, daughter, haste, since, if indeed I reach my sons before they
engage, I still exist in heaven's fair light, but if they die, I shall lie
dead with them.

CHORUS.

Alas! alas! shuddering with horror, shuddering is my breast; and through my
flesh came pity, pity for the unhappy mother, on account of her two
children, whether of them then will distain with blood the other (alas me
for my sufferings, O Jove, O earth), the own brother's neck, the own
brother's life, in arms, in slaughter? Wretched, wretched I, over which
corse then shall I raise the lamentation for the dead? O earth, earth, the
two beasts of prey, blood-thirsty souls, brandishing the spear, will
quickly distain with blood the fallen, fallen enemy. Wretches, that they
ever came to the thought of a single combat! In a foreign strain will I
mourn with tears my elegy of groans due to the dead. Destiny is at
hand--death is near; this day will decide the event. Ill-fated, ill-fated
murder because of the Furies! But I see Creon here with clouded brow
advancing toward the house, I will cease therefore from the groans I am
uttering.

CREON, CHORUS.

CRE. Ah me! what shall I do? whether am I to groan in weeping myself, or
the city, which a cloud of such magnitude encircles as to cast us amidst
the gloom of Acheron? For my son has perished having died for the city,
having achieved a glorious name, but to me a name of sorrow. Him having
taken just now from the dragon's den, stabbed by his own hand, I wretched
bore in my arms; and the whole house resounds with shrieks; but I, myself
aged, am come after my aged sister Jocasta, that she may wash and lay out
my son now no more. For it behooves the living well to revere the God below
by paying honors to the dead.

CHOR. Thy sister is gone out of the house, O Creon, and the girl Antigone
attending the steps of her mother.

CRE. Whither? and for what hap? tell me.

CHOR. She heard that her sons were about to come to a contest in single
battle for the royal palace.

CRE. How sayest thou? whilst I was fondly attending to my son's corse, I
arrived not so far _in knowledge_, as to be acquainted with this also.

CHOR. But thy sister has indeed been gone some time; but I think, O Creon,
that the contest, in which their lives are at stake, has already been
concluded by the sons of Oedipus.

CRE. Ah me! I see indeed this signal, the downcast eye and countenance of
the approaching messenger, who will relate every thing th