Antigone

AntigoneIsmene, my sister, my own flesh and blood, do you know a single one of the evils handed down from Oedipus that Zeus is not bringing to pass for the two of us while we are still alive? There is nothing painful, nothing free of ruin, nothing shameful, nothing dishonoring that I haven’t seen among your sorrows and mine. And now what is this proclamation they say the general has just issued to the whole city? Do you know anything? Have you heard? Or haven’t you noticed that evils meant for our enemies are marching against those we love?

IsmeneNo word about our loved ones has reached me, Antigone, either sweet or painful, since the two of us were robbed of our two brothers, who died on a single day, each by the other’s hand. Since the Argive army left, this past night, I know nothing more, nothing that makes me luckier or more ruined.note

AntigoneI knew it well. That’s why I brought you out beyond the courtyard gates, so that you alone could hear.

IsmeneWhat is it? You’re clearly brooding darkly over some news.

AntigoneHasn’t Creon given one of our brothers the honor of burial and denied it to the other? Eteocles, they say, he has laid beneath the earth, treating him justly as justice and law require, so that he is honored among the dead below. But the body of Polynices, who died so wretchedly, they say it has been proclaimed to the citizens that no one is to cover it in a grave or mourn it. He is to be left unwept, unburied, a sweet treasure for the birds as they look down, eager for a feast.

IsmeneBut, my poor sister, if things are like this, what more could I accomplish, whether I tie the knot or untie it?

AntigoneThink whether you’ll share the work and the deed with me.

IsmeneWhat kind of risk? What are you thinking of?

AntigoneWhether you’ll help this hand of mine lift the body.

IsmeneYou mean to bury him, when the city has forbidden it?

AntigoneYes, my brother, and yours too, even if you won’t. No one will ever catch me betraying him.

IsmeneYou reckless girl, when Creon has forbidden it?

AntigoneHe has no right to keep me from my own.

IsmeneOh, no. Think, my sister, how our father died, hated and disgraced, after he struck out both his eyes with his own hand for the crimes he himself laid bare. Then his mother and wife, two names for one woman, destroyed her life in a twisted noose. And third, our two brothers, on a single day, poor wretches, killing each other, brought about a shared death, each by the other’s hand.

IsmeneI’m not dishonoring anything. But I have no strength to act against the citizens’ will.

AntigoneYou can make that your excuse. I am going to heap up a grave for my dearest brother.

IsmeneOh, no, my poor sister, how afraid I am for you!

AntigoneDon’t fear for me. Set your own fate straight.

IsmeneWell, at least don’t tell anyone about this beforehand. Keep it hidden, secret, and so will I.

AntigoneOh, no, speak out! You’ll be far more hateful to me if you keep silent and don’t proclaim it to everyone.

IsmeneYou have a hot heart for chilling deeds.

AntigoneBut I know I’m pleasing those I most ought to please.

IsmeneIf you even can. But you’re in love with the impossible.

AntigoneThen when my strength gives out, I’ll stop.

IsmeneIt’s wrong to hunt the impossible in the first place.

AntigoneIf you talk like that, I will hate you, and the dead will rightly hold you his enemy too. Leave me and my own folly to suffer this terrible thing. Nothing I suffer will be so terrible that I won’t die a fine death.

IsmeneWell, if you’re set on it, go. But know this: you are going senselessly, yet truly loving to those you love.

ChorusBeam of the sun,
fairest light ever shown
to seven-gated Thebes,
at last you have dawned,
eye of golden day,
coming over Dirce’s streams,
and the man who marched from Argos
with his white shield, in full armor,
you have driven in headlong flight,
urged on by a sharper bridle.note

He whom Polynices
roused against our land
out of quarrels and strife
swooped down on our country
like a shrill-screaming eagle,
sheltered by a wing white as snow,
with weapons in plenty
and helmets plumed with horsehair.

He stood above our houses,
his blood-hungry spears
gaping all around
our seven-gated mouth.
But he went, before his jaws
were glutted with our blood,
before Hephaestus’ pine-fed fire
could seize our crown of towers.
Such a clangor of Ares
was stretched about his back,
too hard to master for his rival, the dragon.note

For Zeus hates above all things
the boasts of a proud tongue,
and when he saw them
advancing in a great flood,
arrogant in the clang of gold,
he hurled his brandished fire
at one already on the ramparts’ top,
rushing to raise the shout of victory.note

Swung through the air, he fell
on the hard-striking earth,
the fire-bearer who just now,
in a frenzied rush,
raving like a Bacchant,
breathed against us
blasts of the most hateful winds.
But things went another way:
great Ares, our strong right-hand horse,
dealt other blows to others,
battering them hard.

For seven captains at seven gates,
matched man to man,
left their armor all of bronze
as tribute to Zeus who turns the battle,
all but the two ill-fated ones,
who, born of one father
and one mother,
leveled their conquering spears
at each other
and both won a share
of a common death.

But Victory, great in name, has come,
rejoicing with Thebes of the many chariots.
So let us put out of mind
the wars just past,
and go to all the temples of the gods
with dances all night long,
and may Bacchus, who shakes the land of Thebes,
lead the way.

