{"id":22,"date":"2017-06-24T20:36:19","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/chapter\/antigone\/"},"modified":"2017-06-24T20:36:19","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T20:36:19","slug":"antigone","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-geneseo-humanities1-1\/chapter\/antigone\/","title":{"raw":"Antigone","rendered":"Antigone"},"content":{"raw":"

ARGUMENT<\/h1>\nAntigone, daughter of Oedipus, the late king of Thebes, in defiance of Creon who rules in his stead, resolves to bury her brother Polyneices, slain in his attack on Thebes. She is caught in the act by Creon's watchmen and brought before the king. She justifies her action, asserting that she was bound to obey the eternal laws of right and wrong in spite of any human ordinance. Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a rock-hewn chamber. His son Haemon, to whom Antigone is betrothed, pleads in vain for her life and threatens to die with her. Warned by the seer Teiresias Creon repents him and hurries to release Antigone from her rocky prison. But he is too late: he finds lying side by side Antigone who had hanged herself and Haemon who also has perished by his own hand. Returning to the palace he sees within the dead body of his queen who on learning of her son's death has stabbed herself to the heart.\n\n

DRAMATIS PERSONAE<\/h1>\n
\n

ANTIGONE and ISMENE\u2014daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices\nand Eteocles.<\/h3>\n

CREON, King of Thebes.<\/h3>\n

HAEMON, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone.<\/h3>\n

EURYDICE, wife of Creon.<\/h3>\n

TEIRESIAS, the prophet.<\/h3>\n

CHORUS, of Theban elders.<\/h3>\n

A WATCHMAN<\/h3>\n

A MESSENGER<\/h3>\n

A SECOND MESSENGER<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n

\n\n
\n\nANTIGONE and ISMENE before the Palace gates.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nIsmene, sister of my blood and heart,\n\nSee'st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill\n\nThe weird of Oedipus, a world of woes!\n\nFor what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame,\n\nIs lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine?\n\nAnd now this proclamation of today\n\nMade by our Captain-General to the State,\n\nWhat can its purport be? Didst hear and heed,\n\nOr art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nTo me, Antigone, no word of friends\n\nHas come, or glad or grievous, since we twain\n\nWere reft of our two brethren in one day\n\nBy double fratricide; and since i' the night\n\nOur Argive leaguers fled, no later news\n\nHas reached me, to inspirit or deject.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nI know 'twas so, and therefore summoned thee\n\nBeyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhat is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWhat but the thought of our two brothers dead,\n\nThe one by Creon graced with funeral rites,\n\nThe other disappointed? Eteocles\n\nHe hath consigned to earth (as fame reports)\n\nWith obsequies that use and wont ordain,\n\nSo gracing him among the dead below.\n\nBut Polyneices, a dishonored corse,\n\n(So by report the royal edict runs)\n\nNo man may bury him or make lament\u2014\n\nMust leave him tombless and unwept, a feast\n\nFor kites to scent afar and swoop upon.\n\nSuch is the edict (if report speak true)\n\nOf Creon, our most noble Creon, aimed\n\nAt thee and me, aye me too; and anon\n\nHe will be here to promulgate, for such\n\nAs have not heard, his mandate; 'tis in sooth\n\nNo passing humor, for the edict says\n\nWhoe'er transgresses shall be stoned to death.\n\nSo stands it with us; now 'tis thine to show\n\nIf thou art worthy of thy blood or base.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nBut how, my rash, fond sister, in such case\n\nCan I do anything to make or mar?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nSay, wilt thou aid me and abet? Decide.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nIn what bold venture? What is in thy thought?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nLend me a hand to bear the corpse away.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhat, bury him despite the interdict?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nMy brother, and, though thou deny him, thine\n\nNo man shall say that I<\/i> betrayed a brother.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWhat right has he to keep me from my own?\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nBethink thee, sister, of our father's fate,\n\nAbhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin,\n\nBlinded, himself his executioner.\n\nThink of his mother-wife (ill sorted names)\n\nDone by a noose herself had twined to death\n\nAnd last, our hapless brethren in one day,\n\nBoth in a mutual destiny involved,\n\nSelf-slaughtered, both the slayer and the slain.\n\nBethink thee, sister, we are left alone;\n\nShall we not perish wretchedest of all,\n\nIf in defiance of the law we cross\n\nA monarch's will?\u2014weak women, think of that,\n\nNot framed by nature to contend with men.\n\nRemember this too that the stronger rules;\n\nWe must obey his orders, these or worse.\n\nTherefore I plead compulsion and entreat\n\nThe dead to pardon. I perforce obey\n\nThe powers that be. 'Tis foolishness, I ween,\n\nTo overstep in aught the golden mean.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nI urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,\n\nI would not welcome such a fellowship.\n\nGo thine own way; myself will bury him.\n\nHow sweet to die in such employ, to rest,\u2014\n\nSister and brother linked in love's embrace\u2014\n\nA sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth,\n\nBut by the dead commended; and with them\n\nI shall abide for ever. As for thee,\n\nScorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nI scorn them not, but to defy the State\n\nOr break her ordinance I have no skill.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nA specious pretext. I will go alone\n\nTo lap my dearest brother in the grave.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nMy poor, fond sister, how I fear for thee!\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nO waste no fears on me; look to thyself.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nAt least let no man know of thine intent,\n\nBut keep it close and secret, as will I.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nO tell it, sister; I shall hate thee more\n\nIf thou proclaim it not to all the town.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nThou hast a fiery soul for numbing work.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nI pleasure those whom I would liefest please.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nIf thou succeed; but thou art doomed to fail.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWhen strength shall fail me, yes, but not before.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nBut, if the venture's hopeless, why essay?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nSister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon,\n\nAnd the dead man will hate thee too, with cause.\n\nSay I am mad and give my madness rein\n\nTo wreck itself; the worst that can befall\n\nIs but to die an honorable death.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nHave thine own way then; 'tis a mad endeavor,\n\nYet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever.\n\n[Exeunt]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nSunbeam, of all that ever dawn upon\n\nOur seven-gated Thebes the brightest ray,\n\nO eye of golden day,\n\nHow fair thy light o'er Dirce's fountain shone,\n\nSpeeding upon their headlong homeward course,\n\nFar quicker than they came, the Argive force;\n\nPutting to flight\n\nThe argent shields, the host with scutcheons white.\n\nAgainst our land the proud invader came\n\nTo vindicate fell Polyneices' claim.\n\nLike to an eagle swooping low,\n\nOn pinions white as new fall'n snow.\n\nWith clanging scream, a horsetail plume his crest,\n\nThe aspiring lord of Argos onward pressed.\n\n(Ant. 1)\n\nHovering around our city walls he waits,\n\nHis spearmen raven at our seven gates.\n\nBut ere a torch our crown of towers could burn,\n\nEre they had tasted of our blood, they turn\n\nForced by the Dragon; in their rear\n\nThe din of Ares panic-struck they hear.\n\nFor Zeus who hates the braggart's boast\n\nBeheld that gold-bespangled host;\n\nAs at the goal the paean they upraise,\n\nHe struck them with his forked lightning blaze.\n\n(Str. 2)\n\nTo earthy from earth rebounding, down he crashed;\n\nThe fire-brand from his impious hand was dashed,\n\nAs like a Bacchic reveler on he came,\n\nOutbreathing hate and flame,\n\nAnd tottered. Elsewhere in the field,\n\nHere, there, great Area like a war-horse wheeled;\n\nBeneath his car down thrust\n\nOur foemen bit the dust.\n\nSeven captains at our seven gates\n\nThundered; for each a champion waits,\n\nEach left behind his armor bright,\n\nTrophy for Zeus who turns the fight;\n\nSave two alone, that ill-starred pair\n\nOne mother to one father bare,\n\nWho lance in rest, one 'gainst the other\n\nDrave, and both perished, brother slain by brother.\n\n(Ant. 2)\n\nNow Victory to Thebes returns again\n\nAnd smiles upon her chariot-circled plain.\n\nNow let feast and festal should\n\nMemories of war blot out.\n\nLet us to the temples throng,\n\nDance and sing the live night long.\n\nGod of Thebes, lead thou the round.\n\nBacchus, shaker of the ground!\n\nLet us end our revels here;\n\nLo! Creon our new lord draws near,\n\nCrowned by this strange chance, our king.\n\nWhat, I marvel, pondering?\n\nWhy this summons? Wherefore call\n\nUs, his elders, one and all,\n\nBidding us with him debate,\n\nOn some grave concern of State?\n\n[Enter\u00a0CREON<\/span>]\n

CREON<\/h3>\nElders, the gods have righted one again\n\nOur storm-tossed ship of state, now safe in port.\n\nBut you by special summons I convened\n\nAs my most trusted councilors; first, because\n\nI knew you loyal to Laius of old;\n\nAgain, when Oedipus restored our State,\n\nBoth while he ruled and when his rule was o'er,\n\nYe still were constant to the royal line.\n\nNow that his two sons perished in one day,\n\nBrother by brother murderously slain,\n\nBy right of kinship to the Princes dead,\n\nI claim and hold the throne and sovereignty.\n\nYet 'tis no easy matter to discern\n\nThe temper of a man, his mind and will,\n\nTill he be proved by exercise of power;\n\nAnd in my case, if one who reigns supreme\n\nSwerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied\n\nBy fear of consequence, that man I hold,\n\nAnd ever held, the basest of the base.\n\nAnd I contemn the man who sets his friend\n\nBefore his country. For myself, I call\n\nTo witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere,\n\nIf I perceive some mischievous design\n\nTo sap the State, I will not hold my tongue;\n\nNor would I reckon as my private friend\n\nA public foe, well knowing that the State\n\nIs the good ship that holds our fortunes all:\n\nFarewell to friendship, if she suffers wreck.\n\nSuch is the policy by which I seek\n\nTo serve the Commons and conformably\n\nI have proclaimed an edict as concerns\n\nThe sons of Oedipus; Eteocles\n\nWho in his country's battle fought and fell,\n\nThe foremost champion\u2014duly bury him\n\nWith all observances and ceremonies\n\nThat are the guerdon of the heroic dead.\n\nBut for the miscreant exile who returned\n\nMinded in flames and ashes to blot out\n\nHis father's city and his father's gods,\n\nAnd glut his vengeance with his kinsmen's blood,\n\nOr drag them captive at his chariot wheels\u2014\n\nFor Polyneices 'tis ordained that none\n\nShall give him burial or make mourn for him,\n\nBut leave his corpse unburied, to be meat\n\nFor dogs and carrion crows, a ghastly sight.\n\nSo am I purposed; never by my will\n\nShall miscreants take precedence of true men,\n\nBut all good patriots, alive or dead,\n\nShall be by me preferred and honored.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nSon of Menoeceus, thus thou will'st to deal\n\nWith him who loathed and him who loved our State.\n\nThy word is law; thou canst dispose of us\n\nThe living, as thou will'st, as of the dead.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSee then ye execute what I ordain.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nOn younger shoulders lay this grievous charge.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nFear not, I've posted guards to watch the corpse.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat further duty would'st thou lay on us?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nNot to connive at disobedience.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nNo man is mad enough to court his death.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThe penalty is<\/i> death: yet hope of gain\n\nHath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.\n\n[Enter GUARD]\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nMy lord, I will not make pretense to pant\n\nAnd puff as some light-footed messenger.\n\nIn sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought\n\nMade many a halt and turned and turned again;\n\nFor conscience plied her spur and curb by turns.\n\n\"Why hurry headlong to thy fate, poor fool?\"\n\nShe whispered. Then again, \"If Creon learn\n\nThis from another, thou wilt rue it worse.\"\n\nThus leisurely I hastened on my road;\n\nMuch thought extends a furlong to a league.\n\nBut in the end the forward voice prevailed,\n\nTo face thee. I will speak though I say nothing.\n\nFor plucking courage from despair methought,\n\n'Let the worst hap, thou canst but meet thy fate.'\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat is thy news? Why this despondency?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nLet me premise a word about myself?\n\nI neither did the deed nor saw it done,\n\nNor were it just that I should come to harm.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThou art good at parry, and canst fence about\n\nSome matter of grave import, as is plain.\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nThe bearer of dread tidings needs must quake.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThen, sirrah, shoot thy bolt and get thee gone.\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nWell, it must out; the corpse is buried; someone\n\nE'en now besprinkled it with thirsty dust,\n\nPerformed the proper ritual\u2014and was gone.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat say'st thou? Who hath dared to do this thing?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nI cannot tell, for there was ne'er a trace\n\nOf pick or mattock\u2014hard unbroken ground,\n\nWithout a scratch or rut of chariot wheels,\n\nNo sign that human hands had been at work.\n\nWhen the first sentry of the morning watch\n\nGave the alarm, we all were terror-stricken.\n\nThe corpse had vanished, not interred in earth,\n\nBut strewn with dust, as if by one who sought\n\nTo avert the curse that haunts the unburied dead:\n\nOf hound or ravening jackal, not a sign.\n\nThereat arose an angry war of words;\n\nGuard railed at guard and blows were like to end it,\n\nFor none was there to part us, each in turn\n\nSuspected, but the guilt brought home to none,\n\nFrom lack of evidence. We challenged each\n\nThe ordeal, or to handle red-hot iron,\n\nOr pass through fire, affirming on our oath\n\nOur innocence\u2014we neither did the deed\n\nOurselves, nor know who did or compassed it.\n\nOur quest was at a standstill, when one spake\n\nAnd bowed us all to earth like quivering reeds,\n\nFor there was no gainsaying him nor way\n\nTo escape perdition: Ye<\/i>arebound<\/i>totell<\/i>The<\/i>King,ye<\/i>cannothide<\/i>it; so he spake.\n\nAnd he convinced us all; so lots were cast,\n\nAnd I, unlucky scapegoat, drew the prize.\n\nSo here I am unwilling and withal\n\nUnwelcome; no man cares to hear ill news.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nI had misgivings from the first, my liege,\n\nOf something more than natural at work.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nO cease, you vex me with your babblement;\n\nI am like to think you dote in your old age.\n\nIs it not arrant folly to pretend\n\nThat gods would have a thought for this dead man?\n\nDid they forsooth award him special grace,\n\nAnd as some benefactor bury him,\n\nWho came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries,\n\nTo sack their shrines, to desolate their land,\n\nAnd scout their ordinances? Or perchance\n\nThe gods bestow their favors on the bad.\n\nNo! no! I have long noted malcontents\n\nWho wagged their heads, and kicked against the yoke,\n\nMisliking these my orders, and my rule.\n\n'Tis they, I warrant, who suborned my guards\n\nBy bribes. Of evils current upon earth\n\nThe worst is money. Money 'tis that sacks\n\nCities, and drives men forth from hearth and home;\n\nWarps and seduces native innocence,\n\nAnd breeds a habit of dishonesty.\n\nBut they who sold themselves shall find their greed\n\nOut-shot the mark, and rue it soon or late.\n\nYea, as I still revere the dread of Zeus,\n\nBy Zeus I swear, except ye find and bring\n\nBefore my presence here the very man\n\nWho carried out this lawless burial,\n\nDeath for your punishment shall not suffice.\n\nHanged on a cross, alive ye first shall make\n\nConfession of this outrage. This will teach you\n\nWhat practices are like to serve your turn.\n\nThere are some villainies that bring no gain.\n\nFor by dishonesty the few may thrive,\n\nThe many come to ruin and disgrace.\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nMay I not speak, or must I turn and go\n\nWithout a word?\u2014\n

