University of Virginia Library

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE THE FIRST.

Argia.
Ar.
Argia, thou art now at last in Thebes ...
After the rapid journey I need rest ...
Oh how, as if by flight, I came from Argos!
Faithful Menætes, thou, infirm with age,
Couldst scarce keep pace with me. But yet I am
In Thebes. The shades of night a friendly aid
Lent to my enterprise; unseen I entered.
This is the horrible palace of my spouse,
Too well beloved, this is the tomb and cradle.
Oh, Polinices! ... thy insidious brother
Here, in thy blood, his thirst for vengeance sated.
Thy squalid shade, yet unavenged, still strays
Around these walls, and spurns sepulchral rites
In impious Thebes, so near thy cruel brother.
It seems thou beckonest me to Argos still ...
To thee a sure asylum Argos was;
Ah, hadst thou never moved thy feet from thence!
I come, I come, for thy most sacred dust.
Antigone alone, that faithful sister,
By thee so justly and so much beloved,
With pious hands can aid me to regain it.
Oh, how I love her! oh, what soothing thoughts
Will give a transient softness to my grief,
In seeing, knowing, and embracing her!
Yes, here, with her, upon that gelid urn,
Which should belong to me, I come to weep:
And shall belong: a sister to a wife
Cannot refuse it. Ah! our only child,
Behold the gift I bring thee back to Argos;
Thy sole inheritance; thy father's urn!
But where does my incautious sorrow lead me?
Shall I, an Argive, be in Thebes, and not
Remember where I am? I wait the hour
In which Antigone may venture forth.
How shall I know her? ... And should I be seen? ...
Oh, heavens! 'tis now that I begin to tremble; ...
Alone in Thebes ... oh! ... heard I not a step?
Alas! what can I say? ... By what contrivance? ...
I will conceal myself.

SCENE THE SECOND.

Antigone.
Ant.
This is the palace:
The night is dark: quick; let me hence depart ...
What? do I hesitate? and do my feet
Stagger beneath my weight? Why tremble thus?
Whence all this apprehension? Do I plan
Aught that is criminal? Do I fear death?
I fear alone not to atchieve my task.
Oh, Polinices! oh, beloved brother!
Oh, wept till now in vain! ... The time is past
For tears alone ... now is the time for action.
I feel myself superior to my sex:
Yes, on this day, in spite of cruel Creon,
Thou shalt from me receive funereal honours:
Yes, thou shalt now receive a sister's life,
Or from her hands the last sad obsequies.
Oh Night, who on this spot, of light unworthy,
Shouldst reign eternally, oh pall thyself
In thy most dense, impenetrable glooms,
To second thus my lofty purposes.
Conceal me from the vigilant espial
Of royal satellites: I hope in thee.
Ye gods, if ye have not expressly sworn,
That, in this Thebes, no pious ceremony
Shall e'er be consummated, I but ask
So much of life as may ensure performance
To this one act of sisterly affection.
Let me press forward: holy is the office:
A holy impulse urges me to action,
A lofty impulse of fraternal love ...
But who pursues me? Ah! I am betrayed ...
A female comes to me? Who art thou? speak ...

SCENE THE THIRD.

Argia, Antigone.
Ar.
I am a child of woe.

Ant.
What seekest thou
Within these thresholds at so late an hour?

Ar.
I ... seek ... Antigone ...

Ant.
But who art thou?
Know'st thou Antigone? To her art known?
What wantest thou with her? 'Twixt her and thee
What common interest?

Ar.
That of grief and pity ...

Ant.
Pity? Darest thou pronounce that word in Thebes?
Know'st not that Creon reigns in Thebes? Perchance
He is a stranger to thee?

Ar.
A few hours
I've been in Thebes.

Ant.
And darest thou, in this palace,
By stealth, a stranger, introduce thyself?

Ar.
If in this palace I a stranger am,
It is the fault of Thebes: here I should not
Hear myself so accosted.

Ant.
What say'st thou?
Where wert thou born?

Ar.
In Argos.

Ant.
Fatal name!
With horror it inspires me! Had it been
Always unknown to me, I had not lived
In everlasting tears.

Ar.
If such distress
Argos in thee excites, Thebes causes me
Perpetual regret.

Ant.
There is a tone
That moves me in thy accents. I would sooth
Thy griefs by sympathy, if any griefs
Except my own could move me. I should be
As much disposed to listen to thy tale,
As thou couldst be to tell it; but, alas!
Time now to me is wanting, who lament
A much-loved brother.

Ar.
Ah! it must be she:
Antigone thou art ...

Ant.
... But ... thou ...