But here comes the king of the land,
Creon, son of Menoeceus,
our new ruler
under the gods’ new fortunes.
What plan is he turning over,
that he has called
this special council of elders,
summoned by general proclamation?

CreonGentlemen, the gods tossed our city on a heavy sea, and now they have set it safely upright again. I’ve sent messengers to summon you here, apart from everyone else, because I know well that you always revered the power of Laius’ throne; and again, when Oedipus kept the city upright, and after he perished, you stood by their children, steadfast in your loyalty. Now, since those sons have perished on a single day by a double fate, striking and struck, stained by the pollution of their own hands, I hold all power and the throne by right of nearest kinship to the dead.

ChorusThat is your pleasure, Creon, son of Menoeceus, for the man who is hostile to this city and the man who is loyal to it. And you have the power, I suppose, to use any law you like, both for the dead and for those of us still living.

CreonThen see that you watch over what has been ordered.

ChorusLay that burden on someone younger.

CreonNo, there are men posted already to watch the body.

ChorusThen what else would you still have us do?

CreonNot to side with those who disobey these orders.

ChorusNo one is fool enough to be in love with death.

CreonYes, that’s the wage. But the hope of profit has often been the ruin of men.

GuardMy lord, I won’t say I’ve come here out of breath from hurrying, lifting a light foot. I stopped a lot of times to think, and kept turning around on the road to go back. My soul kept talking to me, saying all sorts of things: “You poor fool, why are you going where you’ll get punished when you arrive?” “You idiot, stopping again? What if Creon hears this from somebody else? How are you not going to get hurt for it?” Turning all that over, I took my time and went slowly, and that’s how a short road gets long. In the end, though, coming here to you won out. And even if what I tell you is nothing, I’ll tell it anyway. I’ve come clinging to the hope that I can’t suffer anything except what’s fated.

CreonWhat is it that has you so disheartened?

GuardFirst I want to tell you my side of it. I didn’t do the deed, and I didn’t see who did it, and it wouldn’t be just for me to come to any harm.

CreonYou take good aim, and you fence the matter off all round. Clearly you’ve got some news to report.

GuardWell, terrible news makes a man hesitate a good deal.

CreonWon’t you tell it, then, and be off out of my way?

GuardAll right, I’m telling you. Somebody has just buried the body and gone off. Sprinkled thirsty dust on its skin and performed the proper rites.

CreonWhat are you saying? What man dared to do this?

GuardI don’t know. There was no mark of a pickaxe there, no earth thrown up by a mattock. The ground was hard and dry, unbroken, no wheel ruts across it. Whoever did it left no trace. When the first day-watchman showed us, it was an awful wonder to all of us. The body was gone from sight. Not buried in a grave, but there was a thin layer of dust on it, as if from someone trying to escape the pollution. And there were no signs that any wild animal or any dog had come and torn at it. Ugly words were flying back and forth, guard accusing guard, and in the end it would have come to blows, and there was no one there to stop it.

ChorusMy lord, my mind has long been asking whether this deed might be something the gods have sent.

CreonStop, before your words fill me with rage, or you’ll turn out to be a fool as well as old. What you say is intolerable, when you say the gods care for this corpse. Was it to honor him above all others as their benefactor that they covered him, the man who came to burn their pillared temples and their offerings, and to scatter their land and its laws to the winds? Or do you see the gods honoring the wicked? It isn’t so. No: for a long time there have been men in this city who could barely stand my orders and muttered against me, shaking their heads in secret, and would not keep their necks under the yoke as they ought, and be content with me.

GuardWill you let me say something, or shall I just turn around and go?

CreonDon’t you know even now how your talk annoys me?

GuardDoes it sting in your ears, or in your soul?

CreonWhy are you trying to pin down where my pain is?

GuardThe man who did it pains your mind. I only pain your ears.

CreonAh, you’re a born babbler, that much is plain.

GuardMaybe, but I never did this deed.

CreonYou did, and sold your soul for silver too.

GuardAh. It’s a terrible thing when a man who’s made up his mind makes it up wrong.

CreonGo on, be clever about making up minds. But if you don’t show me who did this, you’ll have to admit that cowardly gains bring grief.

GuardWell, I hope above all he’s found. But whether he’s caught or not, and luck will decide that, there’s no way you’ll see me coming back here. Even now I’ve been saved against all my hope and expectation, and I owe the gods a lot of thanks.

The tribe of light-minded birds
he snares and carries off,
and the nations of wild beasts,
and the creatures of the sea,
in the coils of woven nets,
man, the ingenious.
By his devices he masters
the beast that roams the wild hills;
he tames the shaggy-maned horse,
putting the yoke about its neck,
and the tireless mountain bull.

Speech, and thought swift as the wind,
and the temper that orders cities,
he has taught himself,
and how to escape the arrows
of frost under the open sky,
where shelter is hard to find,
and the arrows of the pelting rain.
Resourceful in everything,
he meets nothing that is to come
without resource.
From Hades alone
he will find no escape;
but from diseases past all help
he has devised ways out.

