ÆG. Into what men's surrounding trammels can I wretched have fallen?

OR. What, perceivest thou not long ago, that thou parleyest with the living just as dead?

ÆG. Ah me! I comprehend thy words; for it can not be but this that speaketh to me must be Orestes.

OR. Ay, and though so good a prophet, wert thou deceived thus long!1

ÆG. Then wretched I am undone: but permit me to say, though but a little.

EL. Let him speak no farther, in heaven's name, my brother, nor lengthen out his words. For what profit should he among mortals involved in evils, that is about to die, gain by time? No, slay him with utmost speed; and having slain, expose him to buriers, such as 'tis reason he should have, unseen of us.2 Since this could be the only atonement to me of my former wrongs.

OR. Thou must go speedily within; for the strife is not now of words, but for thy life.

EG. Why takest thou me in-doors? how, if this deed be honorable, needs it darkness, and why art not thou ready with thine hand to slay me?

OR. Order not, but go thither, where thou slewest my father, that on that very spot thou mayest die.

EG. What is it absolutely doomed that this roof witness both the present and future ills of the Pelopida?

OR. Thine at all events. I am in this a capital soothsayer to thee.

ÆG. But no paternal art is this thou hast vaunted.

OR. Thou answerest much, while thy departure is retarded; but begone.

EG. Lead the way.

OR. Thou must go first.

ÆG. Is it that I escape thee not?

OR. Nay, lest thou die then with pleasure:3 it is my duty

1 Orestes means that Ægisthus, who could now foresee his fate so clearly, might have anticipated it long ago.

2 Potter observes, on the authority of Pausanias, that Ægisthus and Clytemnestra, being held unworthy of a tomb in the same place in which Agamemnon lay, were buried just outside the city walls.

3

Compare this sentiment of Orestes with that of Hamlet, where he

to keep this bitter to thee; but good were it that this venge ance were immediate on all, at least, whoever wishes to transgress the laws, to slay them. For then were not villainy

abundant.

CH. O seed of Atreus, how much having suffered hast thou hardly worked out thy way to freedom,1 brought to completion by the present attempt!

hesitates to kill his uncle while praying. We must hope, for the sake of the authors, that they considered both their heroes as madmen.

1 Or," come by freedom."

ANTIGONE.

CREON, having cast out Polynices (who had fallen in single combat with his brother) without burial, Antigone, his sister, despite the proclamation of the king, buries him herself. She is at length discovered by the guards, and, despite the intercession of Hæmon, is ordered to be entombed alive: Creon's cruelty is visited by the death of his son and wife, as Tiresias has predicted, and his repentamce and wish to save Antigone come too late.-B.

ANTIGONE. O kindred form of my own sister Ismene,1 knowest thou what2 of the ills which spring from Edipuswhat not-doth Jove yet accomplish to us in life? for there is nothing, either wretched or ruinous,3 or base and degrading,

1 The curses of Edipus have now been fulfilled: Polynices and Eteocles have fallen by each other's hands, and the army of the Argives has been routed before the walls of Thebes. Antigone is not forgetful of the request of Polynices at their last interview, and determines, in spite of the edict to the contrary, to bestow the rights of sepulture on her unhappy brother. As the play mainly turns on this circumstance, it is necessary to bear in mind how much importance the ancients attached to the burial of the dead. The constancy of Antigone's resolution will thus be explained, the violence of her sisterly affection justified, and even the merit of her generous conduct enhanced.-TR. "Ismene, dear in very sisterhood," Donaldson, who has a somewhat ingenious note upon the periphrase kápa 'loμnvns. He compares the English "poll" in "polling," "catch-poll," etc.-B.

2 I have rendered this passage literally, but the intervening interrogation oπolov ovxì causes much difficulty. If we read or, the construction will be simpler.-B.

3 The reader must choose between ayns arep (the common, but apparently corrupt reading), ayns ǎтep=unenviable, of Coray, which Wunder

which I have not beheld in your evils and mine. And now again, what is this proclamation which they say the ruler has just propounded to all the people of the city? Knowest thou? and hast thou heard aught? or do the injuries of enemies advancing against friends escape thee?

