Antigone

Page 41

by Sophocles

dawns on him only

when blazing coals

scald his feet.

The man was wise

who said these words:

“Evil seems noble—

early and late—to minds

unbalanced by the gods,

but only for a moment

will such men 690

hold off catastrophe.”

Enter HAIMON.

LEADER

(to KREON)

There’s Haimon,

the youngest of your sons.

Does he come here enraged

that you’ve condemned Antigone,

the bride he’s been promised,

or in shock that his hopes

for marriage have been crushed?

KREON

We’ll soon have an answer

better than any prophet’s. 700

My son, now that you’ve heard

my formal condemnation

of your bride, have you come here

to attack your father?

Or will I be dear to you still,

no matter what I do?

HAIMON

I’m yours, Father. I respect your wisdom.

Show me the straight path, and I’ll take it.

I couldn’t value any marriage more

than the excellent guidance you give me. 710

KREON

Son, that’s exactly how you need to think:

follow your father’s orders in all things.

It’s the reason men pray for loyal sons

to be born and raised in their houses—

so they can harm their father’s enemies

and show his friends respect to match his own.

If a man produces worthless children,

what has he spawned? His grief, his rivals’ glee.

Don’t throw away your judgment, son,

for the pleasure this woman offers. 720

You’ll feel her turn ice-cold in your arms—

you’ll feel her scorn in the bedroom. No wound

cuts deeper than poisonous love. So spit

this girl out like the enemy she is.

Let her find a mate in Hades.

I caught her in open defiance—

she alone in the whole city—and I will take

her life, just as I promised. I will not

show myself as a liar to my people.

It is useless for her to harp on the Zeus 730

of family life: if I indulge my own

family in rebelliousness,

I must indulge it everywhere.

A man who keeps his own house in order

will be perceived as righteous by his city.

But if anyone steps out of line, breaks

our laws, thinks he can dictate to his king,

he shouldn’t expect any praise from me.

Citizens must obey men in office

appointed by the city, both in minor matters 740

and in the great questions of what is just—

even when they think an action unjust.

Obedient men lead ably and serve well.

Caught in a squall of spears, they hold their ground.

They make brave soldiers you can trust.

Insubordination is our worst crime.

It wrecks cities and empties homes. It breaks

and routs even allies who fight beside us.

Discipline is what saves the lives of all

good people who stay out of trouble. 750

And to make sure we enforce discipline—

never let a woman overwhelm a king.

Better to be driven from power, if it

comes to that, by a man. Then nobody

can say you were beaten by some female.

LEADER

Unless the years have sapped my wits, King,

what you have just said was wisely said.

HAIMON

Father, the gods instill reason in men.

It’s the most valuable thing we possess.

I don’t have the skill—nor do I want it— 760

to contradict all the things you have said.

Though someone else’s perspective might help.

Look, it’s not in your nature to notice

what people say and do—and what they don’t like.

That harsh look on your face makes men afraid—

no one tells you what you’d rather not hear.

But I hear, unobserved, what people think.

Listen. Thebes aches for this girl. No person

ever, they’re saying, less deserved to die—

no one’s ever been so unjustly killed 770

for actions as magnificent as hers.

When her own brother died in that bloodbath

she kept him from lying out there unburied,

fair game for flesh-eating dogs and vultures.

Hasn’t she earned, they ask, golden honor?

Those are the words they whisper in the shadows.

There’s nothing I prize more, Father,

than your welfare.

What makes a son prouder

than a father’s thriving reputation?

Don’t fathers feel the same about their sons? 780

Attitudes are like clothes; you can change them.

Don’t think that what you say is always right.

Whoever thinks that he alone is wise,

that he’s got a superior tongue and brain,

open him up and you’ll find him a blank.

It’s never shameful for even a wise man

to keep on learning new things all his life.

Be flexible, not rigid. Think of trees

caught in a raging winter torrent: Those

that bend will survive with all their limbs 790

intact. Those that resist are swept away.

Or take a captain who cleats his mainsheet

down hard, never easing off in a blow—

he’ll capsize his ship and go right on sailing,

his rowing benches where his keel should be.

Step back from your anger. Let yourself change.

If I, as a younger man, can offer

a thought, it’s this: Yes, it would be better

if men were born with perfect understanding.

