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 dishonours thee!