Epeisodion 2
Creon
But, truly, I detest it, too, when one who has been caught in
treachery then seeks to make the crime a glory.
495
Antigone
What more do you want than to capture and kill me?
Creon
I want nothing else. Having that, I have everything.
Antigone
Why then do you wait? In none of your maxims
is there anything that pleases me—and may there never
be! Similarly to you as well my views must be displeasing. And yet, how
could I have won a nobler glory than by giving burial to my own brother?
All here would admit that they approve,
500
if fear did not grip their tongues. But tyranny, blest
with so much else, has the power to do and say whatever it pleases.
505
Creon
You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way.
Antigone
They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues.
Creon
Are you not ashamed that your
beliefs differ from theirs?
510
Antigone
No, there is nothing shameful in respecting your own flesh and blood.
Creon
Was not he your brother too, who died in the opposite cause?
Antigone
A brother by the same mother and the same father.
Creon
Why, then, do you pay a service that is disrespectful to him?
Antigone
The dead man will not support you
in that.
515
Creon
Yes, he will, if you honor him equally with the wicked one.
Antigone
It was his brother, not his slave, who died.
Creon
But he died ravaging this land, while he fell in its defense.
Antigone
Hades craves these rites, nevertheless.
Creon
But the good man craves a portion not equal to the
evil’s.
520
Antigone
Who knows but that these actions are pure to those below?
