CH.  What augur ye from this?  The queen is gone
Without word spoken either good or bad.

MESS.  I, too, am struck with dread.  But hope consoles me,
That having heard the affliction of her son,
Her pride forbids to publish her lament
Before the town, but to her maids within
She will prescribe to mourn the loss of the house. 
She is too tried in judgement to do ill.

CH.  I cannot tell.  The extreme of silence, too,
Is dangerous, no less than much vain noise.

MESS.  Well, we may learn, if there be aught unseen
Suppressed within her grief-distempered soul,
By going within the palace.  Ye say well: 
There is a danger, even in too much silence.

CH.  Ah! look where sadly comes our lord the King,
Bearing upon his arm a monument—­
If we may speak it—­of no foreign woe,
But of his own infirmity the fruit.

Enter CREON with the body of HAEMON.

CR.  O error of my insensate soul, I 1
Stubborn, and deadly in the fateful end! 
O ye who now behold
Slayer and slain of the same kindred blood! 
O bitter consequence of seeming-wise decree! 
Alas, my son! 
Strange to the world wert thou, and strange the fate
That took thee off, that slew thee; woe is me! 
Not for thy rashness, but my folly.  Ah me!

CH.  Alas for him who sees the right too late!

CR.  Alas! 
I have learnt it now.  But then upon my head
Some God had smitten with dire weight of doom;
And plunged me in a furious course, woe is me! 
Discomforting and trampling on my joy. 
Woe! for the bitterness of mortal pain!

Enter 2nd Messenger.

2ND MESS.  My lord and master.  Thou art master here
Of nought but sorrows.  One within thine arms
Thou bear’st with thee, and in thy palace hall
Thou hast possession of another grief,
Which soon thou shalt behold.

CR.  What more of woe,
Or what more woeful, sounds anew from thee?

2ND MESS.  The honoured mother of that corse, thy queen, Is dead, and bleeding with a new-given wound.

CR.  O horrible!  O charnel gulf I 2
Of death on death, not to be done away,
Why harrowest thou my soul? 
Ill boding harbinger of woe, what word
Have thy lips uttered?  Oh, thou hast killed me again,
Before undone! 
What say’st?  What were thy tidings?  Woe is me! 
Saidst thou a slaughtered queen in yonder hall
Lay in her blood, crowning the pile of ruin?

CH.  No longer hidden in the house.  Behold!
                              [The Corpse of EURYDICE is disclosed

CR.  Alas! 
Again I see a new, a second woe. 
What more calamitous stroke of Destiny
Awaits me still?  But now mine arms enfold
My child, and lo! yon corse before my face! 
Ah! hapless, hapless mother, hapless son!