Without friend, city, or home,—
Death, who dissevers all.
Him then I praise, who dares
To self-selected good
Prefer obedience to the primal law
Which consecrates the ties of blood; for these, indeed,
Are to the gods a care:
That touches but himself.
For every day man may be linked and loosed
With strangers; but the bond
Original, deep-inwound,
Of blood, can he not bind,
Nor, if fate binds, not bear.
But hush! Hæmon, whom Antigone,
Robbing herself of life in burying,
Against Creon's law, Polynices,
Robs of a loved bride,—pale, imploring,
Waiting her passage,
Forth from the palace hitherward comes.
HÆMON.
No, no, old men, Creon I curse not!
I weep, Thebans,
One than Creon crueller far!
For he, he, at least, by slaying her,
August laws doth mightily vindicate;
But thou, too bold, headstrong, pitiless!—
Ah me!—honorest more than thy lover,
O Antigone!
A dead, ignorant, thankless corpse.
