Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) (9 page)

CHORUS
[807]
Ah,
miserable me, I am prophet of these evils.

MESSENGER
[808]
In truth,
beyond all question, struck down in the dust —

CHORUS
[809]
Are they
lying out there? This is hard to bear, but say it just the same.

MESSENGER
[810]
 The
men are dead, murdered by their very own hands.

CHORUS
[811]
Then with
hands so fraternal did they each kill the other together?

MESSENGER
[812]
Yes, so
all too equal was their destiny to them both. All alone, in truth, it consumes
the ill-fated family. We have cause in this for joy and tears — the one because
the city fares well, the other because the leaders, the two generals, have
divided the whole of their property with hammered Scythian steel. They will
possess only that land they take in burial, swept away as they were in
accordance with their father’s curses. [The city is saved, but through
their mutual murder the earth has drunk the blood of the two kings born of the
same seed.]
[
Exit.
]

CHORUS
[822]
O great
Zeus and the divine powers that guard our city, you who indeed protect these
walls of Cadmus, should I rejoice and shout in triumph for the unharmed safety
of the city, or should I lament our leaders in war, now wretched, ill-fated and
childless? Indeed, in exact accordance with their name and as “men of much
strife,” they have perished through their impious intent.

[833]
O black curse on
the family, Oedipus’ curse, now brought to fulfillment! A chill of horror falls
about my heart. In frenzy like a maenad I make my song for the grave as I hear
of their corpses dripping with blood, how they died through the workings of
cruel fate. This song of the spear, sung to the flute, is indeed born of an ill
omen.

[840]
 The
curseful utterance of their father has done its work and not fallen short.
Laius’ plans, made in disobedience, have kept their force. I am anxious for our
city; divine decrees do not lose their edge.

[
The funeral procession with the
bodies of the brothers comes into view.
]
[845]
 O
bringers of immense grief, you have done in this a deed beyond belief, yet
lamentable troubles have indeed come. The events are self-evident; the
messenger’s report is plain to see. Twofold is our distress — double disaster
of kindred murder, this double suffering has come to fulfillment. What shall I
say? What else indeed than that sorrow born of sorrows surround this house’s
hearth?

[854]
But sail upon
the wind of lamentation, my friends, and about your head row with your hands’
rapid stroke in conveyance of the dead, that stroke which always causes the
sacred slack-sailed, black-clothed ship to pass over Acheron to the unseen land
where Apollo does not walk,  the sunless land that receives all men.

[861]
But here come
Antigone and Ismene to do their bitter duty, the dirge over their brothers
both. With all sincerity, I think, will they pour forth their fitting grief
from their lovely, deep-bosomed breasts. But it is right for us, before their
singing, to cry out the awful hymn of the Erinys and thereafter sing the hated
victory song of Hades.

[871]
Ah, sisters most
unfortunate in your kin of all women who clasp their girdle about their robes,
I weep, I groan, and there is no feigning in the shrill cries that come
straight from my heart.

[875]
 Ah, pity
you senseless men, whom friends could not persuade and evils could not wear
down! To your misery you have captured your father’s house with the spear.

[879]
To their misery,
indeed, they found a miserable death in the outrage done their house.

[881]
Ah, you brothers
who were poised to cast over the walls of your home and looked — to your sorrow
— for sole rule, now you have been reconciled by the iron sword.

[886]
The great Erinys
of your father Oedipus has fulfilled it all truly. Pierced through your left
sides, pierced indeed — through those sides that were born from one womb!

[888]
Ah, strange
ones! Ah, the curses that demand death for death! Right through, as you say,
were they struck, with blows to house and body by an unspeakable wrath and by
the doom, called down by their father’s curse, which they shared without
discord.

[900]
 Groaning
spreads throughout the city, too: the walls groan; the land that loves its sons
groans. But for those who come after them there remains their property, on
which account the strife of those terrible-fated men came to fulfillment in
death. In their haste to anger they apportioned their property so that each has
an equal share. To those who loved them their reconciler is not blameless, nor
is Ares agreeable. Under strokes of iron they are come to this, and under
strokes of iron there await them — what, one might perhaps ask — shares in
their father’s tomb.

[915]
 Our shrill,
heart-rending wail goes with them — product of lamentation and pain felt of its
own accord — a wail from a distressed mind, joyless, pouring forth tears from a
heart that wastes away as I weep for these two princes.

[922]
Over these poor
men it can be said that they did much to harm our citizens and also the ranks
of all the foreigners who died in abundance in the fighting.

[926]
Ill-fated beyond
all women who are called by the name of mother is she who bore them. After she
made her own child her own husband, she gave birth to these sons, who have thus
ended their lives with kindred hands giving death for death.

[933]
Of the same
seed, in truth, they were utterly destroyed in unloving divisions, in maddened
discord, in the ending of their strife.

[937]
Their hatred has
ceased. Their life has been mingled in the blood-soaked earth. Now truly their
blood is one. Ruthless is that which resolved their strife, the stranger from
across the sea, sharpened iron rushed from the fire.

[945]
Ruthless, too,
was Ares, the cruel divider of their property, who made their father’s curses
come true. They hold in misery their allotted portion of god-given sorrows.
Beneath their corpses there will be boundless wealth of earth.

[949]
Ah, you have
wreathed your race with many troubles! In the final outcome the Curses have
raised their piercing cry, now that the family is turned to flight in all
directions. A trophy to Ruin now stands at the gate where they struck each
other and where, having conquered them both, the divine power stayed its hand.

[
The following
antiphonal dirge is sung by the two sisters — Antigone standing by the bier of
Polynices, Ismene by that of Eteocles
.]

ANTIGONE
[957]
You were
struck as you struck.

