Sophocles
From: Antigone
The Song of Unconquered Love (lines 781-802)
Unconquered love, slackening armies.
As soft as a dream of kissing
The cheek of a virgin sleeping,
You stride across oceans, or strike
Shepherds in small, far, huts.
No power, even immortal, can escape you,
No man with his life of moments.
Love, you can crack your mansions.
You tempt the good, baffle the wise,
And drag the just down to injustice.
This quarrel of son with father
Is passion at war with kinship.
Who'll fight a clear yes in the eyes
Opening a girl's soft bed.
Love, sex, passion, what force, depths, elementals!
Love, sex, what a game, what battles!
Love, what a god unconquered!
The Sophocles translations, 'The Song of Man and the City', 'The Song of Unconquered Love', from the Antigone, and 'The Song Welcoming Oedipus into Athenian Territory' and the 'The Song for Oedipus' Death' from Oedipus at Colonus, are isometric translations — i.e. the English reproduces the metre of the Greek.
Translated by Leo Aylen
Page(s) 236
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