Sophocles (12 page)

ISMENE
Nay, thou can'st not, dost not see—

ANTIGONE
Sister, wherefore wroth with me?

ISMENE
Know'st not—beside—

ANTIGONE
More must I hear?

ISMENE
Tombless he died, none near.

ANTIGONE
Lead me thither; slay me there.

ISMENE
How shall I unhappy fare,
Friendless, helpless, how drag on
A life of misery alone?

CHORUS
(Ant. 2)
Fear not, maids—

ANTIGONE
Ah, whither flee?

CHORUS
Refuge hath been found.

ANTIGONE
For me?

CHORUS
Where thou shalt be safe from harm.

ANTIGONE
I know it.

CHORUS
Why then this alarm?

ANTIGONE
How again to get us home
I know not.

CHORUS
Why then this roam?

ANTIGONE
Troubles whelm us—

CHORUS
As of yore.

ANTIGONE
Worse than what was worse before.

CHORUS
Sure ye are driven on the breakers' surge.

ANTIGONE
Alas! we are.

CHORUS
Alas! 'tis so.

ANTIGONE
Ah whither turn, O Zeus? No ray
Of hope to cheer the way
Whereon the fates our desperate voyage urge.
(Enter THESEUS)

THESEUS
Dry your tears; when grace is shed
On the quick and on the dead
By dark Powers beneficent,
Over-grief they would resent.

ANTIGONE
Aegeus' child, to thee we pray.

THESEUS
What the boon, my children, say.

ANTIGONE
With our own eyes we fain would see
Our father's tomb.

THESEUS
That may not be.

ANTIGONE
What say'st thou, King?

THESEUS
My children, he
Charged me straitly that no moral
Should approach the sacred portal,
Or greet with funeral litanies
The hidden tomb wherein he lies;
Saying, "If thou keep'st my hest
Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest."
The God of Oaths this promise heard,
And to Zeus I pledged my word.

ANTIGONE
Well, if he would have it so,
We must yield. Then let us go
Back to Thebes, if yet we may
Heal this mortal feud and stay
The self-wrought doom
That drives our brothers to their tomb.

THESEUS
Go in peace; nor will I spare
Ought of toil and zealous care,
But on all your needs attend,
Gladdening in his grave my friend.

CHORUS
Wail no more, let sorrow rest,
All is ordered for the best.

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.

ANTIGONE and ISMENE—daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices
and Eteocles.
CREON, King of Thebes.
HAEMON, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone.
EURYDICE, wife of Creon.
TEIRESIAS, the prophet.
CHORUS, of Theban elders.
A WATCHMAN
A MESSENGER
A SECOND MESSENGER

ANTIGONE and ISMENE before the Palace gates.

ANTIGONE
Ismene, sister of my blood and heart,
See'st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill
The weird of Oedipus, a world of woes!
For what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame,
Is lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine?
And now this proclamation of today
Made by our Captain-General to the State,
What can its purport be? Didst hear and heed,
Or art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?

ISMENE
To me, Antigone, no word of friends
Has come, or glad or grievous, since we twain
Were reft of our two brethren in one day
By double fratricide; and since i' the night
Our Argive leaguers fled, no later news
Has reached me, to inspirit or deject.

ANTIGONE
I know 'twas so, and therefore summoned thee
Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.

ISMENE
What is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.

ANTIGONE
What but the thought of our two brothers dead,
The one by Creon graced with funeral rites,
The other disappointed? Eteocles
He hath consigned to earth (as fame reports)
With obsequies that use and wont ordain,
So gracing him among the dead below.
But Polyneices, a dishonored corse,
(So by report the royal edict runs)
No man may bury him or make lament—
Must leave him tombless and unwept, a feast
For kites to scent afar and swoop upon.
Such is the edict (if report speak true)
Of Creon, our most noble Creon, aimed
At thee and me, aye me too; and anon
He will be here to promulgate, for such
As have not heard, his mandate; 'tis in sooth
No passing humor, for the edict says
Whoe'er transgresses shall be stoned to death.
So stands it with us; now 'tis thine to show
If thou art worthy of thy blood or base.

