Translated by F. Storr. From the Loeb Library Edition, Originally published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and William Heinemann Ltd, London. First published in 1912.
Antigone:
Ismene, sister of my blood and heart,
See'st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill
The weird of Oedipus, a world of woes!
For what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame,
Is lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine?
And now this proclamation of today
Made by our Captain-General to the State,
What can its purport be? Didst hear and heed,
Or art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?
Ismene:
To me, Antigone, no word of friends
Has come, or glad or grievous, since we twain
Were reft of our two brethren in one day
By double fratricide; and since i' the night
Our Argive leaguers fled, no later news
Has reached me, to inspirit or deject.
Antigone:
I know 'twas so, and therefore summoned thee
Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.