[_Pointing to_ POLYNEIKES With alien host dishonouring, sought to take Our city. Him by ravenous birds interred Ingloriously, they sentence to receive His full deserts; and none may take in hand To heap up there a tomb, nor honour him With shrill-voiced wailings; but he still must lie, Without the meed of burial by his friends. So do the high Cadmeian powers decree. _Ant._ And I those rulers of Cadmeians tell,[133] 1030 That if no other care to bury him, I will inter him, facing all the risk, Burying my brother: nor am I ashamed To thwart the State in rank disloyalty; Strange power there is in ties of blood, that we, Born of woe-laden mother, sire ill-starred, Are bound by: therefore of thy full free-will, Share thou, my soul, in woes he did not will, Thou living, he being dead, with sister's heart. And this I say, no wolves with ravening maw, Shall tear his flesh—No! no! let none think that! For tomb and burial I will scheme for him, 1040 Though I be but weak woman, bringing earth Within my byssine raiment's fold, and so Myself will bury him; let no man think (I say't again) aught else. Take heart, my soul! There shall not fail the means effectual. _Her._ I bid thee not defy the State in this. _Ant._ I bid thee not proclaim vain words to me. _Her._ Stern is the people now, with victory flushed. _Ant._ Stern let them be, he shall not tombless lie. _Her._ And wilt thou honour whom the State doth loathe? _Ant._ *Yea, from the Gods he gets an honour due.[134]1050 _Her._ It was not so till he this land attacked. _Ant._ He, suffering evil, evil would repay. _Her._ Not against one his arms were turned, but all. _Ant._ Strife is the last of Gods to end disputes: Him I will bury; talk no more of it. _Her._ Choose for thyself then, I forbid the deed. _Chor._ Alas! alas! alas! Ye haughty boasters, race-destroying, Now Fates and now Erinnyes, smiting The sons of Œdipus, ye slew them, With a root-and-branch destruction. 1060 What shall I then do, what suffer? What shall I devise in counsel? How should I dare nor to weep thee, Nor escort thee to the burial? But I tremble and I shrink from All the terrors which they threatened, They who are my fellow-townsmen. Many mourners thou (_looking to the bier of_ ETEOCLES) shalt meet with; But he, lost one, unlamented, With his sister's wailing only Passeth. Who with this complieth?