CHORUS Didst thou in sooth then share A bed incestuous with her that bare—

OEDIPUS It stabs me like a sword, That two-edged word, O stranger, but these maids—my own—

CHORUS Say on.

OEDIPUS Two daughters, curses twain.

CHORUS Oh God!

OEDIPUS Sprang from the wife and mother's travail-pain.

CHORUS (Str. 2) What, then thy offspring are at once—

OEDIPUS Too true. Their father's very sister's too.

CHORUS Oh horror!

OEDIPUS Horrors from the boundless deep Back on my soul in refluent surges sweep.

CHORUS Thou hast endured—

OEDIPUS Intolerable woe.

CHORUS And sinned—

OEDIPUS I sinned not.

CHORUS How so?

OEDIPUS I served the State; would I had never won That graceless grace by which I was undone.

CHORUS (Ant. 2) And next, unhappy man, thou hast shed blood?

OEDIPUS Must ye hear more?

CHORUS A father's?

OEDIPUS Flood on flood Whelms me; that word's a second mortal blow.

CHORUS Murderer!

OEDIPUS Yes, a murderer, but know—

CHORUS What canst thou plead?

OEDIPUS A plea of justice.

CHORUS How?

OEDIPUS I slew who else would me have slain; I slew without intent, A wretch, but innocent In the law's eye, I stand, without a stain.

CHORUS Behold our sovereign, Theseus, Aegeus' son, Comes at thy summons to perform his part. [Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS Oft had I heard of thee in times gone by— The bloody mutilation of thine eyes— And therefore know thee, son of Laius. All that I lately gathered on the way Made my conjecture doubly sure; and now Thy garb and that marred visage prove to me That thou art he. So pitying thine estate, Most ill-starred Oedipus, I fain would know What is the suit ye urge on me and Athens, Thou and the helpless maiden at thy side. Declare it; dire indeed must be the tale Whereat I should recoil. I too was reared, Like thee, in exile, and in foreign lands Wrestled with many perils, no man more. Wherefore no alien in adversity Shall seek in vain my succor, nor shalt thou; I know myself a mortal, and my share In what the morrow brings no more than thine.

OEDIPUS Theseus, thy words so apt, so generous So comfortable, need no long reply Both who I am and of what lineage sprung, And from what land I came, thou hast declared. So without prologue I may utter now My brief petition, and the tale is told.

THESEUS Say on, and tell me what I fain would learn.

OEDIPUS I come to offer thee this woe-worn frame, A gift not fair to look on; yet its worth More precious far than any outward show.

THESEUS What profit dost thou proffer to have brought?

OEDIPUS Hereafter thou shalt learn, not yet, methinks.

THESEUS When may we hope to reap the benefit?

OEDIPUS When I am dead and thou hast buried me.

THESEUS Thou cravest life's last service; all before— Is it forgotten or of no account?

OEDIPUS Yea, the last boon is warrant for the rest.

THESEUS The grace thou cravest then is small indeed.

OEDIPUS Nay, weigh it well; the issue is not slight.

THESEUS Thou meanest that betwixt thy sons and me?

OEDIPUS Prince, they would fain convey me back to Thebes.

THESEUS If there be no compulsion, then methinks To rest in banishment befits not thee.

OEDIPUS Nay, when I wished it they would not consent.

THESEUS For shame! such temper misbecomes the faller.

OEDIPUS Chide if thou wilt, but first attend my plea.

THESEUS Say on, I wait full knowledge ere I judge.

OEDIPUS O Theseus, I have suffered wrongs on wrongs.

THESEUS Wouldst tell the old misfortune of thy race?

OEDIPUS No, that has grown a byword throughout Greece.

THESEUS What then can be this more than mortal grief?

OEDIPUS My case stands thus; by my own flesh and blood I was expelled my country, and can ne'er Thither return again, a parricide.

THESEUS Why fetch thee home if thou must needs obey.

THESEUS What are they threatened by the oracle?

OEDIPUS Destruction that awaits them in this land.

THESEUS What can beget ill blood 'twixt them and me?

OEDIPUS Dear son of Aegeus, to the gods alone Is given immunity from eld and death; But nothing else escapes all-ruinous time. Earth's might decays, the might of men decays, Honor grows cold, dishonor flourishes, There is no constancy 'twixt friend and friend, Or city and city; be it soon or late, Sweet turns to bitter, hate once more to love. If now 'tis sunshine betwixt Thebes and thee And not a cloud, Time in his endless course Gives birth to endless days and nights, wherein The merest nothing shall suffice to cut With serried spears your bonds of amity. Then shall my slumbering and buried corpse In its cold grave drink their warm life-blood up, If Zeus be Zeus and Phoebus still speak true. No more: 'tis ill to tear aside the veil Of mysteries; let me cease as I began: Enough if thou wilt keep thy plighted troth, Then shall thou ne'er complain that Oedipus Proved an unprofitable and thankless guest, Except the gods themselves shall play me false.

CHORUS The man, my lord, has from the very first Declared his power to offer to our land These and like benefits.

THESEUS Who could reject The proffered amity of such a friend? First, he can claim the hospitality To which by mutual contract we stand pledged: Next, coming here, a suppliant to the gods, He pays full tribute to the State and me; His favors therefore never will I spurn, But grant him the full rights of citizen; And, if it suits the stranger here to bide, I place him in your charge, or if he please Rather to come with me—choose, Oedipus, Which of the two thou wilt. Thy choice is mine.

OEDIPUS Zeus, may the blessing fall on men like these!

THESEUS What dost thou then decide—to come with me?

OEDIPUS Yea, were it lawful—but 'tis rather here—

THESEUS What wouldst thou here? I shall not thwart thy wish.

OEDIPUS Here shall I vanquish those who cast me forth.

THESEUS Then were thy presence here a boon indeed.

OEDIPUS Such shall it prove, if thou fulfill'st thy pledge.

THESEUS Fear not for me; I shall not play thee false.

OEDIPUS No need to back thy promise with an oath.

THESEUS An oath would be no surer than my word.

OEDIPUS How wilt thou act then?

THESEUS What is it thou fear'st?

OEDIPUS My foes will come—

THESEUS Our friends will look to that.

OEDIPUS But if thou leave me?

THESEUS Teach me not my duty.

OEDIPUS 'Tis fear constrains me.

THESEUS My soul knows no fear!

OEDIPUS Thou knowest not what threats—

THESEUS I know that none Shall hale thee hence in my despite. Such threats Vented in anger oft, are blusterers, An idle breath, forgot when sense returns. And for thy foemen, though their words were brave, Boasting to bring thee back, they are like to find The seas between us wide and hard to sail. Such my firm purpose, but in any case Take heart, since Phoebus sent thee here. My name, Though I be distant, warrants thee from harm.

CHORUS (Str. 1) Thou hast come to a steed-famed land for rest, O stranger worn with toil, To a land of all lands the goodliest Colonus' glistening soil. 'Tis the haunt of the clear-voiced nightingale, Who hid in her bower, among The wine-dark ivy that wreathes the vale, Trilleth her ceaseless song; And she loves, where the clustering berries nod O'er a sunless, windless glade, The spot by no mortal footstep trod, The pleasance kept for the Bacchic god, Where he holds each night his revels wild With the nymphs who fostered the lusty child.

(Ant. 1) And fed each morn by the pearly dew The starred narcissi shine, And a wreath with the crocus' golden hue For the Mother and Daughter twine. And never the sleepless fountains cease That feed Cephisus' stream, But they swell earth's bosom with quick increase, And their wave hath a crystal gleam. And the Muses' quire will never disdain To visit this heaven-favored plain, Nor the Cyprian queen of the golden rein.

(Str. 2) And here there grows, unpruned, untamed, Terror to foemen's spear, A tree in Asian soil unnamed, By Pelops' Dorian isle unclaimed, Self-nurtured year by year; 'Tis the grey-leaved olive that feeds our boys; Nor youth nor withering age destroys The plant that the Olive Planter tends And the Grey-eyed Goddess herself defends.

(Ant. 2) Yet another gift, of all gifts the most Prized by our fatherland, we boast— The might of the horse, the might of the sea; Our fame, Poseidon, we owe to thee, Son of Kronos, our king divine, Who in these highways first didst fit For the mouth of horses the iron bit; Thou too hast taught us to fashion meet For the arm of the rower the oar-blade fleet, Swift as the Nereids' hundred feet As they dance along the brine.

ANTIGONE Oh land extolled above all lands, 'tis now For thee to make these glorious titles good.

OEDIPUS Why this appeal, my daughter?

ANTIGONE Father, lo! Creon approaches with his company.

OEDIPUS Fear not, it shall be so; if we are old, This country's vigor has no touch of age. [Enter CREON with attendants]

CREON Burghers, my noble friends, ye take alarm At my approach (I read it in your eyes), Fear nothing and refrain from angry words. I come with no ill purpose; I am old, And know the city whither I am come, Without a peer amongst the powers of Greece. It was by reason of my years that I Was chosen to persuade your guest and bring Him back to Thebes; not the delegate Of one man, but commissioned by the State, Since of all Thebans I have most bewailed, Being his kinsman, his most grievous woes. O listen to me, luckless Oedipus, Come home! The whole Cadmeian people claim With right to have thee back, I most of all, For most of all (else were I vile indeed) I mourn for thy misfortunes, seeing thee An aged outcast, wandering on and on, A beggar with one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and on myself and all the race? Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid. Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst. O, by our fathers' gods, consent I pray; Come back to Thebes, come to thy father's home, Bid Athens, as is meet, a fond farewell; Thebes thy old foster-mother claims thee first.

