nd feet.
Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom,
E'en in the tomb
Never shalt thou lack of love repine,
Her love and mine.

CHORUS
His fate--

ANTIGONE
Is even as he planned.

CHORUS
How so?

ANTIGONE
He died, so willed he, in a foreign land.
Lapped in kind earth he sleeps his long last sleep,
And o'er his grave friends weep.
How great our lost these streaming eyes can tell,
This sorrow naught can quell.
Thou hadst thy wish 'mid strangers thus to die,
But I, ah me, not by.

ISMENE
Alas, my sister, what new fate
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
Befalls us orphans desolate?

CHORUS
His end was blessed; therefore, children, stay
Your sorrow. Man is born to fate a prey.

ANTIGONE
(Str. 2)
Sister, let us back again.

ISMENE
Why return?

ANTIGONE
My soul is fain--
ISMENE
Is fain?

ANTIGONE
To see the earthy bed.

ISMENE
Sayest thou?

ANTIGONE
Where our sire is laid.

ISMENE
Nay, thou can'st not, dost not see--

ANTIGONE
Sister, wherefore wroth with me?

ISMENE
Know'st not--beside--

ANTIGONE
More must I hear?

ISMENE
Tombless he died, none near.

ANTIGONE
Lead me thither; slay me there.

ISMENE
How shall I unhappy fare,
Friendless, helpless, how drag on
A life of misery alone?

CHORUS
(Ant. 2)
Fear not, maids--

ANTIGONE
Ah, whither flee?

CHORUS
Refuge hath been found.

ANTIGONE
For me?

CHORUS
Where thou shalt be safe from harm.

ANTIGONE
I know it.

CHORUS
Why then this alarm?

ANTIGONE
How again to get us home
I know not.

CHORUS
Why then this roam?

ANTIGONE
Troubles whelm us--

CHORUS
As of yore.

ANTIGONE
Worse than what was worse before.

CHORUS
Sure ye are driven on the breakers' surge.

ANTIGONE
Alas! we are.

CHORUS
Alas! 'tis so.

ANTIGONE
Ah whither turn, O Zeus? No ray
Of hope to cheer the way
Whereon the fates our desperate voyage urge.
[Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS
Dry your tears; when grace is shed
On the quick and on the dead
By dark Powers beneficent,
Over-grief they would resent.

ANTIGONE
Aegeus' child, to thee we pray.

THESEUS
What the boon, my children, say.

ANTIGONE
With our own eyes we fain would see
Our father's tomb.

THESEUS
That may not be