Clever beyond hope
is the skill of his devising;
it carries him now to evil,
now to good.
When he honors the laws of the land
and the justice of the gods he has sworn by,
high stands his city;
cityless is he who,
for the sake of daring,
keeps company with what is not noble.
May he never share my hearth,
never share my thoughts,
the man who does such things.

At this portent sent by the gods
my mind is torn in two.
Knowing her, how can I deny
that this girl is Antigone?
Unhappy girl,
child of an unhappy father, Oedipus,
what is this? Surely they’re not
bringing you here as one who disobeyed
the king’s laws,
caught in an act of folly?

GuardHere she is, the one who did it. We caught her burying him. But where is Creon?

ChorusHere he is, coming back out of the house just when he’s needed.

CreonWhat is it? What has happened, that my coming is so timely?

GuardMy lord, there’s nothing a man should swear he’ll never do. Second thoughts make a liar of your first judgment. I’d have sworn I’d be slow to come back here, after those threats of yours that hit me like a storm. But since a joy that comes from nowhere, beyond all hope, is bigger than any other pleasure, I’ve come, even though I swore I wouldn’t, bringing this girl, who was caught tending the grave. No lots were shaken this time; this windfall’s mine and nobody else’s. And now take her yourself, as you like, and judge her and question her. As for me, I have the right to be free and clear of this trouble.

CreonThis girl you’ve brought: how did you catch her, and where?

GuardShe was burying the man. Now you know everything.

CreonDo you understand what you’re saying? Is it the truth?

GuardI saw her burying the body you forbade anyone to bury. Is that plain and clear enough?

CreonAnd how was she seen and caught in the act?

GuardHere’s how it was. When we got back, with those terrible threats of yours hanging over us, we swept off all the dust that covered the body and stripped the rotting corpse thoroughly bare. Then we sat down on the top of the hills, upwind, to keep clear of the stench coming off it, each man keeping the next one awake with a stream of abuse in case anyone got careless with the job. That went on for a long time, until the bright disk of the sun stood in the middle of the sky and the heat was scorching. And then suddenly a whirlwind lifted a storm of dust off the ground, a trouble sent from the sky, and filled the plain, tearing all the leaves off the trees there, and the whole wide air was choked with it. We shut our eyes and endured this plague from the gods.

CreonYou. Yes, you, with your head bowed to the ground. Do you admit you did this, or deny it?

AntigoneI admit I did it. I don’t deny it.

CreonYou can take yourself off wherever you like, free and clear of a heavy charge. And you, tell me, not at length but briefly: did you know there was a proclamation forbidding this?

AntigoneI knew. How could I not? It was public.

CreonAnd still you dared to overstep these laws?

ChorusIt shows. The girl is the fierce child of a fierce father. She doesn’t know how to bend before trouble.

CreonBut you should know that the most rigid wills are the ones that fall hardest. The toughest iron, baked hard in the fire, is the iron you’ll most often see snap and shatter. And I know that spirited horses are broken in with a small bit. There’s no room for pride in someone who is a slave to his neighbors. She knew perfectly well how to commit outrage back then, when she overstepped the established laws. And now that she’s done it, here’s a second outrage: to boast about it and laugh at what she’s done.

AntigoneDo you want anything more than to seize me and kill me?

CreonNothing. With that, I have everything.

AntigoneThen why wait? Nothing you say pleases me, and I hope it never will. And in the same way, what I say is bound to displease you. And yet where could I have won more glorious fame than by laying my own brother in his grave? Everyone here would say they approve, if fear didn’t lock their tongues. But kingship is blessed in many ways, and above all it can do and say whatever it likes.

CreonYou’re the only one of these Thebans who sees it that way.

AntigoneThey see it too. They just hold their tongues for you.

CreonAnd aren’t you ashamed to think differently from them?

AntigoneThere’s nothing shameful in honoring those born from the same womb.

CreonAnd wasn’t the one who died on the other side your brother too?

AntigoneMy brother, by the same mother and the same father.

CreonThen how can you pay the traitor a tribute that is irreverent toward the other?

AntigoneThe dead man won’t bear witness to that.

CreonHe will, if you honor him only as much as the irreverent one.

AntigoneIt wasn’t some slave who died. It was his brother.

CreonRavaging this land, while the other stood against him to defend it.

AntigoneEven so, Hades wants these laws observed.

CreonBut the good man shouldn’t get the same share as the bad.

AntigoneWho knows whether, down below, this is held pure?

CreonAn enemy is never a loved one, not even when he’s dead.

CreonThen go down below, and if you must love, love them. While I’m alive, no woman will rule me.

ChorusBut look, here at the gates is Ismene,
shedding a sister’s loving tears.
A cloud above her brows
mars her flushed face
and wets her lovely cheeks.

CreonAnd you, lurking in my house like a viper, secretly drinking my blood, while I never knew I was raising two ruinous plagues to overthrow my throne. Come on, tell me: will you admit to your part in this burial too, or will you swear you know nothing?

