Chorus
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. To their misery, indeed, they found a miserable death in the outrage done their house.
Chorus
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.
Chorus
Pierced through your left sides, pierced indeed— through those sides that were born from one womb! Ah, strange ones! Ah, the curses that demand death for death! 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.
Chorus
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 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, nor is Ares agreeable.
Chorus
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. 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 that wastes away as I weep for these two princes.
Chorus
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, she gave birth to these sons, who have thus ended their lives with kindred hands giving death for death.
Chorus
Of the same seed, in truth, they were utterly destroyed in unloving divisions, 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. 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.
Chorus
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 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 where they struck each other and where, having conquered them both, the divine power stayed its hand.
Antigone You were struck as you struck.
Ismene You died as you killed.
Antigone By the spear you killed—
Ismene By the spear you died—
Antigone Your deed made you wretched.
Ismene You suffering made you wretched.
Antigone Let the lament come.
Ismene Let the tears come.
Antigone You are laid out for mourning—
Ismene Though you did the killing.
Antigone Ah me!
Ismene Ah me!
Antigone My heart is mad with wailing.
Ismene My heart groans within me.
Antigone Ah, the grief, brother all-lamentable.
Ismene And you also, brother all-wretched.
Antigone You perished at the hands of your nearest and dearest.
Ismene And you killed your nearest and dearest.
Antigone Twofold to tell of—
Ismene Twofold to look upon—
Antigone Are these sorrows so close to those.
Ismene Fraternal sorrows stand close by fraternal sorrows.
Chorus O Fate, giver of grievous troubles, and awful shade of Oedipus, black Erinys, you are indeed a mighty force.
Antigone Ah, me
Ismene Ah, me
Antigone Sorrows hard to behold—
Ismene He showed me when he returned from exile.
Antigone But he made no return after he had killed.
Ismene He was saved, but lost his life.
Antigone He lost it, all too truly.
Ismene And took this one’s life away.
Antigone Wretched family!
Ismene Wretched suffering!
Antigone Kindred sorrows full of groans!
Ismene Sorrows steeped in tripled griefs.
Chorus O Fate, giver of grievous troubles, and awful shade of Oedipus, black Erinys, you are indeed a mighty force.
Antigone Now you know of the Erinys by experience—
Ismene And you are made aware no later—
Antigone When you came back to our city,
Ismene Yes, to face him with your spear.
Antigone A tale of destruction!
Ismene Destruction to look upon!
Antigone Oh, the grief—
Ismene Oh, the evils—
Antigone For home and land.
Ismene Above all for me,
Antigone And more also for me.
Ismene Ah I pity your grievous suffering, my king.
Antigone Pity for you both, most lamentable of all men.
Ismene You were possessed by delusion.
Antigone Where shall we lay them in the earth?
Ismene Ah, where their honor is greatest.
Antigone To lie beside their father, a cause for him of sorrow.
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