Why not? Has not Creon destined our brothers, the one to honored burial,
the other to unburied shame? Eteocles, they say, with due observance of
right and custom, he has laid in the earth for his honor among the dead below. As for the poor
corpse of Polyneices, however, they say that an edict has been published
to the townsmen that no one shall bury him or mourn him, but instead
leave him unwept, unentombed, for the birds a pleasing storeas they look to satisfy their hunger.
Such, it is said, is the edict that the good Creon has laid down for you
and for me—yes, for me—and it is said that he is coming here to proclaim
it for the certain knowledge of those who do not already know. They say
that he does not conduct this business lightly, but whoever performs any of these rites, for him the
fate appointed is death by public stoning among the entire city. This is
how things stand for you, and so you will soon show your nature, whether
you are noble-minded, or the corrupt daughter of a noble line.IsmenePoor sister, if things have come to this, what would I profit by loosening or tightening this knot?AntigoneConsider whether you will share the toil and the task.IsmeneWhat are you hazarding? What do you intend?AntigoneWill you join your hand to mine in order to lift his corpse?IsmeneYou plan to bury him—when it is forbidden to the city?AntigoneYes, he is my brother, and yours
too, even if you wish it otherwise. I will never be convicted of
betraying him.IsmeneHard girl! Even when Creon has forbidden it?AntigoneNo, he has no right to keep me from my own.IsmeneAh, no! Think, sister, how our father perished in hatred and infamy, when, because of the crimes that he
himself detected, he smashed both his eyes with self-blinding hand; then
his mother-wife, two names in one, with a twisted noose destroyed her
life; lastly, our two brothers
in a single day, both unhappy murderers of their own flesh and blood,
worked with mutual hands their common doom. And now we, in turn—we two
who have been left all alone—consider how much more miserably we will be
destroyed, if in defiance of the law we transgress against an autocrat’s decree or his powers.
No, we must remember, first, that ours is a woman’s nature, and
accordingly not suited to battles against men; and next, that we are
ruled by the more powerful, so that we must obey in these things and in
things even more stinging.