Oedipus Why, daughter, have you dragged me to the light by your piteous tears, supporting my blind footsteps, from the gloom of my bed-chamber, gray-haired, invisible as a phantom of the air, or as a spirit from the world below, or as a dream that flies?
Antigone Father, there are tidings of sorrow for you to bear; no longer do your sons see the light, or your wife, who would always labor to tend your blind footsteps as with a staff. Alas for you, my father!
Oedipus Alas for my sorrows! I may well groan and cry. Three lives! Tell me, child, by what fate they left the light.
Antigone I do not say this to reproach or mock you, but in sadness: your own avenging curse, with all its load of swords and fire and ruthless war, came on your sons. Alas for you, my father!
Oedipus Ah me!
Antigone Why that groan?
Oedipus My sons!
Antigone You are in pain; but if you could look towards the sun-god’s four-horse chariot and turn the light of your eyes on these corpses—
Oedipus The evil fate of my sons is clear; but she, my poor wife, tell me, daughter, by what fate did she 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 with spears, like lions in their lair, eager to wound each other, a murderous libation of blood already cold, owed to Hades, poured out by Ares. Then, taking from the dead a sword of hammered bronze, she plunged it in her flesh, and in sorrow for her sons fell with her arms around them. So the god who fulfills these sorrows has brought them all together on this day, father, for our house.
Chorus Leader
Today is the beginning of many troubles to the house of Oedipus; may he live to be more fortunate!
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