CREON<\/h3>\nBegone! canst thou not see\n\nThat e'en this question irks me?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nWhere, my lord?\n\nIs it thy ears that suffer, or thy heart?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhy seek to probe and find the seat of pain?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nI gall thine ears\u2014this miscreant thy mind.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat an inveterate babbler! get thee gone!\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nBabbler perchance, but innocent of the crime.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nTwice guilty, having sold thy soul for gain.\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nAlas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nGo, quibble with thy reason. If thou fail'st\n\nTo find these malefactors, thou shalt own\n\nThe wages of ill-gotten gains is death.\n\n[Exit CREON]\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nI pray he may be found. But caught or not\n\n(And fortune must determine that) thou never\n\nShalt see me here returning; that is sure.\n\nFor past all hope or thought I have escaped,\n\nAnd for my safety owe the gods much thanks.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nMany wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man;\n\nOver the surging sea, with a whitening south wind wan,\n\nThrough the foam of the firth, man makes his perilous way;\n\nAnd the eldest of deities Earth that knows not toil nor decay\n\nEver he furrows and scores, as his team, year in year out,\n\nWith breed of the yoked horse, the ploughshare turneth about.\n\n(Ant. 1)\n\nThe light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and the wood\n\nHe traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood.\n\nMaster of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart\n\nWho roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art;\n\nAnd the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit.\n\n(Str. 2)\n\nSpeech and the wind-swift speed of counsel and civic wit,\n\nHe hath learnt for himself all these; and the arrowy rain to fly\n\nAnd the nipping airs that freeze, 'neath the open winter sky.\n\nHe hath provision for all: fell plague he hath learnt to endure;\n\nSafe whate'er may befall: yet for death he hath found no cure.\n\n(Ant. 2)\n\nPassing the wildest flight thought are the cunning and skill,\n\nThat guide man now to the light, but now to counsels of ill.\n\nIf he honors the laws of the land, and reveres the Gods of the State\n\nProudly his city shall stand; but a cityless outcast I rate\n\nWhoso bold in his pride from the path of right doth depart;\n\nNe'er may I sit by his side, or share the thoughts of his heart.\n\nWhat strange vision meets my eyes,\n\nFills me with a wild surprise?\n\nSure I know her, sure 'tis she,\n\nThe maid Antigone.\n\nHapless child of hapless sire,\n\nDidst thou recklessly conspire,\n\nMadly brave the King's decree?\n\nTherefore are they haling thee?\n\n[Enter\u00a0GUARD\u00a0<\/span>bringing\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>]\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nHere is the culprit taken in the act\n\nOf giving burial. But where's the King?\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nThere from the palace he returns in time.\n\n[Enter\u00a0CREON<\/span>]\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhy is my presence timely? What has chanced?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nNo man, my lord, should make a vow, for if\n\nHe ever swears he will not do a thing,\n\nHis afterthoughts belie his first resolve.\n\nWhen from the hail-storm of thy threats I fled\n\nI sware thou wouldst not see me here again;\n\nBut the wild rapture of a glad surprise\n\nIntoxicates, and so I'm here forsworn.\n\nAnd here's my prisoner, caught in the very act,\n\nDecking the grave. No lottery this time;\n\nThis prize is mine by right of treasure-trove.\n\nSo take her, judge her, rack her, if thou wilt.\n\nShe's thine, my liege; but I may rightly claim\n\nHence to depart well quit of all these ills.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSay, how didst thou arrest the maid, and where?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nBurying the man. There's nothing more to tell.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nHast thou thy wits? Or know'st thou what thou say'st?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nI saw this woman burying the corpse\n\nAgainst thy orders. Is that clear and plain?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nBut how was she surprised and caught in the act?\n

GUARD<\/h3>\nIt happened thus. No sooner had we come,\n\nDriven from thy presence by those awful threats,\n\nThan straight we swept away all trace of dust,\n\nAnd bared the clammy body. Then we sat\n\nHigh on the ridge to windward of the stench,\n\nWhile each man kept he fellow alert and rated\n\nRoundly the sluggard if he chanced to nap.\n\nSo all night long we watched, until the sun\n\nStood high in heaven, and his blazing beams\n\nSmote us. A sudden whirlwind then upraised\n\nA cloud of dust that blotted out the sky,\n\nAnd swept the plain, and stripped the woodlands bare,\n\nAnd shook the firmament. We closed our eyes\n\nAnd waited till the heaven-sent plague should pass.\n\nAt last it ceased, and lo! there stood this maid.\n\nA piercing cry she uttered, sad and shrill,\n\nAs when the mother bird beholds her nest\n\nRobbed of its nestlings; even so the maid\n\nWailed as she saw the body stripped and bare,\n\nAnd cursed the ruffians who had done this deed.\n\nAnon she gathered handfuls of dry dust,\n\nThen, holding high a well-wrought brazen urn,\n\nThrice on the dead she poured a lustral stream.\n\nWe at the sight swooped down on her and seized\n\nOur quarry. Undismayed she stood, and when\n\nWe taxed her with the former crime and this,\n\nShe disowned nothing. I was glad\u2014and grieved;\n\nFor 'tis most sweet to 'scape oneself scot-free,\n\nAnd yet to bring disaster to a friend\n\nIs grievous. Take it all in all, I deem\n\nA man's first duty is to serve himself.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSpeak, girl, with head bent low and downcast eyes,\n\nDoes thou plead guilty or deny the deed?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nGuilty. I did it, I deny it not.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(to\u00a0GUARD<\/span>)\n\nSirrah, begone whither thou wilt, and thank\n\nThy luck that thou hast 'scaped a heavy charge.\n\n(To\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>)\n\nNow answer this plain question, yes or no,\n\nWast thou acquainted with the interdict?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nI knew, all knew; how should I fail to know?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nAnd yet wert bold enough to break the law?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nYea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus,\n\nAnd she who sits enthroned with gods below,\n\nJustice, enacted not these human laws.\n\nNor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,\n\nCould'st by a breath annul and override\n\nThe immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.\n\nThey were not born today nor yesterday;\n\nThey die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang.\n\nI was not like, who feared no mortal's frown,\n\nTo disobey these laws and so provoke\n\nThe wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die,\n\nE'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death\n\nIs thereby hastened, I shall count it gain.\n\nFor death is gain to him whose life, like mine,\n\nIs full of misery. Thus my lot appears\n\nNot sad, but blissful; for had I endured\n\nTo leave my mother's son unburied there,\n\nI should have grieved with reason, but not now.\n\nAnd if in this thou judgest me a fool,\n\nMethinks the judge of folly's not acquit.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nA stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire,\n\nThis ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWell, let her know the stubbornest of wills\n\nAre soonest bended, as the hardest iron,\n\nO'er-heated in the fire to brittleness,\n\nFlies soonest into fragments, shivered through.\n\nA snaffle curbs the fieriest steed, and he\n\nWho in subjection lives must needs be meek.\n\nBut this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled,\n\nFirst overstepped the established law, and then\u2014\n\nA second and worse act of insolence\u2014\n\nShe boasts and glories in her wickedness.\n\nNow if she thus can flout authority\n\nUnpunished, I am woman, she the man.\n\nBut though she be my sister's child or nearer\n\nOf kin than all who worship at my hearth,\n\nNor she nor yet her sister shall escape\n\nThe utmost penalty, for both I hold,\n\nAs arch-conspirators, of equal guilt.\n\nBring forth the older; even now I saw her\n\nWithin the palace, frenzied and distraught.\n\nThe workings of the mind discover oft\n\nDark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act.\n\nMore hateful still the miscreant who seeks\n\nWhen caught, to make a virtue of a crime.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWould'st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nNot I, thy life is mine, and that's enough.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWhy dally then? To me no word of thine\n\nIs pleasant: God forbid it e'er should please;\n\nNor am I more acceptable to thee.\n\nAnd yet how otherwise had I achieved\n\nA name so glorious as by burying\n\nA brother? so my townsmen all would say,\n\nWhere they not gagged by terror, Manifold\n\nA king's prerogatives, and not the least\n\nThat all his acts and all his words are law.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nOf all these Thebans none so deems but thou.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nThese think as I, but bate their breath to thee.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nHast thou no shame to differ from all these?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nTo reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWas his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nOne mother bare them and the self-same sire.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhy cast a slur on one by honoring one?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nThe dead man will not bear thee out in this.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSurely, if good and evil fare alive.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nThe slain man was no villain but a brother.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThe patriot perished by the outlaw's brand.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nNathless the realms below these rites require.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nNot that the base should fare as do the brave.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWho knows if this world's crimes are virtues there?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nNot even death can make a foe a friend.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nMy nature is for mutual love, not hate.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nDie then, and love the dead if thou must;\n\nNo woman shall be the master while I live.\n\n[Enter ISMENE]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nLo from out the palace gate,\n\nWeeping o'er her sister's fate,\n\nComes Ismene; see her brow,\n\nOnce serene, beclouded now,\n\nSee her beauteous face o'erspread\n\nWith a flush of angry red.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWoman, who like a viper unperceived\n\nDidst harbor in my house and drain my blood,\n\nTwo plagues I nurtured blindly, so it proved,\n\nTo sap my throne. Say, didst thou too abet\n\nThis crime, or dost abjure all privity?\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nI did the deed, if she will have it so,\n\nAnd with my sister claim to share the guilt.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nThat were unjust. Thou would'st not act with me\n\nAt first, and I refused thy partnership.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nBut now thy bark is stranded, I am bold\n\nTo claim my share as partner in the loss.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWho did the deed the under-world knows well:\n\nA friend in word is never friend of mine.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nO sister, scorn me not, let me but share\n\nThy work of piety, and with thee die.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nClaim not a work in which thou hadst no hand;\n\nOne death sufficeth. Wherefore should'st thou die?\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhat would life profit me bereft of thee?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nAsk Creon, he's thy kinsman and best friend.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhy taunt me? Find'st thou pleasure in these gibes?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\n'Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nO say if I can help thee even now.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nNo, save thyself; I grudge not thy escape.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nIs e'en this boon denied, to share thy lot?\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nYea, for thou chosed'st life, and I to die.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nThou canst not say that I did not protest.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nWell, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nBut now we stand convicted, both alike.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nFear not; thou livest, I died long ago\n\nThen when I gave my life to save the dead.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nBoth maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly\n\nHas lost her wits, the other was born mad.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nYea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes,\n\nThe wisest even lose their mother wit.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI' faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad'st\n\nThy choice with evil-doers to do ill.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhat life for me without my sister here?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSay not thy sister here<\/i>: thy sister's dead.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nWhat, wilt thou slay thy own son's plighted bride?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nAye, let him raise him seed from other fields.\n

ISMENE<\/h3>\nNo new espousal can be like the old.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nA plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nO Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!\n

CREON<\/h3>\nA plague on thee and thy accursed bride!\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat, wilt thou rob thine own son of his bride?\n

CREON<\/h3>\n'Tis death that bars this marriage, not his sire.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nSo her death-warrant, it would seem, is sealed.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nBy you, as first by me; off with them, guards,\n\nAnd keep them close. Henceforward let them learn\n\nTo live as women use, not roam at large.\n\nFor e'en the bravest spirits run away\n\nWhen they perceive death pressing on life's heels.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nThrice blest are they who never tasted pain!\n\nIf once the curse of Heaven attaint a race,\n\nThe infection lingers on and speeds apace,\n\nAge after age, and each the cup must drain.\n\nSo when Etesian blasts from Thrace downpour\n\nSweep o'er the blackening main and whirl to land\n\nFrom Ocean's cavernous depths his ooze and sand,\n\nBillow on billow thunders on the shore.\n\n(Ant. 1)\n\nOn the Labdacidae I see descending\n\nWoe upon woe; from days of old some god\n\nLaid on the race a malison, and his rod\n\nScourges each age with sorrows never ending.\n\nThe light that dawned upon its last born son\n\nIs vanished, and the bloody axe of Fate\n\nHas felled the goodly tree that blossomed late.\n\nO Oedipus, by reckless pride undone!\n\n(Str. 2)\n\nThy might, O Zeus, what mortal power can quell?\n\nNot sleep that lays all else beneath its spell,\n\nNor moons that never tire: untouched by Time,\n\nThroned in the dazzling light\n\nThat crowns Olympus' height,\n\nThou reignest King, omnipotent, sublime.\n\nPast, present, and to be,\n\nAll bow to thy decree,\n\nAll that exceeds the mean by Fate\n\nIs punished, Love or Hate.\n\n(Ant. 2)\n\nHope flits about never-wearying wings;\n\nProfit to some, to some light loves she brings,\n\nBut no man knoweth how her gifts may turn,\n\nTill 'neath his feet the treacherous ashes burn.\n\nSure 'twas a sage inspired that spake this word;\n\nIf evil good appear<\/i> To any, Fate is near<\/i>;\n\nAnd brief the respite from her flaming sword.\n\nHither comes in angry mood\n\nHaemon, latest of thy brood;\n\nIs it for his bride he's grieved,\n\nOr her marriage-bed deceived,\n\nDoth he make his mourn for thee,\n\nMaid forlorn, Antigone?\n\n[Enter\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>]\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSoon shall we know, better than seer can tell.\n\nLearning may fixed decree anent thy bride,\n\nThou mean'st not, son, to rave against thy sire?\n\nKnow'st not whate'er we do is done in love?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nO father, I am thine, and I will take\n\nThy wisdom as the helm to steer withal.\n\nTherefore no wedlock shall by me be held\n\nMore precious than thy loving goverance.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWell spoken: so right-minded sons should feel,\n\nIn all deferring to a father's will.\n\nFor 'tis the hope of parents they may rear\n\nA brood of sons submissive, keen to avenge\n\nTheir father's wrongs, and count his friends their own.\n\nBut who begets unprofitable sons,\n\nHe verily breeds trouble for himself,\n\nAnd for his foes much laughter. Son, be warned\n\nAnd let no woman fool away thy wits.\n\nIll fares the husband mated with a shrew,\n\nAnd her embraces very soon wax cold.\n\nFor what can wound so surely to the quick\n\nAs a false friend? So spue and cast her off,\n\nBid her go find a husband with the dead.\n\nFor since I caught her openly rebelling,\n\nOf all my subjects the one malcontent,\n\nI will not prove a traitor to the State.\n\nShe surely dies. Go, let her, if she will,\n\nAppeal to Zeus the God of Kindred, for\n\nIf thus I nurse rebellion in my house,\n\nShall not I foster mutiny without?\n\nFor whoso rules his household worthily,\n\nWill prove in civic matters no less wise.\n\nBut he who overbears the laws, or thinks\n\nTo overrule his rulers, such as one\n\nI never will allow. Whome'er the State\n\nAppoints must be obeyed in everything,\n\nBut small and great, just and unjust alike.\n\nI warrant such a one in either case\n\nWould shine, as King or subject; such a man\n\nWould in the storm of battle stand his ground,\n\nA comrade leal and true; but Anarchy\u2014\n\nWhat evils are not wrought by Anarchy!\n\nShe ruins States, and overthrows the home,\n\nShe dissipates and routs the embattled host;\n\nWhile discipline preserves the ordered ranks.\n\nTherefore we must maintain authority\n\nAnd yield to title to a woman's will.\n\nBetter, if needs be, men should cast us out\n\nThan hear it said, a woman proved his match.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nTo me, unless old age have dulled wits,\n\nThy words appear both reasonable and wise.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nFather, the gods implant in mortal men\n\nReason, the choicest gift bestowed by heaven.\n\n'Tis not for me to say thou errest, nor\n\nWould I arraign thy wisdom, if I could;\n\nAnd yet wise thoughts may come to other men\n\nAnd, as thy son, it falls to me to mark\n\nThe acts, the words, the comments of the crowd.\n\nThe commons stand in terror of thy frown,\n\nAnd dare not utter aught that might offend,\n\nBut I can overhear their muttered plaints,\n\nKnow how the people mourn this maiden doomed\n\nFor noblest deeds to die the worst of deaths.\n\nWhen her own brother slain in battle lay\n\nUnsepulchered, she suffered not his corse\n\nTo lie for carrion birds and dogs to maul:\n\nShould not her name (they cry) be writ in gold?\n\nSuch the low murmurings that reach my ear.\n\nO father, nothing is by me more prized\n\nThan thy well-being, for what higher good\n\nCan children covet than their sire's fair fame,\n\nAs fathers too take pride in glorious sons?\n\nTherefore, my father, cling not to one mood,\n\nAnd deemed not thou art right, all others wrong.\n\nFor whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him,\n\nThat he alone can speak or think aright,\n\nSuch oracles are empty breath when tried.\n\nThe wisest man will let himself be swayed\n\nBy others' wisdom and relax in time.\n\nSee how the trees beside a stream in flood\n\nSave, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed,\n\nBut by resisting perish root and branch.\n\nThe mariner who keeps his mainsheet taut,\n\nAnd will not slacken in the gale, is like\n\nTo sail with thwarts reversed, keel uppermost.\n\nRelent then and repent thee of thy wrath;\n\nFor, if one young in years may claim some sense,\n\nI'll say 'tis best of all to be endowed\n\nWith absolute wisdom; but, if that's denied,\n\n(And nature takes not readily that ply)\n\nNext wise is he who lists to sage advice.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nIf he says aught in season, heed him, King.\n\n(To\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>)\n\nHeed thou thy sire too; both have spoken well.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat, would you have us at our age be schooled,\n\nLessoned in prudence by a beardless boy?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nI plead for justice, father, nothing more.\n\nWeigh me upon my merit, not my years.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nStrange merit this to sanction lawlessness!\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nFor evil-doers I would urge no plea.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nIs not this maid an arrant law-breaker?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nThe Theban commons with one voice say, No.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat, shall the mob dictate my policy?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\n'Tis thou, methinks, who speakest like a boy.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nAm I to rule for others, or myself?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nA State for one man is no State at all.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThe State is his who rules it, so 'tis held.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nAs monarch of a desert thou wouldst shine.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThis boy, methinks, maintains the woman's cause.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nIf thou be'st woman, yes. My thought's for thee.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nO reprobate, would'st wrangle with thy sire?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nBecause I see thee wrongfully perverse.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nAnd am I wrong, if I maintain my rights?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nTalk not of rights; thou spurn'st the due of Heaven\n

