VII. Coming now to the tragedy of "Antigone," we find the prophecy of Oedipus has been fulfilled--the brothers have fallen by the hand of each other--the Argive army has been defeated--Creon has obtained the tyranny, and interdicts, on the penalty of death, the burial of Polynices, whose corpse remains guarded and unhonoured. Antigone, mindful of her brother's request to her in their last interview, resolves to brave the edict, and perform those rites so indispensably sacred in the eyes of a Greek. She communicates her resolution to her sister Ismene, whose character, still feeble and commonplace, is a perpetual foil to the heroism of Antigone. She acts upon her resolutions, baffles the vigilant guards, buries the corpse. Creon, on learning that his edict has been secretly disobeyed, orders the remains to be disinterred, and in a second attempt Antigone is discovered, brought before him, and condemned to death. Haemon, the son of Creon, had been affianced to Antigone. On the news of her sentence he seeks Creon, and after a violent scene between the two, which has neither the power nor the dignity common to Sophocles, departs with vague menaces. A short but most exquisite invocation to love from the chorus succeeds, and in this, it may be observed, the chorus express much left not represented in the action--they serve to impress on the spectator all the irresistible effects of the passion which the modern artist would seek to represent in some moving scene between Antigone and Haemon. The heroine herself now passes across the stage on her way to her dreadful doom, which is that of living burial in "the cavern of a rock." She thus addresses the chorus-- "Ye, of the land wherein my fathers dwelt, Behold me journeying to my latest bourne! Time hath no morrow for these eyes. Black Orcus, Whose court hath room for all, leads my lone steps, E'en while I live, to shadows. Not for me The nuptial blessing or the marriage hymn: Acheron, receive thy bride! (Chorus.) Honoured and mourned Nor struck by slow disease or violent hand, Thy steps glide to the grave! Self-judged, like Freedom, [355] Thou, above mortals gifted, shalt descend All living to the shades. Antigone. Methinks I have heard-- So legends go--how Phrygian Niobe (Poor stranger) on the heights of Sipylus Mournfully died. The hard rock, like the tendrils O' the ivy, clung and crept unto her heart-- Her, nevermore, dissolving into showers, Pale snows desert; and from her sorrowful eyes, As from unfailing founts adown the cliffs, Fall the eternal dews. Like her, the god Lulls me to sleep, and into stone!" Afterward she adds in her beautiful lament, "That she has one comfort --that she shall go to the grave dear to her parents and her brother."