Antigone
Sophocles
Sophocles the plays and fragments, Part 3: The Antigone. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, Sir, translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- Take heart! You live. But my life has long been
- in Death’s hands so that I might serve the dead.
- One of these maidens, I declare, has just revealed her foolishness; the other has displayed it from the moment of her birth.
- Yes, Creon. Whatever amount of reason nature may have given them does not remain with those in dire straits, but goes astray.
- Yours did, I know, when you chose dire actions with dire allies.
- What life would there be for me alone, without her presence?
- Do not speak of her presence. She lives no longer.
- What? You will kill your own son’s bride?
- Why not? There are other fields for him to plough.
- But not fitted to him as she was.
- I abhor an evil wife for my son.
- Haemon, dearest! How your father wrongs you!
- Enough! Enough of you and of your marriage!
- Will you really cheat your son of this girl?
- Death it is who will end these bridals for me.
- Then it seems that it is resolved that she will die.
- Resolved, yes, for you and by me.To the two Attendants.No more delay! Servants, take them inside! Hereafter they must be women, and not left at large.
- For it is known that even the brave seek to flee, when they see Death now closing on their life.Exeunt Attendants, guarding Antigone and Ismene. Creon remains.
- Blest are those whose days have not tasted of evil. For when a house has once been shaken by the gods,
- no form of ruin is lacking, but it spreads over the bulk of the race, just as, when the surge is driven over the darkness of the deep by the fierce breath of Thracian sea-winds,