SOPHOCLES
Do I not hear, ye Gods, their dear, loved tones, 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.
|
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.
…..
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
…..