MESSENGER
Well, let us to the house and solve our doubts,
Whether the tumult of her heart conceals
Some fell design.  It may be thou art right: 
Unnatural silence signifies no good.

CHORUS
          Lo! the King himself appears. 
          Evidence he with him bears
          ’Gainst himself (ah me!  I quake
          ’Gainst a king such charge to make)
          But all must own,
          The guilt is his and his alone.

CREON
(Str. 1)
          Woe for sin of minds perverse,
          Deadly fraught with mortal curse. 
          Behold us slain and slayers, all akin. 
          Woe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin. 
               Alas, my son,
               Life scarce begun,
               Thou wast undone. 
          The fault was mine, mine only, O my son!

CHORUS
Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.

CREON
(Str. 2)
By sorrow schooled.  Heavy the hand of God,
Thorny and rough the paths my feet have trod,
Humbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain;
Poor mortals, how we labor all in vain!
[Enter SECOND MESSENGER]

SECOND MESSENGER
Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,
One lying at thy feet, another yet
More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.

CREON
What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

SECOND MESSENGER
Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,
Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.

CREON
(Ant. 1)
     How bottomless the pit! 
          Does claim me too, O Death? 
          What is this word he saith,
     This woeful messenger?  Say, is it fit
     To slay anew a man already slain? 
          Is Death at work again,
     Stroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?

CHORUS
Look for thyself.  She lies for all to view.

CREON
(Ant. 2)
Alas! another added woe I see. 
What more remains to crown my agony? 
A minute past I clasped a lifeless son,
And now another victim Death hath won. 
Unhappy mother, most unhappy son!

SECOND MESSENGER
Beside the altar on a keen-edged sword
She fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst
She mourned for Megareus who nobly died
Long since, then for her son; with her last breath
She cursed thee, the slayer of her child.

CREON
(Str. 3)
          I shudder with affright
O for a two-edged sword to slay outright
          A wretch like me,
          Made one with misery.

SECOND MESSENGER
’Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen
As author of both deaths, hers and her son’s.

CREON
In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?

SECOND MESSENGER
Hearing the loud lament above her son
With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.

CREON
(Str. 4)
I am the guilty cause.  I did the deed,
Thy murderer.  Yea, I guilty plead. 
My henchmen, lead me hence, away, away,
A cipher, less than nothing; no delay!