Antigone

Sophocles

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

  1. Knowing that these things are so, you must consider the rest.
Chorus
  1. Wait, I see the unhappy Eurydice, Creon’s wife, nearby. She comes from the house either knowing of her son, or merely by chance.
Enter Eurydice.
Eurydice
  1. People of Thebes, I heard your words as I was on my way to the gates to address divine Pallas with my prayers.
  2. At one and the same time I was loosening the bolts of the gate to open it, and the sound of a blow to our house struck my ear. In terror I sank back into the arms of my handmaids, and my senses fled.
  3. But repeat what your news was, for I shall hear it with ears that are no strangers to sorrow.
Messenger
  1. Dear mistress, I will tell what I witnessed and leave no word of the truth unspoken. For what good would it do that should I soothe you with words in which I must later be found false?
  2. The truth is always best. I attended your husband as his guide to the furthest part of the plain, where unpitied the body of Polyneices, torn by dogs, still lay. After we had prayed to the goddess of the roads