Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through
many more courses of the sun’s swift chariot, before you will
give in return one sprung from your own loins, a corpse in requital for
corpses. For you have thrust below one of those of the upper air and
irreverently lodged a living soul in the grave, while you detain in this world that which belongs to
the infernal gods, a corpse unburied, unmourned, unholy. In the dead you
have no part, nor do the gods above, but in this you do them violence.
For these crimes the avenging destroyers, the Furies of Hades and of the gods, lie in ambush for
you, waiting to seize you in these same sufferings. And look closely if
I tell you this with a silvered palm. A time not long to be delayed will
reveal in your house wailing over men and over women. All the cities are stirred up in hostility, whose
mangled corpses the dogs, or the wild beasts or some winged bird buried,
carrying an unholy stench to the city that held each man’s hearth.
There, now, are arrows for your heart, since you provoke me, launched at you, archer-like, in my anger. They fly
true—you cannot run from their burning sting. Boy, lead me home, so that
he may launch his rage against younger men, and learn to keep a quieter
tongue and a better mind within his breast than he now
bears.Exit Teiresias.ChorusThe man is gone, my king, leaving dire prophecies behind.
And for all the time that I have had this hair on my head, now white,
once dark, I know that he has never been a false prophet to our
city.CreonI, too, know it well, and my mind is troubled. To yield
is terrible, but, to resist, to strike my pride with ruin—this, too,
inspires terror.ChorusThe moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.CreonWhat should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.ChorusGo and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then
raise a tomb for the unburied dead.CreonAnd you recommend this? You think that I should yield?ChorusYes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent
from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.CreonAh, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s
resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.ChorusGo, do these things and do not leave their performance to
others.CreonRight away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of
you! Take axes in your hands,