OEDIPUS O front of brass, thy subtle tongue would twist To thy advantage every plea of right Why try thy arts on me, why spread again Toils where 'twould gall me sorest to be snared? In old days when by self-wrought woes distraught, I yearned for exile as a glad release, Thy will refused the favor then I craved. But when my frenzied grief had spent its force, And I was fain to taste the sweets of home, Then thou wouldst thrust me from my country, then These ties of kindred were by thee ignored; And now again when thou behold'st this State And all its kindly people welcome me, Thou seek'st to part us, wrapping in soft words Hard thoughts. And yet what pleasure canst thou find In forcing friendship on unwilling foes? Suppose a man refused to grant some boon When you importuned him, and afterwards When you had got your heart's desire, consented, Granting a grace from which all grace had fled, Would not such favor seem an empty boon? Yet such the boon thou profferest now to me, Fair in appearance, but when tested false. Yea, I will proved thee false, that these may hear; Thou art come to take me, not to take me home, But plant me on thy borders, that thy State May so escape annoyance from this land. That thou shalt never gain, but this instead— My ghost to haunt thy country without end; And for my sons, this heritage—no more— Just room to die in. Have not I more skill Than thou to draw the horoscope of Thebes? Are not my teachers surer guides than thine— Great Phoebus and the sire of Phoebus, Zeus? Thou art a messenger suborned, thy tongue Is sharper than a sword's edge, yet thy speech Will bring thee more defeats than victories. Howbeit, I know I waste my words—begone, And leave me here; whate'er may be my lot, He lives not ill who lives withal content.

CREON Which loses in this parley, I o'erthrown By thee, or thou who overthrow'st thyself?

OEDIPUS I shall be well contented if thy suit Fails with these strangers, as it has with me.

CREON Unhappy man, will years ne'er make thee wise? Must thou live on to cast a slur on age?

OEDIPUS Thou hast a glib tongue, but no honest man, Methinks, can argue well on any side.

CREON 'Tis one thing to speak much, another well.

OEDIPUS Thy words, forsooth, are few and all well aimed!

CREON Not for a man indeed with wits like thine.

OEDIPUS Depart! I bid thee in these burghers' name, And prowl no longer round me to blockade My destined harbor.

CREON I protest to these, Not thee, and for thine answer to thy kin, If e'er I take thee—

OEDIPUS Who against their will Could take me?

CREON Though untaken thou shalt smart.

OEDIPUS What power hast thou to execute this threat?

CREON One of thy daughters is already seized, The other I will carry off anon.

OEDIPUS Woe, woe!

CREON This is but prelude to thy woes.

OEDIPUS Hast thou my child?

CREON And soon shall have the other.

OEDIPUS Ho, friends! ye will not surely play me false? Chase this ungodly villain from your land.

CHORUS Hence, stranger, hence avaunt! Thou doest wrong In this, and wrong in all that thou hast done.

CREON (to his guards) 'Tis time by force to carry off the girl, If she refuse of her free will to go.

ANTIGONE Ah, woe is me! where shall I fly, where find Succor from gods or men?

CHORUS What would'st thou, stranger?

CREON I meddle not with him, but her who is mine.

OEDIPUS O princes of the land!

CHORUS Sir, thou dost wrong.

CREON Nay, right.

CHORUS How right?

CREON I take but what is mine.

OEDIPUS Help, Athens!

CHORUS What means this, sirrah? quick unhand her, or We'll fight it out.

CREON Back!

CHORUS Not till thou forbear.

CREON 'Tis war with Thebes if I am touched or harmed.

OEDIPUS Did I not warn thee?

CHORUS Quick, unhand the maid!

CREON Command your minions; I am not your slave.

CHORUS Desist, I bid thee.

CREON (to the guard) And O bid thee march!

CHORUS To the rescue, one and all! Rally, neighbors to my call! See, the foe is at the gate! Rally to defend the State.

ANTIGONE Ah, woe is me, they drag me hence, O friends.

OEDIPUS Where art thou, daughter?

ANTIGONE Haled along by force.

OEDIPUS Thy hands, my child!

ANTIGONE They will not let me, father.

CREON Away with her!

OEDIPUS Ah, woe is me, ah woe!

CREON So those two crutches shall no longer serve thee For further roaming. Since it pleaseth thee To triumph o'er thy country and thy friends Who mandate, though a prince, I here discharge, Enjoy thy triumph; soon or late thou'lt find Thou art an enemy to thyself, both now And in time past, when in despite of friends Thou gav'st the rein to passion, still thy bane.

CHORUS Hold there, sir stranger!

CREON Hands off, have a care.

CHORUS Restore the maidens, else thou goest not.

CREON Then Thebes will take a dearer surety soon; I will lay hands on more than these two maids.

CHORUS What canst thou further?

CREON Carry off this man.

CHORUS Brave words!

CREON And deeds forthwith shall make them good.

CHORUS Unless perchance our sovereign intervene.

OEDIPUS O shameless voice! Would'st lay an hand on me?

CREON Silence, I bid thee!

OEDIPUS Goddesses, allow Thy suppliant to utter yet one curse! Wretch, now my eyes are gone thou hast torn away The helpless maiden who was eyes to me; For these to thee and all thy cursed race May the great Sun, whose eye is everywhere, Grant length of days and old age like to mine.

CREON Listen, O men of Athens, mark ye this?

OEDIPUS They mark us both and understand that I Wronged by the deeds defend myself with words.

CREON Nothing shall curb my will; though I be old And single-handed, I will have this man.

OEDIPUS O woe is me!

CHORUS Thou art a bold man, stranger, if thou think'st To execute thy purpose.

CREON So I do.

CHORUS Then shall I deem this State no more a State.

CREON With a just quarrel weakness conquers might.

OEDIPUS Ye hear his words?

CHORUS Aye words, but not yet deeds, Zeus knoweth!

CREON Zeus may haply know, not thou.

CHORUS Insolence!

CREON Insolence that thou must bear.

CHORUS Haste ye princes, sound the alarm! Men of Athens, arm ye, arm! Quickly to the rescue come Ere the robbers get them home. [Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS Why this outcry? What is forward? wherefore was I called away From the altar of Poseidon, lord of your Colonus? Say! On what errand have I hurried hither without stop or stay.

OEDIPUS Dear friend—those accents tell me who thou art— Yon man but now hath done me a foul wrong.

THESEUS What is this wrong and who hath wrought it? Speak.

OEDIPUS Creon who stands before thee. He it is Hath robbed me of my all, my daughters twain.

THESEUS What means this?

OEDIPUS Thou hast heard my tale of wrongs.

THESEUS Ho! hasten to the altars, one of you. Command my liegemen leave the sacrifice And hurry, foot and horse, with rein unchecked, To where the paths that packmen use diverge, Lest the two maidens slip away, and I Become a mockery to this my guest, As one despoiled by force. Quick, as I bid. As for this stranger, had I let my rage, Justly provoked, have play, he had not 'scaped Scathless and uncorrected at my hands. But now the laws to which himself appealed, These and none others shall adjudicate. Thou shalt not quit this land, till thou hast fetched The maidens and produced them in my sight. Thou hast offended both against myself And thine own race and country. Having come Unto a State that champions right and asks For every action warranty of law, Thou hast set aside the custom of the land, And like some freebooter art carrying off What plunder pleases thee, as if forsooth Thou thoughtest this a city without men, Or manned by slaves, and me a thing of naught. Yet not from Thebes this villainy was learnt; Thebes is not wont to breed unrighteous sons, Nor would she praise thee, if she learnt that thou Wert robbing me—aye and the gods to boot, Haling by force their suppliants, poor maids. Were I on Theban soil, to prosecute The justest claim imaginable, I Would never wrest by violence my own Without sanction of your State or King; I should behave as fits an outlander Living amongst a foreign folk, but thou Shamest a city that deserves it not, Even thine own, and plentitude of years Have made of thee an old man and a fool. Therefore again I charge thee as before, See that the maidens are restored at once, Unless thou would'st continue here by force And not by choice a sojourner; so much I tell thee home and what I say, I mean.

CHORUS Thy case is perilous; though by birth and race Thou should'st be just, thou plainly doest wrong.

CREON Not deeming this city void of men Or counsel, son of Aegeus, as thou say'st I did what I have done; rather I thought Your people were not like to set such store by kin of mine and keep them 'gainst my will. Nor would they harbor, so I stood assured, A godless parricide, a reprobate Convicted of incestuous marriage ties. For on her native hill of Ares here (I knew your far-famed Areopagus) Sits Justice, and permits not vagrant folk To stay within your borders. In that faith I hunted down my quarry; and e'en then I had refrained but for the curses dire Wherewith he banned my kinsfolk and myself: Such wrong, methought, had warrant for my act. Anger has no old age but only death; The dead alone can feel no touch of spite. So thou must work thy will; my cause is just But weak without allies; yet will I try, Old as I am, to answer deeds with deeds.

