Epeisodion 2
Guard
Here is she, the one who did the deed.
We caught this one burying him. Where is Creon?
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Chorus
There, he is coming from the house again at our need.
Creon
What is it? What has happened that makes my coming timely?
Guard
My king, there is nothing that a man can rightly swear he
will not do. For second thought belies one’s first intent.
I could have vowed that I would not ever come here
again, because of your threats by which I had just been storm-tossed.
But since this joy that exceeds and oversteps my hopes can be compared
in fulness to no other pleasure, I am back—though it is contrary to my
sworn oath—
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bringing this girl who
was caught giving burial honors to the dead. This time there was no
casting of lots. No, this piece of luck has fallen to me, and me alone.
And now, my king, as it pleases you, take her yourself, question her and
convict her. But justice would see me
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released free and clear from this trouble.
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Creon
Your prisoner here—how and where did you take her?
Guard
She was burying the man. You know all there is to tell.
Creon
Are you clear and sure about what you are saying?
Guard
I am. I saw her burying the corpse that you
had forbidden to bury. Is that plain and
sufficient?
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Creon
And how was she observed? How taken in the act?
Guard
It happened like this. When we had come to the place with those fierce
threats of yours still in our ears, we swept away all the dust that
covered
the corpse and bared
the damp body well. We then sat down on the brow of the hill to
windward, fleeing the smell from him, lest it strike us. Each man was
wide awake and kept his neighbor alert with torrents of threats, if any
one should be careless of this task.
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So time passed, until the disk of the sun stood bright
in mid-sky and the heat began to burn. And then suddenly a whirlwind
lifted from the earth a storm of dust, a trouble in the sky, and it
filled the plain, marring all the foliage of its woods.
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Soon the wide air was choked with it. We closed
our eyes, and endured the plague from the gods. When, after a long
while, this storm had passed, the girl was seen, and she wailed aloud
with the sharp cry of a grieving bird, as when inside her
empty
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nest she sees the bed
stripped of its nestlings. So she, too, when she saw the corpse bare,
broke into a cry of lamentation and cursed with harsh curses those who
had done it. Immediately she took thirsty dust in her hands,
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and from a pitcher of beaten bronze held
high she crowned the dead with thrice-poured libations. We rushed
forward when we saw it, and at once closed upon our quarry, who was not
at all dismayed. We then charged her with her past and present
doings,
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but she made no denial of anything—at once to my joy and
to my pain. For to have escaped from trouble one’s self gives the
greatest joy, but it stings to lead friends to evil. Naturally, though,
all such things are
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of less account to me than my own safety.
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Creon
You, you with your face bent to the ground, do you admit, or deny that
you did this?
Antigone
I declare it and make no denial.
Creon
You can take yourself wherever you please,
free and clear of a heavy charge. Exit
Guard.
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You, however, tell me—not at length, but briefly—did you know that an
edict had forbidden this?
Antigone
I knew it. How could I not? It was public.
Creon
And even so you dared overstep that law?
Antigone
Yes, since it was not Zeus that
published me that edict, and since not of that kind are the laws which
Justice who dwells with the gods below established among men. Nor did I
think that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override
the unwritten
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and unfailing statutes given us by the gods. For their
life is not of today or yesterday, but for all time, and no man knows
when they were first put forth. Not for fear of any man’s pride was I
about to owe a penalty to the gods for breaking these.
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Die I
must, that I knew well (how could I not?). That is true even without
your edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain.
When anyone lives as I do, surrounded by evils, how can he not carry off
gain by dying?
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So for me to meet this doom is a grief of no account.
But if I had endured that my mother’s son should in death lie an
unburied corpse, that would have grieved me. Yet for this, I am not
grieved. And if my present actions are foolish in your sight,
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it may
be that it is a fool who accuses me of folly.
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Chorus
She shows herself the wild offspring of a wild father, and does not know
how to bend before troubles.
Creon
Yet remember that over-hard spirits most often collapse. It is the
stiffest iron, baked to
utter hardness in the fire, that you most often see
snapped and shivered. And I have witnessed horses with great spirit
disciplined by a small bit. For there is no place for pride, when one is
his neighbors’ slave.
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This girl was already
practiced in outrage when she overstepped the published laws. And, that
done, this now is a second outrage, that she glories in it and exults in
her deed. In truth, then, I am no man, but she is,
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if this victory rests with her and brings no penalty.
No! Whether she is my sister’s child, or nearer to me in blood than any
of my kin that worship Zeus at the altar of our house, she and her
sister will not escape a doom most harsh. For in truth
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I charge that other with an equal share
in the plotting of this burial. Call her out! I saw her inside just now,
raving, and not in control of her wits. Before the deed, the mind
frequently is convicted of stealthy crimes when conspirators are
plotting depravity in the dark.
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But, truly, I detest it, too, when one who has been caught in
treachery then seeks to make the crime a glory.
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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,
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if fear did not grip their tongues. But tyranny, blest
with so much else, has the power to do and say whatever it pleases.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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Antigone
Who knows but that these actions are pure to those below?
Creon
You do not love someone you have hated, not even after death.
Antigone
It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love.
Creon
Then, go down to hell and love them
if you must. While I live, no woman will rule me.
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