CREON<\/h3>\nO heart corrupt, a woman's minion thou!\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nSlave to dishonor thou wilt never find me.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThy speech at least was all a plea for her.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nAnd thee and me, and for the gods below.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nLiving the maid shall never be thy bride.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nSo she shall die, but one will die with her.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nHast come to such a pass as threaten me?\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nWhat threat is this, vain counsels to reprove?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nVain fool to instruct thy betters; thou shall rue it.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nWert not my father, I had said thou err'st.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nPlay not the spaniel, thou a woman's slave.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nWhen thou dost speak, must no man make reply?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThis passes bounds. By heaven, thou shalt not rate\n\nAnd jeer and flout me with impunity.\n\nOff with the hateful thing that she may die\n\nAt once, beside her bridegroom, in his sight.\n

HAEMON<\/h3>\nThink not that in my sight the maid shall die,\n\nOr by my side; never shalt thou again\n\nBehold my face hereafter. Go, consort\n\nWith friends who like a madman for their mate.\n\n[Exit\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nThy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste.\n\nFell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nLet him go vent his fury like a fiend:\n\nThese sisters twain he shall not save from death.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nSurely, thou meanest not to slay them both?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI stand corrected; only her who touched\n\nThe body.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nAnd what death is she to die?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nShe shall be taken to some desert place\n\nBy man untrod, and in a rock-hewn cave,\n\nWith food no more than to avoid the taint\n\nThat homicide might bring on all the State,\n\nBuried alive. There let her call in aid\n\nThe King of Death, the one god she reveres,\n\nOr learn too late a lesson learnt at last:\n\n'Tis labor lost, to reverence the dead.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str.)\n\nLove resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye,\n\nLove who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie,\n\nOver the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?\n\n(Ant).\n\nMad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart\n\nStraight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart.\n\nThou didst kindle the strife, this feud of kinsman with kin,\n\nBy the eyes of a winsome wife, and the yearning her heart to win.\n\nFor as her consort still, enthroned with Justice above,\n\nThou bendest man to thy will, O all invincible Love.\n\nLo I myself am borne aside,\n\nFrom Justice, as I view this bride.\n\n(O sight an eye in tears to drown)\n\nAntigone, so young, so fair,\n\nThus hurried down\n\nDeath's bower with the dead to share.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nFriends, countrymen, my last farewell I make;\n\nMy journey's done.\n\nOne last fond, lingering, longing look I take\n\nAt the bright sun.\n\nFor Death who puts to sleep both young and old\n\nHales my young life,\n\nAnd beckons me to Acheron's dark fold,\n\nAn unwed wife.\n\nNo youths have sung the marriage song for me,\n\nMy bridal bed\n\nNo maids have strewn with flowers from the lea,\n\n'Tis Death I wed.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nBut bethink thee, thou art sped,\n\nGreat and glorious, to the dead.\n\nThou the sword's edge hast not tasted,\n\nNo disease thy frame hath wasted.\n\nFreely thou alone shalt go\n\nLiving to the dead below.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\n(Ant. 1)\n\nNay, but the piteous tale I've heard men tell\n\nOf Tantalus' doomed child,\n\nChained upon Siphylus' high rocky fell,\n\nThat clung like ivy wild,\n\nDrenched by the pelting rain and whirling snow,\n\nLeft there to pine,\n\nWhile on her frozen breast the tears aye flow\u2014\n\nHer fate is mine.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nShe was sprung of gods, divine,\n\nMortals we of mortal line.\n\nLike renown with gods to gain\n\nRecompenses all thy pain.\n\nTake this solace to thy tomb\n\nHers in life and death thy doom.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\n(Str. 2)\n\nAlack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet\n\nThus to insult me living, to my face?\n\nCease, by our country's altars I entreat,\n\nYe lordly rulers of a lordly race.\n\nO fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain\n\nWhere Theban chariots to victory speed,\n\nMark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane,\n\nThe friends who show no pity in my need!\n\nWas ever fate like mine? O monstrous doom,\n\nWithin a rock-built prison sepulchered,\n\nTo fade and wither in a living tomb,\n\nAnd alien midst the living and the dead.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 3)\n\nIn thy boldness over-rash\n\nMadly thou thy foot didst dash\n\n'Gainst high Justice' altar stair.\n\nThou a father's guild dost bear.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\n(Ant. 2)\n\nAt this thou touchest my most poignant pain,\n\nMy ill-starred father's piteous disgrace,\n\nThe taint of blood, the hereditary stain,\n\nThat clings to all of Labdacus' famed race.\n\nWoe worth the monstrous marriage-bed where lay\n\nA mother with the son her womb had borne,\n\nTherein I was conceived, woe worth the day,\n\nFruit of incestuous sheets, a maid forlorn,\n\nAnd now I pass, accursed and unwed,\n\nTo meet them as an alien there below;\n\nAnd thee, O brother, in marriage ill-bestead,\n\n'Twas thy dead hand that dealt me this death-blow.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nReligion has her chains, 'tis true,\n\nLet rite be paid when rites are due.\n\nYet is it ill to disobey\n\nThe powers who hold by might the sway.\n\nThou hast withstood authority,\n\nA self-willed rebel, thou must die.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nUnwept, unwed, unfriended, hence I go,\n\nNo longer may I see the day's bright eye;\n\nNot one friend left to share my bitter woe,\n\nAnd o'er my ashes heave one passing sigh.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nIf wail and lamentation aught availed\n\nTo stave off death, I trow they'd never end.\n\nAway with her, and having walled her up\n\nIn a rock-vaulted tomb, as I ordained,\n\nLeave her alone at liberty to die,\n\nOr, if she choose, to live in solitude,\n\nThe tomb her dwelling. We in either case\n\nAre guiltless as concerns this maiden's blood,\n\nOnly on earth no lodging shall she find.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nO grave, O bridal bower, O prison house\n\nHewn from the rock, my everlasting home,\n\nWhither I go to join the mighty host\n\nOf kinsfolk, Persephassa's guests long dead,\n\nThe last of all, of all more miserable,\n\nI pass, my destined span of years cut short.\n\nAnd yet good hope is mine that I shall find\n\nA welcome from my sire, a welcome too,\n\nFrom thee, my mother, and my brother dear;\n\nFrom with these hands, I laved and decked your limbs\n\nIn death, and poured libations on your grave.\n\nAnd last, my Polyneices, unto thee\n\nI paid due rites, and this my recompense!\n\nYet am I justified in wisdom's eyes.\n\nFor even had it been some child of mine,\n\nOr husband mouldering in death's decay,\n\nI had not wrought this deed despite the State.\n\nWhat is the law I call in aid? 'Tis thus\n\nI argue. Had it been a husband dead\n\nI might have wed another, and have borne\n\nAnother child, to take the dead child's place.\n\nBut, now my sire and mother both are dead,\n\nNo second brother can be born for me.\n\nThus by the law of conscience I was led\n\nTo honor thee, dear brother, and was judged\n\nBy Creon guilty of a heinous crime.\n\nAnd now he drags me like a criminal,\n\nA bride unwed, amerced of marriage-song\n\nAnd marriage-bed and joys of motherhood,\n\nBy friends deserted to a living grave.\n\nWhat ordinance of heaven have I transgressed?\n\nHereafter can I look to any god\n\nFor succor, call on any man for help?\n\nAlas, my piety is impious deemed.\n\nWell, if such justice is approved of heaven,\n\nI shall be taught by suffering my sin;\n\nBut if the sin is theirs, O may they suffer\n\nNo worse ills than the wrongs they do to me.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nThe same ungovernable will\n\nDrives like a gale the maiden still.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nTherefore, my guards who let her stay\n\nShall smart full sore for their delay.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nAh, woe is me! This word I hear\n\nBrings death most near.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nI have no comfort. What he saith,\n\nPortends no other thing than death.\n

ANTIGONE<\/h3>\nMy fatherland, city of Thebes divine,\n\nYe gods of Thebes whence sprang my line,\n\nLook, puissant lords of Thebes, on me;\n\nThe last of all your royal house ye see.\n\nMartyred by men of sin, undone.\n\nSuch meed my piety hath won.\n\n[Exit\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nLike to thee that maiden bright,\n\nDanae, in her brass-bound tower,\n\nOnce exchanged the glad sunlight\n\nFor a cell, her bridal bower.\n\nAnd yet she sprang of royal line,\n\nMy child, like thine,\n\nAnd nursed the seed\n\nBy her conceived\n\nOf Zeus descending in a golden shower.\n\nStrange are the ways of Fate, her power\n\nNor wealth, nor arms withstand, nor tower;\n\nNor brass-prowed ships, that breast the sea\n\nFrom Fate can flee.\n\n(Ant. 1)\n\nThus Dryas' child, the rash Edonian King,\n\nFor words of high disdain\n\nDid Bacchus to a rocky dungeon bring,\n\nTo cool the madness of a fevered brain.\n\nHis frenzy passed,\n\nHe learnt at last\n\n'Twas madness gibes against a god to fling.\n\nFor once he fain had quenched the Maenad's fire;\n\nAnd of the tuneful Nine provoked the ire.\n\n(Str. 2)\n\nBy the Iron Rocks that guard the double main,\n\nOn Bosporus' lone strand,\n\nWhere stretcheth Salmydessus' plain\n\nIn the wild Thracian land,\n\nThere on his borders Ares witnessed\n\nThe vengeance by a jealous step-dame ta'en\n\nThe gore that trickled from a spindle red,\n\nThe sightless orbits of her step-sons twain.\n\n(Ant. 2)\n\nWasting away they mourned their piteous doom,\n\nThe blasted issue of their mother's womb.\n\nBut she her lineage could trace\n\nTo great Erecththeus' race;\n\nDaughter of Boreas in her sire's vast caves\n\nReared, where the tempest raves,\n\nSwift as his horses o'er the hills she sped;\n\nA child of gods; yet she, my child, like thee,\n\nBy Destiny\n\nThat knows not death nor age\u2014she too was vanquished.\n\n[Enter TEIRESIAS\u00a0<\/span>and BOY]\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nPrinces of Thebes, two wayfarers as one,\n\nHaving betwixt us eyes for one, we are here.\n\nThe blind man cannot move without a guide.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhy tidings, old Teiresias?\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nI will tell thee;\n\nAnd when thou hearest thou must heed the seer.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nThus far I ne'er have disobeyed thy rede.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nSo hast thou steered the ship of State aright.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI know it, and I gladly own my debt.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nBethink thee that thou treadest once again\n\nThe razor edge of peril.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat is this?\n\nThy words inspire a dread presentiment.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nThe divination of my arts shall tell.\n\nSitting upon my throne of augury,\n\nAs is my wont, where every fowl of heaven\n\nFind harborage, upon mine ears was borne\n\nA jargon strange of twitterings, hoots, and screams;\n\nSo knew I that each bird at the other tare\n\nWith bloody talons, for the whirr of wings\n\nCould signify naught else. Perturbed in soul,\n\nI straight essayed the sacrifice by fire\n\nOn blazing altars, but the God of Fire\n\nCame not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped\n\nAnd sputtered in the ashes a foul ooze;\n\nGall-bladders cracked and spurted up: the fat\n\nMelted and fell and left the thigh bones bare.\n\nSuch are the signs, taught by this lad, I read\u2014\n\nAs I guide others, so the boy guides me\u2014\n\nThe frustrate signs of oracles grown dumb.\n\nO King, thy willful temper ails the State,\n\nFor all our shrines and altars are profaned\n\nBy what has filled the maw of dogs and crows,\n\nThe flesh of Oedipus' unburied son.\n\nTherefore the angry gods abominate\n\nOur litanies and our burnt offerings;\n\nTherefore no birds trill out a happy note,\n\nGorged with the carnival of human gore.\n\nO ponder this, my son. To err is common\n\nTo all men, but the man who having erred\n\nHugs not his errors, but repents and seeks\n\nThe cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.\n\nNo fool, the saw goes, like the obstinate fool.\n\nLet death disarm thy vengeance. O forbear\n\nTo vex the dead. What glory wilt thou win\n\nBy slaying twice the slain? I mean thee well;\n\nCounsel's most welcome if I promise gain.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nOld man, ye all let fly at me your shafts\n\nLike anchors at a target; yea, ye set\n\nYour soothsayer on me. Peddlers are ye all\n\nAnd I the merchandise ye buy and sell.\n\nGo to, and make your profit where ye will,\n\nSilver of Sardis change for gold of Ind;\n\nYe will not purchase this man's burial,\n\nNot though the winged ministers of Zeus\n\nShould bear him in their talons to his throne;\n\nNot e'en in awe of prodigy so dire\n\nWould I permit his burial, for I know\n\nNo human soilure can assail the gods;\n\nThis too I know, Teiresias, dire's the fall\n\nOf craft and cunning when it tries to gloss\n\nFoul treachery with fair words for filthy gain.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nAlas! doth any know and lay to heart\u2014\n

CREON<\/h3>\nIs this the prelude to some hackneyed saw?\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nHow far good counsel is the best of goods?\n

CREON<\/h3>\nTrue, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nThou art infected with that ill thyself.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI will not bandy insults with thee, seer.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nAnd yet thou say'st my prophesies are frauds.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nProphets are all a money-getting tribe.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nAnd kings are all a lucre-loving race.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nDost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nLord of the State and savior, thanks to me.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSkilled prophet art thou, but to wrong inclined.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nTake heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal\n\nThe mystery deep hidden in my breast.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nSay on, but see it be not said for gain.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nSuch thou, methinks, till now hast judged my words.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nBe sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits.\n

