Stasimon 2
[Episode]
Look, here comes Ismene from the palace, shedding the tears of a loving
sister. A cloud over her eyes mars her red-flushed face,
Chorus
and it breaks into rain on her comely
cheek.
530
Creon
You who were lurking like a viper in my own house and
secretly gulping up my life’s blood, while I was oblivious that I
was nurturing two plagues, two revolutions against my throne—tell me
now, will you also affirm
your share in this
burial, or will you forswear all knowledge of it?
535
Ismene
I performed the deed—as long as she concurs—and I share and carry the
burden of guilt.
Antigone
No, justice will not permit you to do this, since you were not willing to
help with the deed, nor did I give you a part in it.
Ismene
But now with this sea of troubles
around you, I am not ashamed to sail in a sea of suffering at your
side.
540
Antigone
As to whose deed it is, Hades and the dead are witnesses. A friend in
words is not the type of friend I love.
Ismene
No, sister, do not strip me of death’s honor,
but let me die with you and make due consecration to
the dead.
545
Antigone
Do not share my death. Do not claim deeds to which you did not put your
hand. My death will suffice.
Ismene
And how can I cherish life, once I am deprived of you?
Antigone
Ask Creon. Your concern is for him.
Ismene
Why do you torture me like this,
when it does not help you?
550
Antigone
No, if I mock you, it is to my own pain that I do so.
Ismene
Tell me, how can I help you, even now?
Antigone
Save yourself. I do not grudge your escape.
Ismene
Ah, misery! Will I fall short of sharing your fate?
Antigone
Your choice was to live, it was
mine to die.
555
Ismene
At least your choice was not made without my protests.
Antigone
One world approved your wisdom, another approved mine.
Ismene
Nevertheless, the offense is identical for both of us.
Antigone
Take heart! You live. But my life has long been
in Death’s hands so that I might serve the dead.
560
Creon
One of these maidens, I declare, has just revealed her foolishness; the
other has displayed it from the moment of her birth.
Ismene
Yes, Creon. Whatever amount of reason nature may have given them does not
remain with those in dire straits, but goes astray.
Creon
Yours did, I know, when you chose
dire actions with dire allies.
565
Ismene
What life would there be for me alone, without her presence?
Creon
Do not speak of her presence. She lives no longer.
Ismene
What? You will kill your own son’s bride?
Creon
Why not? There are other fields for him to plough.
Ismene
But not fitted to him as she
was.
570
Creon
I abhor an evil wife for my son.
Antigone
Haemon, dearest! How your father wrongs you!
Creon
Enough! Enough of you and of your marriage!
Chorus
Will you really cheat your son of this girl?
Creon
Death it is who will end these
bridals for me.
575
Chorus
Then it seems that it is resolved that she will die.
Creon
Resolved, yes, for you and by me. To the two Attendants. No
more delay! Servants, take them inside! Hereafter they must be women,
and not left at large.
For it is
known that even the brave seek to flee, when they see Death now closing
on their life. Exeunt Attendants, guarding Antigone and Ismene.
Creon remains.
580
[Choral 1]
Blest are those whose days have
not tasted of evil. For when a house has once been shaken by the
gods,
Chorus
no form of ruin is
lacking, but it spreads over the bulk of the race, just as, when the
surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of
Thracian sea-winds,
585
it rolls up
the black sand from the depths, and the wind-beaten headlands that front
the blows of the storm give out a mournful roar.
590
I see that the ancient sorrows of
the house of the Labdacids
are
heaped upon the sorrows of the dead. Each generation does not set its
race free, but some god hurls it down and the race has no release. For
now that dazzling ray of hope that had been spread
595
over the last roots in the house of
Oedipus—that hope, in its turn, the blood-stained dust of the gods
infernal and mindlessness in speech and frenzy at the mind cuts
down.
600
[Choral 2]
Your power, great Zeus—what human
overstepping can check it? Yours is power that neither Sleep, the
all-ensnaring, nor the untiring months of the gods can defeat. Unaged
through time,
605
Chorus
you rule by your
power and dwell thereby in the brilliant splendor of Olympus. And through the future, both
near and distant, as through the past, shall this law prevail: nothing
that is vast comes to the life of mortals without ruin.
610
See how that hope whose wanderings
are so wide truly is a benefit to many men, but to an equal number it is
a false lure of light-headed desires. The deception comes to one who is
wholly unawares until he burns his foot on a hot fire.
615
For with wisdom did someone once reveal the
maxim, now famous, that evil at one time or another seems good, to him
whose mind a god leads to ruin.
620
But for the briefest moment such a man fares free of destruction.
625
[Choral]
But here is Haemon, the last of
your offspring. Does he come grieving for the doom of Antigone, his
promised bride,
Chorus
and bitter for the
deceived hope of their marriage?
630