Antigone
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Chorus
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Love, the unconquered in battle, Love, you who descend upon riches, and watch the night through on a girl’s soft cheek,
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you roam over the sea and among the homes of men in the wilds. Neither can any immortal escape you,
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nor any man whose life lasts for a day. He who has known you is driven to madness.
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Chorus
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You seize the minds of just men and drag them to injustice, to their ruin. You it is who have incited this conflict of men whose flesh and blood are one.
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But victory belongs to radiant Desire swelling from the eyes of the sweet-bedded bride. Desire sits enthroned in power beside the mighty laws.
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For in all this divine Aphrodite plays her irresistible game.
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Chorus
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But now, witnessing this, I too am carried beyond the bounds of loyalty. The power fails me to keep back my streaming tears any longer, when I see Antigone making her way to the chamber where all are laid to rest,
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now her bridal chamber.
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Antigone
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Citizens of my fatherland, see me setting out on my last journey, looking at my last sunlight,
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and never again. No, Hades who lays all to rest leads me living to Acheron’s shore, though I have not had my due portion of the chant that brings the bride, nor has any hymn been mine
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for the crowning of marriage. Instead the lord of Acheron will be my groom.
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Chorus
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Then in glory and with praise you depart to that deep place of the dead, neither struck by wasting sickness,
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nor having won the wages of the sword. No, guided by your own laws and still alive, unlike any mortal before, you will descend to Hades.
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Antigone
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I have heard with my own ears how our Phrygian guest, the daughter of Tantalus, perished
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in so much suffering on steep Sipylus—how, like clinging ivy, the sprouting stone subdued her. And the rains, as men tell, do not leave her melting form, nor does the snow,
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but beneath her weeping lids she dampens her collar. Most like hers is the god-sent fate that leads me to my rest.
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Chorus
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Yet she was a goddess, as you know, and the offspring of gods,
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while we are mortals and mortal-born. Still it is a great thing for a woman who has died to have it said of her that she shared the lot of the godlike in her life, and afterwards, in death.
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Antigone
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Unwept, unfriended, without marriage-song, I am led in misery on this journey that cannot be put off. No longer is it permitted me, unhappy girl,
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to look up at this sacred eye of the burning sun. But for my fate no tear is shed, no friend moans in sorrow.
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Creon
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Do you not know that dirges and wailing before death would never be given up, if it were allowed to make them freely?
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Take her away—now! And when you have enshrouded her, as I proclaimed, in her covered tomb, leave her alone, deserted—let her decide whether she wishes to die or to live entombed in such a home. It makes no difference, since our hands are clean so far as regards this girl.
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But no matter what, she will be stripped of her home here above.
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Antigone
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Tomb, bridal-chamber, deep-dug eternal prison where I go to find my own, whom in the greatest numbers destruction has seized and Persephone has welcomed among the dead!
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Last of them all and in by far the most shameful circumstances, I will descend, even before the fated term of my life is spent. But I cherish strong hopes that I will arrive welcome to my father, and pleasant to you, Mother, and welcome, dear brother, to you.
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For, when each of you died, with my own hands I washed and dressed you and poured drink-offerings at your graves. But now, Polyneices, it is for tending your corpse that I win such reward as this. And yet I honored you rightly, as the wise understand.
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Never, if I had been a mother of children, or if a husband had been rotting after death, would I have taken that burden upon myself in violation of the citizens’ will. For the sake of what law, you ask, do I say that? A husband lost, another might have been found,
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and if bereft of a child, there could be a second from some other man. But when father and mother are hidden in Hades, no brother could ever bloom for me again. Such was the law whereby I held you first in honor, but for that Creon judged me guilty of wrongdoing
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and of dreadful outrage, dear brother! And now he leads me thus in his hands’ strong grasp, when I have enjoyed no marriage bed or bridal song and have not received any portion of marriage or the nurture of children. But deserted by friends,
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in misery I go living to the hollow graves of the dead. What law of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods anymore? What ally should I call out to, when by my reverence I have earned a name for irreverence?
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Well, then, if these events please the gods, once I have suffered my doom I will come to know my guilt. But if the guilt lies with my judges, I could wish for them no greater evils than they inflict unjustly on me.
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Chorus
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Still the same tempest of the soul
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grips this girl with the same fierce gusts.
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Creon
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Then because of this her guards will have reason to lament their slowness.
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Antigone
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Ah, no! That command verges close on death.
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Creon
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I cannot console you with any hope that your doom is not to be fulfilled in that way.
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Antigone
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O city of my fathers, land of Thebes, and you gods, our ancestors! I am led away now; there is no more delay!
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Look at me, you who are Thebes’ lords—look at the only remaining daughter of the house of your kings. See what I suffer, and at whose hands, because I revered reverence! Antigone is led away by the guards.
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Chorus
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So too endured Danae in her beauty to change
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the light of the sky for brass-bound walls, and in that chamber, both burial and bridal, she was held in strict confinement. And yet was she of esteemed lineage, my daughter,
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and guarded a deposit of the seed of Zeus that had fallen in a golden rain. But dreadful is the mysterious power of fate—there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by towered city, or dark, sea-beaten ships.
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Chorus
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And Dryas’s son, the Edonian king swift to rage, was tamed in recompense for his frenzied insults, when, by the will of Dionysus, he was shut in a rocky prison. There the fierce and swelling force of his madness trickled away.
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That man came to know the god whom in his frenzy he had provoked with mockeries. For he had sought to quell the god-inspired women and the Bacchanalian fire,
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and he angered the Muses who love the flute.
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Teiresias
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Princes of Thebes, we have come on a shared journey, two scouting the way by the eyes of one.
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For this is the method of travel for the blind, using a guide.
