Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8
Page 6
Though he was not your serf he is still my brother.
CREON:
True if you count all one, godless and godly.
ANTIGONE:
Nor is death one and the same for the country or for you.
CREON:
So there’s no war?
ANTIGONE:
Yes, yours.
CREON:
Not for the country?
ANTIGONE:
A foreign country. It did not content you
Ruling over my brothers in Thebes
A city of our own and sweet
Not living in fear, the life beneath its trees. You
Had to drag them to distant Argos to rule
Over them there too. And the one you made into a butcher
Of peaceful Argos and the terrified other
Him you lay out now, quartered, a terror to his own.
CREON:
I advise you, you’ll say nothing, to her there
Speak nothing, if you know what’s good for you.
ANTIGONE:
But I appeal to you to help me in my trouble
And help yourselves, so doing. Who seeks power
Drinks of a salty water, he cannot desist but must
Drink it and drink it. My brother yesterday, today it’s me.
CREON:
And I am waiting
To see who sides with her.
ANTIGONE when the Elders remain silent:
So then you let it be and keep your mouths shut for him.
Let that not be forgotten.
CREON:
She notes it against you.
At odds she wants us under the roof of Thebes.
ANTIGONE:
Screaming for unity you live on discord.
CREON:
So first in discord here and then in the field against Argos!
ANTIGONE:
Of course. Exactly. When you have need of violence abroad
Then you’ll have need of violence at home.
CREON:
And me, so it seems to me, in her goodness she’ll give to the
vultures
And never mind then if Thebes, so at odds
Falls as a feast to foreign rule?
ANTIGONE:
You, the rulers, threaten and threaten the city will fall
At odds, will founder and feast on it others and foreigners
And we bow our necks and fetch you the sacrifices and thus
Weakened our city founders and foreigners feast on it.
CREON:
Do you tell me I am throwing the city to foreigners to feast
on?
ANTIGONE:
She throws herself to them, bowing her neck to you
For bowing the neck nobody sees what’s coming
But only the earth and, alas, the earth will have him.
CREON:
Slander the earth in your wickedness, slander the homeland!
ANTIGONE:
Wrong there. The earth is travail. The homeland is not just
Earth, nor the house. Not where a man poured his sweat
Not the house that helplessly watches the coming of fire
Not where he bowed his neck, he does not call that the
homeland.
CREON:
You however the homeland no longer calls her own
But you are cast out like a biting filth that pollutes.
ANTIGONE:
Who casts me out? There are fewer in the city now
That you rule and fewer will be still.
Why do you come here alone? You went out with many.
CREON:
You dare say that?
ANTIGONE:
Where are the youths, the men? Are they not coming back?
CREON:
How she lies! When everyone knows they are out still
Only to cleanse the battlefield wholly of the axes left.
ANTIGONE:
And to do your last misdeeds
And to be a terror until their fathers
No longer recognise them when at the end
Like animals run amok they are slaughtered finally.
CREON:
She defiles the dead!
ANTIGONE:
Fool of a man, I’ve no desire
To be proved right.
ELDERS:
She is unhappy. Don’t hold her words against her.
But you, do not forget in your folly and because
Of your own grief Thebes’ splendid triumph in battle.
CREON:
But she does not want
The people of Thebes to be seated in the houses of Argos.
She
Would rather see Thebes broken and beaten.
ANTIGONE:
Better we’d be sitting in the ruins of our own city
And safer too than with you
In the enemy’s houses.
CREON:
Now she has said it. And you heard it.
Going beyond the measure she breaks every statute, she is
Like a guest not staying much longer, not wished to be seen
again
Who packing his bags in his insolence cuts through the
guy-ropes.
ANTIGONE:
But all that I took was mine and I had to steal it.
CREON:
Always all you see is the nose in front of you. The state’s
Order, that is from God, you do not see.
ANTIGONE:
From God it may be but I’d rather have it
Human and humane, Creon, Menoeceus’ son.
CREON:
Away now! You were our enemy and will be it still below
Like him I hacked, and forgotten. There he is shunned as
well.
ANTIGONE:
Who knows? Perhaps down there the custom’s different.
CREON:
An enemy, even dead, will never be friend.
ANTIGONE:
One thing is sure: I live for love not hatred.
CREON:
Go down below then if you want to love
And love down there. I’ll not have ones like you
Living for long up here.
Enter Ismene.
