The Greek Plays
Page 37
ISMENE: The decision is made, then, that she’s to die.*34
CREON: You and I agree on that, at least!*35 But enough:
servants, take them inside. From now on these two
must be women, and not range where they please.
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For even those who are bold try to escape
when they see death coming near their lives.
(Exit Antigone and Ismene, led by attendants, into the palace. Creon remains onstage*36 while the Chorus sing their second ode.)
strophe 1
CHORUS: Happy are they whose lives have no taste of sorrows!
When the gods shake a house, no form of ruin*37
fails to come upon the whole family,
like the swell of the salt sea
when it runs, driven by stormy
winds from Thrace over
the darkness of the deep,
churning black sand
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up from the bottom
and cliffs battered
head on by hostile blasts groan in the din.
antistrophe 1
I see how of old the pains of the Labdacid*38 house
pile upon the pains of the dead, nor does one generation
let the next one go, but some god topples it, too,
and there is no deliverance.
For just now
over the last root*39
in the house of Oedipus
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the light of salvation was spreading.*40
The bloody knife of the gods below—
folly of words and Fury in the mind—
reaps it away in its turn.
strophe 2
Zeus, what is the step men might take
to curb your power?
Sleep that overtakes all else
touches it not, nor the months of the years*41
that never tire, but time leaves your rule
ageless, and the radiant
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gleam of Olympus is yours.
For now, for what will be
and what has been,
this is the law: to no mortal man
comes great prosperity free of delusion.
antistrophe 2
For hope roams abroad, bringing
profit to many a man, deception
of light-hearted longings to many another.
It comes to a man who knows nothing; he learns
when he burns his foot in the fire.
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Someone wise it was who brought
to light this famous
utterance: soon or late
evil looks good to him
whose wits a god steers to destruction.
The man of modest means lives free of delusion.*42
(Enter Haemon by the side road that leads to the city.)
CHORUS LEADER: Here now is Haemon, last and youngest
of your children. Has he come
in anger at the fate
of Antigone, feeling
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stung to be cheated of his marriage?
CREON: We’ll soon know, more than seers could tell us.
Son, have you come furious at me
because the vote was cast against your bride?
Or whatever I may do, will you still love me?
HAEMON: Father, I’m yours. It’s your good judgments
that set me on the right path, and that I follow.
No marriage will ever be a greater prize
for me to win than your good guidance.
CREON: Yes, son, so you ought to feel at heart;
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a father’s judgment is supreme in everything.
It’s for this reason that men pray to have
sired obedient children in their house—
to pay their father’s enemy with evil
and honor his friend just as he honors him.
But the man who produces worthless children—
wouldn’t you say he’s sired only sorrows
for himself and a good laugh for his foes?
Never toss away your good sense, son,
for pleasure, for a woman; you know
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her embrace will grow cold within your arms—
an evil woman in your bed, your house.
What wound is greater than an evil love?
This girl, then—spit her out, I say, and let her
marry someone in Hades! For now that I’ve
caught her, plain as day, rebelling, alone
in all the city, I won’t make myself
a liar in the city’s eyes. No, I’ll kill her.
With that ahead, let her go on invoking
Zeus of Kindred Blood!*43 For if I encourage mischief
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in my own kin, I’m sure to meet with it elsewhere.
A man who tends to his own household
will show himself just in the city, too.*44
He’s the man I would have confidence in,
to rule well, and be glad to obey well, too,
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and when he’s stationed in the storm of war,
to stand his ground, a just and brave comrade in arms.*45
But there is no greater evil than anarchy.
Anarchy destroys cities, tears up houses
by the roots, turns to flight the spears
of allies; it’s discipline that preserves
the greater part of us when we succeed.
We must defend good order, then, and in no way,
I tell you, let a woman lord it over us!
If we must lose, better to lose to a man
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and not be called weaker than a woman.
CHORUS LEADER: If old age hasn’t tricked me, I think
you speak well and know what you’re talking about.
HAEMON: Father, the gods give men intelligence,
the best of all their possessions, and I
could never say—and may I never learn to say—
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that you are wrong in speaking as you do.*46
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And yet it’s not for you to notice everything
people say or do or can complain of;
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your glance alone makes ordinary men
afraid to say what you don’t want to hear.
But I can hear them, muttering in the shadows
how the city is grieving that this girl
must die in the worst way, of all women
most undeservedly, for deeds most glorious;
she refused to leave her own brother unburied
after he’d fallen in blood, to be torn
to shreds by some savage dog or bird:
does she not deserve a golden honor?