ISMENE. To me indeed, Antigone, no tidings of friends, either sweet or sorrowful, have come from the time that we two were bereft of two brothers, dying on the same day by a twin slaughter; and since the army of the Argives has disappeared during this night, I know nothing farther, whether I fare better or am more afflicted.

ANT. I knew it well; and therefore have I brought thee1 without the gates of the courts, that you might hear alone. ISM. But what is it? for you appear stirred at some tidings.2

3

ANT. For has not Creon distinguished one of our brothers with burial rites, but deprived the other of this honor? Eteocles, indeed, as they say, acting upon the rights of justice and law, he has intombed beneath the earth, honorable to the gods below; but the corpse of Polynices, which wretchedly fell, they say it has been proclaimed to the citizens that no one shall inclose in the tomb, nor wail over, but leave it unlamented and unburied, a sweet store for birds greedily eyeing

follows; urns Exov, of Porson; or årηv ǎyov, of Donaldson. The common reading is thus explained by Hermann: οὐδὲν τῶν ἐμῶν κακῶν οὐκ ἀλγεινὸν ὄπωπα οὔτ ̓ ὄπωπα (this being the leading part of the sentence) άτης ἄτερ, οὐδ ̓ ἔστιν ὁποῖον οὐκ αἰχρὸν οὐδ ̓ ἄτιμον ὄπωπα. An Attic audience must have had little relish for plain speaking, who could bear a sentence that might be negative or affirmative at pleasure!—B.

On ééлεμπоv, seе Donaldson.-B.

I am again indebted to Donaldson, who has clearly shown that кaλXaívovoa is intransitive, and that оç refers to what Antigone had to communicate. This is confirmed by the preceding words of Antigone, to which the answer now seems a natural one.-B.

66

There is much difficulty about this passage. Hermann would read χρησθεὶς in the sense rogatus justa," alluding to the request of Eteocles to Creon. See Scholia. Donaldson reads πpoolεiç. The explanations of the common reading are quite unsatisfactory.-B.

This was the judgment which God denounced against Jehoiakim, king of Judah: "They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, my brother! or, Ah, sister! they shall not lament for him, saying, Ah, lord! or, Ah, his glory! He shall be buried with the burial of an ass," etc.-Jer. xxii. 18, 19. The customs and manners of the Greeks were originally drawn from the Eastern nations, which accounts for the similitude so observable in

the delight of the banquet. Such things they say that the good Creon has proclaimed to you and me, for I say even me, and that he is coming hither to herald them clearly forth to those who do not know them, and to bid them consider the matter not as a thing of nought, but whosoever shall do one of those things, that a death by the stoning of the people is decreed him in the city. Thus rests this case to you, and you will quickly show whether you have been born of generous spirit, or degenerate from the good.

ISM. But what, oh wretched woman! if these things are in this state, what could I avail, loosing or binding?1

ANT. Consider if thou wilt labor along with me, and assist me in the work.

ISM. In what sort of hazard? Where possibly are you in thought?

ANT. If you will raise up along with this hand the dead body.

ISM. For do you design to bury him, a thing forbidden by the state?

ANT. Yes, him who is at all events my brother; and yours, though you wish it not;2 for I will not be caught betraying him.

ISM. Oh daring woman! when Creon has forbidden?

ANT. But he has no business to put a barrier betwixt me and mine.3

ISM. Ah me! consider, oh sister! how our father perished in odium and infamy, having, upon his self-detected guilt, himself torn out both his eyes with self-destroying hand; then his mother and wife, a double title, mars her life by the suspended cords; and third, the two wretched brothers, slaying themselves on the same day, wrought their mutual death each

Sophocles, and other heathen writers, with some parts of Holy Writ.— Franklin.

1 Donaldson rejects Boëck's view, and renders it generally, “by doing or undoing." But see Wunder's note.-B.

2 That is, "Though you, an unnatural sister, would disown him;" or it may be, more simply, "I will bury him, though you do not wish it." 3 This dialogue between Antigone and Ismene exceedingly resembles that between the sisters in the tragedy of Electra, by the same author. The sentiments and the characters entirely correspond. Antigone and Electra are generous and bold; Ismene and Chrysothemis selfish and pitiful.