Ar.
'Tis she.
I am Argia; the unhappy widow
Of thy loved brother.

Ant.
What is it I hear?

Ar.
My only hope, my only consolation,
Beloved sister, I at last embrace thee.
Scarce hadst thou spoken, ere thy tones recalled
The voice of Polinices: 'twas a sound
Inspiring boldness in my trembling heart,
And drew me from my hiding place to meet thee.
How blest am I! ... I find thee ... Suffer me,
Ah, do thou grant, that, 'mid embraces kind,
To my long-pent-up tears, upon thy bosom
I may, at last, give unrestrain'd indulgence.

Ant.
Ah, how I tremble! Daughter of Adrastes,
Art thou in Thebes? within these guilty thresholds?
In Creon's power! Ah, unexpected sight!
Sight not less dear than painful!

Ar.
In this palace,
In which thou hoped'st to enjoy my presence,
And where I hoped for thine, is this thy welcome?

Ant.
Dear art thou to me, more than a sister dear ...
Ah, Polinices knew how much I loved thee;
To me, thy countenance alone was strange;
Thy manners, disposition, and thy heart,
Thy mighty love for him, I knew it all.
E'en as he loved I love thee: but I wish'd not,
Nor wish I now, to see thee in this palace ...
A thousand fatal perils here surround thee.

Ar.
Canst thou suppose me capable of fear,
Now my loved Polinices is no more?
What is there left to lose, what to desire?
Let me once fold thee to my breast and die.

Ant.
Here thou may'st have a death unworthy of thee.

Ar.
Die howsoe'er I may, if that I die
Upon the tomb of my beloved husband,
That death will be most worthy, and most welcome.

Ant.
What is it that thou say'st? ... alas! ... his tomb!
To him, who is thy husband and my brother,
A little dust to cover his dead body
In Thebes, within his very palace gates,
Is interdicted.

Ar.
But the unburied corse?

Ant.
Lies on the plain, exposed to beasts of prey.

Ar.
To the plain I fly.

Ant.
Ah, check thy eagerness!
Creon, the barbarous Creon, swoln with pride,
From the possession of the usurped throne,
Braves fearlessly the laws, the ties of nature,
And, more than these, the gods; not satisfied
With interdicting from the sons of Argos
All sepulture, a barbarous death awaits
Those, who, in secret, give to them a tomb.

Ar.
My spouse a prey to wild beasts on the plain!
And through that very plain e'en now I passed.
And did I leave thee there? ... Now the sixth day
Dawns since he fell transfix'd by his fierce brother;
And uninterr'd, and naked there he lies!
His bones there “welter to the parching winds,”
From his paternal palace thus by force
Excluded? and a mother suffers it?

Ant.
Beloved Argia, thou dost not yet know
The extent of our unparallel'd misfortunes.
No sooner had Jocasta seen accomplish'd
The horrid fratricide, (ah, wretched queen!)
She shed no tears, nor made the air resound
With loud laments: unutterable grief
All speech, all natural emotion, palsied;
Her stony eye-balls, motionless and dry,
Upon the ground she fix'd: from Erebus,
The shades of murder'd Laius, of her sons,
Stabb'd interchangeably each by the other,
With a tremendous vehemence she summon'd.
They rose before her eyes; for a long time,
Upon the spectral visions it had raised,
Her madden'd phantasy did strangely feed
With passionate eagerness: she struggled long,
And mid reiterated throes of anguish,
At last regain'd her reason: by her side
She saw her matrons, and her desolate daughter.
She was resolved to die, but spake it not;
And thus she feigned, the better to delude us ...
Incautious as I was, I was deluded.
I ought not to have left her. She made shew
Of wishing to give nature the repose
It so much wanted; I indulged her wish,
And from her side departed: she had snatched
The sword, from his yet palpitating side,
Of Polinices; with more promptitude,
Than I can tell it thee, in her own breast
Plunged it, and fell, and breathed her latest sigh ...
And I, why do I live? ... the impure remnant
Of such an impure race, I also ought
To plunge the same sword in my lonely heart:
But pity seized me for my sightless father,
My wretched father, neither dead nor living.
For him have I endured the abhorred light;
And for his tremulous age preserve myself.

Ar.
For Œdipus? ... On him should rather fall,
On him alone, the horror of his crimes.
Does he then live, and Polinices die?

