Kreon.
I will find gold.
Menoikeus.
Father, thou sayest well:985
Haste then. Unto thy sister will I go,—
Jocasta, on whose bosom first I lay,
Reft of my mother, left an orphan lone,—
To bid her farewell, ere I flee for life.[1]
On then: pass in, be hindrance not in thee.990
Maidens, how well I have stilled my father's fear
By guileful words, to attain the end I would!
Me would he steal hence, robbing Thebes of hope,
Branding me coward! This might one forgive
In age; but no forgiveness should be mine995
If I betray the city of my birth.
Doubt not but I will go and save the town,
And give my soul to death for this land's sake.
'Twere shame that men no oracles constrain,
Who have not fall'n into the net of fate,1000
Shoulder to shoulder stand, blench not from death,
Fighting before the towers for fatherland,
And I, betraying father, brother, yea,
My city, craven-like flee forth the land—
A dastard manifest, where'er I dwell!1005
By Zeus star-throned, by Ares, slaughter's lord,
Who set on high in lordship over Thebes
The Dragon-brood that cleft the womb of earth,
Go will I, on the ramparts' height will stand,
And o'er the Dragon's gloomy chasm-cave,1010
- ↑ Reading σώσων for σώσω (Paley), "then I flee for life."