ISMENE
But how, my rash, fond sister, in such case
Can I do anything to make or mar?

ANTIGONE
Say, wilt thou aid me and abet? Decide.

ISMENE
In what bold venture? What is in thy thought?

ANTIGONE
Lend me a hand to bear the corpse away.

ISMENE
What, bury him despite the interdict?

ANTIGONE
My brother, and, though thou deny him, thine
No man shall say that
I
betrayed a brother.

ISMENE
Wilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?

ANTIGONE
What right has he to keep me from my own?

ISMENE
Bethink thee, sister, of our father's fate,
Abhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin,
Blinded, himself his executioner.
Think of his mother-wife (ill sorted names)
Done by a noose herself had twined to death
And last, our hapless brethren in one day,
Both in a mutual destiny involved,
Self-slaughtered, both the slayer and the slain.
Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone;
Shall we not perish wretchedest of all,
If in defiance of the law we cross
A monarch's will?—weak women, think of that,
Not framed by nature to contend with men.
Remember this too that the stronger rules;
We must obey his orders, these or worse.
Therefore I plead compulsion and entreat
The dead to pardon. I perforce obey
The powers that be. 'Tis foolishness, I ween,
To overstep in aught the golden mean.

ANTIGONE
I urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,
I would not welcome such a fellowship.
Go thine own way; myself will bury him.
How sweet to die in such employ, to rest,—
Sister and brother linked in love's embrace—
A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth,
But by the dead commended; and with them
I shall abide for ever. As for thee,
Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.

ISMENE
I scorn them not, but to defy the State
Or break her ordinance I have no skill.

ANTIGONE
A specious pretext. I will go alone
To lap my dearest brother in the grave.

ISMENE
My poor, fond sister, how I fear for thee!

ANTIGONE
O waste no fears on me; look to thyself.

ISMENE
At least let no man know of thine intent,
But keep it close and secret, as will I.

ANTIGONE
O tell it, sister; I shall hate thee more
If thou proclaim it not to all the town.

ISMENE
Thou hast a fiery soul for numbing work.

ANTIGONE
I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.

ISMENE
If thou succeed; but thou art doomed to fail.

ANTIGONE
When strength shall fail me, yes, but not before.

ISMENE
But, if the venture's hopeless, why essay?

ANTIGONE
Sister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon,
And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause.
Say I am mad and give my madness rein
To wreck itself; the worst that can befall
Is but to die an honorable death.

ISMENE
Have thine own way then; 'tis a mad endeavor,
Yet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever.
(Exeunt)

CHORUS
(Str. 1)
Sunbeam, of all that ever dawn upon
Our seven-gated Thebes the brightest ray,
O eye of golden day,
How fair thy light o'er Dirce's fountain shone,
Speeding upon their headlong homeward course,
Far quicker than they came, the Argive force;
Putting to flight
The argent shields, the host with scutcheons white.
Against our land the proud invader came
To vindicate fell Polyneices' claim.
Like to an eagle swooping low,
On pinions white as new fall'n snow.
With clanging scream, a horsetail plume his crest,
The aspiring lord of Argos onward pressed.

(Ant. 1)
Hovering around our city walls he waits,
His spearmen raven at our seven gates.
But ere a torch our crown of towers could burn,
Ere they had tasted of our blood, they turn
Forced by the Dragon; in their rear
The din of Ares panic-struck they hear.
For Zeus who hates the braggart's boast
Beheld that gold-bespangled host;
As at the goal the paean they upraise,
He struck them with his forked lightning blaze.

(Str. 2)
To earthy from earth rebounding, down he crashed;
The fire-brand from his impious hand was dashed,
As like a Bacchic reveler on he came,
Outbreathing hate and flame,
And tottered. Elsewhere in the field,
Here, there, great Area like a war-horse wheeled;
Beneath his car down thrust
Our foemen bit the dust.