IsmeneI did it, if she’ll agree. I share the blame and I bear it.

AntigoneNo. Justice won’t allow you that, because you weren’t willing, and I didn’t make you my partner.

IsmeneBut now that you’re in trouble, I’m not ashamed to make myself your shipmate in suffering.

AntigoneWhose deed it was, Hades and the dead below know. I have no love for a loved one whose love is only words.

IsmeneSister, don’t dishonor me by refusing to let me die with you and give the dead his sacred rites.

AntigoneDon’t die with me, and don’t claim as yours what you never touched. My dying will be enough.

IsmeneAnd what life will I care for, left without you?

AntigoneAsk Creon. He’s the one you care about.

IsmeneWhy do you hurt me like this, when it does you no good?

AntigoneIf I do laugh at you, it hurts me to laugh.

IsmeneThen how can I help you, even now?

AntigoneSave yourself. I don’t begrudge you your escape.

IsmeneOh, no, how wretched I am! Am I to have no share in your fate?

AntigoneNo, because you chose to live, and I chose to die.

IsmeneBut not without my saying what I had to say.

AntigoneSome thought you were wise, and others thought I was.

IsmeneAnd yet the offense is the same for both of us.

AntigoneTake heart. You are alive. But my soul died long ago, so that I could serve the dead.

CreonThese two girls, I tell you: one has just been shown to be senseless, and the other has been ever since she was born.

IsmeneYes, my lord, because whatever sense people are born with never stays with them in misfortune. It leaves them.

CreonIt left you, at any rate, when you chose to do wrong alongside wrongdoers.

IsmeneHow could I live alone, without her?

CreonDon’t speak of “her.” She is no more.

IsmeneBut will you kill your own son’s bride?

CreonYes. There are other fields for him to plow.

IsmeneNot as well matched as he and she were.

CreonI hate wicked wives for my sons.

AntigoneHaemon, dearest, how your father dishonors you!

CreonYou’re too much trouble for me, you and that marriage of yours.

ChorusWill you really rob your own son of her?

CreonIt is Hades who will put a stop to this marriage.

ChorusIt’s decided, it seems, that she will die.

CreonYes, decided by you, and by me. No more delay. Servants, take them inside. From now on they must be women, not left to roam free. Even the bold try to run when they see Hades closing in on their lives.

ChorusBlessed are those whose lives have never tasted evil.
For once the gods have shaken a house,
no ruin is left undone;
it creeps on through the generations of the family,
like a swell of the sea
when the harsh Thracian gales
drive it over the dark of the deep beneath the waves:
it rolls up the black sand from the bottom,
and the windswept headlands, struck head-on,
roar and groan.

I see the ancient sorrows of the house of Labdacus
falling on the sorrows of the dead;
one generation does not set the next one free,
but some god strikes them down, and there is no release.
For now the light that had spread
over the last root in the house of Oedipus
is cut down in its turn
by the bloody dust owed to the gods below,
by folly in speech and a Fury in the mind.note

Your power, Zeus—what human transgression could hold it back?
Sleep, who ensnares all things, never seizes it,
nor the tireless months of the gods;
ageless through time,
you rule the dazzling radiance of Olympus.
For what is coming, and what is to come,
and what has been,
this law will hold:
nothing vast enters the life of mortals
without ruin.

For hope, the far-wandering,
is a blessing to many men,
but to many a deception, a lure of light-headed desires;
it steals over a man who knows nothing
until he burns his foot in the hot fire.
Someone in his wisdom spoke the famous saying:
that sooner or later evil seems good
to the one whose mind
a god is leading toward ruin;

and he fares only the briefest time free of ruin.

But here is Haemon, the last-born
of your sons. Does he come grieving
for the fate of Antigone, his promised bride,
in bitter pain at being cheated of his marriage?

CreonWe’ll soon know better than any prophet could. My son, have you heard the final verdict on your bride-to-be, and come here raging at your father? Or do you still love me, whatever I do?

HaemonFather, I am yours. You guide me with good judgment, and I will follow it. No marriage could matter more to me than your leading me well.

CreonYes, my son, that’s how you should feel in your heart: stand behind your father’s judgment in everything. That’s why men pray to father obedient children and keep them in their homes—so that they’ll pay back their father’s enemy with harm, and honor his friend as much as their father does. But a man who fathers useless children—what would you say he’s produced, except trouble for himself and plenty of laughter for his enemies? So never, my son, throw away your good sense for the pleasure of a woman. Know that it turns into a cold embrace, a bad woman sharing your bed in your home. What wound could be worse than one of your own who turns out bad?

ChorusTo us, unless age has stolen our wits, what you say seems to make sense.

HaemonFather, the gods plant sense in human beings, the highest of all the things we possess. I couldn’t say that you’re wrong in what you say, and I hope I’d never know how to. Still, someone else might have a good thought too. In any case, it’s my natural role to keep watch for you on everything people say or do or find to criticize. Your look terrifies an ordinary man, when it comes to words you wouldn’t like to hear. But I can hear, in the shadows, how the city mourns for this girl: no woman ever deserved it less, they say, and she is dying the worst of deaths for the most glorious of deeds.

