Ch. But she was a goddess born,
We but of mortal line;
And sure to rival the fate
Of a daughter of sires Divine
Were no light glory in death.
Ant. O mockery of my woe! II 1
I pray you by our fathers’ holy Fear,
Why must I hear
Your insults, while in life on earth I stand,
O ye that flow
In wealth, rich burghers of my bounteous land?
O fount of Dircè, and thou spacious grove,
Where Thebè’s chariots move!
Ye are my witness, though none else be nigh,
By what enormity of lawless doom,
Without one friendly sigh,
I go to the strong mound of yon strange tomb,—
All hapless, having neither part nor room
With those who live or those who die!
Ch. Thy boldness mounted high,
And thou, my child, ’gainst the great pedestal
Of Justice with unmeasured force didst fall.
Thy father’s lot still presseth hard on thee.
Ant. That pains me more than all. II 2
Ah! thou hast touched my father’s misery
Still mourned anew,
With all the world-famed sorrows on us rolled
Since Cadmus old.
O cursèd marriage that my mother knew!
O wretched fortune of my sire, who lay
Where first he saw the day!
Such were the authors of my burdened life;
To whom, with curses dowered, never a wife,
I go to dwell beneath.
O brother mine, thy princely marriage-tie
Hath been thy downfall, and in this thy death
Thou hast destroyed me ere I die.
Ch. ’Twas pious, we confess,