ELDERS:
But Ismene is coming from indoors
Sweet girl, who is for peace.
But tears are washing
Washing a face bloodshot with suffering.
CREON:
Yes, you, squatting in there at home. I’ve brought
Two torments up, snake sisters.
Tell us forthwith
You shared the deed at the grave
Or are you thick with innocence?
ISMENE:
I did it, if my sister will agree.
I took my part, I take the blame on me.
ANTIGONE:
Her sister will not let that be however.
She would not do it. I did not take her with me.
CREON:
You settle it. I won’t be petty in a petty matter.
ISMENE:
I’m not ashamed to share my sister’s trouble
And beg her now to have me for a comrade.
ANTIGONE:
By those who have gone through with it
And talk with one another down below
I don’t like anyone who loves with words.
ISMENE:
Sister, revolt not everyone is good for
But one like her it may fall to to die.
ANTIGONE:
Don’t die in common. What’s no concern of yours
Don’t make it yours. My death will be enough.
ISMENE:
My sister is too severe, I love you.
Have I, if she is gone, a love left in my life?
ANTIGONE:
Creon, love him. Stay his, I leave you both.
ISMENE:
Perhaps it is my sister’s pleasure to mock me.
ANTIGONE:<
br />
Perhaps her grief as well, and I desire my cup of suffering
full.
ISMENE:
But what I said to you is also part still.
ANTIGONE:
And that was good. But so I have decided.
ISMENE:
Is it because I failed I’m no loss to you now?
ANTIGONE:
Be of good cheer, and live. My soul has died
And now I’m servant only to the dead, sister.
CREON:
These women, I tell you, one is losing
Her wits right now, the other did long ago.
ISMENE:
I cannot live without her.
CREON:
The talk is not of her now. She is done with.
ISMENE:
You are killing your own son’s bride-to-be as well.
CREON:
A man has more than one field he can plough in.
Get ready to die. But so that you will know
When it will be: it will be when for Bacchus she,
My drunken Thebes, joins me dancing. Now take
The women away.
Exit the guard into the palace with Antigone and Ismene.
Creon orders his bodyguard to give up his sword.
AN ELDER taking the sword:
Dolling yourself for the victory revels don’t stamp
On the ground too hard and not where it’s greening.
But strong as you are, whoever has angered you
Now let him praise you.
AN ELDER handing Creon the staff of Bacchus:
Don’t fling him too deep
Where you lose sight of him.
Down there and when no falling further is possible
A man stripped naked has no more to fear. He sheds
All his shame. Terrified, terrible
The man flung down rises up. Made less than human
He remembers a shape his life had once and arises, new.
ELDERS:
In their charred house the sons of Lachmeus sat and
suffered it
Mouldering, feeding on lichens, forever the winters
Tipped ice on them and their women
Were absent at nights and sat in the day
In secret crimsons. And over their heads
Always the threatening rockface tilted.
But not before Pelias
Entered among them, dividing them with his staff and only
Touching them lightly, did they arise and
Slaughter all their tormentors.
This was the worst to them but often the least thing
Rounds up the sum of misery. The unseeing
Sleep of the wretched, as though in exhaustion
They lay in an ageless time, has an end.
The moons wax, slowly, swiftly, unevenly
Dwindle and all the time long
The evil is growing and already
Upon the last root left the light is trained
In Oedipus’ houses.
And greatness does not fall in on itself
But on much besides. As when down there
When the Thracian winds
Blow evilly on the sea
The night under the salt
Befalls a little dwelling
And turns the dark sand inside out and upside down
Dishevelling it
And all the thrashed coast groans.
Haemon is coming, of your sons
The lastborn, troubled
That the young Antigone should perish
The wedding woman
Sick that their bed will evade him.
Enter Haemon.
CREON:
Son, there was talk you might be coming to me
For that young woman’s sake, not to the ruler
Rather to the father and if that were so
You’d come in vain, wholly. Returning from the battle
Which went our way by the bloody self-sacrifice of many
I found her alone undutiful, begrudging
Our house its victory, and bothering only with her own
affairs
And worse besides.
HAEMON:
It is in this affair nevertheless
That I have come and hoping to the father
The familiar voice of him he got
Will not sound ill when to the ruler
It brings ill rumours.
CREON:
True, if a man got insolent children
Of him what could be said but that he got
Trouble for himself and made his enemies gleeful? Sour
things
Sear the palate. So they are necessary.