ChorusMy lord, if he says anything to the point, it’s right for you to learn from him; and for you, son, to learn from your father in turn. Both of you have spoken well.

CreonSo men of my age are to be taught sense by a boy of his?

HaemonNothing that isn’t just. If I’m young, you should look at what I do, not at my years.

CreonAnd is it something to be proud of, to show respect for the unruly?

HaemonI would never ask anyone to show reverence to the wicked.

CreonAnd isn’t she sick with exactly that disease?

HaemonThe people of Thebes, her fellow citizens, say not.

CreonSo the city is going to tell me how to rule?

HaemonDo you see how you just spoke, like someone far too young?

CreonAm I to rule this land for someone other than myself?

CreonIsn’t the city held to belong to the one in power?

HaemonYou’d make a fine ruler of a desert, all by yourself.

CreonThis boy, it seems, is fighting on the woman’s side.

HaemonIf you’re the woman. It’s you I’m looking out for.

CreonYou utter villain, taking your father to task?

HaemonBecause I see you doing wrong against what’s just.

CreonIs it wrong of me to respect my own authority?

HaemonYou don’t respect it when you trample on the honors due to the gods.

CreonWhat a vile nature, giving way to a woman!

HaemonYou’ll never catch me giving in to what’s shameful.

CreonWell, everything you say is on her behalf.

HaemonAnd yours, and mine, and the gods’ below.

CreonYou will never marry her while she’s still alive.

HaemonThen she will die, and in dying she’ll destroy someone.

CreonAre you so bold that you come at me with threats?

HaemonWhat threat is it to argue against empty judgments?

CreonYou’ll regret lecturing me on sense when you have none yourself.

HaemonIf you weren’t my father, I’d say you weren’t thinking straight.

CreonYou woman’s slave, don’t try to sweet-talk me.

HaemonDo you want to talk and talk, and never hear a word back?

CreonIs that so? Well, by Olympus up there, you can be sure you won’t get away with heaping insults on me. Bring out that hateful thing, so she can die right now, before his eyes, right beside her bridegroom.

HaemonNo, not beside me—don’t ever imagine it—she will not die beside me. And you will never set eyes on my face again. Go on raving, with any of your friends who can stand it.

ChorusMy lord, the man has gone, rushing off in anger. A mind that young, when it’s been hurt, is dangerous.

CreonLet him do what he likes; let him go and think thoughts too big for a man. He still won’t save these two girls from death.

ChorusSo you mean to kill them both?

CreonNot the one who didn’t touch it. You’re right about that.

ChorusAnd what death do you plan for the other?

CreonI’ll take her to a place where no one ever walks and hide her away alive in a rocky cave, setting out just enough food to avert pollution, so that the whole city escapes defilement. And there, praying to Hades, the only god she reveres, she may perhaps win her way out of dying. Or else she’ll learn, at last, even then, that revering the dead in Hades is wasted effort.

You wrench even the minds of the just to injustice, to their ruin;
you it is who have stirred up this quarrel too,
between men of one blood.
Victory goes to the desire that shines
from the eyes of the bride, fair in her bed,
desire enthroned in power beside the great laws.
For the goddess Aphrodite plays her game,
and no one can fight her.

And now I too am swept
beyond the laws when I see this,
and I can no longer hold back
the springs of my tears,
as I see Antigone here making her way
to the bridal chamber where all are laid to rest.

AntigoneLook at me, citizens of my fathers’ land,
setting out on my last road,
looking my last on the light of the sun,
and never again.
Hades, who lays all to rest,
leads me living
to the shore of Acheron.
I’ve had no share in wedding songs,
no hymn has ever been sung for me at the bridal chamber:
it’s Acheron I will marry.note

ChorusAnd yet you go, famous and praised,
down to this hiding place of the dead.
You weren’t struck by wasting sickness,
you didn’t win the wages of the sword:
a law to yourself, living, alone
of mortals, you will go down to Hades.

AntigoneI’ve heard how pitifully she died,
the Phrygian stranger, Tantalus’ daughter,
on the peak of Sipylus.
The rock grew over her like clinging ivy
and overpowered her;
and as she wastes away, so people say,
the rain never leaves her,
nor the snow,
and from under her ever-weeping brows
she soaks the ridges.
Most like her, some god lays me to sleep.note

ChorusBut she was a goddess, born of gods,
and we are mortals, born of mortals.
Still, for a woman who dies, it is a great thing to have it said
that she shared the lot of those equal to gods,
in life, and afterward in death.

AntigoneOh, no, I’m mocked! By my fathers’ gods,
why do you insult me
not when I’m gone, but here in plain sight?
My city,
you wealthy men of my city!
Ah, springs of Dirce,
grove of Thebes of the fine chariots,
you at least I take as my witnesses:
unwept by my own, under such laws,
I go to a prison heaped up for a tomb,
a grave unheard of.
Ah, wretched me,
at home neither among mortals nor among corpses,
not with the living, not with the dead.