OEDIPUS O shameless railer, think'st thou this abuse Defames my grey hairs rather than thine own? Murder and incest, deeds of horror, all Thou blurtest forth against me, all I have borne, No willing sinner; so it pleased the gods Wrath haply with my sinful race of old, Since thou could'st find no sin in me myself For which in retribution I was doomed To trespass thus against myself and mine. Answer me now, if by some oracle My sire was destined to a bloody end By a son's hand, can this reflect on me, Me then unborn, begotten by no sire, Conceived in no mother's womb? And if When born to misery, as born I was, I met my sire, not knowing whom I met or what I did, and slew him, how canst thou With justice blame the all-unconscious hand? And for my mother, wretch, art not ashamed, Seeing she was thy sister, to extort From me the story of her marriage, such A marriage as I straightway will proclaim. For I will speak; thy lewd and impious speech Has broken all the bonds of reticence. She was, ah woe is me! she was my mother; I knew it not, nor she; and she my mother Bare children to the son whom she had borne, A birth of shame. But this at least I know Wittingly thou aspersest her and me; But I unwitting wed, unwilling speak. Nay neither in this marriage or this deed Which thou art ever casting in my teeth— A murdered sire—shall I be held to blame. Come, answer me one question, if thou canst: If one should presently attempt thy life, Would'st thou, O man of justice, first inquire If the assassin was perchance thy sire, Or turn upon him? As thou lov'st thy life, On thy aggressor thou would'st turn, no stay Debating, if the law would bear thee out. Such was my case, and such the pass whereto The gods reduced me; and methinks my sire, Could he come back to life, would not dissent. Yet thou, for just thou art not, but a man Who sticks at nothing, if it serve his plea, Reproachest me with this before these men. It serves thy turn to laud great Theseus' name, And Athens as a wisely governed State; Yet in thy flatteries one thing is to seek: If any land knows how to pay the gods Their proper rites, 'tis Athens most of all. This is the land whence thou wast fain to steal Their aged suppliant and hast carried off My daughters. Therefore to yon goddesses, I turn, adjure them and invoke their aid To champion my cause, that thou mayest learn What is the breed of men who guard this State.

CHORUS An honest man, my liege, one sore bestead By fortune, and so worthy our support.

THESEUS Enough of words; the captors speed amain, While we the victims stand debating here.

CREON What would'st thou? What can I, a feeble man?

THESEUS Show us the trail, and I'll attend thee too, That, if thou hast the maidens hereabouts, Thou mayest thyself discover them to me; But if thy guards outstrip us with their spoil, We may draw rein; for others speed, from whom They will not 'scape to thank the gods at home. Lead on, I say, the captor's caught, and fate Hath ta'en the fowler in the toils he spread; So soon are lost gains gotten by deceit. And look not for allies; I know indeed Such height of insolence was never reached Without abettors or accomplices; Thou hast some backer in thy bold essay, But I will search this matter home and see One man doth not prevail against the State. Dost take my drift, or seem these words as vain As seemed our warnings when the plot was hatched?

CREON Nothing thou sayest can I here dispute, But once at home I too shall act my part.

THESEUS Threaten us and—begone! Thou, Oedipus, Stay here assured that nothing save my death Will stay my purpose to restore the maids.

OEDIPUS Heaven bless thee, Theseus, for thy nobleness And all thy loving care in my behalf. [Exeunt THESEUS and CREON]

CHORUS (Str. 1) O when the flying foe, Turning at last to bay, Soon will give blow for blow, Might I behold the fray; Hear the loud battle roar Swell, on the Pythian shore, Or by the torch-lit bay, Where the dread Queen and Maid Cherish the mystic rites, Rites they to none betray, Ere on his lips is laid Secrecy's golden key By their own acolytes, Priestly Eumolpidae.

There I might chance behold Theseus our captain bold Meet with the robber band, Ere they have fled the land, Rescue by might and main Maidens, the captives twain.

(Ant. 1) Haply on swiftest steed, Or in the flying car, Now they approach the glen, West of white Oea's scaur. They will be vanquished: Dread are our warriors, dread Theseus our chieftain's men. Flashes each bridle bright, Charges each gallant knight, All that our Queen adore, Pallas their patron, or Him whose wide floods enring Earth, the great Ocean-king Whom Rhea bore.

(Str. 2) Fight they or now prepare To fight? a vision rare Tells me that soon again I shall behold the twain Maidens so ill bestead, By their kin buffeted. Today, today Zeus worketh some great thing This day shall victory bring. O for the wings, the wings of a dove, To be borne with the speed of the gale, Up and still upwards to sail And gaze on the fray from the clouds above. (Ant. 2) All-seeing Zeus, O lord of heaven, To our guardian host be given Might triumphant to surprise Flying foes and win their prize. Hear us, Zeus, and hear us, child Of Zeus, Athene undefiled, Hear, Apollo, hunter, hear, Huntress, sister of Apollo, Who the dappled swift-foot deer O'er the wooded glade dost follow; Help with your two-fold power Athens in danger's hour! O wayfarer, thou wilt not have to tax The friends who watch for thee with false presage, For lo, an escort with the maids draws near. [Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE with THESEUS]

OEDIPUS Where, where? what sayest thou?

ANTIGONE O father, father, Would that some god might grant thee eyes to see This best of men who brings us back again.

OEDIPUS My child! and are ye back indeed!

ANTIGONE Yes, saved By Theseus and his gallant followers.

OEDIPUS Come to your father's arms, O let me feel A child's embrace I never hoped for more.

ANTIGONE Thou askest what is doubly sweet to give.

OEDIPUS Where are ye then?

ANTIGONE We come together both.

OEDIPUS My precious nurslings!

ANTIGONE Fathers aye were fond.

OEDIPUS Props of my age!

ANTIGONE So sorrow sorrow props.

OEDIPUS I have my darlings, and if death should come, Death were not wholly bitter with you near. Cling to me, press me close on either side, There rest ye from your dreary wayfaring. Now tell me of your ventures, but in brief; Brief speech suffices for young maids like you.

ANTIGONE Here is our savior; thou should'st hear the tale From his own lips; so shall my part be brief.

OEDIPUS I pray thee do not wonder if the sight Of children, given o'er for lost, has made My converse somewhat long and tedious. Full well I know the joy I have of them Is due to thee, to thee and no man else; Thou wast their sole deliverer, none else. The gods deal with thee after my desire, With thee and with this land! for fear of heaven I found above all peoples most with you, And righteousness and lips that cannot lie. I speak in gratitude of what I know, For all I have I owe to thee alone. Give me thy hand, O Prince, that I may touch it, And if thou wilt permit me, kiss thy cheek. What say I? Can I wish that thou should'st touch One fallen like me to utter wretchedness, Corrupt and tainted with a thousand ills? Oh no, I would not let thee if thou would'st. They only who have known calamity Can share it. Let me greet thee where thou art, And still befriend me as thou hast till now.

THESEUS I marvel not if thou hast dallied long In converse with thy children and preferred Their speech to mine; I feel no jealousy, I would be famous more by deeds than words. Of this, old friend, thou hast had proof; my oath I have fulfilled and brought thee back the maids Alive and nothing harmed for all those threats. And how the fight was won, 'twere waste of words To boast—thy daughters here will tell thee all. But of a matter that has lately chanced On my way hitherward, I fain would have Thy counsel—slight 'twould seem, yet worthy thought. A wise man heeds all matters great or small.

OEDIPUS What is it, son of Aegeus? Let me hear. Of what thou askest I myself know naught.

THESEUS 'Tis said a man, no countryman of thine, But of thy kin, hath taken sanctuary Beside the altar of Poseidon, where I was at sacrifice when called away.

OEDIPUS What is his country? what the suitor's prayer?

THESEUS I know but one thing; he implores, I am told, A word with thee—he will not trouble thee.

OEDIPUS What seeks he? If a suppliant, something grave.

THESEUS He only waits, they say, to speak with thee, And then unharmed to go upon his way.

OEDIPUS I marvel who is this petitioner.

THESEUS Think if there be not any of thy kin At Argos who might claim this boon of thee.

OEDIPUS Dear friend, forbear, I pray.

THESEUS What ails thee now?

OEDIPUS Ask it not of me.

THESEUS Ask not what? explain.

OEDIPUS Thy words have told me who the suppliant is.

THESEUS Who can he be that I should frown on him?

OEDIPUS My son, O king, my hateful son, whose words Of all men's most would jar upon my ears.

THESEUS Thou sure mightest listen. If his suit offend, No need to grant it. Why so loth to hear him?

OEDIPUS That voice, O king, grates on a father's ears; I have come to loathe it. Force me not to yield.

THESEUS But he hath found asylum. O beware, And fail not in due reverence to the god.

ANTIGONE O heed me, father, though I am young in years. Let the prince have his will and pay withal What in his eyes is service to the god; For our sake also let our brother come. If what he urges tend not to thy good He cannot surely wrest perforce thy will. To hear him then, what harm? By open words A scheme of villainy is soon bewrayed. Thou art his father, therefore canst not pay In kind a son's most impious outrages. O listen to him; other men like thee Have thankless children and are choleric, But yielding to persuasion's gentle spell They let their savage mood be exorcised. Look thou to the past, forget the present, think On all the woe thy sire and mother brought thee; Thence wilt thou draw this lesson without fail, Of evil passion evil is the end. Thou hast, alas, to prick thy memory, Stern monitors, these ever-sightless orbs. O yield to us; just suitors should not need To be importunate, nor he that takes A favor lack the grace to make return.

OEDIPUS Grievous to me, my child, the boon ye win By pleading. Let it be then; have your way Only if come he must, I beg thee, friend, Let none have power to dispose of me.

