Antigone

Sophocles

Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 3: The Antigone. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.

  1. 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
  2. and a better mind within his breast than he now bears.Exit Teiresias.
Chorus
  1. The 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.
Creon
  1. I, 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.
Chorus
  1. The moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.
Creon
  1. What should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.
Chorus
  1. Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then raise a tomb for the unburied dead.
Creon
  1. And you recommend this? You think that I should yield?
Chorus
  1. Yes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.
Creon
  1. Ah, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.
Chorus
  1. Go, do these things and do not leave their performance to others.
Creon
  1. Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of you! Take axes in your hands,
  2. and hurry to that place there in view! But since my judgment has taken this turn, I will be there to set her free, as I myself confined her. I am held by the fear that it is best to keep the established laws to life’s very end.
Chorus
  1. God of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride and offspring of loud-thundering Zeus, you who watch over far-famed Italy and reign
  2. in the valleys of Eleusinian Deo where all find welcome! O Bacchus, denizen of Thebes, the mother-city of your Bacchants, dweller by the wet stream of Ismenus on the soil
  3. of the sowing of the savage dragon’s teeth!
Chorus
  1. The smoky glare of torches sees you above the cliffs of the twin peaks, where the Corycian nymphs move inspired by your godhead,
  2. and Castalia’s stream sees you, too. The ivy-mantled slopes of Nysa’s hills and the shore green with many-clustered vines send you, when accompanied by the cries of your divine words,
  3. you visit the avenues of Thebes.
Chorus
  1. Thebes of all cities you hold foremost in honor, together with your lightning-struck mother.