But things don’t work that way. The best response 800

to worthy advice is to learn from it.

LEADER

King, if he has said anything to ease

this crisis, you had better learn from it.

Haimon, you do the same. You both spoke well.

KREON

So men my age should learn from one of yours?

HAIMON

If I happen to be right, yes! Don’t look

at my youth, look at what I’ve accomplished.

KREON

What? Backing rebels makes you proud?

HAIMON

I’m not about to condone wrongdoing.

KREON

Hasn’t she been attacked by that disease? 810

HAIMON

Your fellow citizens would deny it.

KREON

Shall Thebans dictate how I should govern?

HAIMON

Listen to yourself. You talk like a boy.

KREON

Should I yield to them—or rule Thebes myself?

HAIMON

It’s not a city if one man owns it.

KREON

Don’t we say men in power own their cities?

HAIMON

You’d make a first-rate king of a wasteland.

KREON

It seems this boy fights on the woman’s side.

HAIMON

Only if you’re the woman. You’re my concern.

KREON

Then why do you make open war on me? 820

HAIMON

What I attack is your abuse of power.

KREON

Is protecting my interest an abuse?

> HAIMON

What is it you protect by scorning the gods?

KREON

Look at yourself! A woman overpowers you.

HAIMON

But no disgraceful impulse ever will.

KREON

Your every word supports that woman.

HAIMON

And you, and me, and the gods of this earth.

KREON

You will not marry her while she’s on this earth.

HAIMON

Then she will die and, dead, kill someone else.

KREON

You are brazen enough to threaten me? 830

HAIMON

What threatens you is hearing what I think.

KREON

Your mindless attack on me threatens you.

HAIMON

I’d question your mind if you weren’t my father.

KREON

Stop your snide deference! You are her slave.

HAIMON

You’re talking at me, but you don’t hear me.

KREON

Really? By Olympos above, I hear you.

And I can assure you, you’re going to

suffer the consequences of your attacks.

KREON speaks to his Men.

Bring out the odious creature. Let her

die at once in his presence. Let him watch, 840

this bridegroom, as she’s killed beside him.

Two of Kreon’s Men enter the palace.

HAIMON

Watch her die next to me? You think I’d do that?

Your eyes won’t see my face, ever again.

Go on raving to friends who can stand you.

Exit HAIMON.

LEADER

King, the young man’s fury hurls him out.

Rage makes a man his age utterly reckless.

KREON

Let him imagine he’s superhuman.

He’ll never save the lives of those two girls.

LEADER

Then you intend to execute them both?

KREON

Not the one with clean hands. 850

I think you’re right about her.

LEADER

The one you plan to kill—how will you do it?

KREON

I will lead her along a deserted road,

and hide her, alive, in a hollow cave.

I’ll leave her just enough food to evade

defilement—so the city won’t be infected.

She can pray there to Hades, the one god

whom she respects. Maybe he will spare her!

Though she’s more likely to learn, in her last hours,

that she’s thrown her life away on the dead. 860

KREON remains onstage during the next choral ode, possibly retiring into the background.

ELDERS

Love, you win all

your battles!—raising

havoc with our herds,

dwelling all night

on a girl’s soft cheeks,

cruising the oceans,

invading homes

deep in the wilds!

No god can outlast you,

no mortal outrun you. 870

And those you seize go mad.

You wrench even good men’s minds

so far off course they crash in ruins.

Now you ignite hatred in men

of the same blood—but allure flashing

from the keen eyes of the bride

always wins, for Desire wields

all the power of ancient law:

Aphrodite the implacable

plays cruel games with our lives. 880

Enter ANTIGONE, dressed in purple as a bride, guarded by Kreon’s Men.

LEADER

This sight also drives me

outside the law. I can’t stop

my own tears flowing when I see

Antigone on her way

to the bridal chamber,

where we all lie down in death.

ANTIGONE

Citizens of our fatherland, you see me

begin my last journey. I take one last look

at sunlight that I’ll never see again.

Hades, who chills each one of us to sleep, 890

will guide me down to Acheron’s shore.

I’ll go hearing no wedding hymn

to carry me to my bridal chamber, or songs

girls sing when flowers crown a bride’s hair.

I’m going to marry the River of Pain.