TEIRESIAS<\/h3>\nKnow then for sure, the coursers of the sun\n\nNot many times shall run their race, before\n\nThou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins\n\nIn quittance of thy murder, life for life;\n\nFor that thou hast entombed a living soul,\n\nAnd sent below a denizen of earth,\n\nAnd wronged the nether gods by leaving here\n\nA corpse unlaved, unwept, unsepulchered.\n\nHerein thou hast no part, nor e'en the gods\n\nIn heaven; and thou usurp'st a power not thine.\n\nFor this the avenging spirits of Heaven and Hell\n\nWho dog the steps of sin are on thy trail:\n\nWhat these have suffered thou shalt suffer too.\n\nAnd now, consider whether bought by gold\n\nI prophesy. For, yet a little while,\n\nAnd sound of lamentation shall be heard,\n\nOf men and women through thy desolate halls;\n\nAnd all thy neighbor States are leagues to avenge\n\nTheir mangled warriors who have found a grave\n\nI' the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird\n\nThat flying homewards taints their city's air.\n\nThese are the shafts, that like a bowman I\n\nProvoked to anger, loosen at thy breast,\n\nUnerring, and their smart thou shalt not shun.\n\nBoy, lead me home, that he may vent his spleen\n\nOn younger men, and learn to curb his tongue\n\nWith gentler manners than his present mood.\n\n[Exit\u00a0TEIRESIAS<\/span>]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nMy liege, that man hath gone, foretelling woe.\n\nAnd, O believe me, since these grizzled locks\n\nWere like the raven, never have I known\n\nThe prophet's warning to the State to fail.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI know it too, and it perplexes me.\n\nTo yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul\n\nThat fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nSon of Menoeceus, list to good advice.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat should I do. Advise me. I will heed.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nGo, free the maiden from her rocky cell;\n\nAnd for the unburied outlaw build a tomb.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nIs that your counsel? You would have me yield?\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nYea, king, this instant. Vengeance of the gods\n\nIs swift to overtake the impenitent.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nAh! what a wrench it is to sacrifice\n\nMy heart's resolve; but Fate is ill to fight.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nGo, trust not others. Do it quick thyself.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI go hot-foot. Bestir ye one and all,\n\nMy henchmen! Get ye axes! Speed away\n\nTo yonder eminence! I too will go,\n\nFor all my resolution this way sways.\n\n'Twas I that bound, I too will set her free.\n\nAlmost I am persuaded it is best\n\nTo keep through life the law ordained of old.\n\n[Exit\u00a0CREON<\/span>]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nThou by many names adored,\n\nChild of Zeus the God of thunder,\n\nOf a Theban bride the wonder,\n\nFair Italia's guardian lord;\n\nIn the deep-embosomed glades\n\nOf the Eleusinian Queen\n\nHaunt of revelers, men and maids,\n\nDionysus, thou art seen.\n\nWhere Ismenus rolls his waters,\n\nWhere the Dragon's teeth were sown,\n\nWhere the Bacchanals thy daughters\n\nRound thee roam,\n\nThere thy home;\n\nThebes, O Bacchus, is thine own.\n\n(Ant. 1)\n\nThee on the two-crested rock\n\nLurid-flaming torches see;\n\nWhere Corisian maidens flock,\n\nThee the springs of Castaly.\n\nBy Nysa's bastion ivy-clad,\n\nBy shores with clustered vineyards glad,\n\nThere to thee the hymn rings out,\n\nAnd through our streets we Thebans shout,\n\nAll hall to thee\n\nEvoe, Evoe!\n\n(Str. 2)\n\nOh, as thou lov'st this city best of all,\n\nTo thee, and to thy Mother levin-stricken,\n\nIn our dire need we call;\n\nThou see'st with what a plague our townsfolk sicken.\n\nThy ready help we crave,\n\nWhether adown Parnassian heights descending,\n\nOr o'er the roaring straits thy swift was wending,\n\nSave us, O save!\n\n(Ant. 2)\n\nBrightest of all the orbs that breathe forth light,\n\nAuthentic son of Zeus, immortal king,\n\nLeader of all the voices of the night,\n\nCome, and thy train of Thyiads with thee bring,\n\nThy maddened rout\n\nWho dance before thee all night long, and shout,\n\nThy handmaids we,\n\nEvoe, Evoe!\n\n[Enter MESSENGER]\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nAttend all ye who dwell beside the halls\n\nOf Cadmus and Amphion. No man's life\n\nAs of one tenor would I praise or blame,\n\nFor Fortune with a constant ebb and rise\n\nCasts down and raises high and low alike,\n\nAnd none can read a mortal's horoscope.\n\nTake Creon; he, methought, if any man,\n\nWas enviable. He had saved this land\n\nOf Cadmus from our enemies and attained\n\nA monarch's powers and ruled the state supreme,\n\nWhile a right noble issue crowned his bliss.\n\nNow all is gone and wasted, for a life\n\nWithout life's joys I count a living death.\n\nYou'll tell me he has ample store of wealth,\n\nThe pomp and circumstance of kings; but if\n\nThese give no pleasure, all the rest I count\n\nThe shadow of a shade, nor would I weigh\n\nHis wealth and power 'gainst a dram of joy.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat fresh woes bring'st thou to the royal house?\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nBoth dead, and they who live deserve to die.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWho is the slayer, who the victim? speak.\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nHaemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat mean ye? by his father's or his own?\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nHis own; in anger for his father's crime.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nO prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass.\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nSo stands the case; now 'tis for you to act.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nLo! from the palace gates I see approaching\n\nCreon's unhappy wife, Eurydice.\n\nComes she by chance or learning her son's fate?\n\n[Enter\u00a0EURYDICE<\/span>]\n

EURYDICE<\/h3>\nYe men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.\n\nAs I passed out to offer up my prayer\n\nTo Pallas, and was drawing back the bar\n\nTo open wide the door, upon my ears\n\nThere broke a wail that told of household woe\n\nStricken with terror in my handmaids' arms\n\nI fell and fainted. But repeat your tale\n\nTo one not unacquaint with misery.\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nDear mistress, I was there and will relate\n\nThe perfect truth, omitting not one word.\n\nWhy should we gloze and flatter, to be proved\n\nLiars hereafter? Truth is ever best.\n\nWell, in attendance on my liege, your lord,\n\nI crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where\n\nThe corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled,\n\nWas lying yet. We offered first a prayer\n\nTo Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways,\n\nWith contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.\n\nThen laved with lustral waves the mangled corse,\n\nLaid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre,\n\nAnd to his memory piled a mighty mound\n\nOf mother earth. Then to the caverned rock,\n\nThe bridal chamber of the maid and Death,\n\nWe sped, about to enter. But a guard\n\nHeard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail,\n\nAnd ran back to our lord to tell the news.\n\nBut as he nearer drew a hollow sound\n\nOf lamentation to the King was borne.\n\nHe groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint:\n\n\"Am I a prophet? miserable me!\n\nIs this the saddest path I ever trod?\n\n'Tis my son's voice that calls me. On press on,\n\nMy henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb\n\nWhere rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in\n\nAnd tell me if in truth I recognize\n\nThe voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived.\"\n\nSo at the bidding of our distraught lord\n\nWe looked, and in the craven's vaulted gloom\n\nI saw the maiden lying strangled there,\n\nA noose of linen twined about her neck;\n\nAnd hard beside her, clasping her cold form,\n\nHer lover lay bewailing his dead bride\n\nDeath-wedded, and his father's cruelty.\n\nWhen the King saw him, with a terrible groan\n\nHe moved towards him, crying, \"O my son\n\nWhat hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance\n\nHas reft thee of thy reason? O come forth,\n\nCome forth, my son; thy father supplicates.\"\n\nBut the son glared at him with tiger eyes,\n\nSpat in his face, and then, without a word,\n\nDrew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed\n\nHis father flying backwards. Then the boy,\n\nWroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent\n\nFell on his sword and drove it through his side\n\nHome, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms\n\nThe maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined\n\nWith his expiring gasps. So there they lay\n\nTwo corpses, one in death. His marriage rites\n\nAre consummated in the halls of Death:\n\nA witness that of ills whate'er befall\n\nMortals' unwisdom is the worst of all.\n\n[Exit\u00a0EURYDICE<\/span>]\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWhat makest thou of this? The Queen has gone\n\nWithout a word importing good or ill.\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nI marvel too, but entertain good hope.\n\n'Tis that she shrinks in public to lament\n\nHer son's sad ending, and in privacy\n\nWould with her maidens mourn a private loss.\n\nTrust me, she is discreet and will not err.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nI know not, but strained silence, so I deem,\n\nIs no less ominous than excessive grief.\n

MESSENGER<\/h3>\nWell, let us to the house and solve our doubts,\n\nWhether the tumult of her heart conceals\n\nSome fell design. It may be thou art right:\n\nUnnatural silence signifies no good.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nLo! the King himself appears.\n\nEvidence he with him bears\n\n'Gainst himself (ah me! I quake\n\n'Gainst a king such charge to make)\n\nBut all must own,\n\nThe guilt is his and his alone.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Str. 1)\n\nWoe for sin of minds perverse,\n\nDeadly fraught with mortal curse.\n\nBehold us slain and slayers, all akin.\n\nWoe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin.\n\nAlas, my son,\n\nLife scarce begun,\n\nThou wast undone.\n\nThe fault was mine, mine only, O my son!\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nToo late thou seemest to perceive the truth.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Str. 2)\n\nBy sorrow schooled. Heavy the hand of God,\n\nThorny and rough the paths my feet have trod,\n\nHumbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain;\n\nPoor mortals, how we labor all in vain!\n\n[Enter SECOND MESSENGER]\n\nSECOND MESSENGER\n\nSorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,\n\nOne lying at thy feet, another yet\n\nMore grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nWhat woe is lacking to my tale of woes?\n\nSECOND MESSENGER\n\nThy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,\n\nLies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Ant. 1)\n\nHow bottomless the pit!\n\nDoes claim me too, O Death?\n\nWhat is this word he saith,\n\nThis woeful messenger? Say, is it fit\n\nTo slay anew a man already slain?\n\nIs Death at work again,\n\nStroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nLook for thyself. She lies for all to view.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Ant. 2)\n\nAlas! another added woe I see.\n\nWhat more remains to crown my agony?\n\nA minute past I clasped a lifeless son,\n\nAnd now another victim Death hath won.\n\nUnhappy mother, most unhappy son!\n

SECOND MESSENGER<\/h3>\nBeside the altar on a keen-edged sword\n\nShe fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst\n\nShe mourned for Megareus who nobly died\n\nLong since, then for her son; with her last breath\n\nShe cursed thee, the slayer of her child.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Str. 3)\n\nI shudder with affright\n\nO for a two-edged sword to slay outright\n\nA wretch like me,\n\nMade one with misery.\n

SECOND MESSENGER<\/h3>\n'Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen\n\nAs author of both deaths, hers and her son's.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nIn what wise was her self-destruction wrought?\n\nSECOND MESSENGER\n\nHearing the loud lament above her son\n\nWith her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Str. 4)\n\nI am the guilty cause. I did the deed,\n\nThy murderer. Yea, I guilty plead.\n\nMy henchmen, lead me hence, away, away,\n\nA cipher, less than nothing; no delay!\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nWell said, if in disaster aught is well\n\nHis past endure demand the speediest cure.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Ant. 3)\n\nCome, Fate, a friend at need,\n\nCome with all speed!\n\nCome, my best friend,\n\nAnd speed my end!\n\nAway, away!\n\nLet me not look upon another day!\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nThis for the morrow; to us are present needs\n\nThat they whom it concerns must take in hand.\n

CREON<\/h3>\nI join your prayer that echoes my desire.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nO pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom\n\nOf fate for mortals refuge is there none.\n

CREON<\/h3>\n(Ant. 4)\n\nAway with me, a worthless wretch who slew\n\nUnwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.\n\nWhither to turn I know now; every way\n\nLeads but astray,\n\nAnd on my head I feel the heavy weight\n\nOf crushing Fate.\n

CHORUS<\/h3>\nOf happiness the chiefest part\n\nIs a wise heart:\n\nAnd to defraud the gods in aught\n\nWith peril's fraught.\n\nSwelling words of high-flown might\n\nMightily the gods do smite.\n\nChastisement for errors past\n\nWisdom brings to age at last.\n\n<\/div>","rendered":"

ARGUMENT<\/h1>\n

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, the late king of Thebes, in defiance of Creon who rules in his stead, resolves to bury her brother Polyneices, slain in his attack on Thebes. She is caught in the act by Creon’s watchmen and brought before the king. She justifies her action, asserting that she was bound to obey the eternal laws of right and wrong in spite of any human ordinance. Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a rock-hewn chamber. His son Haemon, to whom Antigone is betrothed, pleads in vain for her life and threatens to die with her. Warned by the seer Teiresias Creon repents him and hurries to release Antigone from her rocky prison. But he is too late: he finds lying side by side Antigone who had hanged herself and Haemon who also has perished by his own hand. Returning to the palace he sees within the dead body of his queen who on learning of her son’s death has stabbed herself to the heart.<\/p>\n

\n

DRAMATIS PERSONAE<\/h1>\n
\n

ANTIGONE and ISMENE\u2014daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices
\nand Eteocles.<\/h3>\n

CREON, King of Thebes.<\/h3>\n

HAEMON, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone.<\/h3>\n

EURYDICE, wife of Creon.<\/h3>\n

TEIRESIAS, the prophet.<\/h3>\n

CHORUS, of Theban elders.<\/h3>\n

A WATCHMAN<\/h3>\n

A MESSENGER<\/h3>\n

A SECOND MESSENGER<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n

\n

ANTIGONE and ISMENE before the Palace gates.
\nANTIGONE
\nIsmene, sister of my blood and heart,<\/p>\n

See’st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill<\/p>\n

The weird of Oedipus, a world of woes!<\/p>\n

For what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame,<\/p>\n

Is lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine?<\/p>\n

And now this proclamation of today<\/p>\n

Made by our Captain-General to the State,<\/p>\n

What can its purport be? Didst hear and heed,<\/p>\n

Or art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?
\nISMENE
\nTo me, Antigone, no word of friends<\/p>\n

Has come, or glad or grievous, since we twain<\/p>\n

Were reft of our two brethren in one day<\/p>\n

By double fratricide; and since i’ the night<\/p>\n

Our Argive leaguers fled, no later news<\/p>\n

Has reached me, to inspirit or deject.
\nANTIGONE
\nI know ’twas so, and therefore summoned thee<\/p>\n

Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.
\nISMENE
\nWhat is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.
\nANTIGONE
\nWhat but the thought of our two brothers dead,<\/p>\n

The one by Creon graced with funeral rites,<\/p>\n

The other disappointed? Eteocles<\/p>\n

He hath consigned to earth (as fame reports)<\/p>\n

With obsequies that use and wont ordain,<\/p>\n

So gracing him among the dead below.<\/p>\n

But Polyneices, a dishonored corse,<\/p>\n

(So by report the royal edict runs)<\/p>\n

No man may bury him or make lament\u2014<\/p>\n

Must leave him tombless and unwept, a feast<\/p>\n

For kites to scent afar and swoop upon.<\/p>\n

Such is the edict (if report speak true)<\/p>\n

Of Creon, our most noble Creon, aimed<\/p>\n

At thee and me, aye me too; and anon<\/p>\n

He will be here to promulgate, for such<\/p>\n

As have not heard, his mandate; ’tis in sooth<\/p>\n

No passing humor, for the edict says<\/p>\n

Whoe’er transgresses shall be stoned to death.<\/p>\n

So stands it with us; now ’tis thine to show<\/p>\n

If thou art worthy of thy blood or base.
\nISMENE
\nBut how, my rash, fond sister, in such case<\/p>\n

Can I do anything to make or mar?
\nANTIGONE
\nSay, wilt thou aid me and abet? Decide.
\nISMENE
\nIn what bold venture? What is in thy thought?
\nANTIGONE
\nLend me a hand to bear the corpse away.
\nISMENE
\nWhat, bury him despite the interdict?
\nANTIGONE
\nMy brother, and, though thou deny him, thine<\/p>\n

No man shall say that I<\/i> betrayed a brother.
\nISMENE
\nWilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?
\nANTIGONE
\nWhat right has he to keep me from my own?
\nISMENE
\nBethink thee, sister, of our father’s fate,<\/p>\n

Abhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin,<\/p>\n

Blinded, himself his executioner.<\/p>\n

Think of his mother-wife (ill sorted names)<\/p>\n

Done by a noose herself had twined to death<\/p>\n

And last, our hapless brethren in one day,<\/p>\n

Both in a mutual destiny involved,<\/p>\n

Self-slaughtered, both the slayer and the slain.<\/p>\n

Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone;<\/p>\n

Shall we not perish wretchedest of all,<\/p>\n

If in defiance of the law we cross<\/p>\n

A monarch’s will?\u2014weak women, think of that,<\/p>\n

Not framed by nature to contend with men.<\/p>\n

Remember this too that the stronger rules;<\/p>\n

We must obey his orders, these or worse.<\/p>\n

Therefore I plead compulsion and entreat<\/p>\n

The dead to pardon. I perforce obey<\/p>\n

The powers that be. ‘Tis foolishness, I ween,<\/p>\n

To overstep in aught the golden mean.
\nANTIGONE
\nI urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,<\/p>\n

I would not welcome such a fellowship.<\/p>\n

Go thine own way; myself will bury him.<\/p>\n

How sweet to die in such employ, to rest,\u2014<\/p>\n

Sister and brother linked in love’s embrace\u2014<\/p>\n

A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth,<\/p>\n

But by the dead commended; and with them<\/p>\n

I shall abide for ever. As for thee,<\/p>\n

Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.
\nISMENE
\nI scorn them not, but to defy the State<\/p>\n

Or break her ordinance I have no skill.
\nANTIGONE
\nA specious pretext. I will go alone<\/p>\n

To lap my dearest brother in the grave.
\nISMENE
\nMy poor, fond sister, how I fear for thee!
\nANTIGONE
\nO waste no fears on me; look to thyself.
\nISMENE
\nAt least let no man know of thine intent,<\/p>\n

But keep it close and secret, as will I.
\nANTIGONE
\nO tell it, sister; I shall hate thee more<\/p>\n

If thou proclaim it not to all the town.
\nISMENE
\nThou hast a fiery soul for numbing work.
\nANTIGONE
\nI pleasure those whom I would liefest please.
\nISMENE
\nIf thou succeed; but thou art doomed to fail.
\nANTIGONE
\nWhen strength shall fail me, yes, but not before.
\nISMENE
\nBut, if the venture’s hopeless, why essay?
\nANTIGONE
\nSister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon,<\/p>\n

And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause.<\/p>\n

Say I am mad and give my madness rein<\/p>\n

To wreck itself; the worst that can befall<\/p>\n

Is but to die an honorable death.
\nISMENE
\nHave thine own way then; ’tis a mad endeavor,<\/p>\n

Yet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever.<\/p>\n

[Exeunt]
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Sunbeam, of all that ever dawn upon<\/p>\n

