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Scena. 3.
ANTIGONE.CHORVS.
Most bitter plaint, O ladyes, vs behoues,
Behoueth eke not onely bitter plainte,
But that our heares dysheuylde from our heades
About our shoulders hang, and that our brests
With bouncing blowes be all be battered,
Our gastly faces with our nayles defaced:
Behold, your Queene twixt both hir sonnes lyes slayne,
The Queene whom you did loue and honour both,
The Queene that did so tenderly bring vp
And nourishe you, eche one like to hir owne,
Now hath she left you all (O cruell hap)
With hir too cruell death in dying dreade,
Pyning with pensifenesse without all helpe.
O weary life, why bydst thou in my breast,
And I contented be that these mine eyes
Should see hir dye that gaue to me this life,
And I not venge hir death by losse of life?
Who can me giue a fountaine made of mone,
That I may weepe as muche as is my will,
To sowsse this sorow vp in swelling teares?
Cho.
What stony hart could leaue for to lament?
Anti.
O Polinice, now hast thou with thy bloud
Bought all too deare the title to this realme,
That cruell he Eteocles thee refte,
And now also hath reft thee of thy life,
Alas, what wicked dede can wrath not doe?
And out alas for mee.
153
To haue some noble wight to be my pheere,
By whome I might be crownde a royall Queene:
But now, thy hastie death hath done to dye
This dying hope of mine, that hope hencefoorth
None other wedlocke, but tormenting woe,
If so these trembling hands for cowarde dread
Dare not presume to ende this wretched life.
Cho.
Alas deare dame, let not thy raging griefe
Heape one mishap vpon anothers head.
Anti
O dolefull day, wherein my sory sire
Was borne, and yet O more vnhappie houre
When he was crowned king of stately Thebes,
The Hymenei in vnhappie bed,
And wicked wedlocke, wittingly did ioyne
The giltlesse mother with hir giltie sonne,
Out of which roote we be the braunches borne,
To beare the scourge of their so foule offence:
And thou, O father, thou that for this facte,
Haste torne thine eyes from thy tormented head,
Giue eare to this, come foorth, and bende thine eare
To bloudie newes, that canst not them beholde:
Happie in this, for if thine eyes could see
Thy sonnes bothe slayne, and euen betweene them bothe
Thy wife and mother dead, bathed and imbrude
All in one bloud, then wouldst thou dye for dole,
And so might ende all our vnluckie stocke.
But most vnhappie nowe, that lacke of sighte
Shall linger life within thy lucklesse brest,
And still tormented in suche miserie,
Shall alwayes dye, bicause thou canst not dye.
Oedipus entreth.
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