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?
