SOPHOCLES
Philoctetes
…..
NEOPTOLEMUS
If you would penetrate yon deep recess
To seek the cave where Philoctetes lies,
Go forward; but remember to return
When the poor wanderer comes this way, prepared
To aid our purpose here if need require.
CHORUS
O king! we ever meant to fix our eyes
On thee, and wait attentive to thy will;
But, tell us, in what part is he concealed?
'Tis fit we know the place, lest unobserved
He rush upon us. Which way doth it lie?
Seest thou his footsteps leading from the cave,
Or hither bent?
…..
Ajax
…..
But foolish men cannot be led to learn these truths. Even such are the men who rail against you, and we are helpless to repel these charges without you, O King. Verily, when they have escaped your eye they chatter like flocking birds; but terrified by the mighty vulture, suddenly, if you should perchance appear, they will cower still and dumb.
Was it the Tauric Artemis, child of Zeus, that drove you—O dread rumor, parent of my shame!—against the herds of all our host, in revenge, I suppose, for a victory that had paid no tribute, whether it was that she had been disappointed of glorious spoil, or because a stag had been slain without a thank-offering? Or can it have been the mail-clad Lord of War that was wroth for dishonor to his aiding spear and took vengeance by nightly wiles?
Never of your own heart, son of Telamon, would you have gone so far astray as to fall upon the flocks. Verily, when the gods send madness it must come; but may Zeus and Phoebus avert the evil rumor of the Greeks!
And if the great chiefs charge you falsely in the rumors which they spread, or sons of the wicked line of Sisyphus, forbear, O my king, forbear to win me an evil name by still keeping your face thus hidden in the tent by the sea.
Nay, up from your seat, wheresoever you are brooding in this pause of many days from battle, making the flame of mischief blaze up to heaven! But the insolence of your foes goes abroad without fear in the breezy glens, while all men mock with taunts most grievous; and my sorrow passes not away.
…..
Oedipus Rex
…..
|
Broken with sobs, and Creon, pitying me, Hath sent the dearest of my children to me?
Is it not so?
Knowing the joy thou hadst in them of old.
Guard thy path better than they guarded mine! Where are ye, O my children? Come, oh, come To these your brother’s hands, which but now tore Your father’s eyes, that once were bright to see, Who, O my children, blind and knowing naught, Became your father—how, I may not tell. I weep for you, though sight is mine no more, Picturing in mind the sad and dreary life
Which waits you in the world in years to come;
|
die snikkend naderen? Voert Creon mij mijn teerbeminde kroost uit medelijden toe?
Of vergis ik mij?
van zodra ik uw hartenwens vernam.
en u beter lot bezorgen, dan mij werd beschoren. Kinderen, waar zijt ge toch, kom hierheen en aanschouw mijn handen, de handen van uw broeder, die de oorzaak zijn dat gij nu kijkt in de eens heldere ogen van uw vader, die u het levenslicht deed zien, die, kinderen, zonder het te zien of te weten uw vader bleek te zijn bij de vrouw, uit wie hij zelf het licht aanschouwde. Ook ween ik om u, want u zien vermag ik niet, wanneer ik denk aan het vervolg van uw bitter bestaan,
dat ge moet verduren vanwege de mensen.
|
…..
Long, long ago; her thought was of that child
By him begot, the son by whom the sire
Was murdered and the mother left to breed
With her own seed, a monstrous progeny.
Then she bewailed the marriage bed whereon
Poor wretch, she had conceived a double brood,
Husband by husband, children by her child.
…..
Electra
…..
They took their stations where the appointed umpires placed them
by lot and ranged the cars; then, at the sound of the brazen trump, they
started. All shouted to their horses, and shook the reins in their hands;
the whole course was filled with the noise of rattling chariots; the dust
flew upward; and all, in a confused throng, plied their goads unsparingly,
each of them striving to pass the wheels and the snorting steeds of his
rivals; for alike at their backs and at their rolling wheels the breath
of the horses foamed and smote.
Orestes, driving close to the pillar at either end of the course,
almost grazed it with his wheel each time, and, giving rein to the trace-horse
on the right, checked the horse on the inner side. Hitherto, all the chariots
had escaped overthrow; but presently the Aenian's hard-mouthed colts ran
away, and, swerving, as they passed from the sixth into the seventh round,
dashed their foreheads against the team of the Barcaean. Other mishaps
followed the first, shock on shock and crash on crash, till the whole race-ground
of Crisa was strewn with the wreck of the chariots.
…..
Think again, Electra. Don't say anymore. Don't you see what you're doing? You make your own pain. Why keep wounding yourself? With so much evil stored up in that cold dark soul of yours you breed enemies everywhere you touch.
…..
By dread things I am compelled. I know that. I see the trap closing. I know what I am. But while life is in me I will not stop this violence. No. Oh my friends who is there to comfort me? Who understands? Leave me be, let me go, do not soothe me. This is a knot no one can untie. There will be no rest, there is no retrieval. No number exists for griefs like these.
…..
Ga, zwicht voor het lijk
Laat wat vergaan is rusten
Of wil je soms eer halen
Uit het doden van het dode
('?)
Ik zie hoe uit oud leed
Nieuwe rampen geboren worden
Zonder dat een vorige generatie
Ooit de volgende verlost.
Antigone
…..
Yes. Zeus did not announce those laws to me.
And Justice living with the gods below
sent no such laws for men. I did not think
anything which you proclaimed strong enough
to let a mortal override the gods
and their unwritten and unchanging laws.
They’re not just for today or yesterday,
but exist forever, and no one knows
where they first appeared. So I did not mean
to let a fear of any human will
lead to my punishment among the gods.
I know all too well I’m going to die—
how could I not?—it makes no difference
what you decree. And if I have to die
before my time, well, I count that a gain.
When someone has to live the way I do,
surrounded by so many evil things,
how can she fail to find a benefit
in death? And so for me meeting this fate
won’t bring any pain. But if I’d allowed
my own mother’s dead son to just lie there,
an unburied corpse, then I’d feel distress.
What’s going on here does not hurt me at all.
If you think what I’m doing now is stupid,
perhaps I’m being charged with foolishness
by someone who's a fool
…..
Chorus:
Just as when a huge wave, bloated with the wild winds of far north Thrace, rushes over the dark abyss and, from its dire deep, agitates violently the black, wind-shaken sands below and then, with counter-sighing and counter-groaning, rolls against the wave-beaten headlands.
Chorus:
I could see the suffering of the house of Labdacus for a long time now.
Chorus:
Suffering falls upon the suffering of those who have perished and not one generation is able to save another. There’s no escape! Some god or other will strike these generations down for ever.
Chorus
: And so, here again we see a light risen above the last root of Oedipus’ house, yet the blood-painted sickle of the gods of the underworld came, mingled with the wild words and the words of frenzy.
…..