Antigone
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 3: The Antigone. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- Ah, 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.
- I, therefore, will ask those below for pardon, since I am forced to this, and will obey those who have come to authority. It is foolish to do what is fruitless.
- I would not encourage you—no, nor, even if you were willing later,
- would I welcome you as my partner in this action. No, be the sort that pleases you. I will bury him—it would honor me to die while doing that. I shall rest with him, loved one with loved one, a pious criminal. For the time is greater
- that I must serve the dead than the living, since in that world I will rest forever. But if you so choose, continue to dishonor what the gods in honor have established.
- I do them no dishonor. But to act in violation of the citizens’ will—of that I am by nature incapable.
- You can make that your pretext! Regardless, I will go now to heap a tomb over the brother I love.
- Oh no, unhappy sister! I fear for you!
- Do not tremble for me. Straighten out your own destiny.
- Then at least disclose the deed to no one before you do it.
- Conceal it, instead, in secrecy—and so, too, will I.
- Go on! Denounce it! You will be far more hated for your silence, if you fail to proclaim these things to everyone.
- You have a hot heart for chilling deeds.
- I know that I please those whom I am most bound to please.
- Yes, if you will also have the power. But you crave the impossible.
- Why then, when my strength fails, I will have finished.
- An impossible hunt should not be tried in the first place.