LEADER

Don’t praise and glory go with you

to the deep caverns of the dead?

You haven’t been wasted by disease.

You’ve helped no sword earn its keep.

No, you have chosen of your own free will 900

to enter Hades while you’re still alive.

No one else has ever done that.

ANTIGONE

I once heard that a Phrygian stranger,

Niobe, the daughter of Tantalos,

died a hideous death on Mount Sipylos.

Living rock, clinging like ivy,

crushed her. Now, people say,

she erodes—rainwater and snow

never leave her alone—they keep on

pouring like tears from her eyes, 910

drenching the clefts of her body.

My death will be like hers,

when the god at last lets me sleep.

LEADER

You forget, child, she was a goddess,

with gods for parents, not a mortal

begotten by mortals like ourselves.

It’s no small honor—for a mere woman

to suffer so godlike a fate, in both

how she has lived and the way she will die.

ANTIGONE

Now I’m being laughed at! 920

In the name of our fathers’ gods,

wait till I’m gone! Don’t mock me

while I stand here in plain sight—

all you rich citizens of this town!

At least I can trust you,

headwaters of the river

Dirke, and you, holy

plains around Thebes, home

of our great chariot-fleet,

to bear me witness: watch them 930

march me off to my strange tomb,

my heaped-up rock-bound prison,

without a friend to mourn me

or any law to protect me—

me, a miserable woman

with no home here on earth

and none down with the dead,

not quite alive, not yet a corpse.

LEADER

You took the ultimate risk when you smashed

yourself against the throne of Justice. 940

But the stiff price you’re paying, daughter,

is one you inherit from your father.

ANTIGONE

You’ve touched my worst grief,

the fate of my father, which I

keep turning over in my mind.

We all were doomed, the whole

grand house of Labdakos,

by my mother’s horrendous,

incestuous, coupling with her son.

From what kind of parents was I born? 950

I’m going to them now.

I’m dying unmarried.

And brother Polyneikes,

wasn’t yours too a deadly

marriage? And when you

were slaughtered, so was I.

LEADER

Your pious conduct might deserve some praise,

but no assault on power will ever

be tolerated by him who wields it.

It was your own hotheaded 960

willfulness that destroyed you.

ANTIGONE

No friends, no mourners, no wedding songs

go with me. They push me down a road

that runs through sadness.

They have prepared it for me, alone.

Soon I will lose
sight of the sun’s holy eye,

wretched, with no one to love me,

no one to grieve.

KREON moves forward from the shadows, speaking first to ANTIGONE, then to his Men.

KREON

You realize, don’t you, that singing

and wailing would go on forever—if 970

they did the dying any good?

Hurry up now, take her away.

And when you’ve finished

sealing her off, just as I’ve ordered,

inside the cave’s vault,

leave her there—absolutely

isolated—to decide whether

she wants to die at once, or go

on living in that black hole.

So we’ll be pure as far as she’s concerned. 980

In either case, today will be the last

she’ll ever spend above the ground.

ANTIGONE

My tomb, my bridal bedroom, my home

dug from rock, where they’ll keep me forever—

I’ll join my family there, so many of us dead,

already welcomed by Persephone.

I’ll be the last to arrive, and the worst off,

going down with most of my life unlived.

I hope my coming will please my father,

comfort my mother, and bring joy 990

to you, brother, because I washed your dead

bodies, dressed you with my hands, and poured

blessèd offerings of drink on your graves.

Now, because I honored your corpse,

Polyneikes, this is how I’m repaid!

I honored you as wise men would think right.

But I wouldn’t have taken that task on

had I been a mother who lost her child,

or if my husband were rotting out there.

For them, I would never defy my city. 1000

You want to know what law lets me say this?

If my husband were dead, I could remarry.

A new husband could give me a new child.

But with my father and mother in Hades,

a new brother could never bloom for me.

That is the law that made me die for you,

Polyneikes. But Kreon says I’m wrong,

terribly wrong. And now I’m his captive.

He pulls me by the wrist to no bride’s bed.

I won’t hear bridal songs, or feel the joy 1010

of married love, and I will have no share

in raising children. No, I will go grieving,

friendless, and alive to a hollow tomb.

Tell me, gods, which of your laws did I break?

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