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Creon
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What is it, old Teiresias? What is your news?
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Teiresias
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I will tell you. You, obey the seer.
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Creon
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It was not my habit before, at any rate, to stand apart from your will.
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Teiresias
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Therefore you captained this city on an upright course.
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Creon
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I have felt and can attest your benefits.
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Teiresias
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Realize that once more now you are poised on fortune’s razor-edge.
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Creon
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What do you mean? I shudder to hear you!
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Teiresias
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You will understand, when you hear the signs revealed by my art. As I took my place on my old seat of augury
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where all birds regularly gather for me, I heard an unintelligible voice among them: they were screaming in dire frenzy that made their language foreign to me. I realized that they were ripping each other with their talons, murderously—the rush of their wings did not lack meaning.
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Quickly, in fear, I tried burnt-sacrifice on a duly-kindled altar, but from my offerings Hephaestus did not blaze. Instead juice that had sweated from the thigh-flesh trickled out onto the embers and smoked and sputtered;
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the gall was scattered high up in the air; and the streaming thighs lay bared of the fat that had been wrapped around them. Such was the failure of the rites that yielded no sign, as I learned from this boy. For he is my guide, as I am guide to others.
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And it is your will that is the source of the sickness now afflicting the city. For the altars of our city and our hearths have one and all been tainted by the birds and dogs with the carrion taken from the sadly fallen son of Oedipus. And so the gods no more accept prayer and sacrifice at our hands,
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or the burning of thigh-meat, nor does any bird sound out clear signs in its shrill cries, for they have tasted the fatness of a slain man’s blood. Think, therefore, on these things, my son. All men are liable to err.
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But when an error is made, that man is no longer unwise or unblessed who heals the evil into which he has fallen and does not remain stubborn. Self-will, we know, invites the charge of foolishness. Concede the claim of the dead. Do not kick at the fallen.
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What prowess is it to kill the dead all over again? I have considered for your good, and what I advise is good. The sweetest thing is to learn from a good advisor when his advice is to your profit.
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Creon
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Old man, you all shoot your arrows at me, like archers at their mark, and I am not safe
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even from the plottings of the seer’s divine art, but by their tribe I have long been bought and sold and made their merchandise. Turn your profits, make your deals for the white gold of Sardis and the gold of India, if it pleases you, but you shall not cover that man with a grave,
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not even if the eagles of Zeus wish to snatch and carry him to be devoured at the god’s throne. No, not even then, for fear of that defilement will I permit his burial, since I know with certainty that no mortal has the power to defile the gods.
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But even the exceedingly clever, old Teiresias, falls with a shameful fall, when they couch shameful thoughts in fine phrasing for profit’s sake.
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Teiresias
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Alas! Does any man know, does any consider—
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Creon
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What is this? What universal truth are you announcing?
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Teiresias
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—by how much the most precious of our possessions is the power to reason wisely?
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Creon
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By as much, I think, as senselessness is the greatest affliction.
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Teiresias
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Yet you came into being full of that disease.
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Creon
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I have no desire to trade insults with the seer.
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Teiresias
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Yet that is what you do in saying that I prophesy falsely.
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Creon
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Yes, for the prophet-clan was ever fond of money.
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Teiresias
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And the race sprung from tyrants loves shameful gain.
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Creon
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Do you know that you ramble so about your king?
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Teiresias
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I am aware, since through me you have saved this city.
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Creon
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You are a wise seer, but fond of doing injustice.
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Teiresias
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You will stir me to utter the dire secret in my soul.
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Creon
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Out with it! But only if it is not for gain that you speak it.
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Teiresias
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Indeed, I think I speak without mention of gain—where you are concerned.
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Creon
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Be certain that you will not trade in my will.
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Teiresias
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Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through many more
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courses of the sun’s swift chariot, before you will give in return one sprung from your own loins, a corpse in requital for corpses. For you have thrust below one of those of the upper air and irreverently lodged a living soul in the grave,
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while you detain in this world that which belongs to the infernal gods, a corpse unburied, unmourned, unholy. In the dead you have no part, nor do the gods above, but in this you do them violence. For these crimes the avenging destroyers,
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the Furies of Hades and of the gods, lie in ambush for you, waiting to seize you in these same sufferings. And look closely if I tell you this with a silvered palm. A time not long to be delayed will reveal in your house wailing over men and over women.
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All the cities are stirred up in hostility, whose mangled corpses the dogs, or the wild beasts or some winged bird buried, carrying an unholy stench to the city that held each man’s hearth. There, now, are arrows for your heart, since you provoke me,
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launched at you, archer-like, in my anger. They fly true—you cannot run from their burning sting. Boy, lead me home, so that he may launch his rage against younger men, and learn to keep a quieter tongue
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and a better mind within his breast than he now bears. Exit Teiresias.
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Chorus
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The man is gone, my king, leaving dire prophecies behind. And for all the time that I have had this hair on my head, now white, once dark, I know that he has never been a false prophet to our city.
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Creon
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I, too, know it well, and my mind is troubled. To yield is terrible, but, to resist, to strike my pride with ruin—this, too, inspires terror.
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Chorus
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The moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.
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Creon
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What should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.
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Chorus
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Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then raise a tomb for the unburied dead.
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Creon
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And you recommend this? You think that I should yield?
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Chorus
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Yes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.
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Creon
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Ah, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.
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Chorus
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Go, do these things and do not leave their performance to others.
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Creon
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Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of you! Take axes in your hands,
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and hurry to that place there in view! But since my judgment has taken this turn, I will be there to set her free, as I myself confined her. I am held by the fear that it is best to keep the established laws to life’s very end.
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Chorus
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God of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride and offspring of loud-thundering Zeus, you who watch over far-famed Italy and reign