THESEUS No need, Sir, to appeal a second time. It likes me not to boast, but be assured Thy life is safe while any god saves mine. [Exit THESEUS]

CHORUS (Str.) Who craves excess of days, Scorning the common span Of life, I judge that man A giddy wight who walks in folly's ways. For the long years heap up a grievous load, Scant pleasures, heavier pains, Till not one joy remains For him who lingers on life's weary road And come it slow or fast, One doom of fate Doth all await, For dance and marriage bell, The dirge and funeral knell. Death the deliverer freeth all at last. (Ant.) Not to be born at all Is best, far best that can befall, Next best, when born, with least delay To trace the backward way. For when youth passes with its giddy train, Troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils, Pain, pain for ever pain; And none escapes life's coils. Envy, sedition, strife, Carnage and war, make up the tale of life. Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage Of unregarded age, Joyless, companionless and slow, Of woes the crowning woe.

(Epode) Such ills not I alone, He too our guest hath known, E'en as some headland on an iron-bound shore, Lashed by the wintry blasts and surge's roar, So is he buffeted on every side By drear misfortune's whelming tide, By every wind of heaven o'erborne Some from the sunset, some from orient morn, Some from the noonday glow. Some from Rhipean gloom of everlasting snow.

ANTIGONE Father, methinks I see the stranger coming, Alone he comes and weeping plenteous tears.

OEDIPUS Who may he be?

ANTIGONE The same that we surmised. From the outset—Polyneices. He is here. [Enter POLYNEICES]

POLYNEICES Ah me, my sisters, shall I first lament My own afflictions, or my aged sire's, Whom here I find a castaway, with you, In a strange land, an ancient beggar clad In antic tatters, marring all his frame, While o'er the sightless orbs his unkept locks Float in the breeze; and, as it were to match, He bears a wallet against hunger's pinch. All this too late I learn, wretch that I am, Alas! I own it, and am proved most vile In my neglect of thee: I scorn myself. But as almighty Zeus in all he doth Hath Mercy for co-partner of this throne, Let Mercy, father, also sit enthroned In thy heart likewise. For transgressions past May be amended, cannot be made worse.

Why silent? Father, speak, nor turn away, Hast thou no word, wilt thou dismiss me then In mute disdain, nor tell me why thou art wrath? O ye his daughters, sisters mine, do ye This sullen, obstinate silence try to move. Let him not spurn, without a single word Of answer, me the suppliant of the god.

ANTIGONE Tell him thyself, unhappy one, thine errand; For large discourse may send a thrill of joy, Or stir a chord of wrath or tenderness, And to the tongue-tied somehow give a tongue.

POLYNEICES Well dost thou counsel, and I will speak out. First will I call in aid the god himself, Poseidon, from whose altar I was raised, With warrant from the monarch of this land, To parley with you, and depart unscathed. These pledges, strangers, I would see observed By you and by my sisters and my sire. Now, father, let me tell thee why I came. I have been banished from my native land Because by right of primogeniture I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother, Ousted me, not by weight of precedent, Nor by the last arbitrament of war, But by his popular acts; and the prime cause Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee. So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when I came to Argos in the Dorian land And took the king Adrastus' child to wife, Under my standard I enlisted all The foremost captains of the Apian isle, To levy with their aid that sevenfold host Of spearmen against Thebes, determining To oust my foes or die in a just cause. Why then, thou askest, am I here today? Father, I come a suppliant to thee Both for myself and my allies who now With squadrons seven beneath their seven spears Beleaguer all the plain that circles Thebes. Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer, Amphiaraiis with his lightning lance; Next an Aetolian, Tydeus, Oeneus' son; Eteoclus of Argive birth the third; The fourth Hippomedon, sent to the war By his sire Talaos; Capaneus, the fifth, Vaunts he will fire and raze the town; the sixth Parthenopaeus, an Arcadian born Named of that maid, longtime a maid and late Espoused, Atalanta's true-born child; Last I thy son, or thine at least in name, If but the bastard of an evil fate, Lead against Thebes the fearless Argive host. Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire, We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath And favor one who seeks a just revenge Against a brother who has banned and robbed him. For victory, if oracles speak true, Will fall to those who have thee for ally. So, by our fountains and familiar gods I pray thee, yield and hear; a beggar I And exile, thou an exile likewise; both Involved in one misfortune find a home As pensioners, while he, the lord of Thebes, O agony! makes a mock of thee and me. I'll scatter with a breath the upstart's might, And bring thee home again and stablish thee, And stablish, having cast him out, myself. This will thy goodwill I will undertake, Without it I can scare return alive.

CHORUS For the king's sake who sent him, Oedipus, Dismiss him not without a meet reply.

OEDIPUS Nay, worthy seniors, but for Theseus' sake Who sent him hither to have word of me. Never again would he have heard my voice; But now he shall obtain this parting grace, An answer that will bring him little joy. O villain, when thou hadst the sovereignty That now thy brother holdeth in thy stead, Didst thou not drive me, thine own father, out, An exile, cityless, and make we wear This beggar's garb thou weepest to behold, Now thou art come thyself to my sad plight? Nothing is here for tears; it must be borne By me till death, and I shall think of thee As of my murderer; thou didst thrust me out; 'Tis thou hast made me conversant with woe, Through thee I beg my bread in a strange land; And had not these my daughters tended me I had been dead for aught of aid from thee. They tend me, they preserve me, they are men Not women in true service to their sire; But ye are bastards, and no sons of mine. Therefore just Heaven hath an eye on thee; Howbeit not yet with aspect so austere As thou shalt soon experience, if indeed These banded hosts are moving against Thebes. That city thou canst never storm, but first Shall fall, thou and thy brother, blood-imbrued. Such curse I lately launched against you twain, Such curse I now invoke to fight for me, That ye may learn to honor those who bear thee Nor flout a sightless father who begat Degenerate sons—these maidens did not so. Therefore my curse is stronger than thy "throne," Thy "suppliance," if by right of laws eterne Primeval Justice sits enthroned with Zeus. Begone, abhorred, disowned, no son of mine, Thou vilest of the vile! and take with thee This curse I leave thee as my last bequest:— Never to win by arms thy native land, No, nor return to Argos in the Vale, But by a kinsman's hand to die and slay Him who expelled thee. So I pray and call On the ancestral gloom of Tartarus To snatch thee hence, on these dread goddesses I call, and Ares who incensed you both To mortal enmity. Go now proclaim What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all, Thy staunch confederates—this the heritage that Oedipus divideth to his sons.

CHORUS Thy errand, Polyneices, liked me not From the beginning; now go back with speed.

POLYNEICES Woe worth my journey and my baffled hopes! Woe worth my comrades! What a desperate end To that glad march from Argos! Woe is me! I dare not whisper it to my allies Or turn them back, but mute must meet my doom. My sisters, ye his daughters, ye have heard The prayers of our stern father, if his curse Should come to pass and ye some day return To Thebes, O then disown me not, I pray, But grant me burial and due funeral rites. So shall the praise your filial care now wins Be doubled for the service wrought for me.

ANTIGONE One boon, O Polyneices, let me crave.

POLYNEICES What would'st thou, sweet Antigone? Say on.

ANTIGONE Turn back thy host to Argos with all speed, And ruin not thyself and Thebes as well.

POLYNEICES That cannot be. How could I lead again An army that had seen their leader quail?

ANTIGONE But, brother, why shouldst thou be wroth again? What profit from thy country's ruin comes?

POLYNEICES 'Tis shame to live in exile, and shall I The elder bear a younger brother's flouts?

ANTIGONE Wilt thou then bring to pass his prophecies Who threatens mutual slaughter to you both?

POLYNEICES Aye, so he wishes:—but I must not yield.

ANTIGONE O woe is me! but say, will any dare, Hearing his prophecy, to follow thee?

POLYNEICES I shall not tell it; a good general Reports successes and conceals mishaps.

ANTIGONE Misguided youth, thy purpose then stands fast!

POLYNEICES 'Tis so, and stay me not. The road I choose, Dogged by my sire and his avenging spirit, Leads me to ruin; but for you may Zeus Make your path bright if ye fulfill my hest When dead; in life ye cannot serve me more. Now let me go, farewell, a long farewell! Ye ne'er shall see my living face again.

ANTIGONE Ah me!

POLYNEICES Bewail me not.

ANTIGONE Who would not mourn Thee, brother, hurrying to an open pit!

POLYNEICES If I must die, I must.

ANTIGONE Nay, hear me plead.

POLYNEICES It may not be; forbear.

ANTIGONE Then woe is me, If I must lose thee.

POLYNEICES Nay, that rests with fate, Whether I live or die; but for you both I pray to heaven ye may escape all ill; For ye are blameless in the eyes of all. [Exit POLYNEICES]

CHORUS (Str. 1) Ills on ills! no pause or rest! Come they from our sightless guest? Or haply now we see fulfilled What fate long time hath willed? For ne'er have I proved vain Aught that the heavenly powers ordain. Time with never sleeping eye Watches what is writ on high, Overthrowing now the great, Raising now from low estate. Hark! How the thunder rumbles! Zeus defend us!

OEDIPUS Children, my children! will no messenger Go summon hither Theseus my best friend?

ANTIGONE And wherefore, father, dost thou summon him?

OEDIPUS This winged thunder of the god must bear me Anon to Hades. Send and tarry not.

CHORUS (Ant. 1) Hark! with louder, nearer roar The bolt of Zeus descends once more. My spirit quails and cowers: my hair Bristles for fear. Again that flare! What doth the lightning-flash portend? Ever it points to issues grave. Dread powers of air! Save, Zeus, O save!

OEDIPUS Daughters, upon me the predestined end Has come; no turning from it any more.

ANTIGONE How knowest thou? What sign convinces thee?

OEDIPUS I know full well. Let some one with all speed Go summon hither the Athenian prince.

