His father flying backwards. Then the boy,
Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent
Fell on his sword and drove it through his side
Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms
The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined
With his expiring gasps. So there they lay
Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites
Are consummated in the halls of Death:
A witness that of ills whate’er befall
Mortals’ unwisdom is the worst of all. Exit Eurydice.
What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone
Without a word importing good or ill.
I marvel too, but entertain good hope.
’Tis that she shrinks in public to lament
Her son’s sad ending, and in privacy
Would with her maidens mourn a private loss.
Trust me, she is discreet and will not err.
I know not, but strained silence, so I deem,
Is no less ominous than excessive grief.
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.
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.
Strophe 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!
Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.
Strophe 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 labour all in vain!
Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,
One lying at thy feet, another yet
More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.
What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?
Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,
Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.
Antistrophe 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?
Look for thyself. She lies for all to view.
Antistrophe 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!
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 cursèd thee, the slayer of her child.
Strophe 3
I shudder with affright
O for a two-edged sword to slay outright
A wretch like me,
Made one with misery.
’Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen
As author of both deaths, hers and her son’s.
In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?
Hearing the loud lament above her son
With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.
Strophe 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!
Well said, if in disaster aught is well:
His past endure demand the speediest cure.
Antistrophe 3
Come, Fate, a friend at need,
Come with all speed!
Come, my best friend,
And speed my end!
Away, away!
Let me not look upon another day!
This for the morrow; to us are present needs
That they whom it concerns must take in hand.
I join your prayer that echoes my desire.
O pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom
Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.
Antistrophe 4
Away with me, a worthless wretch who slew
Unwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.
Whither to turn I know not; every way
Leads but astray,
And on my head I feel the heavy weight
Of crushing Fate.
Of happiness the chiefest part
Is a wise heart:
And to defraud the gods in aught
With peril’s fraught.
Swelling words of high-flown might
Mightily the gods do smite.
Chastisement for errors past
Wisdom brings to age at last.
Colophon
Antigone
was written around 441 BCE by
Sophocles.
It was translated from Ancient Greek in 1912 by
Francis Storr.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Emma Sweeney,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2006 by
An Anonymous Volunteer, David Widger, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Spirit of the Summit,
a painting completed in 1894 by
Frederick Leighton.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 8, 2025, 10:05 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/sophocles/antigone/francis-storr.
The volunteer-driven Standard Ebooks project relies on readers like you to submit typos, corrections, and other improvements. Anyone can contribute at standardebooks.org.
Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
Copyright pages exist to tell you that you can’t do something. Unlike them, this Uncopyright page exists to tell you that the writing and artwork in this ebook are believed to be in the United States public domain; that is, they are believed to be free of copyright restrictions in the United States. The United States public domain represents our collective cultural heritage, and items in it are free for anyone in
