Stasimon 5
[Episode]
and having in his grievous fall kept his sword, he made a last effort and drove it through the heart of Eteocles. They both lie there, fallen side by side, biting the dust with their teeth, and they have not decided the mastery.
1420
Chorus Leader
Ah, ah, how I mourn for your sorrows, Oedipus! The god, it seems, has fulfilled those curses of yours.
1425
Messenger
Now hear what further woes succeeded. Just as her two sons had fallen and lay dying, their wretched mother came on the scene,
her daughter with her, in great haste. When she saw their mortal wounds, she wailed: O my sons, the help I bring is too late. And throwing herself on each in turn she wept and mourned, sorrowing over all her toil in nursing them, and their sister, by her side, mourned also:
1430
Supporters of your mother’ s age, dearest brothers, leaving me forlorn, unwed! Then lord Eteocles with one deep dying gasp, hearing his mother, laid on her his clammy hand,
1435
and though he could not say a word, his moistened eye was eloquent to prove his love. And Polyneices was still breathing, and seeing his sister and his old mother he said: Mother, our end has come; I pity you
1440
and my sister Antigone and my dead brother. For I loved him though he became my enemy, I loved him in spite of all. Bury me, mother, and you, my sister, in my native land; pacify the city’s wrath that l may get at least that much
1445
of my own fatherland, although I lost my home. With your hand, mother, close my eyes—he himself places her fingers on the lids—and farewell; for already the darkness wraps me round.
1450
So both at once breathed out their life of sorrow.
But when their mother saw this sad event, in her overmastering grief she snatched a sword from the dead, and did a fearful deed; for she drove the steel right through her throat, and there she lies, dead with those she loved so well, her arms thrown round them both.
1455
The army sprang to their feet and fell to wrangling, we maintaining that victory rested with my master, they with theirs; and there was strife among the generals, some holding that Polyneices gave the first wound with his spear, others that, as both were dead, victory rested with neither.
1460
Meanwhile Antigone crept away from the army. They rushed to their weapons, but by some lucky forethought the people of Cadmus had sat down under arms; and by a sudden attack we surprised the Argive army before it was fully equipped.
1465
Not one withstood our onset, and they filled the plain with fugitives, while blood was streaming from the countless dead our spears had slain. When victory had crowned our warfare, some set up an image of Zeus as a trophy, others were stripping the Argive dead of their shields
1470
and sending their spoils inside the battlements; and others with Antigone are bringing the dead here for their friends to mourn. So for the city, the result of this struggle hovers between the two extremes of good and evil fortune. Exit Messenger.
1475
Chorus
No longer do the misfortunes of this house extend to hearsay only; three corpses of the slain lie here at the palace for all to see; by one common death they have drawn their lot, a life of darkness.
1480
Antigone
I do not veil my tender cheek shaded with curls, nor do I feel shame, from maiden modesty, at the dark red beneath my eyes, the blush upon my face, as I hurry on, in bacchic revelry for the dead,
1485
casting from my hair its mantle and letting my delicate saffron robe fly loose, a tearful escort to the dead. Ah me!
1490
Oh, Polyneices! you were rightly named, after all; woe to you, Thebes!
Your strife—not strife, but murder on murder— has brought the house of Oedipus to ruin with dire and grim bloodshed. What harmonious or tuneful wailing can I summon,
1495
for my tears, my tears, oh, my home! oh, my home! as I bear these three kindred bodies, my mother and her sons, a welcome sight to the Fury? She destroyed the house of Oedipus, root and branch,
1500
