In modern times, Antigone has been among the most widely read and staged of Greek plays, and it has recently been adapted into new verse dramas by two great modern poets, Seamus Heaney (The Burial at Thebes, 2004) and Anne Carson (Antigonick, 2012).
ANTIGONE
Translated by Frank Nisetich
This is a translation of the Greek text of the play edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, 1992). From time to time in the notes I have referred to discussions of the text by the same two authors in Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) and by Mark Griffith in Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 2007). I have also consulted Hugh Lloyd-Jones’s Loeb edition, Sophocles, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994, 1998). Occasionally, I have preferred readings by other scholars, noted where they occur. Passages considered as interpolations by Lloyd-Jones and Wilson are omitted from the text of the translation but included in the notes.
CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
ANTIGONE, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta
ISMENE, her sister
CHORUS of Theban elders, with their Leader
CREON, Jocasta’s brother; uncle of Antigone and Ismene; the new ruler of Thebes
GUARD
HAEMON, son of Creon and cousin of Antigone; betrothed to Antigone
TIRESIAS, blind Theban prophet
MESSENGER
EURYDICE, wife of Creon and mother of Haemon
GUARDS and RETAINERS in Creon’s service (nonspeaking parts)
Setting: The play opens in the hours before dawn, in front of the royal palace of Thebes. On the previous day, the army led by Antigone’s brother Polynices against her other brother, Eteocles, king of Thebes, has been defeated. Antigone is alone onstage for a few moments, after which her sister, Ismene, emerges from the palace.
ANTIGONE: Ismene, my sister, my own dear sister,
what evil left behind by Oedipus
will Zeus not bring to pass while we still live?*1
There’s nothing painful—no disaster,
no shame, no dishonor—that I do not see
among the troubles that beset us now.
And what of this decree they say the commander*2
has laid upon the whole community?
Have you heard of it? Or does it escape you
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that evils meant for foes are coming for our friends?
ISMENE: Not a word, Antigone, of our friends,
neither good nor bad, has come to me
since we two lost both our brothers*3
on a single day, killed, each by the other;
but since the Argive army*4 vanished
this very night, I know nothing further—
if I’m better off, or worse than before.
ANTIGONE: I know that, and that’s why I’ve called you
outside, to speak with you, and you alone.
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ISMENE: What’s the matter? Clearly, something’s troubling you.
ANTIGONE: Don’t you know that Creon has decided
to honor one of our brothers with burial
but not the other? They say that he has hidden*5
Eteocles beneath the earth, to have
his share of honor with the dead below;
but Polynices’ corpse, fallen in disgrace—
they say Creon’s proclaimed to all that none
may hide him in the earth or mourn for him,
but he must lie unwept, untombed, a heap
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of treasure to entice the hungry birds.
Such orders they say our noble Creon
lays on you and me—yes, he means me, too!—
and that he’s on his way to make it clear
to those who haven’t heard. Nor does he take
the matter lightly; he who disobeys
will die, stoned by the people—so it’s fixed.
You have it now, the way things are, and soon we’ll see
if you’re as noble as your birth, or not.
ISMENE: But if things are as you say they are, poor sister,
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will it make any difference, what I do?
ANTIGONE: The question is, will you work and act with me?
ISMENE: Do something dangerous? What can you be thinking?
ANTIGONE: Will you lend me a hand, and lift the corpse?
ISMENE: In spite of the ban on the whole city?
ANTIGONE: Yes, for he’s my brother—and yours, too, even if
you wish he weren’t.*6 I’ll not betray him.
ISMENE: So stubborn, though Creon has forbidden it?
ANTIGONE: He has no right to keep me from my own.
ISMENE: (dismayed) oimoi! Think, Sister, how our father
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came to ruin and died, hated and disgraced
for crimes he himself detected, and then battered
his own two eyes with self-assailing hands;*7
and how his mother and wife—she was both to him—
destroyed her life in the twisted noose;
and how our two brothers, in a single day,
shed each other’s blood, and wrought in misery
the doom they shared, hands raised against each other.
Now think: we two are left alone; we’ll die
so cruelly, if we dare to break the law
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or scant the tyrant’s vote and spurn his power.
We must also bear in mind that we are women,
not meant to wage war with men; and then,
that we’re compelled by those stronger than we are
to acquiesce in this, and things more painful still.
I’ll ask those beneath the earth to understand
that I am acting, as I am, under compulsion.