Our seven-gated Thebes the brightest ray,<\/p>\n

O eye of golden day,<\/p>\n

How fair thy light o’er Dirce’s fountain shone,<\/p>\n

Speeding upon their headlong homeward course,<\/p>\n

Far quicker than they came, the Argive force;<\/p>\n

Putting to flight<\/p>\n

The argent shields, the host with scutcheons white.<\/p>\n

Against our land the proud invader came<\/p>\n

To vindicate fell Polyneices’ claim.<\/p>\n

Like to an eagle swooping low,<\/p>\n

On pinions white as new fall’n snow.<\/p>\n

With clanging scream, a horsetail plume his crest,<\/p>\n

The aspiring lord of Argos onward pressed.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

Hovering around our city walls he waits,<\/p>\n

His spearmen raven at our seven gates.<\/p>\n

But ere a torch our crown of towers could burn,<\/p>\n

Ere they had tasted of our blood, they turn<\/p>\n

Forced by the Dragon; in their rear<\/p>\n

The din of Ares panic-struck they hear.<\/p>\n

For Zeus who hates the braggart’s boast<\/p>\n

Beheld that gold-bespangled host;<\/p>\n

As at the goal the paean they upraise,<\/p>\n

He struck them with his forked lightning blaze.<\/p>\n

(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

To earthy from earth rebounding, down he crashed;<\/p>\n

The fire-brand from his impious hand was dashed,<\/p>\n

As like a Bacchic reveler on he came,<\/p>\n

Outbreathing hate and flame,<\/p>\n

And tottered. Elsewhere in the field,<\/p>\n

Here, there, great Area like a war-horse wheeled;<\/p>\n

Beneath his car down thrust<\/p>\n

Our foemen bit the dust.<\/p>\n

Seven captains at our seven gates<\/p>\n

Thundered; for each a champion waits,<\/p>\n

Each left behind his armor bright,<\/p>\n

Trophy for Zeus who turns the fight;<\/p>\n

Save two alone, that ill-starred pair<\/p>\n

One mother to one father bare,<\/p>\n

Who lance in rest, one ‘gainst the other<\/p>\n

Drave, and both perished, brother slain by brother.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Now Victory to Thebes returns again<\/p>\n

And smiles upon her chariot-circled plain.<\/p>\n

Now let feast and festal should<\/p>\n

Memories of war blot out.<\/p>\n

Let us to the temples throng,<\/p>\n

Dance and sing the live night long.<\/p>\n

God of Thebes, lead thou the round.<\/p>\n

Bacchus, shaker of the ground!<\/p>\n

Let us end our revels here;<\/p>\n

Lo! Creon our new lord draws near,<\/p>\n

Crowned by this strange chance, our king.<\/p>\n

What, I marvel, pondering?<\/p>\n

Why this summons? Wherefore call<\/p>\n

Us, his elders, one and all,<\/p>\n

Bidding us with him debate,<\/p>\n

On some grave concern of State?<\/p>\n

[Enter\u00a0CREON<\/span>]
\nCREON
\nElders, the gods have righted one again<\/p>\n

Our storm-tossed ship of state, now safe in port.<\/p>\n

But you by special summons I convened<\/p>\n

As my most trusted councilors; first, because<\/p>\n

I knew you loyal to Laius of old;<\/p>\n

Again, when Oedipus restored our State,<\/p>\n

Both while he ruled and when his rule was o’er,<\/p>\n

Ye still were constant to the royal line.<\/p>\n

Now that his two sons perished in one day,<\/p>\n

Brother by brother murderously slain,<\/p>\n

By right of kinship to the Princes dead,<\/p>\n

I claim and hold the throne and sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Yet ’tis no easy matter to discern<\/p>\n

The temper of a man, his mind and will,<\/p>\n

Till he be proved by exercise of power;<\/p>\n

And in my case, if one who reigns supreme<\/p>\n

Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied<\/p>\n

By fear of consequence, that man I hold,<\/p>\n

And ever held, the basest of the base.<\/p>\n

And I contemn the man who sets his friend<\/p>\n

Before his country. For myself, I call<\/p>\n

To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere,<\/p>\n

If I perceive some mischievous design<\/p>\n

To sap the State, I will not hold my tongue;<\/p>\n

Nor would I reckon as my private friend<\/p>\n

A public foe, well knowing that the State<\/p>\n

Is the good ship that holds our fortunes all:<\/p>\n

Farewell to friendship, if she suffers wreck.<\/p>\n

Such is the policy by which I seek<\/p>\n

To serve the Commons and conformably<\/p>\n

I have proclaimed an edict as concerns<\/p>\n

The sons of Oedipus; Eteocles<\/p>\n

Who in his country’s battle fought and fell,<\/p>\n

The foremost champion\u2014duly bury him<\/p>\n

With all observances and ceremonies<\/p>\n

That are the guerdon of the heroic dead.<\/p>\n

But for the miscreant exile who returned<\/p>\n

Minded in flames and ashes to blot out<\/p>\n

His father’s city and his father’s gods,<\/p>\n

And glut his vengeance with his kinsmen’s blood,<\/p>\n

Or drag them captive at his chariot wheels\u2014<\/p>\n

For Polyneices ’tis ordained that none<\/p>\n

Shall give him burial or make mourn for him,<\/p>\n

But leave his corpse unburied, to be meat<\/p>\n

For dogs and carrion crows, a ghastly sight.<\/p>\n

So am I purposed; never by my will<\/p>\n

Shall miscreants take precedence of true men,<\/p>\n

But all good patriots, alive or dead,<\/p>\n

Shall be by me preferred and honored.
\nCHORUS
\nSon of Menoeceus, thus thou will’st to deal<\/p>\n

With him who loathed and him who loved our State.<\/p>\n

Thy word is law; thou canst dispose of us<\/p>\n

The living, as thou will’st, as of the dead.
\nCREON
\nSee then ye execute what I ordain.
\nCHORUS
\nOn younger shoulders lay this grievous charge.
\nCREON
\nFear not, I’ve posted guards to watch the corpse.
\nCHORUS
\nWhat further duty would’st thou lay on us?
\nCREON
\nNot to connive at disobedience.
\nCHORUS
\nNo man is mad enough to court his death.
\nCREON
\nThe penalty is<\/i> death: yet hope of gain<\/p>\n

Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.<\/p>\n

[Enter GUARD]
\nGUARD
\nMy lord, I will not make pretense to pant<\/p>\n

And puff as some light-footed messenger.<\/p>\n

In sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought<\/p>\n

Made many a halt and turned and turned again;<\/p>\n

For conscience plied her spur and curb by turns.<\/p>\n

“Why hurry headlong to thy fate, poor fool?”<\/p>\n

She whispered. Then again, “If Creon learn<\/p>\n

This from another, thou wilt rue it worse.”<\/p>\n

Thus leisurely I hastened on my road;<\/p>\n

Much thought extends a furlong to a league.<\/p>\n

But in the end the forward voice prevailed,<\/p>\n

To face thee. I will speak though I say nothing.<\/p>\n

For plucking courage from despair methought,<\/p>\n

‘Let the worst hap, thou canst but meet thy fate.’
\nCREON
\nWhat is thy news? Why this despondency?
\nGUARD
\nLet me premise a word about myself?<\/p>\n

I neither did the deed nor saw it done,<\/p>\n

Nor were it just that I should come to harm.
\nCREON
\nThou art good at parry, and canst fence about<\/p>\n

Some matter of grave import, as is plain.
\nGUARD
\nThe bearer of dread tidings needs must quake.
\nCREON
\nThen, sirrah, shoot thy bolt and get thee gone.
\nGUARD
\nWell, it must out; the corpse is buried; someone<\/p>\n

E’en now besprinkled it with thirsty dust,<\/p>\n

Performed the proper ritual\u2014and was gone.
\nCREON
\nWhat say’st thou? Who hath dared to do this thing?
\nGUARD
\nI cannot tell, for there was ne’er a trace<\/p>\n

Of pick or mattock\u2014hard unbroken ground,<\/p>\n

Without a scratch or rut of chariot wheels,<\/p>\n

No sign that human hands had been at work.<\/p>\n

When the first sentry of the morning watch<\/p>\n

Gave the alarm, we all were terror-stricken.<\/p>\n

The corpse had vanished, not interred in earth,<\/p>\n

But strewn with dust, as if by one who sought<\/p>\n

To avert the curse that haunts the unburied dead:<\/p>\n

Of hound or ravening jackal, not a sign.<\/p>\n

Thereat arose an angry war of words;<\/p>\n

Guard railed at guard and blows were like to end it,<\/p>\n

For none was there to part us, each in turn<\/p>\n

Suspected, but the guilt brought home to none,<\/p>\n

From lack of evidence. We challenged each<\/p>\n

The ordeal, or to handle red-hot iron,<\/p>\n

Or pass through fire, affirming on our oath<\/p>\n

Our innocence\u2014we neither did the deed<\/p>\n

Ourselves, nor know who did or compassed it.<\/p>\n

Our quest was at a standstill, when one spake<\/p>\n

And bowed us all to earth like quivering reeds,<\/p>\n

For there was no gainsaying him nor way<\/p>\n

To escape perdition: Ye<\/i>arebound<\/i>totell<\/i>The<\/i>King,ye<\/i>cannothide<\/i>it; so he spake.<\/p>\n

And he convinced us all; so lots were cast,<\/p>\n

And I, unlucky scapegoat, drew the prize.<\/p>\n

So here I am unwilling and withal<\/p>\n

Unwelcome; no man cares to hear ill news.
\nCHORUS
\nI had misgivings from the first, my liege,<\/p>\n

Of something more than natural at work.
\nCREON
\nO cease, you vex me with your babblement;<\/p>\n

I am like to think you dote in your old age.<\/p>\n

Is it not arrant folly to pretend<\/p>\n

That gods would have a thought for this dead man?<\/p>\n

Did they forsooth award him special grace,<\/p>\n

And as some benefactor bury him,<\/p>\n

Who came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries,<\/p>\n

To sack their shrines, to desolate their land,<\/p>\n

And scout their ordinances? Or perchance<\/p>\n

The gods bestow their favors on the bad.<\/p>\n

No! no! I have long noted malcontents<\/p>\n

Who wagged their heads, and kicked against the yoke,<\/p>\n

Misliking these my orders, and my rule.<\/p>\n

‘Tis they, I warrant, who suborned my guards<\/p>\n

By bribes. Of evils current upon earth<\/p>\n

The worst is money. Money ’tis that sacks<\/p>\n

Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home;<\/p>\n

Warps and seduces native innocence,<\/p>\n

And breeds a habit of dishonesty.<\/p>\n

But they who sold themselves shall find their greed<\/p>\n

Out-shot the mark, and rue it soon or late.<\/p>\n

Yea, as I still revere the dread of Zeus,<\/p>\n

By Zeus I swear, except ye find and bring<\/p>\n

Before my presence here the very man<\/p>\n

Who carried out this lawless burial,<\/p>\n

Death for your punishment shall not suffice.<\/p>\n

Hanged on a cross, alive ye first shall make<\/p>\n

Confession of this outrage. This will teach you<\/p>\n

What practices are like to serve your turn.<\/p>\n

There are some villainies that bring no gain.<\/p>\n

For by dishonesty the few may thrive,<\/p>\n

The many come to ruin and disgrace.
\nGUARD
\nMay I not speak, or must I turn and go<\/p>\n

Without a word?\u2014
\nCREON
\nBegone! canst thou not see<\/p>\n

That e’en this question irks me?
\nGUARD
\nWhere, my lord?<\/p>\n

Is it thy ears that suffer, or thy heart?
\nCREON
\nWhy seek to probe and find the seat of pain?
\nGUARD
\nI gall thine ears\u2014this miscreant thy mind.
\nCREON
\nWhat an inveterate babbler! get thee gone!
\nGUARD
\nBabbler perchance, but innocent of the crime.
\nCREON
\nTwice guilty, having sold thy soul for gain.
\nGUARD
\nAlas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.
\nCREON
\nGo, quibble with thy reason. If thou fail’st<\/p>\n

To find these malefactors, thou shalt own<\/p>\n

The wages of ill-gotten gains is death.<\/p>\n

[Exit CREON]
\nGUARD
\nI pray he may be found. But caught or not<\/p>\n

(And fortune must determine that) thou never<\/p>\n

Shalt see me here returning; that is sure.<\/p>\n

For past all hope or thought I have escaped,<\/p>\n

And for my safety owe the gods much thanks.
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Many wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man;<\/p>\n

Over the surging sea, with a whitening south wind wan,<\/p>\n

Through the foam of the firth, man makes his perilous way;<\/p>\n

And the eldest of deities Earth that knows not toil nor decay<\/p>\n

Ever he furrows and scores, as his team, year in year out,<\/p>\n

With breed of the yoked horse, the ploughshare turneth about.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

The light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and the wood<\/p>\n

He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood.<\/p>\n

Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart<\/p>\n

Who roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art;<\/p>\n

And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit.<\/p>\n

(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

Speech and the wind-swift speed of counsel and civic wit,<\/p>\n

He hath learnt for himself all these; and the arrowy rain to fly<\/p>\n

And the nipping airs that freeze, ‘neath the open winter sky.<\/p>\n

He hath provision for all: fell plague he hath learnt to endure;<\/p>\n

Safe whate’er may befall: yet for death he hath found no cure.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Passing the wildest flight thought are the cunning and skill,<\/p>\n

That guide man now to the light, but now to counsels of ill.<\/p>\n

If he honors the laws of the land, and reveres the Gods of the State<\/p>\n

Proudly his city shall stand; but a cityless outcast I rate<\/p>\n

Whoso bold in his pride from the path of right doth depart;<\/p>\n

Ne’er may I sit by his side, or share the thoughts of his heart.<\/p>\n

What strange vision meets my eyes,<\/p>\n

Fills me with a wild surprise?<\/p>\n

Sure I know her, sure ’tis she,<\/p>\n

The maid Antigone.<\/p>\n

Hapless child of hapless sire,<\/p>\n

Didst thou recklessly conspire,<\/p>\n

Madly brave the King’s decree?<\/p>\n

Therefore are they haling thee?<\/p>\n

[Enter\u00a0GUARD\u00a0<\/span>bringing\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>]
\nGUARD
\nHere is the culprit taken in the act<\/p>\n

Of giving burial. But where’s the King?
\nCHORUS
\nThere from the palace he returns in time.<\/p>\n

[Enter\u00a0CREON<\/span>]
\nCREON
\nWhy is my presence timely? What has chanced?
\nGUARD
\nNo man, my lord, should make a vow, for if<\/p>\n

He ever swears he will not do a thing,<\/p>\n

His afterthoughts belie his first resolve.<\/p>\n

When from the hail-storm of thy threats I fled<\/p>\n

I sware thou wouldst not see me here again;<\/p>\n

But the wild rapture of a glad surprise<\/p>\n

Intoxicates, and so I’m here forsworn.<\/p>\n

And here’s my prisoner, caught in the very act,<\/p>\n

Decking the grave. No lottery this time;<\/p>\n

This prize is mine by right of treasure-trove.<\/p>\n

So take her, judge her, rack her, if thou wilt.<\/p>\n

She’s thine, my liege; but I may rightly claim<\/p>\n

Hence to depart well quit of all these ills.
\nCREON
\nSay, how didst thou arrest the maid, and where?
\nGUARD
\nBurying the man. There’s nothing more to tell.
\nCREON
\nHast thou thy wits? Or know’st thou what thou say’st?
\nGUARD
\nI saw this woman burying the corpse<\/p>\n

Against thy orders. Is that clear and plain?
\nCREON
\nBut how was she surprised and caught in the act?
\nGUARD
\nIt happened thus. No sooner had we come,<\/p>\n

Driven from thy presence by those awful threats,<\/p>\n

Than straight we swept away all trace of dust,<\/p>\n

And bared the clammy body. Then we sat<\/p>\n

High on the ridge to windward of the stench,<\/p>\n

While each man kept he fellow alert and rated<\/p>\n

Roundly the sluggard if he chanced to nap.<\/p>\n

So all night long we watched, until the sun<\/p>\n

Stood high in heaven, and his blazing beams<\/p>\n

Smote us. A sudden whirlwind then upraised<\/p>\n

A cloud of dust that blotted out the sky,<\/p>\n

And swept the plain, and stripped the woodlands bare,<\/p>\n

And shook the firmament. We closed our eyes<\/p>\n

And waited till the heaven-sent plague should pass.<\/p>\n

At last it ceased, and lo! there stood this maid.<\/p>\n

A piercing cry she uttered, sad and shrill,<\/p>\n

As when the mother bird beholds her nest<\/p>\n

Robbed of its nestlings; even so the maid<\/p>\n

Wailed as she saw the body stripped and bare,<\/p>\n

And cursed the ruffians who had done this deed.<\/p>\n

Anon she gathered handfuls of dry dust,<\/p>\n

Then, holding high a well-wrought brazen urn,<\/p>\n

Thrice on the dead she poured a lustral stream.<\/p>\n

We at the sight swooped down on her and seized<\/p>\n

Our quarry. Undismayed she stood, and when<\/p>\n

We taxed her with the former crime and this,<\/p>\n

She disowned nothing. I was glad\u2014and grieved;<\/p>\n

For ’tis most sweet to ‘scape oneself scot-free,<\/p>\n

And yet to bring disaster to a friend<\/p>\n

Is grievous. Take it all in all, I deem<\/p>\n

A man’s first duty is to serve himself.
\nCREON
\nSpeak, girl, with head bent low and downcast eyes,<\/p>\n

