Parodos
[Episode]
Stretch out your hand to me from the stairs now, stretch it out, the hand of age to youth,
Antigone
helping me to rise.
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Old servant
There! clasp it, maiden; you have come at the right time; for Pelasgia’s army is just upon the move, and they are separating the companies.
child of Leto! The plain is one lightning-flash of bronze.
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Old servant
Ah! this is no ordinary home-coming of Polyneices, with the clash of many horses, many arms.
Antigone
Are the gates barred, and the brazen bolts
fitted into Amphion’s walls of stone?
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Old servant
Never fear! All is safe within the town. But see the first one, if you want to know him.
Antigone
Who is that one with the white crest,
who marches before the army, lightly bearing on his arm a shield all of bronze?
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Old servant
A captain, mistress.
Antigone
Who is he? Who is his family? Tell me his name, old man.
Old servant
He claims to be Mycenaean; by Lerna’s streams he dwells, the lord Hippomedon.
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Antigone
Ah, ah! How proud, how fearful to see, like an earth-born giant, with stars engraved on his shield, not resembling
Old servant
Do you see the one crossing Dirce’s stream?
Antigone
His armor is quite different. Who is that?
Old servant
Tydeus, the son of Oeneus, Aetolian battle-spirit in his breast.
Antigone
Is this the one, old man, who married a sister of Polyneices’ wife? What a foreign look his armor has, half-barbarian!
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Old servant
Yes, my child; all Aetolians carry shields,
and are most unerring marksmen with their darts.
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How do you know them so clearly, old man?
I saw and learned the devices on their shields before, when I went with the terms of the truce to your brother, since I looked closely at them, I know the armed men.
Antigone
Who is that youth passing by the tomb of Zethus, with long flowing hair, fierce to see? Is he a captain? For an armed crowd follows at his heels.
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Old servant
That is Parthenopaeus, Atalanta’s son.
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Antigone
May Artemis, who rushes over the hills with his mother, lay him low with an arrow, for coming against my city to sack it!
Old servant
May it be so, my child; but they have come here with justice,
and my fear is that the gods will take the rightful view.
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Antigone
Where is the one who was born of the same mother as I was, by a painful destiny? Oh! tell me, old friend, where Polyneices is.
Old servant
He is standing by Adrastus,
near the tomb of Niobe’s seven unwed daughters. Do you see him?
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Antigone
I see him, yes! but not clearly; I see the outline of his form, the likeness of his breast. Would I could speed through the sky, swift as a cloud before the wind,
towards my own dear brother, and throw my arms about my darling’s neck, so long, poor boy! an exile. How distinguished he is with his golden weapons, old man, flashing like the morning rays!
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Old servant
He will come to this house, under truce, to fill your heart with joy.
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Antigone
Who is that, old man, on his chariot, driving white horses?
Old servant
That, lady, is the prophet Amphiaraus; with him are the victims, earth’s bloodthirsty streams.
Antigone
Daughter of the sun with dazzling zone, O moon, you circle of golden light, how quietly, with what restraint he drives, goading first one horse, then the other! But where is the one who utters those dreadful insults against this city?
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Old servant
Capaneus? There he is, calculating how he may scale the towers, taking the measure of our walls up and down.
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Antigone
O Nemesis, and roaring thunder-peals of Zeus and blazing lightning-bolts, oh! put to sleep his presumptuous boasting!
This is the man who says he will give the Theban girls as captives of his spear to the women of Mycenae, to Lerna’s trident, and the waters of Amymone, dear to Poseidon, when he has them enslaved.
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Never, never, Lady Artemis, golden-haired child of Zeus, may I endure that slavery.
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Old servant
My child, go inside, and stay beneath the shelter of your maiden chamber, now that you have had
your wish and seen all that you wanted; for a crowd of women is coming toward the royal palace, as confusion enters the city. Now women by nature love scandal; and if they get some slight handle for their gossip
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they exaggerate it, for women seem to have pleasure in saying nothing wholesome about each other.
Exeunt Antigone and the old servant.
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[Choral 1]
From the Tyrian swell of the sea I came, a choice offering for Loxias from the island of Phoenicia,
Chorus
to be a slave to Phoebus in his halls, where he dwells under the snow-swept peaks of Parnassus; through the Ionian sea I sailed in the waves,
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over the unharvested plains, in the gusts of Zephyrus that ride from Sicily, sweetest music in the sky.
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as beauty’s gift for Loxias, to the land of Cadmus I came, sent here to the towers of Laius, the home of my kin, the famous sons of Agenor.
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And I became the handmaid of Phoebus, dedicated like his statues of wrought gold. But the water of Castalia is still waiting for me to drench the maiden glory of my hair
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for the service of Phoebus.
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[Choral]
Hail, rock that lights up a double-crested flash of fire above the frenzied heights of Dionysus; and the vine, that every day
Chorus
lets fall the lush cluster of grapes; and the holy cavern of the serpent and the gods’ watchtower on the hills, and the sacred snow-swept mountain!
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Would I were free of fear and circling in the dance of the deathless god, having left Dirce for the valleys of Phoebus at the center of the world.
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[Choral 2]
But now I find
Chorus
the impetuous god of war has come to battle before the walls, and is kindling a murderous blaze—may he not succeed!—for this city. For a friend’s pain is shared, and if this land with its seven towers
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suffers any mischance, Phoenicia’s realm will share it. Ah me! our blood is one; we are all children of Io, the horned maid; these sorrows I claim as mine.
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Around the city a thick cloud of shields is kindling a shape of bloody battle, which Ares will soon learn, if he brings upon the sons of Oedipus
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the curse of the Furies. O Argos, city of Pelasgia! I dread your might, and also what comes from the gods; for the one who approaches his home in armor is setting out to a contest
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that is not without justice.
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