Part 34 (1/2)

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

[Enter EURYDICE]

EURYDICE Ye men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.

As I pa.s.sed 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 G.o.ddess of cross-ways, With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.

Then laved with l.u.s.tral 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 G.o.dless 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 G.o.d, Th.o.r.n.y 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.