Seven captains at our seven gates
Thundered; for each a champion waits,
Each left behind his armor bright,
Trophy for Zeus who turns the fight;
Save two alone, that ill-starred pair
One mother to one father bare,
Who lance in rest, one 'gainst the other
Drave, and both perished, brother slain by brother.

(Ant. 2)
Now Victory to Thebes returns again
And smiles upon her chariot-circled plain.
Now let feast and festal should
Memories of war blot out.
Let us to the temples throng,
Dance and sing the live night long.
God of Thebes, lead thou the round.
Bacchus, shaker of the ground!
Let us end our revels here;
Lo! Creon our new lord draws near,
Crowned by this strange chance, our king.
What, I marvel, pondering?
Why this summons? Wherefore call
Us, his elders, one and all,
Bidding us with him debate,
On some grave concern of State?
(Enter CREON)

CREON
Elders, the gods have righted one again
Our storm-tossed ship of state, now safe in port.
But you by special summons I convened
As my most trusted councilors; first, because
I knew you loyal to Laius of old;
Again, when Oedipus restored our State,
Both while he ruled and when his rule was o'er,
Ye still were constant to the royal line.
Now that his two sons perished in one day,
Brother by brother murderously slain,
By right of kinship to the Princes dead,
I claim and hold the throne and sovereignty.
Yet 'tis no easy matter to discern
The temper of a man, his mind and will,
Till he be proved by exercise of power;
And in my case, if one who reigns supreme
Swerve from the highest policy, tongue-tied
By fear of consequence, that man I hold,
And ever held, the basest of the base.
And I contemn the man who sets his friend
Before his country. For myself, I call
To witness Zeus, whose eyes are everywhere,
If I perceive some mischievous design
To sap the State, I will not hold my tongue;
Nor would I reckon as my private friend
A public foe, well knowing that the State
Is the good ship that holds our fortunes all:
Farewell to friendship, if she suffers wreck.
Such is the policy by which I seek
To serve the Commons and conformably
I have proclaimed an edict as concerns
The sons of Oedipus; Eteocles
Who in his country's battle fought and fell,
The foremost champion—duly bury him
With all observances and ceremonies
That are the guerdon of the heroic dead.
But for the miscreant exile who returned
Minded in flames and ashes to blot out
His father's city and his father's gods,
And glut his vengeance with his kinsmen's blood,
Or drag them captive at his chariot wheels—
For Polyneices 'tis ordained that none
Shall give him burial or make mourn for him,
But leave his corpse unburied, to be meat
For dogs and carrion crows, a ghastly sight.
So am I purposed; never by my will
Shall miscreants take precedence of true men,
But all good patriots, alive or dead,
Shall be by me preferred and honored.

CHORUS
Son of Menoeceus, thus thou will'st to deal
With him who loathed and him who loved our State.
Thy word is law; thou canst dispose of us
The living, as thou will'st, as of the dead.

CREON
See then ye execute what I ordain.

CHORUS
On younger shoulders lay this grievous charge.

CREON
Fear not, I've posted guards to watch the corpse.

CHORUS
What further duty would'st thou lay on us?

CREON
Not to connive at disobedience.

CHORUS
No man is mad enough to court his death.

CREON
The penalty
is
death: yet hope of gain
Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.
(Enter GUARD)

GUARD
My lord, I will not make pretense to pant
And puff as some light-footed messenger.
In sooth my soul beneath its pack of thought
Made many a halt and turned and turned again;
For conscience plied her spur and curb by turns.
"Why hurry headlong to thy fate, poor fool?"
She whispered. Then again, "If Creon learn
This from another, thou wilt rue it worse."
Thus leisurely I hastened on my road;
Much thought extends a furlong to a league.
But in the end the forward voice prevailed,
To face thee. I will speak though I say nothing.
For plucking courage from despair methought,
'Let the worst hap, thou canst but meet thy fate.'