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 honourable death.
Ismene: Have thine own way then; ’tis a mad endeavour, Yet to thy lovers thou art dear as ever. Exeunt.
Chorus: Strophe 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 Dircè’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.
Antistrophe 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 forkèd lightning blaze.
Strophe 2
To earthy from earth rebounding, down he crashed; The fire-brand from his impious hand was dashed, As like a Bacchic reveller on he came, Outbreathing hate and flame, And tottered. Elsewhere in the field, Here, there, great Ares 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 armour 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.
Antistrophe 2
Now Victory to Thebes returns again And smiles upon her chariot-circled plain. Now let feast and festal shout 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 once again Our storm-tossed ship of state, now safe in port. But you by special summons I convened As my most trusted councillors; 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 honourèd.
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.