CHORUS (Str. 2) Ha! once more the deafening sound Peals yet louder all around If thou darkenest our land, Lightly, lightly lay thy hand; Grace, not anger, let me win, If upon a man of sin I have looked with pitying eye, Zeus, our king, to thee I cry!

OEDIPUS Is the prince coming? Will he when he comes Find me yet living and my senses clear!

ANTIGONE What solemn charge would'st thou impress on him?

OEDIPUS For all his benefits I would perform The promise made when I received them first.

CHORUS (Ant. 2) Hither haste, my son, arise, Altar leave and sacrifice, If haply to Poseidon now In the far glade thou pay'st thy vow. For our guest to thee would bring And thy folk and offering, Thy due guerdon. Haste, O King! [Enter THESEUS]

THESEUS Wherefore again this general din? at once My people call me and the stranger calls. Is it a thunderbolt of Zeus or sleet Of arrowy hail? a storm so fierce as this Would warrant all surmises of mischance.

OEDIPUS Thou com'st much wished for, Prince, and sure some god Hath bid good luck attend thee on thy way.

THESEUS What, son of Laius, hath chanced of new?

OEDIPUS My life hath turned the scale. I would do all I promised thee and thine before I die.

THESEUS What sign assures thee that thine end is near?

OEDIPUS The gods themselves are heralds of my fate; Of their appointed warnings nothing fails.

THESEUS How sayest thou they signify their will?

OEDIPUS This thunder, peal on peal, this lightning hurled Flash upon flash, from the unconquered hand.

THESEUS I must believe thee, having found thee oft A prophet true; then speak what must be done.

OEDIPUS O son of Aegeus, for this state will I Unfold a treasure age cannot corrupt. Myself anon without a guiding hand Will take thee to the spot where I must end. This secret ne'er reveal to mortal man, Neither the spot nor whereabouts it lies, So shall it ever serve thee for defense Better than native shields and near allies. But those dread mysteries speech may not profane Thyself shalt gather coming there alone; Since not to any of thy subjects, nor To my own children, though I love them dearly, Can I reveal what thou must guard alone, And whisper to thy chosen heir alone, So to be handed down from heir to heir. Thus shalt thou hold this land inviolate From the dread Dragon's brood. [7] The justest State By countless wanton neighbors may be wronged, For the gods, though they tarry, mark for doom The godless sinner in his mad career. Far from thee, son of Aegeus, be such fate! But to the spot—the god within me goads— Let us set forth no longer hesitate. Follow me, daughters, this way. Strange that I Whom you have led so long should lead you now. Oh, touch me not, but let me all alone Find out the sepulcher that destiny Appoints me in this land. Hither, this way, For this way Hermes leads, the spirit guide, And Persephassa, empress of the dead. O light, no light to me, but mine erewhile, Now the last time I feel thee palpable, For I am drawing near the final gloom Of Hades. Blessing on thee, dearest friend, On thee and on thy land and followers! Live prosperous and in your happy state Still for your welfare think on me, the dead. [Exit THESEUS followed by ANTIGONE and ISMENE]

CHORUS (Str.) If mortal prayers are heard in hell, Hear, Goddess dread, invisible! Monarch of the regions drear, Aidoneus, hear, O hear! By a gentle, tearless doom Speed this stranger to the gloom, Let him enter without pain The all-shrouding Stygian plain. Wrongfully in life oppressed, Be he now by Justice blessed.

(Ant.) Queen infernal, and thou fell Watch-dog of the gates of hell, Who, as legends tell, dost glare, Gnarling in thy cavernous lair At all comers, let him go Scathless to the fields below. For thy master orders thus, The son of earth and Tartarus; In his den the monster keep, Giver of eternal sleep. [Enter MESSENGER]

MESSENGER Friends, countrymen, my tidings are in sum That Oedipus is gone, but the event Was not so brief, nor can the tale be brief.

CHORUS What, has he gone, the unhappy man?

MESSENGER Know well That he has passed away from life to death.

CHORUS How? By a god-sent, painless doom, poor soul?

MESSENGER Thy question hits the marvel of the tale. How he moved hence, you saw him and must know; Without a friend to lead the way, himself Guiding us all. So having reached the abrupt Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs, He paused at one of the converging paths, Hard by the rocky basin which records The pact of Theseus and Peirithous. Betwixt that rift and the Thorician rock, The hollow pear-tree and the marble tomb, Midway he sat and loosed his beggar's weeds; Then calling to his daughters bade them fetch Of running water, both to wash withal And make libation; so they clomb the steep; And in brief space brought what their father bade, Then laved and dressed him with observance due. But when he had his will in everything, And no desire was left unsatisfied, It thundered from the netherworld; the maids Shivered, and crouching at their father's knees Wept, beat their breast and uttered a long wail. He, as he heard their sudden bitter cry, Folded his arms about them both and said, "My children, ye will lose your sire today, For all of me has perished, and no more Have ye to bear your long, long ministry; A heavy load, I know, and yet one word Wipes out all score of tribulations—love. And love from me ye had—from no man more; But now must live without me all your days." So clinging to each other sobbed and wept Father and daughters both, but when at last Their mourning had an end and no wail rose, A moment there was silence; suddenly A voice that summoned him; with sudden dread The hair of all stood up and all were 'mazed; For the call came, now loud, now low, and oft. "Oedipus, Oedipus, why tarry we? Too long, too long thy passing is delayed." But when he heard the summons of the god, He prayed that Theseus might be brought, and when The Prince came nearer: "O my friend," he cried, "Pledge ye my daughters, giving thy right hand— And, daughters, give him yours—and promise me Thou never wilt forsake them, but do all That time and friendship prompt in their behoof." And he of his nobility repressed His tears and swore to be their constant friend. This promise given, Oedipus put forth Blind hands and laid them on his children, saying, "O children, prove your true nobility And hence depart nor seek to witness sights Unlawful or to hear unlawful words. Nay, go with speed; let none but Theseus stay, Our ruler, to behold what next shall hap." So we all heard him speak, and weeping sore We companied the maidens on their way. After brief space we looked again, and lo The man was gone, evanished from our eyes; Only the king we saw with upraised hand Shading his eyes as from some awful sight, That no man might endure to look upon. A moment later, and we saw him bend In prayer to Earth and prayer to Heaven at once. But by what doom the stranger met his end No man save Theseus knoweth. For there fell No fiery bold that reft him in that hour, Nor whirlwind from the sea, but he was taken. It was a messenger from heaven, or else Some gentle, painless cleaving of earth's base; For without wailing or disease or pain He passed away—and end most marvelous. And if to some my tale seems foolishness I am content that such could count me fool.

CHORUS Where are the maids and their attendant friends?

MESSENGER They cannot be far off; the approaching sound Of lamentation tells they come this way. [Enter ANTIGONE and ISMENE]

ANTIGONE (Str. 1) Woe, woe! on this sad day We sisters of one blasted stock must bow beneath the shock, Must weep and weep the curse that lay On him our sire, for whom In life, a life-long world of care 'Twas ours to bear, In death must face the gloom That wraps his tomb. What tongue can tell That sight ineffable?

CHORUS What mean ye, maidens?

ANTIGONE All is but surmise.

CHORUS Is he then gone?

ANTIGONE Gone as ye most might wish. Not in battle or sea storm, But reft from sight, By hands invisible borne To viewless fields of night. Ah me! on us too night has come, The night of mourning. Wither roam O'er land or sea in our distress Eating the bread of bitterness?

ISMENE I know not. O that Death Might nip my breath, And let me share my aged father's fate. I cannot live a life thus desolate.

CHORUS Best of daughters, worthy pair, What heaven brings ye needs must bear, Fret no more 'gainst Heaven's will; Fate hath dealt with you not ill.

ANTIGONE (Ant. 1) Love can turn past pain to bliss, What seemed bitter now is sweet. Ah me! that happy toil is sweet. The guidance of those dear blind feet. Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom, E'en in the tomb Never shalt thou lack of love repine, Her love and mine.

CHORUS His fate—

ANTIGONE Is even as he planned.

CHORUS How so?

ANTIGONE He died, so willed he, in a foreign land. Lapped in kind earth he sleeps his long last sleep, And o'er his grave friends weep. How great our lost these streaming eyes can tell, This sorrow naught can quell. Thou hadst thy wish 'mid strangers thus to die, But I, ah me, not by.

ISMENE Alas, my sister, what new fate * * * * * * * * * * * * Befalls us orphans desolate?

CHORUS His end was blessed; therefore, children, stay Your sorrow. Man is born to fate a prey.

ANTIGONE (Str. 2) Sister, let us back again.

ISMENE Why return?

ANTIGONE My soul is fain— ISMENE Is fain?

ANTIGONE To see the earthy bed.

ISMENE Sayest thou?

ANTIGONE Where our sire is laid.

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.

FOOTNOTES ————-

[Footnote 4: The Greek text for the passages marked here and later in the text have been lost.]

[Footnote 5: To avoid the blessing, still a secret, he resorts to a commonplace; literally, "For what generous man is not (in befriending others) a friend to himself?"]

[Footnote 6: Creon desires to bury Oedipus on the confines of Thebes so as to avoid the pollution and yet offer due rites at his tomb. Ismene tells him of the latest oracle and interprets to him its purport, that some day the Theban invaders of Athens will be routed in a battle near the grave of Oedipus.]

[Footnote 7: The Thebans sprung from the Dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus.]



SOPHOCLES

ANTIGONE

Translation by F. Storr, BA Formerly Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge From the Loeb Library Edition Originally published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and William Heinemann Ltd, London

First published in 1912

*****

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 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.'

CREON What is thy news? Why this despondency?

