Chorus from Oedipus at Colonus

For me the man
Who wants more life than his measured lot
Will be revealed in the end for all to see
Shielding a life bent out of shape.
For the long days to hold in store
Many things to steer us nearer to pain
And it's vain we look for pleasure
In a life spun out past its given span.
And when Hades comes to play his part
Helping all to the one end
No wedding-songs then no lyre no dancing
Only death at the end of all.

Never to be born is the best story.
But when one has come to the light of day
Second-best is to leave and go back
Quick as you can back where you came from.
For in his giddy light-headed youth
What sharp blow isn't far from a man? What affliction —
Strife death dissension the ache of envy —
Isn't close by? And in the end
His lot is to lack all power:
Despised and cast out in friendless old age
Where a man lives with nothing
But one hardship topping another.

I'm not alone in this: this wretch here —
As a northern shore lashed by sea and storm
Is battered flat from every side
So waves after waves of ruin and destruction
Batter at this wretched man.
And they keep on coming
From the place of the setting sun and its rising:
From the bright midpoint of day they come
And the bleak northern peaks of midnight.

-- Sophocles
Translated by Rachel Kitzinger and Eamon Grennan

A Visit from My Sister (c. 1982)

She gets off the bus in my mother’s old mink coat
and dungarees. Carrying a flight bag. She’s made a quick
circle around the country. Has even seen our remote
father in Florida. Two of her friends are widows.
We’re getting older and older. Luckily. I don’t
feel like lecturing her about her unfinished dissertation.
I accept everything. Even her ice cream dinners. I won’t
back my father when he accuses her of procrastination
and worries how she’ll collect social security in Istanbul.
Are you happy? is all I ask her when we talk.
"Mmm, yes . . ." she says, considering. Her eyes full.
She shows me a photo of the view from her balcony. A short walk
along the Bosporus brings her to the ferry that goes
to Asia. It’s sunny. The wind ruffles her clothing.

-- Alan Feldman
from A Sail to Great Island