ChorusYou went to the furthest edge of daring
and struck hard, my child,
against the high pedestal of Justice.
You are paying for some ordeal of your father’s.

AntigoneYou’ve touched my most painful care:
the lament for my father, plowed over and over,
and for the whole fate
of us, the famous house of Labdacus.
Ah, the ruin of my mother’s bed,
my ill-fated mother sleeping
with her own son, my father!
From such parents I was born, poor wretch;
to them I go, cursed, unmarried, to make my home.
Ah, my brother,
it was a doomed marriage you found,
and dead, you’ve killed me while I live.note

ChorusTo pay honor to the dead is a kind of reverence,
but power, for the one whose care is power,
may never be transgressed:
your self-willed temper has destroyed you.

AntigoneUnwept, unloved, unwedded, wretched,
I am led along my last road.
No longer may I, in my misery,
look on this sacred eye of the sun.
And for my fate no tear is shed;
none of my own laments it.

CreonDon’t you know that no one would ever stop singing and wailing before death, if they were allowed to go on? Take her away, and quickly! Wall her up in the vaulted tomb, as I ordered, and leave her alone, deserted, whether she wants to die or to live entombed in a home like that. As far as this girl is concerned, our hands are clean. But she will be stripped of her place among the living up here.

AntigoneTomb, bridal chamber, deep-dug home that will hold me forever: there I go, to my own, so many of whom have perished and been received by Persephone among the dead. I am the last of them, and by far the most miserable, going down before my portion of life has run out. Still, as I go, I cherish the strong hope that I’ll arrive dear to my father, dear to you, Mother, and dear to you, my brother. For when you died, I washed you with my own hands and dressed you, and poured libations at your graves. And now, Polynices, for laying out your body, this is my reward.

ChorusStill the same gusts
of the same winds of the soul
have hold of her.

CreonAnd so those taking her away
will have cause to weep for their slowness.

AntigoneOh, no—that word
comes very close to death.

ChorusI can give you no comfort,
no hope that this won’t be fulfilled the way it stands.

AntigoneTown of my fathers in the land of Thebes,
gods of my ancestors,
I am led away now; there’s no more delay.
Look, you lords of Thebes,
on the only one left of your royal line:
see what I suffer, and from what men,
for holding reverence in reverence.

ChorusDanaë too endured
to trade the light of heaven
for walls bound in bronze;
hidden in a chamber like a tomb, she was yoked fast.
And yet she too was honored in her birth, child, my child,
and she kept the seed of Zeus that fell in streams of gold.
But the power of fate is a terrible thing:
neither wealth nor Ares, no tower,
no black ships beaten by the sea
could escape it.note

And the son of Dryas, quick to anger,
king of the Edonians, was yoked
for his mocking rage:
Dionysus walled him up in a prison of rock.
So the terrible, flowering force of his madness
drips away. He came to know the god
he had assailed in madness with his mocking tongue.
For he tried to stop the women filled with the god
and the Bacchic fire,
and he provoked the Muses who love the pipe.note

By the Dark Rocks, by the double sea,
lie the shores of the Bosporus
and Thracian Salmydessus, cruel to strangers,
where Ares, the city’s neighbor,
saw the cursed wound
dealt to Phineus’ two sons,
blinded by a savage wife:
darkness on the eyes that cried out for vengeance,
gouged out by her bloody hands
and the points of her shuttles.note

Wasting away, the wretched boys wept
for their wretched suffering,
sons of a mother whose marriage was unblessed.
Yet she traced her seed
to the ancient line of Erechtheus,
and in far-off caves she was raised
among her father’s storms,
Boreas’ daughter, swift as a horse over the steep hills,
child of gods. But on her too
the long-lived Fates bore down, child.note

TeiresiasLords of Thebes, we have come on a shared road, two seeing through the eyes of one. For the blind, that’s how the road goes: with someone to lead.

CreonWhat is it, old Teiresias? What news?

TeiresiasI’ll tell you; and you, obey the seer.

CreonWell, I’ve never strayed from your judgment before.

TeiresiasAnd that’s why you’ve steered this city on a straight course.

CreonI’ve felt the benefit, and I can vouch for it.

TeiresiasThen think: once again you stand on the razor’s edge of fortune.

CreonWhat is it? How I shudder at what you say!

TeiresiasYou’ll know, when you hear the signs of my art. I was taking my seat at my ancient augur’s chair, where every bird comes to me as to a harbor, when I heard an unknown voice of birds, shrieking in an evil frenzy, a meaningless gibberish. And I knew they were tearing at one another with their talons, murderously: the whirr of their wings made that clear. At once, afraid, I tried burnt sacrifice on the blazing altars. But no flame of Hephaestus shone from the offerings. Instead the juice of the thigh bones oozed onto the ashes and melted, smoked and sputtered; the gall burst and scattered into the air, and the thigh bones, streaming, lay bare of the fat that had wrapped them.

