ISMENE. No word of those we love, Antigone, Painful or glad, hath reached me, since we two Were utterly deprived of our two brothers, Cut off with mutual stroke, both in one day. And since the Argive host this now-past night Is vanished, I know nought beside to make me Nearer to happiness or more in woe. ANT. I knew it well, and therefore led thee forth The palace gate, that thou alone mightst hear. ISM. Speak on! Thy troubled look bodes some dark news. ANT. Why, hath not Creon, in the burial-rite, Of our two brethren honoured one, and wrought On one foul wrong? Eteocles, they tell, With lawful consecration he lays out, And after covers him in earth, adorned With amplest honours in the world below. But Polynices, miserably slain, They say 'tis publicly proclaimed that none Must cover in a grave, nor mourn for him; But leave him tombless and unwept, a store Of sweet provision for the carrion fowl That eye him greedily. Such righteous law Good Creon hath pronounced for thy behoof-- Ay, and for mine! I am not left out!--And now He moves this way to promulgate his will To such as have not heard, nor lightly holds The thing he bids, but, whoso disobeys, The citizens shall stone him to the death. This is the matter, and thou wilt quickly show If thou art noble, or fallen below thy birth. ISM. Unhappy one! But what can I herein Avail to do or undo? ANT. Wilt thou share The danger and the labour? Make thy choice. ISM. Of what wild enterprise? What canst thou mean? ANT. Wilt thou join hand with mine to lift the dead? ISM. To bury him, when all have been forbidden? Is that thy thought? ANT. To bury my own brother And thine, even though thou wilt not do thy part. I will not be a traitress to my kin. ISM. Fool-hardy girl! against the word of Creon? ANT. He hath no right to bar me from mine own. ISM. Ah, sister, think but how our father fell, Hated of all and lost to fair renown, Through self-detected crimes--with his own hand, Self-wreaking, how he dashed out both his eyes: Then how the mother-wife, sad two-fold name! With twisted halter bruised her life away, Last, how in one dire moment our two brothers With internecine conflict at a blow Wrought out by fratricide their mutual doom. Now, left alone, O think how beyond all Most piteously we twain shall be destroyed, If in defiance of authority We traverse the commandment of the King! We needs must bear in mind we are but women, Never created to contend with men; Nay more, made victims of resistless power, To obey behests more harsh than this to-day. I, then, imploring those beneath to grant Indulgence, seeing I am enforced in this, Will yield submission to the powers that rule, Small wisdom were it to overpass the bound.