And I’ll obey the authorities. Trying to do
more than we can makes no sense at all.
ANTIGONE: I will not plead with you and, if you change
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your mind, I won’t welcome your assistance later.
No—be what seems best to you, and I
will bury him myself, and so die nobly.
I’ll lie beside him in love, guilty
of devotion! For I must please the dead
a longer time than I must please the living.
With them I’ll lie forever. But you—go on,
dishonor what’s honored by the gods.
ISMENE: I’m not dishonoring them! I simply can’t
act against the wishes of the citizens.
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ANTIGONE: You can make these excuses. I will go
heap up a tomb for my beloved brother.
ISMENE: oimoi! How I fear for you, for all your daring!
ANTIGONE: Don’t fear for me. Take the straight path, and prosper.
ISMENE: Then reveal this act to no one—keep it
hidden, in secret, and I will do the same.
ANTIGONE: No! Speak out. I’ll hate you all the more
for keeping silent, not proclaiming it to all.
ISMENE: You burn to do what chills the hearts of others.
ANTIGONE: I know I’ll please those I should please the most.
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ISMENE: I wish you could! You crave what cannot be.
ANTIGONE: Then I’ll stop, and only then—when my strength fails.
ISMENE: It’s failed already, aimed at the impossible!
ANTIGONE: If that’s all you have to say, you’ll earn
my hatred, and his, too, as you deserve.
But leave me to endure this folly of mine
and suffer what you find so dreadful. In my view,
to die in shame would be much worse.
ISMENE: Go, then, if you must, but know that you are
foolish to go, though right to love your own.
(Exit the two sisters, Ismene back into the palace, A
ntigone by the side entrance leading to the battlefield. The stage is empty for a moment or two before the Chorus enter from the other side, singing the parodos or entry song, after each stanza of which the Chorus Leader speaks seven lines in anapestic meter.)
strophe 1
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CHORUS: Beam of the sun, most beautiful
radiance that has ever shone
on seven-gated Thebes—
at last you have appeared, eye
of golden day, dawning
over the streams of Dirce,*8
driving the man of Argos*9
to flee with his white shield
headlong in full array, his mouth
bloodied by your piercing bit.*10
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CHORUS LEADER: Polynices, true to the strife
in his name,*11 had loosed him on our land, and he
with shrill cry flew
like an eagle to the attack,
covering the land with his snow-white wing,
weapons aplenty and helmets
plumed in horsehair.
antistrophe 1
CHORUS: Hovering above our houses, gaping with blood-thirsty spears
around our seven gates,
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he left, before he had ever sated
his jaws in the streams of our blood
and set the crown of our walls
ablaze with torches of pine.
Such was the din of Ares*12
at his back, too much
for the dragon’s*13 foe to overcome.
CHORUS LEADER: For Zeus, loathing the boasts of a big tongue
and looking down on them all
attacking in a great stream,
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the arrogance of the clang of gold,
brandished his bolt and let fly at the one*14
already atop the battlements,
on the point of crying alalai in victory.
strophe 2
CHORUS: Hurled to the clattering earth, he fell
torch in hand,*15 who in his mad onset
had snorted in rage, blasting
the winds of hate against us then. But now
it’s otherwise for him, and mighty Ares
struck on, dealing death to the others,
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each in his turn, and drove our chariot to victory.
CHORUS LEADER: For the seven captains, stationed
at the seven gates, equal against equal, left behind
to Zeus Turner of Battle their tributes of bronze*16—
all but the doomed pair,*17 born of one father
and one mother, who planted their doubly
victorious spears in each other, and have
their lot together, a death between them.
antistrophe 2
CHORUS: But since glorious Victory has come
bringing joy to Thebes rich in chariots
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after the wars just past, let us
forget the rest and go to all
the temples of the gods in dances
lasting through the night, and may
earth-shaking Bacchus of Thebes*18 lead the way!
CHORUS LEADER: But enough, for here he is, the king of the land,
Menoeceus’ son,*19 the new
coming to meet the new
crisis the gods have sent us.
With what plan in mind
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has he proposed this council of elders,
summoned by a proclamation that touches us all?
(Enter Creon by the side entrance, attended by armed men.)
CREON: Men, the gods who pitched and tossed our city
in the mighty waves of war have set it right again.
I sent messengers to summon you, apart from the rest,
because, in the first place, I’m well aware that you
always honored the power of the throne of Laius;*21
and when Oedipus led the city, you were
loyal to him no less and, when he had died,
you remained steadfast in loyalty to his sons.
