HKB
wherein he lies; Saying, “If thou keep’st my hest Thou shalt hold thy realm at rest.” The God of Oaths this promise heard, And to Zeus I pledged my word.
ANTIGONE. Well, if he would have it so, We must yield. Then let us go Back to Thebes, if yet we may Heal this mortal feud and stay The self-wrought doom That drives our brothers to their tomb.
THESEUS. Go in peace; nor will I spare Ought of toil and zealous care, But on all your needs attend, Gladdening in his grave my friend.
CHORUS. Wail no more, let sorrow rest, All is ordered for the best.
FOOTNOTES
4 (return) [ The Greek text for the passages marked here and later in the text have been lost.]
5 (return) [ To avoid the blessing, still a secret, he resorts to a commonplace; literally, “For what generous man is not (in befriending others) a friend to himself?”]
6 (return) [ Creon desires to bury Oedipus on the confines of Thebes so as to avoid the pollution and yet offer due rites at his tomb. Ismene tells him of the latest oracle and interprets to him its purport, that some day the Theban invaders of Athens will be routed in a battle near the grave of Oedipus.]
7 (return) [ The Thebans sprung from the Dragon’s teeth sown by Cadmus.]
ANTIGONE
Translation by F. Storr, BA Formerly Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge From the Loeb Library Edition Originally published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and William Heinemann Ltd, London First published in 1912
ARGUMENT
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, the late king of Thebes, in defiance of Creon who rules in his stead, resolves to bury her brother Polyneices, slain in his attack on Thebes. She is caught in the act by Creon’s watchmen and brought before the king. She justifies her action, asserting that she was bound to obey the eternal laws of right and wrong in spite of any human ordinance. Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a rock-hewn chamber. His son Haemon, to whom Antigone is betrothed, pleads in vain for her life and threatens to die with her. Warned by the seer Teiresias Creon repents him and hurries to release Antigone from her rocky prison. But he is too late: he finds lying side by side Antigone who had hanged herself and Haemon who also has perished by his own hand. Returning to the palace he sees within the dead body of his queen who on learning of her son’s death has stabbed herself to the heart.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
ANTIGONE and ISMENE—daughters of Oedipus and sisters of Polyneices and Eteocles. CREON, King of Thebes. HAEMON, Son of Creon, betrothed to Antigone. EURYDICE, wife of Creon. TEIRESIAS, the prophet. CHORUS, of Theban elders. A WATCHMAN A MESSENGER A SECOND MESSENGER
ANTIGONE
ANTIGONE and ISMENE before the Palace gates.
ANTIGONE. Ismene, sister of my blood and heart, See’st thou how Zeus would in our lives fulfill The weird of Oedipus, a world of woes! For what of pain, affliction, outrage, shame, Is lacking in our fortunes, thine and mine? And now this proclamation of today Made by our Captain-General to the State, What can its purport be? Didst hear and heed, Or art thou deaf when friends are banned as foes?
ISMENE. To me, Antigone, no word of friends Has come, or glad or grievous, since we twain Were reft of our two brethren in one day By double fratricide; and since i’ the night Our Argive leaguers fled, no later news Has reached me, to inspirit or deject.
ANTIGONE. I know ’twas so, and therefore summoned thee Beyond the gates to breathe it in thine ear.
ISMENE. What is it? Some dark secret stirs thy breast.