CreonOld man, all of you shoot at me like archers at a target, and even your prophecy is put to work against me. By your tribe of prophets I’ve long been bought and sold and shipped off as cargo. Make your profits; trade in the silver-gold of Sardis if you like, and the gold of India. But you will not hide that man in a grave—not even if the eagles of Zeus want to snatch him and carry him off as food to the throne of Zeus. Not even then will I, in fear of that pollution, allow him to be buried. For I know well that no human being has the power to pollute the gods. But men fall, old Teiresias, even the very clever ones, they take shameful falls, when they dress up shameful words in fine language for the sake of profit.note

TeiresiasAh. Does any man know, does anyone consider—

CreonConsider what? What’s this universal truth you’re announcing?

Teiresias—how far good judgment is the best of all possessions?

CreonAs far, I imagine, as not thinking straight is the greatest harm.

TeiresiasAnd that’s exactly the sickness you’re full of.

CreonI don’t want to answer a seer with insults.

TeiresiasBut you do, when you say my prophecies are false.

CreonThe whole breed of prophets loves money.

TeiresiasAnd the breed of kings loves shameful gain.

CreonDo you realize you’re saying this about your rulers?

TeiresiasI do. It’s thanks to me that you saved this city and hold it.

CreonYou’re a wise seer, but you love to do wrong.

TeiresiasYou’ll provoke me to speak what lies undisturbed in my mind.

CreonDisturb it—only don’t speak for profit.

TeiresiasAs far as you’re concerned, I don’t think I will.

CreonKnow this: you won’t be buying and selling my judgment.

TeiresiasThen know this well: you won’t complete many more racing circuits of the sun before you yourself give one born of your own body, a corpse in exchange for corpses. For you have thrust below one who belongs above, and shamefully housed a living soul in a grave, while you keep here a corpse that belongs to the gods below, robbed of its due, unburied, unholy. Neither you nor the gods above have any part in this: it is violence you are doing them.

ChorusThe man has gone, my lord, after terrible prophecies. And we know that ever since this hair of mine turned from black to white, he has never once uttered a falsehood to the city.

CreonI know it too, and my mind is shaken. To give way is terrible; but to stand firm and strike my pride against ruin—that is terrible too.

ChorusYou need good counsel, son of Menoeceus.

CreonThen what should I do? Tell me, and I’ll obey.

ChorusGo and release the girl from her chamber dug in the earth, and build a grave for the one lying out there.

CreonThat’s what you advise? You think I should give in?

ChorusYes, and as fast as you can. Harm from the gods is swift of foot, and it cuts short those who think wrongly.

CreonOh, no. It’s hard, but I’m giving up my heart’s resolve, and I’ll do it. There’s no fighting against necessity.

ChorusThen go and do it; don’t leave it to others.

CreonI’ll go just as I am. Go, go, servants, those of you here and those who aren’t: take axes in your hands and hurry to that place there in view. And I, since my judgment has turned this way, I who bound her will be there and set her free myself. For I’m afraid it may be best to keep the established laws to the very end of one’s life.

ChorusYou of many names, glory of the Cadmean bride,
child of Zeus who thunders deep,
you who watch over famous Italy
and rule, welcoming all,
in the vales of Eleusinian Deo:
Bacchus, who dwell in Thebes,
mother-city of Bacchants,
by the flowing streams of Ismenus,
on the soil where the savage dragon’s teeth were sown.note

You the flaring smoke of torches has seen
above the twin-peaked rock,
where the Corycian nymphs,
your Bacchants, go,
and by the stream of Castalia.
And the ivy-clad slopes of Nysa’s mountains
and the green shore heavy with grapes
send you here,
while immortal voices raise the Bacchic cry,
to watch over the streets of Thebes.note

Thebes you honor above all cities,
you and your mother struck by lightning.
And now, since the city and all its people
are held by a violent sickness,
come with cleansing step
over the slope of Parnassus
or across the moaning strait.

Oh, leader of the dance of fire-breathing stars,
overseer of voices in the night,
son born of Zeus, appear,
lord, with your attendant Thyiads,
who in their madness dance all night long
for you, Iacchus, giver of good things.note

MessengerNeighbors of the house of Cadmus and of Amphion, there is no human life, however it stands, that I would ever praise or blame as settled. For fortune raises up and fortune brings down the fortunate and the unfortunate, always, and no one can prophesy to mortals how what is now will stand. Creon was once enviable, as I saw it. He saved this land of Cadmus from its enemies, took sole command of the country and steered it, flourishing with a noble crop of children.note

ChorusWhat is this new burden of grief for our royal house that you bring?

MessengerThey’re dead. And the living are to blame for their deaths.

ChorusAnd who is the killer? Who lies dead? Tell us.

MessengerHaemon is dead. A hand of his own has shed his blood.

ChorusHis father’s hand, or his own?

MessengerHis own, in rage against his father for the killing.

ChorusProphet, how true your word has proved!

MessengerThat’s how things stand; you must consider the rest.

ChorusLook, here is poor Eurydice, Creon’s wife, coming out of the palace—either she has heard about her son, or it’s chance.