Does thou plead guilty or deny the deed?
\nANTIGONE
\nGuilty. I did it, I deny it not.
\nCREON
\n(to\u00a0GUARD<\/span>)<\/p>\n

Sirrah, begone whither thou wilt, and thank<\/p>\n

Thy luck that thou hast ‘scaped a heavy charge.<\/p>\n

(To\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>)<\/p>\n

Now answer this plain question, yes or no,<\/p>\n

Wast thou acquainted with the interdict?
\nANTIGONE
\nI knew, all knew; how should I fail to know?
\nCREON
\nAnd yet wert bold enough to break the law?
\nANTIGONE
\nYea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus,<\/p>\n

And she who sits enthroned with gods below,<\/p>\n

Justice, enacted not these human laws.<\/p>\n

Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,<\/p>\n

Could’st by a breath annul and override<\/p>\n

The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.<\/p>\n

They were not born today nor yesterday;<\/p>\n

They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang.<\/p>\n

I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown,<\/p>\n

To disobey these laws and so provoke<\/p>\n

The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die,<\/p>\n

E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death<\/p>\n

Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain.<\/p>\n

For death is gain to him whose life, like mine,<\/p>\n

Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears<\/p>\n

Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured<\/p>\n

To leave my mother’s son unburied there,<\/p>\n

I should have grieved with reason, but not now.<\/p>\n

And if in this thou judgest me a fool,<\/p>\n

Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit.
\nCHORUS
\nA stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire,<\/p>\n

This ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.
\nCREON
\nWell, let her know the stubbornest of wills<\/p>\n

Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron,<\/p>\n

O’er-heated in the fire to brittleness,<\/p>\n

Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through.<\/p>\n

A snaffle curbs the fieriest steed, and he<\/p>\n

Who in subjection lives must needs be meek.<\/p>\n

But this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled,<\/p>\n

First overstepped the established law, and then\u2014<\/p>\n

A second and worse act of insolence\u2014<\/p>\n

She boasts and glories in her wickedness.<\/p>\n

Now if she thus can flout authority<\/p>\n

Unpunished, I am woman, she the man.<\/p>\n

But though she be my sister’s child or nearer<\/p>\n

Of kin than all who worship at my hearth,<\/p>\n

Nor she nor yet her sister shall escape<\/p>\n

The utmost penalty, for both I hold,<\/p>\n

As arch-conspirators, of equal guilt.<\/p>\n

Bring forth the older; even now I saw her<\/p>\n

Within the palace, frenzied and distraught.<\/p>\n

The workings of the mind discover oft<\/p>\n

Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act.<\/p>\n

More hateful still the miscreant who seeks<\/p>\n

When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.
\nANTIGONE
\nWould’st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?
\nCREON
\nNot I, thy life is mine, and that’s enough.
\nANTIGONE
\nWhy dally then? To me no word of thine<\/p>\n

Is pleasant: God forbid it e’er should please;<\/p>\n

Nor am I more acceptable to thee.<\/p>\n

And yet how otherwise had I achieved<\/p>\n

A name so glorious as by burying<\/p>\n

A brother? so my townsmen all would say,<\/p>\n

Where they not gagged by terror, Manifold<\/p>\n

A king’s prerogatives, and not the least<\/p>\n

That all his acts and all his words are law.
\nCREON
\nOf all these Thebans none so deems but thou.
\nANTIGONE
\nThese think as I, but bate their breath to thee.
\nCREON
\nHast thou no shame to differ from all these?
\nANTIGONE
\nTo reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.
\nCREON
\nWas his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?
\nANTIGONE
\nOne mother bare them and the self-same sire.
\nCREON
\nWhy cast a slur on one by honoring one?
\nANTIGONE
\nThe dead man will not bear thee out in this.
\nCREON
\nSurely, if good and evil fare alive.
\nANTIGONE
\nThe slain man was no villain but a brother.
\nCREON
\nThe patriot perished by the outlaw’s brand.
\nANTIGONE
\nNathless the realms below these rites require.
\nCREON
\nNot that the base should fare as do the brave.
\nANTIGONE
\nWho knows if this world’s crimes are virtues there?
\nCREON
\nNot even death can make a foe a friend.
\nANTIGONE
\nMy nature is for mutual love, not hate.
\nCREON
\nDie then, and love the dead if thou must;<\/p>\n

No woman shall be the master while I live.<\/p>\n

[Enter ISMENE]
\nCHORUS
\nLo from out the palace gate,<\/p>\n

Weeping o’er her sister’s fate,<\/p>\n

Comes Ismene; see her brow,<\/p>\n

Once serene, beclouded now,<\/p>\n

See her beauteous face o’erspread<\/p>\n

With a flush of angry red.
\nCREON
\nWoman, who like a viper unperceived<\/p>\n

Didst harbor in my house and drain my blood,<\/p>\n

Two plagues I nurtured blindly, so it proved,<\/p>\n

To sap my throne. Say, didst thou too abet<\/p>\n

This crime, or dost abjure all privity?
\nISMENE
\nI did the deed, if she will have it so,<\/p>\n

And with my sister claim to share the guilt.
\nANTIGONE
\nThat were unjust. Thou would’st not act with me<\/p>\n

At first, and I refused thy partnership.
\nISMENE
\nBut now thy bark is stranded, I am bold<\/p>\n

To claim my share as partner in the loss.
\nANTIGONE
\nWho did the deed the under-world knows well:<\/p>\n

A friend in word is never friend of mine.
\nISMENE
\nO sister, scorn me not, let me but share<\/p>\n

Thy work of piety, and with thee die.
\nANTIGONE
\nClaim not a work in which thou hadst no hand;<\/p>\n

One death sufficeth. Wherefore should’st thou die?
\nISMENE
\nWhat would life profit me bereft of thee?
\nANTIGONE
\nAsk Creon, he’s thy kinsman and best friend.
\nISMENE
\nWhy taunt me? Find’st thou pleasure in these gibes?
\nANTIGONE
\n‘Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.
\nISMENE
\nO say if I can help thee even now.
\nANTIGONE
\nNo, save thyself; I grudge not thy escape.
\nISMENE
\nIs e’en this boon denied, to share thy lot?
\nANTIGONE
\nYea, for thou chosed’st life, and I to die.
\nISMENE
\nThou canst not say that I did not protest.
\nANTIGONE
\nWell, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.
\nISMENE
\nBut now we stand convicted, both alike.
\nANTIGONE
\nFear not; thou livest, I died long ago<\/p>\n

Then when I gave my life to save the dead.
\nCREON
\nBoth maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly<\/p>\n

Has lost her wits, the other was born mad.
\nISMENE
\nYea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes,<\/p>\n

The wisest even lose their mother wit.
\nCREON
\nI’ faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad’st<\/p>\n

Thy choice with evil-doers to do ill.
\nISMENE
\nWhat life for me without my sister here?
\nCREON
\nSay not thy sister here<\/i>: thy sister’s dead.
\nISMENE
\nWhat, wilt thou slay thy own son’s plighted bride?
\nCREON
\nAye, let him raise him seed from other fields.
\nISMENE
\nNo new espousal can be like the old.
\nCREON
\nA plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.
\nANTIGONE
\nO Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!
\nCREON
\nA plague on thee and thy accursed bride!
\nCHORUS
\nWhat, wilt thou rob thine own son of his bride?
\nCREON
\n‘Tis death that bars this marriage, not his sire.
\nCHORUS
\nSo her death-warrant, it would seem, is sealed.
\nCREON
\nBy you, as first by me; off with them, guards,<\/p>\n

And keep them close. Henceforward let them learn<\/p>\n

To live as women use, not roam at large.<\/p>\n

For e’en the bravest spirits run away<\/p>\n

When they perceive death pressing on life’s heels.
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Thrice blest are they who never tasted pain!<\/p>\n

If once the curse of Heaven attaint a race,<\/p>\n

The infection lingers on and speeds apace,<\/p>\n

Age after age, and each the cup must drain.<\/p>\n

So when Etesian blasts from Thrace downpour<\/p>\n

Sweep o’er the blackening main and whirl to land<\/p>\n

From Ocean’s cavernous depths his ooze and sand,<\/p>\n

Billow on billow thunders on the shore.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

On the Labdacidae I see descending<\/p>\n

Woe upon woe; from days of old some god<\/p>\n

Laid on the race a malison, and his rod<\/p>\n

Scourges each age with sorrows never ending.<\/p>\n

The light that dawned upon its last born son<\/p>\n

Is vanished, and the bloody axe of Fate<\/p>\n

Has felled the goodly tree that blossomed late.<\/p>\n

O Oedipus, by reckless pride undone!<\/p>\n

(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

Thy might, O Zeus, what mortal power can quell?<\/p>\n

Not sleep that lays all else beneath its spell,<\/p>\n

Nor moons that never tire: untouched by Time,<\/p>\n

Throned in the dazzling light<\/p>\n

That crowns Olympus’ height,<\/p>\n

Thou reignest King, omnipotent, sublime.<\/p>\n

Past, present, and to be,<\/p>\n

All bow to thy decree,<\/p>\n

All that exceeds the mean by Fate<\/p>\n

Is punished, Love or Hate.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Hope flits about never-wearying wings;<\/p>\n

Profit to some, to some light loves she brings,<\/p>\n

But no man knoweth how her gifts may turn,<\/p>\n

Till ‘neath his feet the treacherous ashes burn.<\/p>\n

Sure ’twas a sage inspired that spake this word;<\/p>\n

If evil good appear<\/i> To any, Fate is near<\/i>;<\/p>\n

And brief the respite from her flaming sword.<\/p>\n

Hither comes in angry mood<\/p>\n

Haemon, latest of thy brood;<\/p>\n

Is it for his bride he’s grieved,<\/p>\n

Or her marriage-bed deceived,<\/p>\n

Doth he make his mourn for thee,<\/p>\n

Maid forlorn, Antigone?<\/p>\n

[Enter\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>]
\nCREON
\nSoon shall we know, better than seer can tell.<\/p>\n

Learning may fixed decree anent thy bride,<\/p>\n

Thou mean’st not, son, to rave against thy sire?<\/p>\n

Know’st not whate’er we do is done in love?
\nHAEMON
\nO father, I am thine, and I will take<\/p>\n

Thy wisdom as the helm to steer withal.<\/p>\n

Therefore no wedlock shall by me be held<\/p>\n

More precious than thy loving goverance.
\nCREON
\nWell spoken: so right-minded sons should feel,<\/p>\n

In all deferring to a father’s will.<\/p>\n

For ’tis the hope of parents they may rear<\/p>\n

A brood of sons submissive, keen to avenge<\/p>\n

Their father’s wrongs, and count his friends their own.<\/p>\n

But who begets unprofitable sons,<\/p>\n

He verily breeds trouble for himself,<\/p>\n

And for his foes much laughter. Son, be warned<\/p>\n

And let no woman fool away thy wits.<\/p>\n

Ill fares the husband mated with a shrew,<\/p>\n

And her embraces very soon wax cold.<\/p>\n

For what can wound so surely to the quick<\/p>\n

As a false friend? So spue and cast her off,<\/p>\n

Bid her go find a husband with the dead.<\/p>\n

For since I caught her openly rebelling,<\/p>\n

Of all my subjects the one malcontent,<\/p>\n

I will not prove a traitor to the State.<\/p>\n

She surely dies. Go, let her, if she will,<\/p>\n

Appeal to Zeus the God of Kindred, for<\/p>\n

If thus I nurse rebellion in my house,<\/p>\n

Shall not I foster mutiny without?<\/p>\n

For whoso rules his household worthily,<\/p>\n

Will prove in civic matters no less wise.<\/p>\n

But he who overbears the laws, or thinks<\/p>\n

To overrule his rulers, such as one<\/p>\n

I never will allow. Whome’er the State<\/p>\n

Appoints must be obeyed in everything,<\/p>\n

But small and great, just and unjust alike.<\/p>\n

I warrant such a one in either case<\/p>\n

Would shine, as King or subject; such a man<\/p>\n

Would in the storm of battle stand his ground,<\/p>\n

A comrade leal and true; but Anarchy\u2014<\/p>\n

What evils are not wrought by Anarchy!<\/p>\n

She ruins States, and overthrows the home,<\/p>\n

She dissipates and routs the embattled host;<\/p>\n

While discipline preserves the ordered ranks.<\/p>\n

Therefore we must maintain authority<\/p>\n

And yield to title to a woman’s will.<\/p>\n

Better, if needs be, men should cast us out<\/p>\n

Than hear it said, a woman proved his match.
\nCHORUS
\nTo me, unless old age have dulled wits,<\/p>\n

Thy words appear both reasonable and wise.
\nHAEMON
\nFather, the gods implant in mortal men<\/p>\n

Reason, the choicest gift bestowed by heaven.<\/p>\n

‘Tis not for me to say thou errest, nor<\/p>\n

Would I arraign thy wisdom, if I could;<\/p>\n

And yet wise thoughts may come to other men<\/p>\n

And, as thy son, it falls to me to mark<\/p>\n

The acts, the words, the comments of the crowd.<\/p>\n

The commons stand in terror of thy frown,<\/p>\n

And dare not utter aught that might offend,<\/p>\n

But I can overhear their muttered plaints,<\/p>\n

Know how the people mourn this maiden doomed<\/p>\n

For noblest deeds to die the worst of deaths.<\/p>\n

When her own brother slain in battle lay<\/p>\n

Unsepulchered, she suffered not his corse<\/p>\n

To lie for carrion birds and dogs to maul:<\/p>\n

Should not her name (they cry) be writ in gold?<\/p>\n

Such the low murmurings that reach my ear.<\/p>\n

O father, nothing is by me more prized<\/p>\n

Than thy well-being, for what higher good<\/p>\n

Can children covet than their sire’s fair fame,<\/p>\n

As fathers too take pride in glorious sons?<\/p>\n

Therefore, my father, cling not to one mood,<\/p>\n

And deemed not thou art right, all others wrong.<\/p>\n

For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him,<\/p>\n

That he alone can speak or think aright,<\/p>\n

Such oracles are empty breath when tried.<\/p>\n

The wisest man will let himself be swayed<\/p>\n

By others’ wisdom and relax in time.<\/p>\n

See how the trees beside a stream in flood<\/p>\n

Save, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed,<\/p>\n

But by resisting perish root and branch.<\/p>\n

The mariner who keeps his mainsheet taut,<\/p>\n

And will not slacken in the gale, is like<\/p>\n

To sail with thwarts reversed, keel uppermost.<\/p>\n

Relent then and repent thee of thy wrath;<\/p>\n

For, if one young in years may claim some sense,<\/p>\n

I’ll say ’tis best of all to be endowed<\/p>\n

With absolute wisdom; but, if that’s denied,<\/p>\n

(And nature takes not readily that ply)<\/p>\n

Next wise is he who lists to sage advice.
\nCHORUS
\nIf he says aught in season, heed him, King.<\/p>\n

(To\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>)<\/p>\n

Heed thou thy sire too; both have spoken well.
\nCREON
\nWhat, would you have us at our age be schooled,<\/p>\n

Lessoned in prudence by a beardless boy?
\nHAEMON
\nI plead for justice, father, nothing more.<\/p>\n

