Antigone

Sophocles

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

  1. mother, set against each other their spears, both victorious, and who now share in a common death.
Chorus
  1. But since Victory whose name is glory has come to us, smiling in joy equal to the joy of chariot-rich Thebes,
  2. let us make for ourselves forgetfulness after the recent wars, and visit all the temples of the gods with night-long dance and song. And may Bacchus, who shakes the earth of Thebes, rule our dancing!
Chorus
  1. But look, the king of the land is coming here, Creon, the son of Menoeceus, our new ruler in accordance with the new circumstances fated by the gods. What policy is he setting in motion,
  2. that he has proposed this special conference of elders, and summoned it by a general mandate?
Enter Creon, with two attendants.
Creon
  1. My fellow citizens! First, the gods, after tossing the fate of our city on wild waves, have once more righted it. Second, I have ordered you through my messengers to come here
  2. apart from all the rest, because I knew, first of all, how constant was your reverence for the power of the throne of Laius; how, again, you were reverent, when Oedipus was guiding our city; and lastly, how, when he was dead, you still maintained loyal thoughts towards his children.