Antigone

Sophocles

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

  1. or over the groaning straits!
Chorus
  1. O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus,
  2. appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver!
Enter Messenger, on the spectators’ left.
Messenger
  1. Neighbors of the house of Cadmus and of Amphion, there is no station of human life that I would ever praise or blame as being settled. Fortune sets upright and Fortune sinks the lucky and unlucky from day to day,
  2. and no one can prophesy to men concerning the order that has just been established. For Creon, as I saw it, was once blest: he had saved this land of Cadmus from its enemies; and having won sole and total dominion in the land, he guided it on a straight course and flourished in his noble crop of children.
  3. And now all this has been lost. When a man has forfeited his pleasures, I do not reckon his existence as life, but consider him just a breathing corpse. Heap up riches in your house, if you wish! Live with a tyrant’s pomp! But if there is no joy
  4. along with all of that, I would not pay even the shadow of smoke for all the rest, compared with joy.