Weigh me upon my merit, not my years.
\nCREON
\nStrange merit this to sanction lawlessness!
\nHAEMON
\nFor evil-doers I would urge no plea.
\nCREON
\nIs not this maid an arrant law-breaker?
\nHAEMON
\nThe Theban commons with one voice say, No.
\nCREON
\nWhat, shall the mob dictate my policy?
\nHAEMON
\n‘Tis thou, methinks, who speakest like a boy.
\nCREON
\nAm I to rule for others, or myself?
\nHAEMON
\nA State for one man is no State at all.
\nCREON
\nThe State is his who rules it, so ’tis held.
\nHAEMON
\nAs monarch of a desert thou wouldst shine.
\nCREON
\nThis boy, methinks, maintains the woman’s cause.
\nHAEMON
\nIf thou be’st woman, yes. My thought’s for thee.
\nCREON
\nO reprobate, would’st wrangle with thy sire?
\nHAEMON
\nBecause I see thee wrongfully perverse.
\nCREON
\nAnd am I wrong, if I maintain my rights?
\nHAEMON
\nTalk not of rights; thou spurn’st the due of Heaven
\nCREON
\nO heart corrupt, a woman’s minion thou!
\nHAEMON
\nSlave to dishonor thou wilt never find me.
\nCREON
\nThy speech at least was all a plea for her.
\nHAEMON
\nAnd thee and me, and for the gods below.
\nCREON
\nLiving the maid shall never be thy bride.
\nHAEMON
\nSo she shall die, but one will die with her.
\nCREON
\nHast come to such a pass as threaten me?
\nHAEMON
\nWhat threat is this, vain counsels to reprove?
\nCREON
\nVain fool to instruct thy betters; thou shall rue it.
\nHAEMON
\nWert not my father, I had said thou err’st.
\nCREON
\nPlay not the spaniel, thou a woman’s slave.
\nHAEMON
\nWhen thou dost speak, must no man make reply?
\nCREON
\nThis passes bounds. By heaven, thou shalt not rate<\/p>\n

And jeer and flout me with impunity.<\/p>\n

Off with the hateful thing that she may die<\/p>\n

At once, beside her bridegroom, in his sight.
\nHAEMON
\nThink not that in my sight the maid shall die,<\/p>\n

Or by my side; never shalt thou again<\/p>\n

Behold my face hereafter. Go, consort<\/p>\n

With friends who like a madman for their mate.<\/p>\n

[Exit\u00a0HAEMON<\/span>]
\nCHORUS
\nThy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste.<\/p>\n

Fell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.
\nCREON
\nLet him go vent his fury like a fiend:<\/p>\n

These sisters twain he shall not save from death.
\nCHORUS
\nSurely, thou meanest not to slay them both?
\nCREON
\nI stand corrected; only her who touched<\/p>\n

The body.
\nCHORUS
\nAnd what death is she to die?
\nCREON
\nShe shall be taken to some desert place<\/p>\n

By man untrod, and in a rock-hewn cave,<\/p>\n

With food no more than to avoid the taint<\/p>\n

That homicide might bring on all the State,<\/p>\n

Buried alive. There let her call in aid<\/p>\n

The King of Death, the one god she reveres,<\/p>\n

Or learn too late a lesson learnt at last:<\/p>\n

‘Tis labor lost, to reverence the dead.
\nCHORUS
\n(Str.)<\/p>\n

Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye,<\/p>\n

Love who pillowed all night on a maiden’s cheek dost lie,<\/p>\n

Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?<\/p>\n

(Ant).<\/p>\n

Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart<\/p>\n

Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart.<\/p>\n

Thou didst kindle the strife, this feud of kinsman with kin,<\/p>\n

By the eyes of a winsome wife, and the yearning her heart to win.<\/p>\n

For as her consort still, enthroned with Justice above,<\/p>\n

Thou bendest man to thy will, O all invincible Love.<\/p>\n

Lo I myself am borne aside,<\/p>\n

From Justice, as I view this bride.<\/p>\n

(O sight an eye in tears to drown)<\/p>\n

Antigone, so young, so fair,<\/p>\n

Thus hurried down<\/p>\n

Death’s bower with the dead to share.
\nANTIGONE
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Friends, countrymen, my last farewell I make;<\/p>\n

My journey’s done.<\/p>\n

One last fond, lingering, longing look I take<\/p>\n

At the bright sun.<\/p>\n

For Death who puts to sleep both young and old<\/p>\n

Hales my young life,<\/p>\n

And beckons me to Acheron’s dark fold,<\/p>\n

An unwed wife.<\/p>\n

No youths have sung the marriage song for me,<\/p>\n

My bridal bed<\/p>\n

No maids have strewn with flowers from the lea,<\/p>\n

‘Tis Death I wed.
\nCHORUS
\nBut bethink thee, thou art sped,<\/p>\n

Great and glorious, to the dead.<\/p>\n

Thou the sword’s edge hast not tasted,<\/p>\n

No disease thy frame hath wasted.<\/p>\n

Freely thou alone shalt go<\/p>\n

Living to the dead below.
\nANTIGONE
\n(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

Nay, but the piteous tale I’ve heard men tell<\/p>\n

Of Tantalus’ doomed child,<\/p>\n

Chained upon Siphylus’ high rocky fell,<\/p>\n

That clung like ivy wild,<\/p>\n

Drenched by the pelting rain and whirling snow,<\/p>\n

Left there to pine,<\/p>\n

While on her frozen breast the tears aye flow\u2014<\/p>\n

Her fate is mine.
\nCHORUS
\nShe was sprung of gods, divine,<\/p>\n

Mortals we of mortal line.<\/p>\n

Like renown with gods to gain<\/p>\n

Recompenses all thy pain.<\/p>\n

Take this solace to thy tomb<\/p>\n

Hers in life and death thy doom.
\nANTIGONE
\n(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

Alack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet<\/p>\n

Thus to insult me living, to my face?<\/p>\n

Cease, by our country’s altars I entreat,<\/p>\n

Ye lordly rulers of a lordly race.<\/p>\n

O fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain<\/p>\n

Where Theban chariots to victory speed,<\/p>\n

Mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane,<\/p>\n

The friends who show no pity in my need!<\/p>\n

Was ever fate like mine? O monstrous doom,<\/p>\n

Within a rock-built prison sepulchered,<\/p>\n

To fade and wither in a living tomb,<\/p>\n

And alien midst the living and the dead.
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 3)<\/p>\n

In thy boldness over-rash<\/p>\n

Madly thou thy foot didst dash<\/p>\n

‘Gainst high Justice’ altar stair.<\/p>\n

Thou a father’s guild dost bear.
\nANTIGONE
\n(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

At this thou touchest my most poignant pain,<\/p>\n

My ill-starred father’s piteous disgrace,<\/p>\n

The taint of blood, the hereditary stain,<\/p>\n

That clings to all of Labdacus’ famed race.<\/p>\n

Woe worth the monstrous marriage-bed where lay<\/p>\n

A mother with the son her womb had borne,<\/p>\n

Therein I was conceived, woe worth the day,<\/p>\n

Fruit of incestuous sheets, a maid forlorn,<\/p>\n

And now I pass, accursed and unwed,<\/p>\n

To meet them as an alien there below;<\/p>\n

And thee, O brother, in marriage ill-bestead,<\/p>\n

‘Twas thy dead hand that dealt me this death-blow.
\nCHORUS
\nReligion has her chains, ’tis true,<\/p>\n

Let rite be paid when rites are due.<\/p>\n

Yet is it ill to disobey<\/p>\n

The powers who hold by might the sway.<\/p>\n

Thou hast withstood authority,<\/p>\n

A self-willed rebel, thou must die.
\nANTIGONE
\nUnwept, unwed, unfriended, hence I go,<\/p>\n

No longer may I see the day’s bright eye;<\/p>\n

Not one friend left to share my bitter woe,<\/p>\n

And o’er my ashes heave one passing sigh.
\nCREON
\nIf wail and lamentation aught availed<\/p>\n

To stave off death, I trow they’d never end.<\/p>\n

Away with her, and having walled her up<\/p>\n

In a rock-vaulted tomb, as I ordained,<\/p>\n

Leave her alone at liberty to die,<\/p>\n

Or, if she choose, to live in solitude,<\/p>\n

The tomb her dwelling. We in either case<\/p>\n

Are guiltless as concerns this maiden’s blood,<\/p>\n

Only on earth no lodging shall she find.
\nANTIGONE
\nO grave, O bridal bower, O prison house<\/p>\n

Hewn from the rock, my everlasting home,<\/p>\n

Whither I go to join the mighty host<\/p>\n

Of kinsfolk, Persephassa’s guests long dead,<\/p>\n

The last of all, of all more miserable,<\/p>\n

I pass, my destined span of years cut short.<\/p>\n

And yet good hope is mine that I shall find<\/p>\n

A welcome from my sire, a welcome too,<\/p>\n

From thee, my mother, and my brother dear;<\/p>\n

From with these hands, I laved and decked your limbs<\/p>\n

In death, and poured libations on your grave.<\/p>\n

And last, my Polyneices, unto thee<\/p>\n

I paid due rites, and this my recompense!<\/p>\n

Yet am I justified in wisdom’s eyes.<\/p>\n

For even had it been some child of mine,<\/p>\n

Or husband mouldering in death’s decay,<\/p>\n

I had not wrought this deed despite the State.<\/p>\n

What is the law I call in aid? ‘Tis thus<\/p>\n

I argue. Had it been a husband dead<\/p>\n

I might have wed another, and have borne<\/p>\n

Another child, to take the dead child’s place.<\/p>\n

But, now my sire and mother both are dead,<\/p>\n

No second brother can be born for me.<\/p>\n

Thus by the law of conscience I was led<\/p>\n

To honor thee, dear brother, and was judged<\/p>\n

By Creon guilty of a heinous crime.<\/p>\n

And now he drags me like a criminal,<\/p>\n

A bride unwed, amerced of marriage-song<\/p>\n

And marriage-bed and joys of motherhood,<\/p>\n

By friends deserted to a living grave.<\/p>\n

What ordinance of heaven have I transgressed?<\/p>\n

Hereafter can I look to any god<\/p>\n

For succor, call on any man for help?<\/p>\n

Alas, my piety is impious deemed.<\/p>\n

Well, if such justice is approved of heaven,<\/p>\n

I shall be taught by suffering my sin;<\/p>\n

But if the sin is theirs, O may they suffer<\/p>\n

No worse ills than the wrongs they do to me.
\nCHORUS
\nThe same ungovernable will<\/p>\n

Drives like a gale the maiden still.
\nCREON
\nTherefore, my guards who let her stay<\/p>\n

Shall smart full sore for their delay.
\nANTIGONE
\nAh, woe is me! This word I hear<\/p>\n

Brings death most near.
\nCHORUS
\nI have no comfort. What he saith,<\/p>\n

Portends no other thing than death.
\nANTIGONE
\nMy fatherland, city of Thebes divine,<\/p>\n

Ye gods of Thebes whence sprang my line,<\/p>\n

Look, puissant lords of Thebes, on me;<\/p>\n

The last of all your royal house ye see.<\/p>\n

Martyred by men of sin, undone.<\/p>\n

Such meed my piety hath won.<\/p>\n

[Exit\u00a0ANTIGONE<\/span>]
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Like to thee that maiden bright,<\/p>\n

Danae, in her brass-bound tower,<\/p>\n

Once exchanged the glad sunlight<\/p>\n

For a cell, her bridal bower.<\/p>\n

And yet she sprang of royal line,<\/p>\n

My child, like thine,<\/p>\n

And nursed the seed<\/p>\n

By her conceived<\/p>\n

Of Zeus descending in a golden shower.<\/p>\n

Strange are the ways of Fate, her power<\/p>\n

Nor wealth, nor arms withstand, nor tower;<\/p>\n

Nor brass-prowed ships, that breast the sea<\/p>\n

From Fate can flee.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

Thus Dryas’ child, the rash Edonian King,<\/p>\n

For words of high disdain<\/p>\n

Did Bacchus to a rocky dungeon bring,<\/p>\n

To cool the madness of a fevered brain.<\/p>\n

His frenzy passed,<\/p>\n

He learnt at last<\/p>\n

‘Twas madness gibes against a god to fling.<\/p>\n

For once he fain had quenched the Maenad’s fire;<\/p>\n

And of the tuneful Nine provoked the ire.<\/p>\n

(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

By the Iron Rocks that guard the double main,<\/p>\n

On Bosporus’ lone strand,<\/p>\n

Where stretcheth Salmydessus’ plain<\/p>\n

In the wild Thracian land,<\/p>\n

There on his borders Ares witnessed<\/p>\n

The vengeance by a jealous step-dame ta’en<\/p>\n

The gore that trickled from a spindle red,<\/p>\n

The sightless orbits of her step-sons twain.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Wasting away they mourned their piteous doom,<\/p>\n

The blasted issue of their mother’s womb.<\/p>\n

But she her lineage could trace<\/p>\n

To great Erecththeus’ race;<\/p>\n

Daughter of Boreas in her sire’s vast caves<\/p>\n

Reared, where the tempest raves,<\/p>\n

Swift as his horses o’er the hills she sped;<\/p>\n

A child of gods; yet she, my child, like thee,<\/p>\n

By Destiny<\/p>\n

That knows not death nor age\u2014she too was vanquished.<\/p>\n

[Enter TEIRESIAS\u00a0<\/span>and BOY]
\nTEIRESIAS
\nPrinces of Thebes, two wayfarers as one,<\/p>\n

Having betwixt us eyes for one, we are here.<\/p>\n

The blind man cannot move without a guide.
\nCREON
\nWhy tidings, old Teiresias?
\nTEIRESIAS
\nI will tell thee;<\/p>\n

And when thou hearest thou must heed the seer.
\nCREON
\nThus far I ne’er have disobeyed thy rede.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nSo hast thou steered the ship of State aright.
\nCREON
\nI know it, and I gladly own my debt.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nBethink thee that thou treadest once again<\/p>\n

The razor edge of peril.
\nCREON
\nWhat is this?<\/p>\n

Thy words inspire a dread presentiment.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nThe divination of my arts shall tell.<\/p>\n

Sitting upon my throne of augury,<\/p>\n

As is my wont, where every fowl of heaven<\/p>\n

Find harborage, upon mine ears was borne<\/p>\n

A jargon strange of twitterings, hoots, and screams;<\/p>\n

So knew I that each bird at the other tare<\/p>\n

With bloody talons, for the whirr of wings<\/p>\n

Could signify naught else. Perturbed in soul,<\/p>\n

I straight essayed the sacrifice by fire<\/p>\n

On blazing altars, but the God of Fire<\/p>\n

Came not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped<\/p>\n

And sputtered in the ashes a foul ooze;<\/p>\n

Gall-bladders cracked and spurted up: the fat<\/p>\n

Melted and fell and left the thigh bones bare.<\/p>\n

Such are the signs, taught by this lad, I read\u2014<\/p>\n

As I guide others, so the boy guides me\u2014<\/p>\n

The frustrate signs of oracles grown dumb.<\/p>\n

O King, thy willful temper ails the State,<\/p>\n

For all our shrines and altars are profaned<\/p>\n

By what has filled the maw of dogs and crows,<\/p>\n

The flesh of Oedipus’ unburied son.<\/p>\n

Therefore the angry gods abominate<\/p>\n

Our litanies and our burnt offerings;<\/p>\n

Therefore no birds trill out a happy note,<\/p>\n

Gorged with the carnival of human gore.<\/p>\n

O ponder this, my son. To err is common<\/p>\n

To all men, but the man who having erred<\/p>\n

Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks<\/p>\n

The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.<\/p>\n

No fool, the saw goes, like the obstinate fool.<\/p>\n

Let death disarm thy vengeance. O forbear<\/p>\n

To vex the dead. What glory wilt thou win<\/p>\n

By slaying twice the slain? I mean thee well;<\/p>\n

Counsel’s most welcome if I promise gain.
\nCREON
\nOld man, ye all let fly at me your shafts<\/p>\n

Like anchors at a target; yea, ye set<\/p>\n

Your soothsayer on me. Peddlers are ye all<\/p>\n

And I the merchandise ye buy and sell.<\/p>\n

Go to, and make your profit where ye will,<\/p>\n

Silver of Sardis change for gold of Ind;<\/p>\n

Ye will not purchase this man’s burial,<\/p>\n

Not though the winged ministers of Zeus<\/p>\n

Should bear him in their talons to his throne;<\/p>\n

Not e’en in awe of prodigy so dire<\/p>\n

Would I permit his burial, for I know<\/p>\n

No human soilure can assail the gods;<\/p>\n

This too I know, Teiresias, dire’s the fall<\/p>\n

Of craft and cunning when it tries to gloss<\/p>\n

Foul treachery with fair words for filthy gain.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nAlas! doth any know and lay to heart\u2014
\nCREON
\nIs this the prelude to some hackneyed saw?
\nTEIRESIAS
\nHow far good counsel is the best of goods?
\nCREON
\nTrue, as unwisdom is the worst of ills.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nThou art infected with that ill thyself.
\nCREON
\nI will not bandy insults with thee, seer.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nAnd yet thou say’st my prophesies are frauds.
\nCREON
\nProphets are all a money-getting tribe.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nAnd kings are all a lucre-loving race.
\nCREON
\nDost know at whom thou glancest, me thy lord?
\nTEIRESIAS
\nLord of the State and savior, thanks to me.
\nCREON
\nSkilled prophet art thou, but to wrong inclined.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nTake heed, thou wilt provoke me to reveal<\/p>\n