EurydiceCitizens, all of you, I heard what you were saying as I was on my way out to go and address the goddess Pallas with my prayers. I happened to be loosening the bolt to open the door when the sound of disaster for my house struck my ears. I fell back in terror into my servants’ arms and fainted. But tell me again what the news was. I’ll hear it as one who is no stranger to sorrow.

MessengerDear mistress, I was there, and I’ll tell you, and leave out not a word of the truth. Why should I soften it for you, when later we’d be shown up as liars? The truth is always the right course. I went along as guide for your husband to the far end of the plain, where Polynices’ body still lay, pitiless, torn by dogs. We prayed to the goddess of the roads and to Pluto to restrain their anger and be kind, and we washed him with holy washing, and on freshly cut branches we burned what was left of him. We heaped up a high mound of his native earth, and then made our way toward the girl’s stone-floored bridal chamber, the hollow chamber of Hades.note

At our despairing master’s orders we looked. And in the furthest part of the tomb we saw her hanging by the neck, fastened by a noose of fine linen, and him lying beside her, his arms around her waist, mourning the loss of his bride now below, and his father’s deeds, and his unhappy marriage. When Creon saw them, he groaned bitterly, went in toward him and called out to him with a wail: “Poor boy, what have you done! What were you thinking? What disaster has wrecked you?”

ChorusWhat do you make of this? The queen has gone back inside before saying a word, good or bad.

MessengerI’m amazed myself. But I nourish the hope that, having heard of her son’s sorrows, she won’t think it right to mourn before the city, but will set her servants to lament the grief of the house indoors. She has too much judgment to do anything wrong.

ChorusI don’t know. To me, at any rate, too much silence seems as heavy as a great deal of crying in vain.

MessengerWell, we’ll find out whether she is hiding something held back in secret in her passionate heart; I’ll go into the house. You’re right: there is a heaviness, too, in too much silence.

ChorusBut look, here is the king himself,
carrying in his arms
a clear memorial,
if it is right to say so,
of a ruin that is not another’s,
but his own wrongdoing.

CreonOh!
The errors of a mind gone wrong,
stubborn, deadly!
You who see us,
killers and killed of one blood!
Oh, no, the misery of my counsels!
Oh, my son, young, with a young death,
no, no!
You died, you were set free
through my bad counsel, not yours.

ChorusOh, it seems you’ve seen what justice is too late.

CreonOh, no,
I’ve learned it, wretched me. Then,
then it was that a god
struck my head with a great weight
and hurled me down savage roads,
oh, no, overturning my joy, trampling it underfoot.
Ah, ah, the toils of mortals, bitter toils!

Second MessengerMaster, you come, it seems, like a man with a store of troubles, and adding to it: some you carry here in your arms, and others in the house you’ll soon see.

CreonWhat is there still, worse than these evils?

Second MessengerYour wife is dead, the true mother of this dead boy—poor woman, just now, by blows freshly struck.

CreonOh!
Oh, harbor of Hades, so hard to appease,
why, why are you destroying me?
You who have brought me this sorrow,
so cruelly told,
what is this word you speak?
No! You’ve killed a man already dead!
What are you saying, boy? What new thing do you tell me—
no, no!—
of my wife’s death,
slaughter piled on ruin,
lying around me?

ChorusYou can see it: it’s no longer hidden indoors.

CreonOh, no,
I see this second evil, wretched me.
What fate, what fate is still waiting for me?
I have just held my child in my arms,
wretched, and I see another corpse before me.
Ah, ah, unhappy mother! Ah, my son!

Second MessengerShe stood at the altar, by the sharp-edged sword, and let her eyes close in darkness, after wailing first for the famous fate of Megareus, who died before, and then for this one, and last of all calling down evil fortune on you, the killer of her sons.note

CreonNo, no!
I’m shaken with fear. Why does no one
strike me full in the chest with a two-edged sword?
Wretched me, no!
I’m steeped in wretched anguish.

Second MessengerYes: she, the dead woman here, charged you with the blame for both deaths, this one and that one.

CreonAnd how did she take her leave in blood?

Second MessengerShe struck herself under the liver with her own hand, when she learned of her son’s suffering, so loud with wailing.

CreonOh, no, no! This guilt can never be fitted
on any other mortal; it’s mine.
It was I, I who killed you, wretch that I am,
I, I say it truly. Oh, servants,
lead me away as fast as you can, lead me out of the way,
a man who is no more than nobody.

ChorusYou urge what is best, if anything is good in the midst of evils. Troubles at our feet are best when they are shortest.

CreonLet it come, let it come,
let it appear, the best of my fates,
bringing my final day,
the last of all: let it come, let it come,
so I never see another day.

ChorusThat is for the future. We must do something about what lies before us. Those whose concern it is will see to the rest.

CreonBut all I long for is in that prayer.

ChorusThen pray for nothing. For mortals there is no escape from destined disaster.

CreonLead this worthless man out of the way,
who killed you, my son, not meaning to,
and you too, lying here—oh, no, wretched me! I don’t know
which way to look, where to lean. Everything
in my hands has gone askew, and on my head
a fate too heavy to bear has leapt.