Antigone

Sophocles

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

  1. You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way.
Antigone
  1. They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues.
Creon
  1. Are you not ashamed that your beliefs differ from theirs?
Antigone
  1. No, there is nothing shameful in respecting your own flesh and blood.
Creon
  1. Was not he your brother too, who died in the opposite cause?
Antigone
  1. A brother by the same mother and the same father.
Creon
  1. Why, then, do you pay a service that is disrespectful to him?
Antigone
  1. The dead man will not support you in that.
Creon
  1. Yes, he will, if you honor him equally with the wicked one.
Antigone
  1. It was his brother, not his slave, who died.
Creon
  1. But he died ravaging this land, while he fell in its defense.
Antigone
  1. Hades craves these rites, nevertheless.
Creon
  1. But the good man craves a portion not equal to the evil’s.
Antigone
  1. Who knows but that these actions are pure to those below?
Creon
  1. You do not love someone you have hated, not even after death.
Antigone
  1. It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love.
Creon
  1. Then, go down to hell and love them
  2. if you must. While I live, no woman will rule me.
Enter Ismene from the house, led in by two attendants.
Chorus
  1. Look, here comes Ismene from the palace, shedding the tears of a loving sister. A cloud over her eyes mars her red-flushed face,
  2. and it breaks into rain on her comely cheek.