Antigone: Couldst thou have looked towards yon sun-god's four-horsed
car and turned the light of thine eyes on these corpses, it would
have been agony to thee.
Oedipus: 'Tis clear enough how their evil fate o'ertook my sons; but
she, my poor wife tell me, daughter, how she came to die.
Antigone: All saw her weep and heard her moan, as she rushed forth
to carry to her sons her last appeal, a mother's breast. But the mother
found her sons at the Electran gate, in a meadow where the lotus blooms,
fighting out their duel like lions in their lair, eager to wound each
other with spears, their blood already congealed, a murderous libation
to the Death-god poured out by Ares. Then, snatching from corpse a
sword of hammered bronze, she plunged it in her flesh, and in sorrow
for her sons fell with her arms around them. So to-day, father, the
god, whose'er this issue is, has gathered to a head the sum of suffering
for our house.
Leader of the Chorus: To-day is the beginning of many troubles to
the house of Oedipus; may he live to be more fortunate!
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