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Delphi Complete Works of Sophocles

Page 9

by Sophocles


  Silver of Sardis change for gold of Ind;

  Ye will not purchase this man’s burial,

  Not though the winged ministers of Zeus

  Should bear him in their talons to his throne;

  Not e’en in awe of prodigy so dire

  Would I permit his burial, for I know

  No human soilure can assail the gods;

  This too I know, Teiresias, dire’s the fall

  Of craft and cunning when it tries to gloss

  Foul treachery with fair words for filthy gain.

  TEIRESIAS

  Alas! doth any know and lay to heart —

  CREON

  Is this the prelude to some hackneyed saw?

  TEIRESIAS

  How far good counsel is the best of goods?

  CREON

  True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.

  TEIRESIAS

  Thou art infected with that ill thyself.

  CREON

  I will not bandy insults with thee, seer.

  TEIRESIAS

  And yet thou say’st my prophesies are frauds.

  CREON

  Prophets are all a money-getting tribe.

  TEIRESIAS

  And kings are all a lucre-loving race.

  CREON

  Dost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?

  TEIRESIAS

  Lord of the State and savior, thanks to me.

  CREON

  Skilled prophet art thou, but to wrong inclined.

  TEIRESIAS

  Take heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal

  The mystery deep hidden in my breast.

  CREON

  Say on, but see it be not said for gain.

  TEIRESIAS

  Such thou, methinks, till now hast judged my words.

  CREON

  Be sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits.

  TEIRESIAS

  Know then for sure, the coursers of the sun

  Not many times shall run their race, before

  Thou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins

  In quittance of thy murder, life for life;

  For that thou hast entombed a living soul,

  And sent below a denizen of earth,

  And wronged the nether gods by leaving here

  A corpse unlaved, unwept, unsepulchered.

  Herein thou hast no part, nor e’en the gods

  In heaven; and thou usurp’st a power not thine.

  For this the avenging spirits of Heaven and Hell

  Who dog the steps of sin are on thy trail:

  What these have suffered thou shalt suffer too.

  And now, consider whether bought by gold

  I prophesy. For, yet a little while,

  And sound of lamentation shall be heard,

  Of men and women through thy desolate halls;

  And all thy neighbor States are leagues to avenge

  Their mangled warriors who have found a grave

  I’ the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird

  That flying homewards taints their city’s air.

  These are the shafts, that like a bowman I

  Provoked to anger, loosen at thy breast,

  Unerring, and their smart thou shalt not shun.

  Boy, lead me home, that he may vent his spleen

  On younger men, and learn to curb his tongue

  With gentler manners than his present mood.

  [Exit TEIRESIAS]

  CHORUS

  My liege, that man hath gone, foretelling woe.

  And, O believe me, since these grizzled locks

  Were like the raven, never have I known

  The prophet’s warning to the State to fail.

  CREON

  I know it too, and it perplexes me.

  To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul

  That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.

  CHORUS

  Son of Menoeceus, list to good advice.

  CHORUS

  What should I do. Advise me. I will heed.

  CHORUS

  Go, free the maiden from her rocky cell;

  And for the unburied outlaw build a tomb.

  CREON

  Is that your counsel? You would have me yield?

  CHORUS

  Yea, king, this instant. Vengeance of the gods

  Is swift to overtake the impenitent.

  CREON

  Ah! what a wrench it is to sacrifice

  My heart’s resolve; but Fate is ill to fight.

  CHORUS

  Go, trust not others. Do it quick thyself.

  CREON

  I go hot-foot. Bestir ye one and all,

  My henchmen! Get ye axes! Speed away

  To yonder eminence! I too will go,

  For all my resolution this way sways.

  ’Twas I that bound, I too will set her free.

  Almost I am persuaded it is best

  To keep through life the law ordained of old.

  [Exit CREON]

  CHORUS

  (Str. 1)

  Thou by many names adored,

  Child of Zeus the God of thunder,

  Of a Theban bride the wonder,

  Fair Italia’s guardian lord;

  In the deep-embosomed glades

  Of the Eleusinian Queen

  Haunt of revelers, men and maids,

  Dionysus, thou art seen.

  Where Ismenus rolls his waters,

  Where the Dragon’s teeth were sown,

  Where the Bacchanals thy daughters

  Round thee roam,

  There thy home;

  Thebes, O Bacchus, is thine own.

  (Ant. 1)

  Thee on the two-crested rock

  Lurid-flaming torches see;

  Where Corisian maidens flock,

  Thee the springs of Castaly.

  By Nysa’s bastion ivy-clad,

  By shores with clustered vineyards glad,

  There to thee the hymn rings out,

  And through our streets we Thebans shout,

  All hall to thee

  Evoe, Evoe!