HAEMON:
Much is under your governance. If what you like
Is only listening to what you like to hear
Then take things easy: slacken
Your sails like a man who has given up steering and drift.
The people quail at your name. So if great things
Flare up, the most they will ever report to you is small
things.
But one advantage of the family is
Not everything goes by deserts. Many a debt
Is never called in and so sometimes
We may hear truth from family because
Though angry we curb ourselves for them.
Now clearly it cannot be Megareus, my brother
Who fought at Argos and is not back yet
And knows no fear, who tells you. So I must.
Be told: the city is full of inner disaffection.
CREON:
And you be told: when family goes bad
It is my enemies I feed. Who are not definite
Who are unknown to one another, never meet, and even
In their grievances are not united, being sick of taxes these
And those of serving in the war
And all held under me and held apart
By the power of my spear. But when
There are gaps there and government itself appears
At odds and wavers and is not definite then
The pebbles gather and become a slide and press
Against the house that let itself go. Speak
But I hear the one I fathered and the one
I set before the storms of spears, the son.
HAEMON:
Amid it all is truth. Do we not say
Steel your tongue on the unlying anvil? She
Who did not want her brother left to be eaten
By merciless dogs, the city
Is with her in that although condemning
The misdeed of the dead man.
CREON:
Isn’t enough. I call that spinelessness.
Isn’t enough that I hack off what’s rotten –
It must be in the marketplace, to other rottenness
Quite unforgettable that I hack off what’s rotten.
And my hand demonstrate that it never misses.
But you, knowing nothing of the situation
So knowing nothing, counsel: look around uncertainly
Adopt the thoughts of others, speak their language
As if authority could engage
The many bodies on a difficult commission
If all it is is a little ear and a cowardly.
ELDERS:
But it eats much strength up pondering cruel punishments.
CREON:
Pressing the plough to earth so that it ploughs takes
strength.
ELDERS:
Mild government works wonders and with ease.
CREON:
Governments are many. But: who does the governing?
HAEMON:
Even if not your son I’d answer: you.
CREON:
If it were laid on me I’d have to do it my way.
HAEMON:
Your way, but let that be the right way.
CREON:
Not knowing what I know yo
u couldn’t know it.
Are you my friend however I choose to act?
HAEMON:
I wish you’d act so that I were your friend
But don’t say you are right and no one else.
For anyone who thinks alone he has
No thoughts and speech and soul like any other
If such a man were ever opened up
He would appear empty. It is no shame
If someone there is someone wise, to learn
A lot and not push anything too far.
See by the stream in spate that’s hurtling past
The trees give way, and all of those
Leaf up warmly but the strugglers against
Are gone at once. Likewise a prosperous ship
That throws its weight around and will give way to nothing
All falling backwards from the banks of rowers
Its certain course is wreck.
ELDERS:
Give way where your mind is, allow us change
And have from us a creaturely hesitation.
Hesitate with us.
CREON:
And have the horses
Steer the charioteer. That’s what you want?
HAEMON:
And the horses
When they get a whiff of cadavers
From the knacker’s yard might rear up wondering
Where they are being driven, being driven so hard
And fling themselves in the abyss with wheels and driver.
Be told: the city at war is maddened already worrying
What peace may bring.
CREON:
There is no war now. Thanks for the advice.
HAEMON:
Then this, that you, parading for victory
Intend a bloody cleaning out of everyone
At home who ever crossed you
Often the suspicion has been voiced to me.
CREON:
Who by? You might do some good there. Much more
Than only being the mouth of them
There so suspiciously gabbing about suspicion.
HAEMON:
Forget them.
ELDERS:
Of all a ruler’s virtues
The healthiest, they say, is: know how to forget.
What’s old, let it stay old.
CREON:
Since I’m so old
I find forgetting hard. But you
Could you not, if I asked you to
Forget her for whose sake you have gone so far out
That all who wish me ill mutter
He, so it seems, fights on the woman’s side?
HAEMON:
On the side of right, wherever it shows itself.
CREON:
And has a hole.
HAEMON:
Even insulted my concern
For you will not be silent.
CREON:
Your bed would still be empty.
HAEMON:
Did that not come from the father I’d call it stupid.
CREON:
I’d call that brash if not from a woman’s lackey.
HAEMON:
Who’s happier hers than being your lackey.
CREON:
Now it is out and won’t be got back in.