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So run the rumors whispered in the dark.
For me, Father, nothing’s to be valued more
than your good fortune. For what greater honor
is there for sons than their father’s good repute,
or for a father than that of his sons?
Don’t cleave, then, to a single frame of mind—
that what you say, and nothing else, is right.
For he who thinks that he alone has sense,
or eloquence that others lack, or character,
when opened up, shows an empty page.*47
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But for a man, even one who’s wise, to learn
often, and be flexible, is no cause of shame.
So trees beside a swollen river, bending
in the storm, preserve their twigs, while those
that resist and stiffen go down, trunks and all.
So, too, the captain of a ship, who pulls
the rigging tight and won’t let up, ends
upside down, the rowing benches under.
Let your anger go, then, and give yourself
a change. For if, at my young age, even I
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can offer some advice, it’s best to be
born wise in everything; but, barring that—
it’s not the way things usually turn out—
it’s best to learn from others’ good advice.
CHORUS LEADER: (to Creon) King, you should learn from him, when he speaks
to the point; (to Haemon) and you, from him. You’ve both argued well.
CREON: Am I, at my age, now about to be
taught how to think by a man his age?
HAEMON: Only in what’s right! And if I’m young,
you should consider my actions, not my age!
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CREON: Is it one of your “actions” to approve rebellion?
HAEMON: I wouldn’t advise you to honor criminals.
CREON: She hasn’t fallen sick with that disease?
HAEMON: This whole city of Thebes says she has not.
CREON: So now the city will give me my orders?
HAEMON: You see now who’s talking like a child?
CREON: I’m to rule this land for others, not myself?
HAEMON: No city belongs to just one man.
CREON: Rulers own their cities—isn’t that the saying?
HAEMON: A fine ruler you’d make, alone, in a desert.
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CREON: (to the Chorus) This fellow, it seems, is on the woman’s side.
HAEMON: If you’re a woman: it’s you I care for.
CREON: And show it (you disgrace!) by accusing me?
HAEMON: Yes, when I see you doing what is wrong.
CREON: Am I wrong to revere my position?
HAEMON: You don’t revere it when you trample the gods’ honors.
CREON: You’re despicable, yielding to a woman!
HAEMON: But you won’t find me yielding to disgrace.
CREON: This whole argument of yours is all for her.
HAEMON: Yes—and for you and me and the nether gods.*48
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CREON: You can’t marry her, ever—not while she’s alive.
HAEMON: She’ll die, then, and, in dying, destroy another.
CREON: Insolent now, even to the point of threats?
HAEMON: Is it a threat, to tell you what I think?
CREON: You’ll regret these thoughts; there’s nothing in them.
HAEMON: If you weren’t my father, I’d say you’ve lost your mind.
CREON: A woman’s slave! Don’t waste your wiles on me!
HAEMON: Do you want to talk and talk and never listen?
CREON: That’s what you think? By Olympus,*49 be sure
you won’t get away with abusing me like this!
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(to his attendants) Bring out the loathsome thing. Let her die right now,
before his eyes, at her bridegroom’s side!
(Exit attendants into the palace, to fetch Antigone.)
HAEMON: No, she won’t die at my side—never
imagine that! Nor will you ever see
my face again. Go on raving, then, among
your friends,*50 if any still care to listen!
(Exit Haemon.)
CHORUS LEADER: The man rushed off, my lord, in anger;
the mind of one his age, when hurt, is dangerous.
CREON: Let him go, act, forget he’s just a man!
He won’t save these two girls from death.
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CHORUS LEADER: You mean, then, actually to kill them both?
CREON: No, you’re right—not the one who didn’t do it.
CHORUS LEADER: What kind of death*51 have you in mind for her?
CREON: I’ll bring her by a path no mortals tread
and hide her, living, in a cave hewn from rock,
with just enough food to avoid defilement,
so the whole city may escape pollution.*52
And there, she can pray to Hades,
the only god she reveres, to win a reprieve
from death, or she’ll learn at last that it’s a waste
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to honor what belongs to the Underworld.
(Exit Creon. The Chorus now sing their third ode.)
strophe 1
CHORUS: Love, invincible in battle,
Love, plunderer of wealth,
keeping watch nightlong in the soft
cheeks of a girl
and roaming over the gray sea
and into the lairs of the wild—
you even the immortal
gods cannot escape, nor anyone
among men who live but a day: he
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who catches you is driven mad.
antistrophe 1
You wrench the wits of the just
aside to injustice, to their own disgrace
and it is you who have roused
this quarrel of men, kin against kin.
