Oedipus Trilogy eBook

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Antigone
(Ant. 1)
Love can turn past pain to bliss,
     What seemed bitter now is sweet.
Ah me! that happy toil is sweet.
     The guidance of those dear blind feet.
Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom,
     E’en in the tomb
Never shalt thou lack of love repine,
     Her love and mine.

Chorus
His fate—

Antigone
Is even as he planned.

Chorus
How so?

Antigone
He died, so willed he, in a foreign land.
Lapped in kind earth he sleeps his long last sleep,
     And o’er his grave friends weep.
How great our lost these streaming eyes can tell,
     This sorrow naught can quell.
Thou hadst thy wish ’mid strangers thus to die,
     But I, ah me, not by.

Ismene
Alas, my sister, what new fate
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
Befalls us orphans desolate?

Chorus
His end was blessed; therefore, children, stay
Your sorrow. Man is born to fate a prey.

Antigone
(Str. 2)
Sister, let us back again.

Ismene
Why return?

Antigone
My soul is fain—
Ismene
Is fain?

Antigone
To see the earthy bed.

Ismene
Sayest thou?

Antigone
Where our sire is laid.

Ismene
Nay, thou can’st not, dost not see—

Antigone
Sister, wherefore wroth with me?

Ismene
Know’st not—beside—

Antigone
More must I hear?