  (Str. 2)

  Oh, as thou lov’st this city best of all,

  To thee, and to thy Mother levin-stricken,

  In our dire need we call;

  Thou see’st with what a plague our townsfolk sicken.

  Thy ready help we crave,

  Whether adown Parnassian heights descending,

  Or o’er the roaring straits thy swift was wending,

  Save us, O save!

  (Ant. 2)

  Brightest of all the orbs that breathe forth light,

  Authentic son of Zeus, immortal king,

  Leader of all the voices of the night,

  Come, and thy train of Thyiads with thee bring,

  Thy maddened rout

  Who dance before thee all night long, and shout,

  Thy handmaids we,

  Evoe, Evoe!

  [Enter MESSENGER]

  MESSENGER

  Attend all ye who dwell beside the halls

  Of Cadmus and Amphion. No man’s life

  As of one tenor would I praise or blame,

  For Fortune with a constant ebb and rise

  Casts down and raises high and low alike,

  And none can read a mortal’s horoscope.

  Take Creon; he, methought, if any man,

  Was enviable. He had saved this land

  Of Cadmus from our enemies and attained

  A monarch’s powers and ruled the state supreme,

  While a right noble issue crowned his bliss.

  Now all is gone and wasted, for a life

  Without life’s joys I count a living death.

  You’ll tell me he has ample store of wealth,

  The pomp and circumstance of kings; but if

  These give no pleasure, all the rest I count

  The shadow of a shade, nor would I weigh

  His wealth and power ‘gainst a dram of joy.

  CHORUS<
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  What fresh woes bring’st thou to the royal house?

  MESSENGER

  Both dead, and they who live deserve to die.

  CHORUS

  Who is the slayer, who the victim? speak.

  MESSENGER

  Haemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand.

  CHORUS

  What mean ye? by his father’s or his own?

  MESSENGER

  His own; in anger for his father’s crime.

  CHORUS

  O prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass.

  MESSENGER

  So stands the case; now ’tis for you to act.

  CHORUS

  Lo! from the palace gates I see approaching

  Creon’s unhappy wife, Eurydice.

  Comes she by chance or learning her son’s fate?

  [Enter EURYDICE]

  EURYDICE

  Ye men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.

  As I passed out to offer up my prayer

  To Pallas, and was drawing back the bar

  To open wide the door, upon my ears

  There broke a wail that told of household woe

  Stricken with terror in my handmaids’ arms

  I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale

  To one not unacquaint with misery.

  MESSENGER

  Dear mistress, I was there and will relate

  The perfect truth, omitting not one word.

  Why should we gloze and flatter, to be proved

  Liars hereafter? Truth is ever best.

  Well, in attendance on my liege, your lord,

  I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where

  The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled,

  Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer

  To Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways,

  With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.

  Then laved with lustral waves the mangled corse,

  Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre,

  And to his memory piled a mighty mound

  Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock,

  The bridal chamber of the maid and Death,

  We sped, about to enter. But a guard

  Heard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail,

  And ran back to our lord to tell the news.

  But as he nearer drew a hollow sound

  Of lamentation to the King was borne.

  He groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint:

  “Am I a prophet? miserable me!

  Is this the saddest path I ever trod?

  ’Tis my son’s voice that calls me. On press on,

  My henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb

  Where rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in

  And tell me if in truth I recognize

  The voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived.”

  So at the bidding of our distraught lord

  We looked, and in the craven’s vaulted gloom

  I saw the maiden lying strangled there,

  A noose of linen twined about her neck;

  And hard beside her, clasping her cold form,

  Her lover lay bewailing his dead bride

  Death-wedded, and his father’s cruelty.

  When the King saw him, with a terrible groan

  He moved towards him, crying, “O my son

  What hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance

  Has reft thee of thy reason? O come forth,

  Come forth, my son; thy father supplicates.”

  But the son glared at him with tiger eyes,

  Spat in his face, and then, without a word,

  Drew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed

  His father flying backwards. Then the boy,

  Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent

  Fell on his sword and drove it through his side

  Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms

  The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined

  With his expiring gasps. So there they lay

  Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites

  Are consummated in the halls of Death:

  A witness that of ills whate’er befall

  Mortals’ unwisdom is the worst of all.

  [Exit EURYDICE]

  CHORUS

  What makest thou of this? The Queen has gone

  Without a word importing good or ill.

  MESSENGER

  I marvel too, but entertain good hope.

  ’Tis that she shrinks in public to lament

  Her son’s sad ending, and in privacy

  Would with her maidens mourn a private loss.

  Trust me, she is discreet and will not err.

  CHORUS

  I know not, but strained silence, so I deem,

  Is no less ominous than excessive grief.