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Now that they have perished by a double fate
on a single day, both striking and stricken
and polluting each other with kindred blood,
all the powers of the throne have fallen
to me as next of kin to the dead.
And yet it is impossible to know the soul
and thought and judgment of any man before
you’ve seen him rule and make his laws.
I say this because a man who steers
the city and does not take the best advice
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but keeps his tongue in check, afraid of someone,
now and always seems to me worst of all.
And whoever counts a friend of greater worth
than his own country—I say he’s nowhere!
Let Zeus, who sees all things always, take note.
And I would not hold my tongue when I see
disaster instead of safety stalking the city,
nor would I count a man who’s hostile to the land
a friend of mine, for this I know: it is the land
that saves us, and only if her ship stays upright
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can we who sail on her make our friends.
With thoughts like these, I’ll build this city’s strength.
And here as brother to these principles
is my decree, concerning the sons of Oedipus:
Eteocles, who fell fighting for this city,
in every way her champion with his spear—
him we shall hide in a tomb and honor with all
the offerings that go to the heroic dead;
but his blood-brother—I mean Polynices,
who came home from exile eager to burn
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to the ground the country of his birth
and the gods*22 of his race, eager to drink
his brother’s blood and enslave*23 the rest of us—
it has been proclaimed to this city that no one
honor him with burial or mourn for him,
but let his corpse lie, unwept, unburied, eaten
by birds and dogs, a hideous sight for all.
Such are my thoughts on the matter, and never
will bad men outdo the just in my esteem.
But whoever means this city well will enjoy
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honor from me in death and life alike.
CHORUS LEADER: It’s your decision, Creon, to treat
this city’s enemies and friends this way.
You can make any law. Yours is the power
over the dead and those of us who live.
CREON: See that my orders, then, are carried out.*24
CHORUS LEADER: You should ask younger men to do that.*25
CREON: I have—they’re at their post, watching the corpse.
CHORUS LEADER: What other task, then, do you have in mind?
CREON: Not to support those who disobey these orders.
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CHORUS LEADER: No one’s so foolish as to fall in love with death.
CREON: Death, indeed, is the payment, but often
men have been destroyed by hopes of gain.
(Enter Guard by the side entrance that leads to the battlefield.)
GUARD: King, I won’t say that I’ve come in haste,
out of breath, on light feet. No, to tell the truth
I stopped often, to think it over,
wheeling round on the way, turning back.
For I had many a quarrel with myself:
“Out of your mind, going where you’ll be punished?”
“What, delaying again? If Creon hears of this
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from someone else, you’ll suffer for it.”
With thoughts like these, I took my time
and so a short trip became a long one.
In the end, though, it seem
ed best to come
here, to you. And if what I have to say amounts
to nothing, I’ll say it anyway, for I’m sure
I won’t suffer more than what I’m fated to.
CREON: Why are you so dismayed?
GUARD: Let me speak for myself first. I wasn’t
the one who did it, I didn’t see who did it,
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nor would I rightly come to any harm.
CREON: Clever, the way you feel me out and fence
the matter round. Clearly, you have some news.
GUARD: Yes, but as they say, danger means delay.
CREON: Will you ever say your piece and then be gone?
GUARD: All right, then: someone pulled it off and got
away just now—sprinkled, that is, the thirsty dust
on the corpse and performed the rites required.
CREON: What? Who is the man who dared to do this?
GUARD: I don’t know. We found neither stroke
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of pick nor mattock-scoop of dirt—the ground
was hard and dry, unbroken, no trace, anywhere,
of a wagon’s wheels. The doer left no clue.
But when the first watcher of the day
showed it to us, we were all amazed, perplexed.
For the corpse was covered, not entombed—the light
dust lay upon it, as if put there by someone
afraid of pollution.*26 No signs appeared of beast
or dog approaching or rending the corpse.
And then a babble of evil words arose,
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guard accusing guard, and we’d have come
to blows in the end, with no one to prevent it.
For each seemed the culprit to the others,
and none was clearly so, but each denied he knew.
We were ready to take molten iron in our hands,
walk through fire, call the gods to witness
we neither did the deed nor joined with anyone
in the planning or the doing of it.
In the end, when nothing came of our searching,
one of us spoke up, and made us all bow
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our heads to the ground in fear, for we had no way
The Greek Plays Page 35