the bold will fly
When they see Death nearing the house of life.
                     [ANTIGONE and ISMENE are led into the palace.

CHORUS. 
Blest is the life that never tasted woe.  I 1
      When once the blow
Hath fallen upon a house with Heaven-sent doom,
Trouble descends in ever-widening gloom
Through all the number of the tribe to flow;
      As when the briny surge
      That Thrace-born tempests urge
(The big wave ever gathering more and more)
Runs o’er the darkness of the deep,
      And with far-searching sweep
Uprolls the storm-heap’d tangle on the shore,
While cliff to beaten cliff resounds with sullen roar.

The stock of Cadmus from old time, I know, I 2
      Hath woe on woe,
Age following age, the living on the dead,
Fresh sorrow falling on each new-ris’n head,
None freed by God from ruthless overthrow. 
      E’en now a smiling light
      Was spreading to our sight
O’er one last fibre of a blasted tree,—­
When, lo! the dust of cruel death,
      Tribute of Gods beneath,
And wildering thoughts, and fate-born ecstasy,
Quench the brief gleam in dark Nonentity.