Antigone

By Sophocles.

Translated by Francis Storr.

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Argument

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.

Dramatis Personae

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

Antigone and Ismene before the Palace gates.

Antigone	Ismene, sister of my blood and heart, See’st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfil 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 knew ’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 dishonoured 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 humour, 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, dishonoured, 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