  MESSENGER

  Well, let us to the house and solve our doubts,

  Whether the tumult of her heart conceals

  Some fell design. It may be thou art right:

  Unnatural silence signifies no good.

  CHORUS

  Lo! the King himself appears.

  Evidence he with him bears

  ‘Gainst himself (ah me! I quake

  ‘Gainst a king such charge to make)

  But all must own,

  The guilt is his and his alone.

  CREON

  (Str. 1)

  Woe for sin of minds perverse,

  Deadly fraught with mortal curse.

  Behold us slain and slayers, all akin.

  Woe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin.

  Alas, my son,

  Life scarce begun,

  Thou wast undone.

  The fault was mine, mine only, O my son!

  CHORUS

  Too late thou seemest to perceive the truth.

  CREON

  (Str. 2)

  By sorrow schooled. Heavy the hand of God,

  Thorny and rough the paths my feet have trod,

  Humbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain;

  Poor mortals, how we labor all in vain!

  [Enter SECOND MESSENGER]

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,

  One lying at thy feet, another yet

  More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.

  CREON

  What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,

  Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.

  CREON

  (Ant. 1)

  How bottomless the pit!

  Does claim me too, O Death?

  What is this word he saith,

  This woeful messenger? Say, is it fit

  To slay anew a man already slain?

  Is Death at work again,

  Stroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?

  CHORUS

  Look for thyself. She lies for all to view.

  CREON

  (Ant. 2)

  Alas! another added woe I see.

  What more remains to crown my agony?

  A minute past I clasped a lifeless son,

  And now another victim Death hath won.

  Unhappy mother, most unhappy son!

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Beside the altar on a keen-edged sword

  She fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst

  She mourned for Megareus who nobly died

  Long since, then for her son; with her last breath

  She cursed thee, the slayer of her child.

  CREON

  (Str. 3)

  I shudder with affright

  O for a two-edged sword to slay outright

  A wretch like me,

  Made one with misery.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  ’Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen

  As author of both deaths, hers and her son’s.


  CREON

  In what wise was her self-destruction wrought?

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Hearing the loud lament above her son

  With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.

  CREON

  (Str. 4)

  I am the guilty cause. I did the deed,

  Thy murderer. Yea, I guilty plead.

  My henchmen, lead me hence, away, away,

  A cipher, less than nothing; no delay!

  CHORUS

  Well said, if in disaster aught is well

  His past endure demand the speediest cure.

  CREON

  (Ant. 3)

  Come, Fate, a friend at need,

  Come with all speed!

  Come, my best friend,

  And speed my end!

  Away, away!

  Let me not look upon another day!

  CHORUS

  This for the morrow; to us are present needs

  That they whom it concerns must take in hand.

  CREON

  I join your prayer that echoes my desire.

  CHORUS

  O pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom

  Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.

  CREON

  (Ant. 4)

  Away with me, a worthless wretch who slew

  Unwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.

  Whither to turn I know now; every way

  Leads but astray,

  And on my head I feel the heavy weight

  Of crushing Fate.

  CHORUS

  Of happiness the chiefest part

  Is a wise heart:

  And to defraud the gods in aught

  With peril’s fraught.

  Swelling words of high-flown might

  Mightily the gods do smite.

  Chastisement for errors past

  Wisdom brings to age at last.

  THE WOMEN OF TRACHIS

  Translated by Lewis Campbell

  The date of the first performance of The Women of Trachis is unknown and scholars have speculated a wide range of dates for its initial performance. Some argue that the play was written relatively early in Sophocles’ career, around 450 BC, as the dramatic form is not as well developed as in other extant works. Another piece of evidence is the fact that the plot of the play is similar to a story related by Bacchylides in his poem XVI, but different in significant respects from earlier known versions of this myth.

  The tragedy begins with Deianeira, the wife of Heracles, relating the story of her early life and her plight adjusting to married life. She feels distraught over her husband’s neglect of her family. Often involved in some adventure, he rarely visits them. She sends their son Hyllus to find him, as she is concerned over prophecies about Heracles and the land he is currently in. After Hyllus sets off, a messenger arrives with word that Heracles, victorious in his recent battle, is making offerings on Cape Cenaeum and coming home soon to Trachis.

  Lichas, a herald of Heracles, brings in a procession of captives. He gives Deianeira a false story of why Heracles had laid siege to the city of Oechalia. He claimed Eurytus, the city’s king, was responsible for Heracles being enslaved, and therefore Heracles vowed revenge against him and his people. Among the captured girls is Iole, daughter of Eurytus. Deianeira soon learns that in truth Heracles laid siege to the city just to obtain Iole, whom he has taken as a lover.

 

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