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Antigone
[1670] Ah, me, ah, me! Now, indeed, is it for us to bewail in full the curse on our blood—ill-fated sisters as we are—deriving from our father! In former time we bore the long toil without pause, [1675] and now at the last we bring to tell a sight and experience that baffle reason.

Chorus
What is it?

Antigone
It is possible to conjecture, friends.

Chorus
He is gone?

Antigone
Precisely in the way you could most wish for: indeed, in a way in which neither Ares took him, nor the sea, [1680] but instead he was snatched away to the fields which no one may see, by some swift, strange doom. Wretched me! For us a night like death has descended on our eyes; [1685] how shall we find our hard livelihood, roaming to some far land, or on the waves of the sea?

Ismene
I do not know. If only murderous Hades would join me in death to my aged father! [1690] Wretched me! I cannot live the life that must be mine.

Chorus
Best of daughters, you both must bear the will of the gods. Do not be inflamed with too much grief; [1695] what you have encountered is not to be blamed.

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  • Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus, 2
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