Creon
ANTIS. 1.
STRO. 2.
ANTIS. 2.
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Devote the night to festive dance;
To every god at every shrine,
To Bacchus chief, pay rites divine 1.
Let Bacchus lead the frolic train,
And swell through Thebes the joyful strain.
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But see the royal Creon, whose new sway
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The sons of Thebes must now obey,
The gods assigning him this glorious fate,
To council comes in awful state;
And here, by heralds warn'd, we stand,
The sages of the realm, to hear his high command.
Since now, ye men of Thebes, the gods, who shook
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With many a surging wave this sinking state
Again have raised it from the storm secure,
You by my heralds to attend me here
Selected I have summon'd; for I know
How highly you revered the throne and pow'r
Of Laius; and again when Edipus
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Was king; and, after his disastrous fate,
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I saw how firm, how loyal to his sons
Your zeal remain'd; but now, since they are fallen,
Each by the other's hand, in the same day,
By mutual wounds and mutual guilt, the crown
And regal pow'r by right devolve on me!
As nearest to the slain by blood allied.
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But who can penetrate man's secret thought,
The quality and temper of his soul,
Till by high office put to frequent proof,
And execution of the laws? To me
The Sovereign of a state, who weak of soul
Adheres not to the sagest counsels firm,
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But suffers fear to close his lips, appears
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Most base and abject; such I deem him now,
And always deem'd: and him, who dearer holds
A private friendship than the secret ties
Which bind him to his country, I esteem
A weak slight man. But I (all-seeing Jove,
Be thou my witness!) ne'er will close my lips
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In silence, to my people if I see
A threatening danger, or approaching ill:
And never will I hold that man my friend,
Who to my country bears an hostile mind;
Well knowing that on her we all depend
For safety: whilst that bark securely ploughs
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A tranquil sea, we, as we sail, make friends.
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I by such rules will raise the Theban state
To higher glory; and allied to these
My edict through the city is proclaim'd
Touching the sons of Edipus: the youth,
Who fighting for his country greatly died,
In arms illustrious, honour'd in the tomb
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I bade them lay, with all the hallow'd rites
Paid to the noblest of the dead below.
But Polynices, who from exile came
Back to his country and his country's gods,
Eager to gorge himself with kindred blood,
And lead these hence as slaves, it is proclaim'd
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That none with solemn obsequies entomb,
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That none lament; unburied let him lie,
And let his mangled carcase be devour'd
By dogs and birds of prey. Such is my will.
For never to the base will I allow
The honours to the virtuous only due:
But he, who loves my country, shall by me
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211cont2
Alike be honour'd, let him live or die.
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