To their misery, indeed,they found a miserable death in the outrage done their house. Ah, you brothers who were poised to cast over the walls of your home and looked—to your sorrow—for sole rule, now you have beenreconciled by the iron sword. The great Erinys of your father Oedipus has fulfilled it all truly.

ChorusPierced through your left sides, pierced indeed—through those sides that were born from one womb! Ah, strange ones! Ah, the curses that demand death for death! Right through, as you say, were they struck, with blows to house and body by an unspeakable wrath and by the doom, called down by their father’s curse, which they shared without discord.

ChorusGroaning spreads throughout the city, too: the walls groan; the land that loves its sons groans. But for those who come after them there remains their property, on which account the strifeof those terrible-fated men came to fulfillment in death. In their haste to anger they apportioned their property so that each has an equal share. To those who loved them their reconciler is not blameless,nor is Ares agreeable.

ChorusUnder strokes of iron they are come to this, and under strokes of iron there await them—what, one might perhaps ask—shares in their father’s tomb.As the brothers were to divide the substance of their dead father, their equal inheritance was the tomb. λαχαί means both apportioning of possessions and digging. Our shrill, heart-rending wail goes with them—product of lamentation and pain felt of its own accord—a wail from a distressed mind, joyless, pouring forth tears from a heartthat wastes away as I weep for these two princes.

ChorusOver these poor men it can be said that they did much to harm our citizens and also the ranks of all the foreignerswho died in abundance in the fighting. Ill-fated beyond all women who are called by the name of mother is she who bore them. After she made her own child her own husband,she gave birth to these sons, who have thus ended their lives with kindred hands giving death for death.

ChorusOf the same seed, in truth, they were utterly destroyed in unloving divisions,in maddened discord, in the ending of their strife. Their hatred has ceased. Their life has been mingled in the blood-soaked earth. Now truly their blood is one.Ruthless is that which resolved their strife, the stranger from across the sea, sharpened iron rushed from the fire. Ruthless, too, was Ares, the cruel divider of their property, who made their father’s curses come true.

ChorusThey hold in misery their allotted portion of god-given sorrows. Beneath their corpses there will be boundless wealth of earth. Ah, you have wreathedyour race with many troubles! In the final outcome the Curses have raised their piercing cry, now that the family is turned to flight in all directions. A trophy to Ruin now stands at the gatewhere they struck each other and where, having conquered them both, the divine power stayed its hand.

The following antiphonal dirge is sung by the two sisters—Antigone standing by the bier of Polynices, Ismene by that of Eteocles.AntigoneYou were struck as you struck. IsmeneYou died as you killed. AntigoneBy the spear you killed— IsmeneBy the spear you died— AntigoneYour deed made you wretched. IsmeneYou suffering made you wretched. AntigoneLet the lament come. IsmeneLet the tears come.