CHORUS. 
        Who, loving life, hath sought I 1
          To outlive the appointed span,
        Shall be arraigned before my thought
          For an infatuate man. 
        Since the added years entail
          Much that is bitter,—­joy
        Flies out of ken, desire doth fail,
          The longed-for moments cloy. 
        But when the troublous life,
          Be it less or more, is past,
        With power to end the strife
          Comes rescuing Death at last. 
Lo! the dark bridegroom waits!  No festal choir
Shall grace his destined hour, no dance, no lyre!

        Far best were ne’er to be, I 2
          But, having seen the day,
        Next best by far for each to flee
          As swiftly as each may,
        Yonder from whence he came: 
          For once let Youth be there
        With her light fooleries, who shall name
          The unnumbered brood of Care? 
        No trial spared, no fall! 
          Feuds, battles, murders, rage,
        Envy, and last of all,
          Despised, dim, friendless age! 
Ay, there all evils, crowded in one room,
Each at his worst of ill, augment the gloom.

Such lot is mine, and round this man of woe, II
  —­As some grey headland of a northward shore
Bears buffets of all-wintry winds that blow,—­
  New storms of Fate are bursting evermore
    In thundrous billows, borne
    Some from the waning light,
Some through mid-noon, some from the rising morn,
    Some from the realm of Night.

ANT.  Ah!  Who comes here?  Sure ’tis the Argive man
Approaching hitherward, weeping amain. 
And, father, it is he!

OED. Whom dost thou mean?

ANT.  The same our thoughts have dwelt on all this while,
Polynices.  He is here.

POLYNICES.  What shall I do? 
I stand in doubt which first I should lament,
My own misfortune or my father’s woe,
Whom here I find an outcast in his age
With you, my sisters, in the stranger land,
Clothed in such raiment, whose inveterate filth
Horridly clings, wasting his reverend form,
While the grey locks over the eye-reft brow
Wave all unkempt upon the ruffling breeze. 
And likewise miserable appears the store
He bears to nourish that time-wasted frame. 
Wretch that I am!  Too late I learn the truth,
And here give witness to mine own disgrace,
Which is as deep as thy distress.  Myself
Declare it.  Ask not others of my guilt. 
But seeing that Zeus on his almighty throne
Keeps Mercy in all he doth to counsel him,
Thou, too, my father, let her plead with thee! 
The evil that is done may yet be healed;
It cannot be augmented.  Art thou silent? 
O turn not from me, father!  Speak but once! 
Wilt thou not answer, but with shame dismiss me
Voiceless, nor make known wherefore thou art wroth? 
O ye his daughters, one with me in blood,
Say, will not ye endeavour to unlock
The stern lips of our unrelenting sire? 
Let him not thus reject in silent scorn
Without response the suppliant of Heaven!