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: Strophe 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: Antistrophe 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: Strophe 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 sepulchred, To fade and wither in a living tomb, And alien midst the living and the dead.
Chorus: Strophe 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: Antistrophe 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, accursèd 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 claims, ’tis true, Let rites 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 honour 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 succour, 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.