Unit 4: Antigone

And now—
Have they told you of the new decree of our King Creon?

I must yield
To those in authority. And I think it is dangerous business
To be always meddling.

But whoever shows by word and deed that he is on the side of the State—he shall have my respect while he is living, and my reverence when he is dead.

A comprehensive defense! More effective, perhaps,
If I knew its purpose.

No, from the very beginning
There have been those who have whispered together,
Stiff-necked anarchists, putting their heads together,
Scheming against me in alleys.

Money! [Sententiously]
There’s nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.

Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience?

The lightboned birds and beasts that cling to cover,
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind

Words also, and thought as rapid as air,
He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his,
And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow,
The spears of winter rain

This girl is guilty of a double insolence,
Breaking the given laws and boasting of it.

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver, King.

Fortunate is the man who has never tasted God’s vengeance!

I have seen this gathering sorrow from time long past
Loom upon Oedipus’s children: generation from generation
Takes the compulsive rage of the enemy god.

Have you come here hating me, or have you come
With deference and with love, whatever I do?

Good. That is the way to behave: subordinate
Everything else, my son, to your father’s will.

But if his sons
Fail him, if they turn out unprofitably,
What has he fathered but trouble for himself
And amusement for the malicious?

The ideal condition
Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;
But since we are all too likely to go astray,
The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

The ideal condition
Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;
But since we are all too likely to go astray,
The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

You’ll never see me taken in by anything vile.

Perhaps they will show her an escape from death,
Or she may learn,
though late,
That piety shown the dead is piety in vain.

Surely you swerve upon ruin
The just man’s consenting heart,
As here you have made bright anger
Strike between father and son—
And none has conquered but Love!

I have been a stranger here in my own land:
All my life
The blasphemy of my birth has followed me.

Lead me to my vigil, where I must have
Neither love nor lamentation; no song, but silence.

If dirges and planned lamentations could put off death,
Men would be singing forever.

You will remember
What things I suffer, and at what men’s hands,
Because I would not transgress the laws of heaven.

O child, child,
No power in wealth or war
Or tough sea-blackened ships
Can prevail against untiring Destiny!

For he had profaned the revels,
And fired the wrath of the nine
Implacable Sisters that love the sound of the flute.

For he had profaned the revels,
And fired the wrath of the nine
Implacable Sisters that love the sound of the flute.

O my son,
These are no trifles! Think: all men make mistakes,
But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong.

TEIRESIAS. Ah Creon! Is there no man left in the world—
CREON. To do what?—Come, let’s have the aphorism!
TEIRESIAS. No man who knows that wisdom outweighs any wealth?

The shadow of plague is upon us:
come
with clement feet
oh come from Parnasos
down the long slopes
across the lamenting water