GUARD Let me premise a word about myself? I neither did the deed nor saw it done, Nor were it just that I should come to harm.

CREON Thou art good at parry, and canst fence about Some matter of grave import, as is plain.

GUARD The bearer of dread tidings needs must quake.

CREON Then, sirrah, shoot thy bolt and get thee gone.

GUARD Well, it must out; the corpse is buried; someone E'en now besprinkled it with thirsty dust, Performed the proper ritual—and was gone.

CREON What say'st thou? Who hath dared to do this thing?

GUARD I cannot tell, for there was ne'er a trace Of pick or mattock—hard unbroken ground, Without a scratch or rut of chariot wheels, No sign that human hands had been at work. When the first sentry of the morning watch Gave the alarm, we all were terror-stricken. The corpse had vanished, not interred in earth, But strewn with dust, as if by one who sought To avert the curse that haunts the unburied dead: Of hound or ravening jackal, not a sign. Thereat arose an angry war of words; Guard railed at guard and blows were like to end it, For none was there to part us, each in turn Suspected, but the guilt brought home to none, From lack of evidence. We challenged each The ordeal, or to handle red-hot iron, Or pass through fire, affirming on our oath Our innocence—we neither did the deed Ourselves, nor know who did or compassed it. Our quest was at a standstill, when one spake And bowed us all to earth like quivering reeds, For there was no gainsaying him nor way To escape perdition: Yeareboundtotell TheKing,yecannothideit; so he spake. And he convinced us all; so lots were cast, And I, unlucky scapegoat, drew the prize. So here I am unwilling and withal Unwelcome; no man cares to hear ill news.

CHORUS I had misgivings from the first, my liege, Of something more than natural at work.

CREON O cease, you vex me with your babblement; I am like to think you dote in your old age. Is it not arrant folly to pretend That gods would have a thought for this dead man? Did they forsooth award him special grace, And as some benefactor bury him, Who came to fire their hallowed sanctuaries, To sack their shrines, to desolate their land, And scout their ordinances? Or perchance The gods bestow their favors on the bad. No! no! I have long noted malcontents Who wagged their heads, and kicked against the yoke, Misliking these my orders, and my rule. 'Tis they, I warrant, who suborned my guards By bribes. Of evils current upon earth The worst is money. Money 'tis that sacks Cities, and drives men forth from hearth and home; Warps and seduces native innocence, And breeds a habit of dishonesty. But they who sold themselves shall find their greed Out-shot the mark, and rue it soon or late. Yea, as I still revere the dread of Zeus, By Zeus I swear, except ye find and bring Before my presence here the very man Who carried out this lawless burial, Death for your punishment shall not suffice. Hanged on a cross, alive ye first shall make Confession of this outrage. This will teach you What practices are like to serve your turn. There are some villainies that bring no gain. For by dishonesty the few may thrive, The many come to ruin and disgrace.

GUARD May I not speak, or must I turn and go Without a word?—

CREON Begone! canst thou not see That e'en this question irks me?

GUARD Where, my lord? Is it thy ears that suffer, or thy heart?

CREON Why seek to probe and find the seat of pain?

GUARD I gall thine ears—this miscreant thy mind.

CREON What an inveterate babbler! get thee gone!

GUARD Babbler perchance, but innocent of the crime.

CREON Twice guilty, having sold thy soul for gain.

GUARD Alas! how sad when reasoners reason wrong.

CREON Go, quibble with thy reason. If thou fail'st To find these malefactors, thou shalt own The wages of ill-gotten gains is death. [Exit CREON]

GUARD I pray he may be found. But caught or not (And fortune must determine that) thou never Shalt see me here returning; that is sure. For past all hope or thought I have escaped, And for my safety owe the gods much thanks.

CHORUS (Str. 1) Many wonders there be, but naught more wondrous than man; Over the surging sea, with a whitening south wind wan, Through the foam of the firth, man makes his perilous way; And the eldest of deities Earth that knows not toil nor decay Ever he furrows and scores, as his team, year in year out, With breed of the yoked horse, the ploughshare turneth about.

(Ant. 1) The light-witted birds of the air, the beasts of the weald and the wood He traps with his woven snare, and the brood of the briny flood. Master of cunning he: the savage bull, and the hart Who roams the mountain free, are tamed by his infinite art; And the shaggy rough-maned steed is broken to bear the bit.

(Str. 2) Speech and the wind-swift speed of counsel and civic wit, He hath learnt for himself all these; and the arrowy rain to fly And the nipping airs that freeze, 'neath the open winter sky. He hath provision for all: fell plague he hath learnt to endure; Safe whate'er may befall: yet for death he hath found no cure.

(Ant. 2) Passing the wildest flight thought are the cunning and skill, That guide man now to the light, but now to counsels of ill. If he honors the laws of the land, and reveres the Gods of the State Proudly his city shall stand; but a cityless outcast I rate Whoso bold in his pride from the path of right doth depart; Ne'er may I sit by his side, or share the thoughts of his heart.

What strange vision meets my eyes, Fills me with a wild surprise? Sure I know her, sure 'tis she, The maid Antigone. Hapless child of hapless sire, Didst thou recklessly conspire, Madly brave the King's decree? Therefore are they haling thee? [Enter GUARD bringing ANTIGONE]

GUARD Here is the culprit taken in the act Of giving burial. But where's the King?

CHORUS There from the palace he returns in time. [Enter CREON]

CREON Why is my presence timely? What has chanced?

GUARD No man, my lord, should make a vow, for if He ever swears he will not do a thing, His afterthoughts belie his first resolve. When from the hail-storm of thy threats I fled I sware thou wouldst not see me here again; But the wild rapture of a glad surprise Intoxicates, and so I'm here forsworn. And here's my prisoner, caught in the very act, Decking the grave. No lottery this time; This prize is mine by right of treasure-trove. So take her, judge her, rack her, if thou wilt. She's thine, my liege; but I may rightly claim Hence to depart well quit of all these ills.

CREON Say, how didst thou arrest the maid, and where?

GUARD Burying the man. There's nothing more to tell.

CREON Hast thou thy wits? Or know'st thou what thou say'st?

GUARD I saw this woman burying the corpse Against thy orders. Is that clear and plain?

CREON But how was she surprised and caught in the act?

GUARD It happened thus. No sooner had we come, Driven from thy presence by those awful threats, Than straight we swept away all trace of dust, And bared the clammy body. Then we sat High on the ridge to windward of the stench, While each man kept he fellow alert and rated Roundly the sluggard if he chanced to nap. So all night long we watched, until the sun Stood high in heaven, and his blazing beams Smote us. A sudden whirlwind then upraised A cloud of dust that blotted out the sky, And swept the plain, and stripped the woodlands bare, And shook the firmament. We closed our eyes And waited till the heaven-sent plague should pass. At last it ceased, and lo! there stood this maid. A piercing cry she uttered, sad and shrill, As when the mother bird beholds her nest Robbed of its nestlings; even so the maid Wailed as she saw the body stripped and bare, And cursed the ruffians who had done this deed. Anon she gathered handfuls of dry dust, Then, holding high a well-wrought brazen urn, Thrice on the dead she poured a lustral stream. We at the sight swooped down on her and seized Our quarry. Undismayed she stood, and when We taxed her with the former crime and this, She disowned nothing. I was glad—and grieved; For 'tis most sweet to 'scape oneself scot-free, And yet to bring disaster to a friend Is grievous. Take it all in all, I deem A man's first duty is to serve himself.

CREON Speak, girl, with head bent low and downcast eyes, Does thou plead guilty or deny the deed?

ANTIGONE Guilty. I did it, I deny it not.

CREON (to GUARD) Sirrah, begone whither thou wilt, and thank Thy luck that thou hast 'scaped a heavy charge. (To ANTIGONE) Now answer this plain question, yes or no, Wast thou acquainted with the interdict?

ANTIGONE I knew, all knew; how should I fail to know?

CREON And yet wert bold enough to break the law?

ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could'st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother's son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly's not acquit.

CHORUS A stubborn daughter of a stubborn sire, This ill-starred maiden kicks against the pricks.

CREON Well, let her know the stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness, Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through. A snaffle curbs the fieriest steed, and he Who in subjection lives must needs be meek. But this proud girl, in insolence well-schooled, First overstepped the established law, and then— A second and worse act of insolence— She boasts and glories in her wickedness. Now if she thus can flout authority Unpunished, I am woman, she the man. But though she be my sister's child or nearer Of kin than all who worship at my hearth, Nor she nor yet her sister shall escape The utmost penalty, for both I hold, As arch-conspirators, of equal guilt. Bring forth the older; even now I saw her Within the palace, frenzied and distraught. The workings of the mind discover oft Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act. More hateful still the miscreant who seeks When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.

ANTIGONE Would'st thou do more than slay thy prisoner?

CREON Not I, thy life is mine, and that's enough.

ANTIGONE Why dally then? To me no word of thine Is pleasant: God forbid it e'er should please; Nor am I more acceptable to thee. And yet how otherwise had I achieved A name so glorious as by burying A brother? so my townsmen all would say, Where they not gagged by terror, Manifold A king's prerogatives, and not the least That all his acts and all his words are law.

CREON Of all these Thebans none so deems but thou.

ANTIGONE These think as I, but bate their breath to thee.

CREON Hast thou no shame to differ from all these?

ANTIGONE To reverence kith and kin can bring no shame.

CREON Was his dead foeman not thy kinsman too?

ANTIGONE One mother bare them and the self-same sire.

CREON Why cast a slur on one by honoring one?

ANTIGONE The dead man will not bear thee out in this.

