Antigone
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 3: The Antigone. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- I, therefore, will ask those below for pardon, since I am forced to this, and will obey those who have come to authority. It is foolish to do what is fruitless.
- I would not encourage you—no, nor, even if you were willing later,
- would I welcome you as my partner in this action. No, be the sort that pleases you. I will bury him—it would honor me to die while doing that. I shall rest with him, loved one with loved one, a pious criminal. For the time is greater
- that I must serve the dead than the living, since in that world I will rest forever. But if you so choose, continue to dishonor what the gods in honor have established.
- I do them no dishonor. But to act in violation of the citizens’ will—of that I am by nature incapable.
- You can make that your pretext! Regardless, I will go now to heap a tomb over the brother I love.
- Oh no, unhappy sister! I fear for you!
- Do not tremble for me. Straighten out your own destiny.
- Then at least disclose the deed to no one before you do it.
- Conceal it, instead, in secrecy—and so, too, will I.
- Go on! Denounce it! You will be far more hated for your silence, if you fail to proclaim these things to everyone.
- You have a hot heart for chilling deeds.
- I know that I please those whom I am most bound to please.
- Yes, if you will also have the power. But you crave the impossible.
- Why then, when my strength fails, I will have finished.
- An impossible hunt should not be tried in the first place.
- If you mean that, you will have my hatred, and you will be subject to punishment as the enemy of the dead.