ISMENE
[957]
You died
as you killed.

ANTIGONE
[958]
By the
spear you killed —

ISMENE
[959]
By the
spear you died —

ANTIGONE
[960]
 Your
deed made you wretched.

ISMENE
[961]
You
suffering made you wretched.

ANTIGONE
[962]
Let the
lament come.

ISMENE
[963]
Let the
tears come.

ANTIGONE
[964]
You are
laid out for mourning —

ISMENE
[965]
 Though
you did the killing.

ANTIGONE
[966]
Ah me!

ISMENE
[966]
Ah me!

ANTIGONE
[967]
My heart
is mad with wailing.

ISMENE
[968]
My heart
groans within me.

ANTIGONE
[969]
Ah, the
grief, brother all-lamentable.

ISMENE
[970]
 And
you also, brother all-wretched.

ANTIGONE
[971]
You
perished at the hands of your nearest and dearest.

ISMENE
[972]
And you
killed your nearest and dearest.

ANTIGONE
[973]
Twofold to
tell of —

ISMENE
[974]
Twofold to
look upon —

ANTIGONE
[975]
 Are
these sorrows so close to those.

ISMENE
[976]
Fraternal
sorrows stand close by fraternal sorrows.

CHORUS
[977]
O Fate,
giver of grievous troubles, and awful shade of Oedipus, black Erinys, you are
indeed a mighty force.

ANTIGONE
[980]
 Ah,
me

ISMENE
[980]
Ah, me

ANTIGONE
[981]
Sorrows
hard to behold —

ISMENE
[982]
He showed
me when he returned from exile.

ANTIGONE
[983]
But he
made no return after he had killed.

ISMENE
[984]
He was
saved, but lost his life.

ANTIGONE
[985]
 He
lost it, all too truly.

ISMENE
[986]
And took
this one’s life away.

ANTIGONE
[987]
Wretched
family!

ISMENE
[988]
Wretched
suffering!

ANTIGONE
[989]
Kindred
sorrows full of groans!

ISMENE
[990]
 Sorrows
steeped in tripled griefs.

CHORUS
[991]
O Fate,
giver of grievous troubles, and awful shade of Oedipus, black Erinys, you are
indeed a mighty force.

ANTIGONE
[994]
Now you
know of the Erinys by experience —

ISMENE
[995]
 And
you are made aware no later —

ANTIGONE
[996]
When you
came back to our city.

ISMENE
[997]
Yes, to
face him with your spear.

ANTIGONE
[998]
A tale of
destruction!

ISMENE
[999]
Destruction to look upon!

ANTIGONE
[1000]
 Oh,
the grief —

ISMENE
[1001]
Oh, the
evils —

ANTIGONE
[1002]
For home
and land.

ISMENE
[1003]
Above all
for me,

ANTIGONE
[1004]
And more
also for me.

ISMENE
[1005]
 Ah I
pity your grievous suffering, my king.

ANTIGONE
[1006]
Pity for
you both, most lamentable of all men.

ISMENE
[1007]
You were
possessed by delusion.

ANTIGONE
[1008]
Where
shall we lay them in the earth?

ISMENE
[1009]
Ah, where
their honor is greatest.

ANTIGONE
[1010]
 To
lie beside their father, a cause for him of sorrow.

[
Enter a Herald.
]

HERALD
[1011]
It is my
duty to announce the will and decrees of the council on behalf of the people of
this our Cadmean city.

[1013]
It is decreed,
first, that Eteocles here, on account of his goodwill towards the city, is to
be buried in a kindly grave in its soil; for hating the enemy he chose death in
the city and driven by piety towards his ancestral shrines, he died without
reproach where it is an honor for the young to die. This is how I was commanded
to speak regarding him. But as for his brother, it is decreed that this corpse
of Polyneices is to be cast out of the city unburied to be torn by dogs, since
he would have been the destroyer of the land of the Cadmeans, if one of the
gods had not used his brother’s spear to prevent him. Even in death he will
retain the stain of his guilt against his fathers’ gods, whom he dishonored
when he launched a foreign army against the city to take it. For this reason it
is decreed that he will receive his reward by being buried without honor
beneath the winged birds; and that no labor of the hands shall attend him by
building up a burial mound nor shall anyone offer him reverence in shrill-sung
laments. He is to be refused the honor of being carried in funeral procession
by his loved ones. Such is the decree of the Cadmean authorities.

ANTIGONE
[1032]
I at
least will say something to the rulers of the Cadmeans: even if no one else is
willing to share in burying him, I will bury him alone and risk the peril
 of burying my own brother. Nor am I ashamed to act in defiant opposition
to the rulers of the city. A thing to be held in awe is the common womb from
which we were born, of a wretched mother and unfortunate father. Therefore, my
soul, willingly share his evils, even though they are unwilling, and live in
kindred spirit with the dead. No hollow-bellied wolves will tear his flesh — let
no one “decree” that! Even though I am a woman, I will myself find the means to
give him burial and a grave, carrying the earth in the fold of my linen robe.
With my own hands I will cover him over — let no one “decree” it otherwise.
Take heart, I will have the means to do it.

HERALD
[1048]
I forbid
you to act thus in violation of the city.

ANTIGONE
[1049]
I forbid
you to make useless proclamations to me.

HERALD
[1050]
 And
yet a citizenry that has escaped evil can be harsh.

ANTIGONE
[1051]
Let it be
harsh! This man will not be unburied.

HERALD
[1052]
What!
Will you honor with burial a man whom the city detests?

ANTIGONE
[1053]
For a
long time now the gods have ceased to hold him in honor.

HERALD
[1054]
No, he
was honored until he put this land in jeopardy.