Ant.
Ah, wretched Œdipus, hadst thou but seen him?
He of our Polinices is the sire,
And pangs e'en greater than his fault endures.
Laden with sorrow, indigent, and blind,
A banished man, a wanderer, he goes
From Thebes. The tyrant dared to drive him thence.
Ah, wretched Œdipus! to tell his name
He will not venture: on our hated heads,
On Creon, Thebes, and even on the Gods,
Blasphemous imprecations he will heap.
I had decreed myself to be the prop
Of his blind, vacillating feebleness;
But I was torn from him by force, and here
Constrain'd to tarry: thus the Gods might will;
For scarcely had my father left the city,
Ere Creon, the unheard-of prohibition
Touching the sepulture of Argives slain
Promulgated; and who, except myself,
In Thebes, had ventured to defy its penance?

Ar.
Who, if not I, should share with thee the toil?
Here Heaven impell'd me wisely. To obtain
Of thee the honour'd relics I came hither:
Beyond my hope, I here arrive in time
To see again, and to my bosom clasp
That form adored; to wash with my warm tears
That execrable wound; to pacify,
With rites funereal, the unquiet shade ...
Why do we longer tarry? Sister, come ...

Ant.
Yes, to this holy office let us go;
But go, like victims, to appointed death;
I ought to do it, and I wish to die:
I have nothing in the world except my father,
And he is torn from me; death I expect,
And death I wish for. Leave me to construct it—
Thou, who shouldst life still prize—that funeral pile,
Which will unite me with my much-loved brother.
E'en while he lived his soul and mine were one:
Ah, may one flame consume our forms, and leave
One undistinguishable heap of dust.

Ar.
And ought not I to die? What dost thou say?
Dost thou thus wish to conquer me in grief?
Equals we were in love; do I say equals?
No, mine was most profound. Ah, deeper far
Is a wife's love than sisters can conceive!

Ant.
Argia, I will not dispute with thee
About our love: thy death I will oppose.
Thou art a widow: what a husband thou
Hast lost I know: but thou, like me, of incest
Art not the fruit: thou hast a mother still:
Like mine, thy father is not blind, or outcast;
Nor—worse than all of these—a father guilty.
The more propitious gods to thee have given
No brothers, who have emulously bathed
Each in the other's blood their murderous swords.
Think it not hard, then, if I, so far severed
From thee by woes unparallel'd in life,
As one that's incommunicably stricken,
Covet self-sacrifice unshared by any.
Ere I was born my life was forfeited.
Return to Argos ... Hast thou not forgotten?
Thou still hast there a living pledge of love;
There, in thy child, thou hast the living image
Of Polinices: ah! return to Argos;
Rejoice the heart of thy despairing father,
Who knows not where thou art; go, I conjure thee:
No eye hath seen thee on these thresholds yet;
Yet thou hast time. Leave me alone to brave
The fatal prohibition.

Ar.
Ah, my son?
I love him; yes, I love thee: but wouldst thou
That I should fly, if death is here decreed
For Polinices? Thou misjudgest me.
Adrastes will protect my little one,
To him will be a father. I, alas!
Should bring him up in tears; while he should be
To courage and to vengeance disciplined.
There is no threat, no terror, that can scare me
From the beholding his beloved corse.
My Polinices, shall another yield thee
The last commemorative obsequies?

Ant.
Wilt yield thy neck to the Theban battle-axe?

Ar.
It is the penalty that's infamous,
And not the punishment. The infamy
Will fall on Creon should we be condemn'd.
All will feel horror when they hear his name;
Pity when they hear ours ...

Ant.
And wilt thou take
From me such glory?

Ar.
I will see my husband,
And die upon his bosom. Tell me, sister,
What right hast thou my right to controvert?
Thou who didst see him die, and livest yet ...

Ant.
Now I believe thee equal to myself.
At first, I felt myself, against my will,
Constrained to ascertain what female fears
Might in thy bosom lurk: I doubted not
The depth of thy affection, but thy courage.

Ar.
Who is not made courageous by despair?
But, if I merited thy brother's love,
Could I in thought, or action, be ignoble?

Ant.
Pardon me, sister: truly do I love thee;
I tremble; and thy destiny alarms me.
But thou'rt determined? Let us then depart.
With the devoted race of Œdipus,
May Heaven confound thee not! The night appears
More black than usual: certainly the gods
For us have darken'd it. Take special care,
Sister, to check thy tears; more than aught else
They would betray us. The fierce satellites
Of Creon rigorously guard the plain:
To them may nought betray us, till the flames
Consuming the inanimate body, blaze.

Ar.
I will not weep; ... but thou; ... wilt thou not weep?

Ant.
We will weep silently.

Ar.
Art thou informed
On what part of the plain his body lies?

Ant.
Let us depart: I know where it was thrown
By Creon's impious mercenaries. Come.
Lugubrious torches I will take with me:
Some sparks with which to light them, we will there
From flint elicit. Hence, without delay!
Silently bold accompany my steps.