Stasimon 6
[Choral]
O great Zeus and the divine powers that guard our city, you who indeed protect these walls of Cadmus,
Chorus
should I rejoice and shout in triumph for the unharmed safety of the city, or should I lament our leaders in war,
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now wretched, ill-fated and childless? Indeed, in exact accordance with their name and as men of much strife, they have perished through their impious intent.
830
[Choral 1]
O black curse on the family, Oedipus’ curse, now brought to fulfillment! A chill of horror falls about my heart.
Chorus
In frenzy like a maenad I make my song for the grave as I hear of their corpses dripping with blood, how they died through the workings of cruel fate. This song of the spear, sung to the flute, is indeed born of an ill omen.This passage has also been taken to deprecate as inauspicious the previous ode (720 ff.) because it was sung during the combat of the brothers: It was for a tomb I framed my song when, inspired by frenzy, I heard (prophetically) . . . Ill-omened, indeed, the contest of the spear to such an accompaniment.
835
The curseful utterance of their father has done its work and not fallen short. Laius’ plans, made in disobedience, have kept their force. I am anxious for our city; divine decrees do not lose their edge. The funeral procession with the bodies of the brothers comes into view.
840
[Choral]
O bringers of immense grief, you have done in this a deed beyond belief, yet lamentable troubles have indeed come.
845
The events are self-evident; the messenger’s report is plain to see. Twofold is our distress—double disaster
of kindred murder, this double suffering has come to fulfillment. What shall I say? What else indeed than that sorrow born of sorrows surround this house’s hearth?
But sail upon the wind of lamentation, my friends,
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and about your head row with your hands’ rapid stroke in conveyance of the dead,As the souls of the brothers are now being conveyed across Acheron in Charon’s boat, the Chorus in imagination aid their passage by the ritual of mourning. Their song of lamentation stands for the wind, the beating of their heads by their hands are the strokes of the oars. Contrasted with the grim vessel that transports all spirits to the sunless land of Hades, is the ship that goes to the festival at Delos, the clearly-seen island, the land of Apollo, god of light and health. that stroke which always causes the sacred slack-sailed, black-clothed ship to pass over Acheron to the unseen land where Apollo does not walk,
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the sunless land that receives all men.
But here come Antigone and Ismene to do their bitter duty, the dirge over their brothers both. With all sincerity, I think, will they
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pour forth their fitting grief from their lovely, deep-bosomed breasts. But it is right for us, before their singing, to cry out the awful hymn of the Erinys and thereafter
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sing the hated victory song of Hades.
Ah, sisters most unfortunate in your kin of all women who clasp their girdle about their robes, I weep, I groan, and there is no feigning in the shrill cries that come straight from my heart.
870
[Choral 1]
Ah, pity you senseless men, whom friends could not persuade and evils could not wear down! To your misery you have captured your father’s house with the spear.
875
Chorus
To their misery, indeed,
they found a miserable death in the outrage done their house.
880
Ah, you brothers who were poised to cast over the walls of your home and looked—to your sorrow—for sole rule, now you have been
reconciled by the iron sword.
The great Erinys of your father Oedipus has fulfilled it all truly.
885
[Choral 2]
Pierced through your left sides, pierced indeed—
Chorus
through those sides that were born from one womb! Ah, strange ones! Ah, the curses that demand death for death!
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Right through, as you say, were they struck, with blows to house and body by an unspeakable wrath and by the doom, called down by their father’s curse, which they shared without discord.
895
Groaning spreads throughout the city, too: the walls groan; the land that loves its sons groans. But for those who come after them there remains their property, on which account the strife
900
of those terrible-fated men came to fulfillment in death.
In their haste to anger they apportioned their property so that each has an equal share. To those who loved them their reconciler is not blameless,
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nor is Ares agreeable.
910
[Choral 3]
Under strokes of iron they are come to this, and under strokes of iron there await them—what, one might perhaps ask—shares in their father’s tomb.As the brothers were to divide the substance of their dead father, their equal inheritance was the tomb. λαχαί means both apportioning of possessions and digging.
Chorus
Our shrill, heart-rending wail goes with them—product of lamentation and pain felt of its own accord—a wail from a distressed mind, joyless, pouring forth tears from a heart
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that wastes away as I weep for these two princes.
920
Over these poor men it can be said that they did much to harm our citizens and also the ranks of all the foreigners
who died in abundance in the fighting.
Ill-fated beyond all women who are called by the name of mother is she who bore them. After she made her own child her own husband,
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she gave birth to these sons, who have thus ended their lives with kindred hands giving death for death.
930
[Choral 4]
Of the same seed, in truth, they were utterly destroyed in unloving divisions,
Chorus
in maddened discord, in the ending of their strife.
Their hatred has ceased. Their life has been mingled in the blood-soaked earth. Now truly their blood is one.
935
Ruthless is that which resolved their strife, the stranger from across the sea, sharpened iron rushed from the fire. Ruthless, too, was Ares, the cruel divider of their property, who made their father’s curses come true.
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They hold in misery their allotted portion of god-given sorrows. Beneath their corpses there will be boundless wealth of earth.
Ah, you have wreathed
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your race with many troubles! In the final outcome the Curses have raised their piercing cry, now that the family is turned to flight in all directions. A trophy to Ruin now stands at the gate
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where they struck each other and where, having conquered them both, the divine power stayed its hand.
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