Shining in the eyes
of a bride lovely
to lie with, desire
is victorious, seated in power beside
the great laws,*53 for the goddess
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Aphrodite is here at play, irresistible.
(Enter Antigone under guard, from the palace. Here begins the first kommos*54 of the play, a lyrical passage shared between actor and chorus. In the first part, the Chorus Leader speaks or chants in anapests, Antigone sings in lyric meters [lines 801–38]. The pattern changes in the second part.)
CHORUS LEADER:*55 Now I, too, waver and swerve
from the laws*56 at this sight—no longer
can I hold back the springs of my tears
when I see her, Antigone, on her way
now to the chamber where all things sleep.
strophe 2
ANTIGONE: Citizens of my native land, behold me
setting out on my last journey, casting
a last glance
at the sun’s radiance,
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then never again, but Hades who puts
all things to sleep brings me
alive to the banks
of Acheron,*57 denied my share
of wedding rites, and without a bridal
song for my marriage,
I shall be the bride of Acheron.
CHORUS LEADER: Yes, but in glory and with praise
you depart for the deep vault of the dead.
Not stricken by wasting disease,
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not paying the sword’s wages, but as a law
unto yourself, alive and alone among mortals,
you will go down to Hades.
antistrophe 2
ANTIGONE: I have heard of one who died
most piteously—our guest from Phrygia,
the daughter of Tantalus,*58 whom
the living stone, like tenacious ivy,
embraced on the steep slopes of Sipylus,*59
where rain—the story goes—
and snow never abandon her
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as she melts away,
showering the mountain sides
from ever-streaming brows. Most like her
am I—a god brings me to bed.
CHORUS LEADER: Well, she was a god and a god’s descendant*60
but we are mortal and of mortals born.
Still, when you have died
you’ll be renowned, you’ll share the fate
of the gods’ equals—in life, in death.
strophe 3
ANTIGONE: oimoi! To be laughed at now!
Why, by the gods of our fathers,
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why do you insult me, not yet gone
but here, in plain view?
O city, O men of my city,
men of wealth!
iō! Springs of Dirce, sacred
plain of Thebes glorying in chariots—you,
at least, take my side, bear me witness
how I go, unwept by friends, what sort
of laws bring me to the piled stone
of my strange tomb. iō, unhappy
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alien,*61 neither mortal
with mortals nor shade with shades, at home
not with the living, not with the dead.
CHORUS: You drove to the limit of rashness
and dashed your foot against the lofty
pedestal of Justice, my child. It is some debt
of your fathers that you pay now, in suffering.
antistrophe 3
ANTIGONE: There you touch on it—
my most painful thought,
my father’s thrice-turned fate*62
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and the entire
destiny that is ours,
we the renowned Labdacids.*63
iō, disasters of a mother’s
bed, a mother’s incestuous
embraces that ruined my father!
From such as them was I born to sorrow;
to them I go now—an alien*64
in their midst, unmarried and accursed.
iō, brother married
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to misfortune!*65 With your death
you have killed me, though I breathe still.
CHORUS: Your reverence to him is reverence of a kind;
but power, in the eyes of him who has power to wield,
must never be transgressed. The temper
you chose for yourself has destroyed you.
epode
ANTIGONE: Unwept, unloved, unmarried
I am led away in sorrow
to the path that awaits me,
no longer allowed to see
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that sacred eye of flame;*66
tearless is my doom, lamented
by none of my friends.
(Enter Creon. He speaks to the attendants escorting Antigone.)
CREON: Don’t you know that no one sentenced to death
would stop singing and wailing till they died?
Take her away, right now, and seal her,
clasped in her tomb of stone, as I’ve decreed!
Leave her there alone, if she wants to die
or live there, and go on staging funerals!*67
For I am pure as far as she’s concerned;
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at any rate, she’s lost her residence up here.*68
ANTIGONE: Tomb, my bridal chamber, my home, dug
deep down, imprisonment forever, where I
go to meet so many of my own, already dead,
welcomed by Persephone among the shades.
I’m the last of them and will go down by far
the saddest of them, before my turn has come.
And yet as I go I nurse the hope that I’ll
arrive dear to my father, dear to you, Mother,