But hush! Hæmon, whom Antigone, Robbing herself of life in burying, Against Creon's law, Polynices, Robs of a loved bride-pale, imploring,

Waiting her passage,

Forth from the palace hitherward comes.

Hæmon.

No, no, old men, Creon I curse not
I weep, Thebans,

One than Creon crueller far!

For he, he, at least, by slaying her, August laws doth mightily vindicate ; But thou, too-bold, headstrong, pitiless! Ah me!—honourest more than thy lover, O Antigone!

A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.

The Chorus.

Nor was the love untrue

Which the Dawn-Goddess bore

To that fair youth she erst,

Leaving the salt sea-beds

And coming flush'd over the stormy frith

Of loud Euripus, saw

Saw and snatch'd, wild with love,
From the pine-dotted spurs

Of Parnes, where thy waves,

Asopus gleam rock-hemm'd

The Hunter of the Tanagræan Field.2

But him, in his sweet prime,

By severance immature,

By Artemis' soft shafts,

She, though a Goddess born,

Saw in the rocky isle of Delos die.

Such end o'ertook that love.

For she desired to make

Immortal mortal man,

And blend his happy life,

Far from the Gods, with hers;

To him postponing an eternal law.

Hæmon.

But like me, she, wroth, complaining,
Succumb'd to the envy of unkind Gods;
And, her beautiful arms unclasping,

Her fair youth unwillingly gave.

The Chorus.

Nor, though enthroned too high

To fear assault of envious Gods,

His beloved Argive seer would Zeus retain
From his appointed end

In this our Thebes; but when
His flying steeds came near

To cross the steep Ismenian glen,

The broad earth open'd, and whelm'd them and him;

And through the void air sang

At large his enemy's spear.

And fain would Zeus have saved his tired son
Beholding him where the Two Pillars stand

O'er the sun-redden'd western straits,3
Or at his work in that dim lower world.
Fain would he have recall'd

The fraudulent oath which bound To a much feebler wight the heroic man.

But he preferr❜d Fate to his strong desire.
Nor did there need less than the burning pile

Under the towering Trachis crags,

And the Spercheios vale, shaken with groans,

And the roused Maliac gulph,

And scared Etæan snows,

To achieve his son's deliverance, O my child!

FRAGMENT OF CHORUS OF A

"DEJANEIRA."

O FRIVOLOUS mind of man,

Light ignorance, and hurrying, unsure thoughts! Though man bewails you not,

How I bewail you !

Little in your prosperity

Do you seek counsel of the Gods.

Proud, ignorant, self-adored, you live alone.

In profound silence stern,

Among their savage gorges and cold springs,
Unvisited remain

The great oracular shrines.

Thither in your adversity

Do you betake yourselves for light,

But strangely misinterpret all you hear.