The mystery deep hidden in my breast.
\nCREON
\nSay on, but see it be not said for gain.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nSuch thou, methinks, till now hast judged my words.
\nCREON
\nBe sure thou wilt not traffic on my wits.
\nTEIRESIAS
\nKnow then for sure, the coursers of the sun<\/p>\n

Not many times shall run their race, before<\/p>\n

Thou shalt have given the fruit of thine own loins<\/p>\n

In quittance of thy murder, life for life;<\/p>\n

For that thou hast entombed a living soul,<\/p>\n

And sent below a denizen of earth,<\/p>\n

And wronged the nether gods by leaving here<\/p>\n

A corpse unlaved, unwept, unsepulchered.<\/p>\n

Herein thou hast no part, nor e’en the gods<\/p>\n

In heaven; and thou usurp’st a power not thine.<\/p>\n

For this the avenging spirits of Heaven and Hell<\/p>\n

Who dog the steps of sin are on thy trail:<\/p>\n

What these have suffered thou shalt suffer too.<\/p>\n

And now, consider whether bought by gold<\/p>\n

I prophesy. For, yet a little while,<\/p>\n

And sound of lamentation shall be heard,<\/p>\n

Of men and women through thy desolate halls;<\/p>\n

And all thy neighbor States are leagues to avenge<\/p>\n

Their mangled warriors who have found a grave<\/p>\n

I’ the maw of wolf or hound, or winged bird<\/p>\n

That flying homewards taints their city’s air.<\/p>\n

These are the shafts, that like a bowman I<\/p>\n

Provoked to anger, loosen at thy breast,<\/p>\n

Unerring, and their smart thou shalt not shun.<\/p>\n

Boy, lead me home, that he may vent his spleen<\/p>\n

On younger men, and learn to curb his tongue<\/p>\n

With gentler manners than his present mood.<\/p>\n

[Exit\u00a0TEIRESIAS<\/span>]
\nCHORUS
\nMy liege, that man hath gone, foretelling woe.<\/p>\n

And, O believe me, since these grizzled locks<\/p>\n

Were like the raven, never have I known<\/p>\n

The prophet’s warning to the State to fail.
\nCREON
\nI know it too, and it perplexes me.<\/p>\n

To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul<\/p>\n

That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.
\nCHORUS
\nSon of Menoeceus, list to good advice.
\nCHORUS
\nWhat should I do. Advise me. I will heed.
\nCHORUS
\nGo, free the maiden from her rocky cell;<\/p>\n

And for the unburied outlaw build a tomb.
\nCREON
\nIs that your counsel? You would have me yield?
\nCHORUS
\nYea, king, this instant. Vengeance of the gods<\/p>\n

Is swift to overtake the impenitent.
\nCREON
\nAh! what a wrench it is to sacrifice<\/p>\n

My heart’s resolve; but Fate is ill to fight.
\nCHORUS
\nGo, trust not others. Do it quick thyself.
\nCREON
\nI go hot-foot. Bestir ye one and all,<\/p>\n

My henchmen! Get ye axes! Speed away<\/p>\n

To yonder eminence! I too will go,<\/p>\n

For all my resolution this way sways.<\/p>\n

‘Twas I that bound, I too will set her free.<\/p>\n

Almost I am persuaded it is best<\/p>\n

To keep through life the law ordained of old.<\/p>\n

[Exit\u00a0CREON<\/span>]
\nCHORUS
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Thou by many names adored,<\/p>\n

Child of Zeus the God of thunder,<\/p>\n

Of a Theban bride the wonder,<\/p>\n

Fair Italia’s guardian lord;<\/p>\n

In the deep-embosomed glades<\/p>\n

Of the Eleusinian Queen<\/p>\n

Haunt of revelers, men and maids,<\/p>\n

Dionysus, thou art seen.<\/p>\n

Where Ismenus rolls his waters,<\/p>\n

Where the Dragon’s teeth were sown,<\/p>\n

Where the Bacchanals thy daughters<\/p>\n

Round thee roam,<\/p>\n

There thy home;<\/p>\n

Thebes, O Bacchus, is thine own.<\/p>\n

(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

Thee on the two-crested rock<\/p>\n

Lurid-flaming torches see;<\/p>\n

Where Corisian maidens flock,<\/p>\n

Thee the springs of Castaly.<\/p>\n

By Nysa’s bastion ivy-clad,<\/p>\n

By shores with clustered vineyards glad,<\/p>\n

There to thee the hymn rings out,<\/p>\n

And through our streets we Thebans shout,<\/p>\n

All hall to thee<\/p>\n

Evoe, Evoe!<\/p>\n

(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

Oh, as thou lov’st this city best of all,<\/p>\n

To thee, and to thy Mother levin-stricken,<\/p>\n

In our dire need we call;<\/p>\n

Thou see’st with what a plague our townsfolk sicken.<\/p>\n

Thy ready help we crave,<\/p>\n

Whether adown Parnassian heights descending,<\/p>\n

Or o’er the roaring straits thy swift was wending,<\/p>\n

Save us, O save!<\/p>\n

(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Brightest of all the orbs that breathe forth light,<\/p>\n

Authentic son of Zeus, immortal king,<\/p>\n

Leader of all the voices of the night,<\/p>\n

Come, and thy train of Thyiads with thee bring,<\/p>\n

Thy maddened rout<\/p>\n

Who dance before thee all night long, and shout,<\/p>\n

Thy handmaids we,<\/p>\n

Evoe, Evoe!<\/p>\n

[Enter MESSENGER]
\nMESSENGER
\nAttend all ye who dwell beside the halls<\/p>\n

Of Cadmus and Amphion. No man’s life<\/p>\n

As of one tenor would I praise or blame,<\/p>\n

For Fortune with a constant ebb and rise<\/p>\n

Casts down and raises high and low alike,<\/p>\n

And none can read a mortal’s horoscope.<\/p>\n

Take Creon; he, methought, if any man,<\/p>\n

Was enviable. He had saved this land<\/p>\n

Of Cadmus from our enemies and attained<\/p>\n

A monarch’s powers and ruled the state supreme,<\/p>\n

While a right noble issue crowned his bliss.<\/p>\n

Now all is gone and wasted, for a life<\/p>\n

Without life’s joys I count a living death.<\/p>\n

You’ll tell me he has ample store of wealth,<\/p>\n

The pomp and circumstance of kings; but if<\/p>\n

These give no pleasure, all the rest I count<\/p>\n

The shadow of a shade, nor would I weigh<\/p>\n

His wealth and power ‘gainst a dram of joy.
\nCHORUS
\nWhat fresh woes bring’st thou to the royal house?
\nMESSENGER
\nBoth dead, and they who live deserve to die.
\nCHORUS
\nWho is the slayer, who the victim? speak.
\nMESSENGER
\nHaemon; his blood shed by no stranger hand.
\nCHORUS
\nWhat mean ye? by his father’s or his own?
\nMESSENGER
\nHis own; in anger for his father’s crime.
\nCHORUS
\nO prophet, what thou spakest comes to pass.
\nMESSENGER
\nSo stands the case; now ’tis for you to act.
\nCHORUS
\nLo! from the palace gates I see approaching<\/p>\n

Creon’s unhappy wife, Eurydice.<\/p>\n

Comes she by chance or learning her son’s fate?<\/p>\n

[Enter\u00a0EURYDICE<\/span>]
\nEURYDICE
\nYe men of Thebes, I overheard your talk.<\/p>\n

As I passed out to offer up my prayer<\/p>\n

To Pallas, and was drawing back the bar<\/p>\n

To open wide the door, upon my ears<\/p>\n

There broke a wail that told of household woe<\/p>\n

Stricken with terror in my handmaids’ arms<\/p>\n

I fell and fainted. But repeat your tale<\/p>\n

To one not unacquaint with misery.
\nMESSENGER
\nDear mistress, I was there and will relate<\/p>\n

The perfect truth, omitting not one word.<\/p>\n

Why should we gloze and flatter, to be proved<\/p>\n

Liars hereafter? Truth is ever best.<\/p>\n

Well, in attendance on my liege, your lord,<\/p>\n

I crossed the plain to its utmost margin, where<\/p>\n

The corse of Polyneices, gnawn and mauled,<\/p>\n

Was lying yet. We offered first a prayer<\/p>\n

To Pluto and the goddess of cross-ways,<\/p>\n

With contrite hearts, to deprecate their ire.<\/p>\n

Then laved with lustral waves the mangled corse,<\/p>\n

Laid it on fresh-lopped branches, lit a pyre,<\/p>\n

And to his memory piled a mighty mound<\/p>\n

Of mother earth. Then to the caverned rock,<\/p>\n

The bridal chamber of the maid and Death,<\/p>\n

We sped, about to enter. But a guard<\/p>\n

Heard from that godless shrine a far shrill wail,<\/p>\n

And ran back to our lord to tell the news.<\/p>\n

But as he nearer drew a hollow sound<\/p>\n

Of lamentation to the King was borne.<\/p>\n

He groaned and uttered then this bitter plaint:<\/p>\n

“Am I a prophet? miserable me!<\/p>\n

Is this the saddest path I ever trod?<\/p>\n

‘Tis my son’s voice that calls me. On press on,<\/p>\n

My henchmen, haste with double speed to the tomb<\/p>\n

Where rocks down-torn have made a gap, look in<\/p>\n

And tell me if in truth I recognize<\/p>\n

The voice of Haemon or am heaven-deceived.”<\/p>\n

So at the bidding of our distraught lord<\/p>\n

We looked, and in the craven’s vaulted gloom<\/p>\n

I saw the maiden lying strangled there,<\/p>\n

A noose of linen twined about her neck;<\/p>\n

And hard beside her, clasping her cold form,<\/p>\n

Her lover lay bewailing his dead bride<\/p>\n

Death-wedded, and his father’s cruelty.<\/p>\n

When the King saw him, with a terrible groan<\/p>\n

He moved towards him, crying, “O my son<\/p>\n

What hast thou done? What ailed thee? What mischance<\/p>\n

Has reft thee of thy reason? O come forth,<\/p>\n

Come forth, my son; thy father supplicates.”<\/p>\n

But the son glared at him with tiger eyes,<\/p>\n

Spat in his face, and then, without a word,<\/p>\n

Drew his two-hilted sword and smote, but missed<\/p>\n

His father flying backwards. Then the boy,<\/p>\n

Wroth with himself, poor wretch, incontinent<\/p>\n

Fell on his sword and drove it through his side<\/p>\n

Home, but yet breathing clasped in his lax arms<\/p>\n

The maid, her pallid cheek incarnadined<\/p>\n

With his expiring gasps. So there they lay<\/p>\n

Two corpses, one in death. His marriage rites<\/p>\n

Are consummated in the halls of Death:<\/p>\n

A witness that of ills whate’er befall<\/p>\n

Mortals’ unwisdom is the worst of all.<\/p>\n

[Exit\u00a0EURYDICE<\/span>]
\nCHORUS
\nWhat makest thou of this? The Queen has gone<\/p>\n

Without a word importing good or ill.
\nMESSENGER
\nI marvel too, but entertain good hope.<\/p>\n

‘Tis that she shrinks in public to lament<\/p>\n

Her son’s sad ending, and in privacy<\/p>\n

Would with her maidens mourn a private loss.<\/p>\n

Trust me, she is discreet and will not err.
\nCHORUS
\nI know not, but strained silence, so I deem,<\/p>\n

Is no less ominous than excessive grief.
\nMESSENGER
\nWell, let us to the house and solve our doubts,<\/p>\n

Whether the tumult of her heart conceals<\/p>\n

Some fell design. It may be thou art right:<\/p>\n

Unnatural silence signifies no good.
\nCHORUS
\nLo! the King himself appears.<\/p>\n

Evidence he with him bears<\/p>\n

‘Gainst himself (ah me! I quake<\/p>\n

‘Gainst a king such charge to make)<\/p>\n

But all must own,<\/p>\n

The guilt is his and his alone.
\nCREON
\n(Str. 1)<\/p>\n

Woe for sin of minds perverse,<\/p>\n

Deadly fraught with mortal curse.<\/p>\n

Behold us slain and slayers, all akin.<\/p>\n

Woe for my counsel dire, conceived in sin.<\/p>\n

Alas, my son,<\/p>\n

Life scarce begun,<\/p>\n

Thou wast undone.<\/p>\n

The fault was mine, mine only, O my son!
\nCHORUS
\nToo late thou seemest to perceive the truth.
\nCREON
\n(Str. 2)<\/p>\n

By sorrow schooled. Heavy the hand of God,<\/p>\n

Thorny and rough the paths my feet have trod,<\/p>\n

Humbled my pride, my pleasure turned to pain;<\/p>\n

Poor mortals, how we labor all in vain!<\/p>\n

[Enter SECOND MESSENGER]<\/p>\n

SECOND MESSENGER<\/p>\n

Sorrows are thine, my lord, and more to come,<\/p>\n

One lying at thy feet, another yet<\/p>\n

More grievous waits thee, when thou comest home.
\nCREON
\nWhat woe is lacking to my tale of woes?<\/p>\n

SECOND MESSENGER<\/p>\n

Thy wife, the mother of thy dead son here,<\/p>\n

Lies stricken by a fresh inflicted blow.
\nCREON
\n(Ant. 1)<\/p>\n

How bottomless the pit!<\/p>\n

Does claim me too, O Death?<\/p>\n

What is this word he saith,<\/p>\n

This woeful messenger? Say, is it fit<\/p>\n

To slay anew a man already slain?<\/p>\n

Is Death at work again,<\/p>\n

Stroke upon stroke, first son, then mother slain?
\nCHORUS
\nLook for thyself. She lies for all to view.
\nCREON
\n(Ant. 2)<\/p>\n

Alas! another added woe I see.<\/p>\n

What more remains to crown my agony?<\/p>\n

A minute past I clasped a lifeless son,<\/p>\n

And now another victim Death hath won.<\/p>\n

Unhappy mother, most unhappy son!
\nSECOND MESSENGER
\nBeside the altar on a keen-edged sword<\/p>\n

She fell and closed her eyes in night, but erst<\/p>\n

She mourned for Megareus who nobly died<\/p>\n

Long since, then for her son; with her last breath<\/p>\n

She cursed thee, the slayer of her child.
\nCREON
\n(Str. 3)<\/p>\n

I shudder with affright<\/p>\n

O for a two-edged sword to slay outright<\/p>\n

A wretch like me,<\/p>\n

Made one with misery.
\nSECOND MESSENGER
\n‘Tis true that thou wert charged by the dead Queen<\/p>\n

As author of both deaths, hers and her son’s.
\nCREON
\nIn what wise was her self-destruction wrought?<\/p>\n

SECOND MESSENGER<\/p>\n

Hearing the loud lament above her son<\/p>\n

With her own hand she stabbed herself to the heart.
\nCREON
\n(Str. 4)<\/p>\n

I am the guilty cause. I did the deed,<\/p>\n

Thy murderer. Yea, I guilty plead.<\/p>\n

My henchmen, lead me hence, away, away,<\/p>\n

A cipher, less than nothing; no delay!
\nCHORUS
\nWell said, if in disaster aught is well<\/p>\n

His past endure demand the speediest cure.
\nCREON
\n(Ant. 3)<\/p>\n

Come, Fate, a friend at need,<\/p>\n

Come with all speed!<\/p>\n

Come, my best friend,<\/p>\n

And speed my end!<\/p>\n

Away, away!<\/p>\n

Let me not look upon another day!
\nCHORUS
\nThis for the morrow; to us are present needs<\/p>\n

That they whom it concerns must take in hand.
\nCREON
\nI join your prayer that echoes my desire.
\nCHORUS
\nO pray not, prayers are idle; from the doom<\/p>\n

Of fate for mortals refuge is there none.
\nCREON
\n(Ant. 4)<\/p>\n

Away with me, a worthless wretch who slew<\/p>\n

Unwitting thee, my son, thy mother too.<\/p>\n

Whither to turn I know now; every way<\/p>\n

Leads but astray,<\/p>\n

And on my head I feel the heavy weight<\/p>\n

Of crushing Fate.
\nCHORUS
\nOf happiness the chiefest part<\/p>\n

Is a wise heart:<\/p>\n

And to defraud the gods in aught<\/p>\n

With peril’s fraught.<\/p>\n

Swelling words of high-flown might<\/p>\n

Mightily the gods do smite.<\/p>\n

Chastisement for errors past<\/p>\n

Wisdom brings to age at last.<\/p>\n<\/h1>\n\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t

Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Public domain content<\/div>