CREON Surely, if good and evil fare alive.

ANTIGONE The slain man was no villain but a brother.

CREON The patriot perished by the outlaw's brand.

ANTIGONE Nathless the realms below these rites require.

CREON Not that the base should fare as do the brave.

ANTIGONE Who knows if this world's crimes are virtues there?

CREON Not even death can make a foe a friend.

ANTIGONE My nature is for mutual love, not hate.

CREON Die then, and love the dead if thou must; No woman shall be the master while I live. [Enter ISMENE]

CHORUS Lo from out the palace gate, Weeping o'er her sister's fate, Comes Ismene; see her brow, Once serene, beclouded now, See her beauteous face o'erspread With a flush of angry red.

CREON Woman, who like a viper unperceived Didst harbor in my house and drain my blood, Two plagues I nurtured blindly, so it proved, To sap my throne. Say, didst thou too abet This crime, or dost abjure all privity?

ISMENE I did the deed, if she will have it so, And with my sister claim to share the guilt.

ANTIGONE That were unjust. Thou would'st not act with me At first, and I refused thy partnership.

ISMENE But now thy bark is stranded, I am bold To claim my share as partner in the loss.

ANTIGONE Who did the deed the under-world knows well: A friend in word is never friend of mine.

ISMENE O sister, scorn me not, let me but share Thy work of piety, and with thee die.

ANTIGONE Claim not a work in which thou hadst no hand; One death sufficeth. Wherefore should'st thou die?

ISMENE What would life profit me bereft of thee?

ANTIGONE Ask Creon, he's thy kinsman and best friend.

ISMENE Why taunt me? Find'st thou pleasure in these gibes?

ANTIGONE 'Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.

ISMENE O say if I can help thee even now.

ANTIGONE No, save thyself; I grudge not thy escape.

ISMENE Is e'en this boon denied, to share thy lot?

ANTIGONE Yea, for thou chosed'st life, and I to die.

ISMENE Thou canst not say that I did not protest.

ANTIGONE Well, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.

ISMENE But now we stand convicted, both alike.

ANTIGONE Fear not; thou livest, I died long ago Then when I gave my life to save the dead.

CREON Both maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly Has lost her wits, the other was born mad.

ISMENE Yea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes, The wisest even lose their mother wit.

CREON I' faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad'st Thy choice with evil-doers to do ill.

ISMENE What life for me without my sister here?

CREON Say not thy sister here: thy sister's dead.

ISMENE What, wilt thou slay thy own son's plighted bride?

CREON Aye, let him raise him seed from other fields.

ISMENE No new espousal can be like the old.

CREON A plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.

ANTIGONE O Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!

CREON A plague on thee and thy accursed bride!

CHORUS What, wilt thou rob thine own son of his bride?

CREON 'Tis death that bars this marriage, not his sire.

CHORUS So her death-warrant, it would seem, is sealed.

CREON By you, as first by me; off with them, guards, And keep them close. Henceforward let them learn To live as women use, not roam at large. For e'en the bravest spirits run away When they perceive death pressing on life's heels.

CHORUS (Str. 1) Thrice blest are they who never tasted pain! If once the curse of Heaven attaint a race, The infection lingers on and speeds apace, Age after age, and each the cup must drain.

So when Etesian blasts from Thrace downpour Sweep o'er the blackening main and whirl to land From Ocean's cavernous depths his ooze and sand, Billow on billow thunders on the shore.

(Ant. 1) On the Labdacidae I see descending Woe upon woe; from days of old some god Laid on the race a malison, and his rod Scourges each age with sorrows never ending.

The light that dawned upon its last born son Is vanished, and the bloody axe of Fate Has felled the goodly tree that blossomed late. O Oedipus, by reckless pride undone!

(Str. 2) Thy might, O Zeus, what mortal power can quell? Not sleep that lays all else beneath its spell, Nor moons that never tire: untouched by Time, Throned in the dazzling light That crowns Olympus' height, Thou reignest King, omnipotent, sublime.

Past, present, and to be, All bow to thy decree, All that exceeds the mean by Fate Is punished, Love or Hate.

(Ant. 2) Hope flits about never-wearying wings; Profit to some, to some light loves she brings, But no man knoweth how her gifts may turn, Till 'neath his feet the treacherous ashes burn. Sure 'twas a sage inspired that spake this word; If evil good appear To any, Fate is near; And brief the respite from her flaming sword.

Hither comes in angry mood Haemon, latest of thy brood; Is it for his bride he's grieved, Or her marriage-bed deceived, Doth he make his mourn for thee, Maid forlorn, Antigone? [Enter HAEMON]

CREON Soon shall we know, better than seer can tell. Learning may fixed decree anent thy bride, Thou mean'st not, son, to rave against thy sire? Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love?

HAEMON O father, I am thine, and I will take Thy wisdom as the helm to steer withal. Therefore no wedlock shall by me be held More precious than thy loving goverance.

CREON Well spoken: so right-minded sons should feel, In all deferring to a father's will. For 'tis the hope of parents they may rear A brood of sons submissive, keen to avenge Their father's wrongs, and count his friends their own. But who begets unprofitable sons, He verily breeds trouble for himself, And for his foes much laughter. Son, be warned And let no woman fool away thy wits. Ill fares the husband mated with a shrew, And her embraces very soon wax cold. For what can wound so surely to the quick As a false friend? So spue and cast her off, Bid her go find a husband with the dead. For since I caught her openly rebelling, Of all my subjects the one malcontent, I will not prove a traitor to the State. She surely dies. Go, let her, if she will, Appeal to Zeus the God of Kindred, for If thus I nurse rebellion in my house, Shall not I foster mutiny without? For whoso rules his household worthily, Will prove in civic matters no less wise. But he who overbears the laws, or thinks To overrule his rulers, such as one I never will allow. Whome'er the State Appoints must be obeyed in everything, But small and great, just and unjust alike. I warrant such a one in either case Would shine, as King or subject; such a man Would in the storm of battle stand his ground, A comrade leal and true; but Anarchy— What evils are not wrought by Anarchy! She ruins States, and overthrows the home, She dissipates and routs the embattled host; While discipline preserves the ordered ranks. Therefore we must maintain authority And yield to title to a woman's will. Better, if needs be, men should cast us out Than hear it said, a woman proved his match.

CHORUS To me, unless old age have dulled wits, Thy words appear both reasonable and wise.

HAEMON Father, the gods implant in mortal men Reason, the choicest gift bestowed by heaven. 'Tis not for me to say thou errest, nor Would I arraign thy wisdom, if I could; And yet wise thoughts may come to other men And, as thy son, it falls to me to mark The acts, the words, the comments of the crowd. The commons stand in terror of thy frown, And dare not utter aught that might offend, But I can overhear their muttered plaints, Know how the people mourn this maiden doomed For noblest deeds to die the worst of deaths. When her own brother slain in battle lay Unsepulchered, she suffered not his corse To lie for carrion birds and dogs to maul: Should not her name (they cry) be writ in gold? Such the low murmurings that reach my ear. O father, nothing is by me more prized Than thy well-being, for what higher good Can children covet than their sire's fair fame, As fathers too take pride in glorious sons? Therefore, my father, cling not to one mood, And deemed not thou art right, all others wrong. For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him, That he alone can speak or think aright, Such oracles are empty breath when tried. The wisest man will let himself be swayed By others' wisdom and relax in time. See how the trees beside a stream in flood Save, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed, But by resisting perish root and branch. The mariner who keeps his mainsheet taut, And will not slacken in the gale, is like To sail with thwarts reversed, keel uppermost. Relent then and repent thee of thy wrath; For, if one young in years may claim some sense, I'll say 'tis best of all to be endowed With absolute wisdom; but, if that's denied, (And nature takes not readily that ply) Next wise is he who lists to sage advice.

CHORUS If he says aught in season, heed him, King. (To HAEMON) Heed thou thy sire too; both have spoken well.

CREON What, would you have us at our age be schooled, Lessoned in prudence by a beardless boy?

HAEMON I plead for justice, father, nothing more. Weigh me upon my merit, not my years.

CREON Strange merit this to sanction lawlessness!

HAEMON For evil-doers I would urge no plea.

CREON Is not this maid an arrant law-breaker?

HAEMON The Theban commons with one voice say, No.

CREON What, shall the mob dictate my policy?

HAEMON 'Tis thou, methinks, who speakest like a boy.

CREON Am I to rule for others, or myself?

HAEMON A State for one man is no State at all.

CREON The State is his who rules it, so 'tis held.

HAEMON As monarch of a desert thou wouldst shine.

CREON This boy, methinks, maintains the woman's cause.

HAEMON If thou be'st woman, yes. My thought's for thee.

CREON O reprobate, would'st wrangle with thy sire?

HAEMON Because I see thee wrongfully perverse.

CREON And am I wrong, if I maintain my rights?

HAEMON Talk not of rights; thou spurn'st the due of Heaven

CREON O heart corrupt, a woman's minion thou!

HAEMON Slave to dishonor thou wilt never find me.

CREON Thy speech at least was all a plea for her.

HAEMON And thee and me, and for the gods below.

CREON Living the maid shall never be thy bride.

HAEMON So she shall die, but one will die with her.

CREON Hast come to such a pass as threaten me?

HAEMON What threat is this, vain counsels to reprove?

CREON Vain fool to instruct thy betters; thou shall rue it.

HAEMON Wert not my father, I had said thou err'st.

CREON Play not the spaniel, thou a woman's slave.

HAEMON When thou dost speak, must no man make reply?

