The Tragedies of Euripides Part 29

ANT. And I will die with him too, that thou mayest farther know.

CRE. Go--thou shalt not slay my son--quit the land.

DIPUS, ANTIGONE, CHORUS.

D. O daughter, I praise thee indeed for thy zealous intentions.

ANT. But if I were to marry, and thou suffer banishment alone, my father?

D. Stay and be happy; I will bear with content mine own ills.

ANT. And who will minister to thee, blind as thou art, my father?

D. Falling wherever it shall be my fate, I will lie on the ground.

ANT. But dipus, where is he? and the renowned Enigmas?

D. Perished! one day blest me, and one day destroyed.

ANT. Ought not I then to have a share in thy woes?

D. To a daughter exile with a blind father is shameful.

ANT. Not to a right-minded one however, but honorable, my father.

D. Lead me now onward, that I may touch thy mother.

ANT. There: touch the aged woman with thy most dear hand.

D. O mother! Oh most hapless wife!

ANT. She doth lie miserable, having all ills at once on her.

D. But where is the fallen body of Eteocles, and of Polynices?

ANT. They lie extended before thee near one another.

D. Place my blind hand upon their unhappy faces.

ANT. There: touch thy dead children with thy hand.

D. O ye dear wrecks, unhappy, of an unhappy father.

ANT. O name of Polynices, most dear indeed to me.

D. Now, my child, is the oracle of Apollo come to pa.s.s.

ANT. What? but dost thou mention evils in addition to these evils?

D. That I must die an exile at Athens.

ANT. Where? what citadel of Attica will receive thee?

D. The sacred Colonus, and the temple of the Equestrian G.o.d. But stay--minister to thy blind father here, since thou art desirous of sharing his exile.

ANT. Go to thy wretched banishment: stretch forth thy dear hand, O aged father, having me as thy guide, as the gale that wafts the ship.

D. Behold, I go, my child, be thou my unhappy conductor.

ANT. We are, we are indeed unhappy above all Theban virgins.

D. Where shall I place my aged footstep? Bring my staff, my child.

ANT. This way, this way come; here, here place thy foot, thou that hast the strength of a dream.

D. Alas! alas! for my most wretched flight!--To drive me, old as I am, from my country--Alas! alas! the dreadful, dreadful things that I have suffered!

ANT. What suffered! what suffered![51] Vengeance sees not the wicked, nor repays the foolishness of mortals.

D. That man am I, who mounted aloft to the victorious heavenly song, having solved the dark enigma of the virgin Sphinx.

ANT. Dost thou bring up again the glory of the Sphinx? Forbear from speaking of thy former successes. These wretched sufferings awaited thee, O father, being an exile from thy country to die any where. Leaving with my dear virgins tears for my loss, I depart far from my country, wandering in state not like a virgin's.

D. Oh! the excellency of thy mind!

ANT. In the calamities of a father at least it will make me glorious.

Wretched am I, on account of the insults offered to thee and to my brother, who has perished from the family, a corse denied sepulture, unhappy, whom, even if I must die, my father, I will cover with secret earth.

D. Go, show thyself to thy companions.

ANT. They have enough of my lamentations.

D. But make thy supplications at the altars.

ANT. They have a satiety of my woes.

D. Go then, where stands the fane of Bacchus unapproached, on the mountains of the Maenades.

ANT. To whom I formerly, clad in the skin of the Theban fawn, danced the sacred step of Semele on the mountains, conferring a thankless favor on the G.o.ds?

D. O ye inhabitants of my ill.u.s.trious country, behold, I, this dipus, who alone stayed the violence of the bloodthirsty Sphinx, now, dishonored, forsaken, miserable, am banished from the land. Yet why do I bewail these things, and lament in vain? For the necessity of fate proceeding from the G.o.ds a mortal must endure.

CRE. [O greatly glorious Victory, mayest thou uphold my life, and cease not from crowning me!] (See note [H].)

NOTES ON THE PHNICIAN VIRGINS