CREON This passes bounds. By heaven, thou shalt not rate And jeer and flout me with impunity. Off with the hateful thing that she may die At once, beside her bridegroom, in his sight.

HAEMON Think not that in my sight the maid shall die, Or by my side; never shalt thou again Behold my face hereafter. Go, consort With friends who like a madman for their mate. [Exit HAEMON]

CHORUS Thy son has gone, my liege, in angry haste. Fell is the wrath of youth beneath a smart.

CREON Let him go vent his fury like a fiend: These sisters twain he shall not save from death.

CHORUS Surely, thou meanest not to slay them both?

CREON I stand corrected; only her who touched The body.

CHORUS And what death is she to die?

CREON She shall be taken to some desert place By man untrod, and in a rock-hewn cave, With food no more than to avoid the taint That homicide might bring on all the State, Buried alive. There let her call in aid The King of Death, the one god she reveres, Or learn too late a lesson learnt at last: 'Tis labor lost, to reverence the dead.

CHORUS (Str.) Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye, Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie, Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?

(Ant). Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart. Thou didst kindle the strife, this feud of kinsman with kin, By the eyes of a winsome wife, and the yearning her heart to win. For as her consort still, enthroned with Justice above, Thou bendest man to thy will, O all invincible Love.

Lo I myself am borne aside, From Justice, as I view this bride. (O sight an eye in tears to drown) Antigone, so young, so fair, Thus hurried down Death's bower with the dead to share.

ANTIGONE (Str. 1) Friends, countrymen, my last farewell I make; My journey's done. One last fond, lingering, longing look I take At the bright sun. For Death who puts to sleep both young and old Hales my young life, And beckons me to Acheron's dark fold, An unwed wife. No youths have sung the marriage song for me, My bridal bed No maids have strewn with flowers from the lea, 'Tis Death I wed.

CHORUS But bethink thee, thou art sped, Great and glorious, to the dead. Thou the sword's edge hast not tasted, No disease thy frame hath wasted. Freely thou alone shalt go Living to the dead below.

ANTIGONE (Ant. 1) Nay, but the piteous tale I've heard men tell Of Tantalus' doomed child, Chained upon Siphylus' high rocky fell, That clung like ivy wild, Drenched by the pelting rain and whirling snow, Left there to pine, While on her frozen breast the tears aye flow— Her fate is mine.

CHORUS She was sprung of gods, divine, Mortals we of mortal line. Like renown with gods to gain Recompenses all thy pain. Take this solace to thy tomb Hers in life and death thy doom.

ANTIGONE (Str. 2) Alack, alack! Ye mock me. Is it meet Thus to insult me living, to my face? Cease, by our country's altars I entreat, Ye lordly rulers of a lordly race. O fount of Dirce, wood-embowered plain Where Theban chariots to victory speed, Mark ye the cruel laws that now have wrought my bane, The friends who show no pity in my need! Was ever fate like mine? O monstrous doom, Within a rock-built prison sepulchered, To fade and wither in a living tomb, And alien midst the living and the dead.

CHORUS (Str. 3) In thy boldness over-rash Madly thou thy foot didst dash 'Gainst high Justice' altar stair. Thou a father's guild dost bear.

ANTIGONE (Ant. 2) At this thou touchest my most poignant pain, My ill-starred father's piteous disgrace, The taint of blood, the hereditary stain, That clings to all of Labdacus' famed race. Woe worth the monstrous marriage-bed where lay A mother with the son her womb had borne, Therein I was conceived, woe worth the day, Fruit of incestuous sheets, a maid forlorn, And now I pass, accursed and unwed, To meet them as an alien there below; And thee, O brother, in marriage ill-bestead, 'Twas thy dead hand that dealt me this death-blow.

CHORUS Religion has her chains, 'tis true, Let rite be paid when rites are due. Yet is it ill to disobey The powers who hold by might the sway. Thou hast withstood authority, A self-willed rebel, thou must die.

ANTIGONE Unwept, unwed, unfriended, hence I go, No longer may I see the day's bright eye; Not one friend left to share my bitter woe, And o'er my ashes heave one passing sigh.

CREON If wail and lamentation aught availed To stave off death, I trow they'd never end. Away with her, and having walled her up In a rock-vaulted tomb, as I ordained, Leave her alone at liberty to die, Or, if she choose, to live in solitude, The tomb her dwelling. We in either case Are guiltless as concerns this maiden's blood, Only on earth no lodging shall she find.

ANTIGONE O grave, O bridal bower, O prison house Hewn from the rock, my everlasting home, Whither I go to join the mighty host Of kinsfolk, Persephassa's guests long dead, The last of all, of all more miserable, I pass, my destined span of years cut short. And yet good hope is mine that I shall find A welcome from my sire, a welcome too, From thee, my mother, and my brother dear; From with these hands, I laved and decked your limbs In death, and poured libations on your grave. And last, my Polyneices, unto thee I paid due rites, and this my recompense! Yet am I justified in wisdom's eyes. For even had it been some child of mine, Or husband mouldering in death's decay, I had not wrought this deed despite the State. What is the law I call in aid? 'Tis thus I argue. Had it been a husband dead I might have wed another, and have borne Another child, to take the dead child's place. But, now my sire and mother both are dead, No second brother can be born for me. Thus by the law of conscience I was led To honor thee, dear brother, and was judged By Creon guilty of a heinous crime. And now he drags me like a criminal, A bride unwed, amerced of marriage-song And marriage-bed and joys of motherhood, By friends deserted to a living grave. What ordinance of heaven have I transgressed? Hereafter can I look to any god For succor, call on any man for help? Alas, my piety is impious deemed. Well, if such justice is approved of heaven, I shall be taught by suffering my sin; But if the sin is theirs, O may they suffer No worse ills than the wrongs they do to me.

CHORUS The same ungovernable will Drives like a gale the maiden still.

CREON Therefore, my guards who let her stay Shall smart full sore for their delay.

ANTIGONE Ah, woe is me! This word I hear Brings death most near.

CHORUS I have no comfort. What he saith, Portends no other thing than death.

ANTIGONE My fatherland, city of Thebes divine, Ye gods of Thebes whence sprang my line, Look, puissant lords of Thebes, on me; The last of all your royal house ye see. Martyred by men of sin, undone. Such meed my piety hath won. [Exit ANTIGONE]

CHORUS (Str. 1) Like to thee that maiden bright, Danae, in her brass-bound tower, Once exchanged the glad sunlight For a cell, her bridal bower. And yet she sprang of royal line, My child, like thine, And nursed the seed By her conceived Of Zeus descending in a golden shower. Strange are the ways of Fate, her power Nor wealth, nor arms withstand, nor tower; Nor brass-prowed ships, that breast the sea From Fate can flee.

(Ant. 1) Thus Dryas' child, the rash Edonian King, For words of high disdain Did Bacchus to a rocky dungeon bring, To cool the madness of a fevered brain. His frenzy passed, He learnt at last 'Twas madness gibes against a god to fling. For once he fain had quenched the Maenad's fire; And of the tuneful Nine provoked the ire.

(Str. 2) By the Iron Rocks that guard the double main, On Bosporus' lone strand, Where stretcheth Salmydessus' plain In the wild Thracian land, There on his borders Ares witnessed The vengeance by a jealous step-dame ta'en The gore that trickled from a spindle red, The sightless orbits of her step-sons twain.

(Ant. 2) Wasting away they mourned their piteous doom, The blasted issue of their mother's womb. But she her lineage could trace To great Erecththeus' race; Daughter of Boreas in her sire's vast caves Reared, where the tempest raves, Swift as his horses o'er the hills she sped; A child of gods; yet she, my child, like thee, By Destiny That knows not death nor age—she too was vanquished. [Enter TEIRESIAS and BOY]

TEIRESIAS Princes of Thebes, two wayfarers as one, Having betwixt us eyes for one, we are here. The blind man cannot move without a guide.

CREON Why tidings, old Teiresias?

TEIRESIAS I will tell thee; And when thou hearest thou must heed the seer.

CREON Thus far I ne'er have disobeyed thy rede.

TEIRESIAS So hast thou steered the ship of State aright.

CREON I know it, and I gladly own my debt.

TEIRESIAS Bethink thee that thou treadest once again The razor edge of peril.

CREON What is this? Thy words inspire a dread presentiment.

TEIRESIAS The divination of my arts shall tell. Sitting upon my throne of augury, As is my wont, where every fowl of heaven Find harborage, upon mine ears was borne A jargon strange of twitterings, hoots, and screams; So knew I that each bird at the other tare With bloody talons, for the whirr of wings Could signify naught else. Perturbed in soul, I straight essayed the sacrifice by fire On blazing altars, but the God of Fire Came not in flame, and from the thigh bones dripped And sputtered in the ashes a foul ooze; Gall-bladders cracked and spurted up: the fat Melted and fell and left the thigh bones bare. Such are the signs, taught by this lad, I read— As I guide others, so the boy guides me— The frustrate signs of oracles grown dumb. O King, thy willful temper ails the State, For all our shrines and altars are profaned By what has filled the maw of dogs and crows, The flesh of Oedipus' unburied son. Therefore the angry gods abominate Our litanies and our burnt offerings; Therefore no birds trill out a happy note, Gorged with the carnival of human gore. O ponder this, my son. To err is common To all men, but the man who having erred Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise. No fool, the saw goes, like the obstinate fool. Let death disarm thy vengeance. O forbear To vex the dead. What glory wilt thou win By slaying twice the slain? I mean thee well; Counsel's most welcome if I promise gain.