Antigone
Why then do you wait? In none of your maxims
[500]
is there anything that pleases me—and may there never be! Similarly to you as well my views must be displeasing. And yet, how could I have won a nobler glory than by giving burial to my own brother? All here would admit that they approve,
[505]
if fear did not grip their tongues. But tyranny, blest with so much else, has the power to do and say whatever it pleases.
Creon
You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way.
Antigone
They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues.
Creon
[510]
Are you not ashamed that your beliefs differ from theirs?
Antigone
No, there is nothing shameful in respecting your own flesh and blood.
Creon
Was not he your brother too, who died in the opposite cause?
Antigone
A brother by the same mother and the same father.
Creon
Why, then, do you pay a service that is disrespectful to him?
Antigone
[515]
The dead man will not support you in that.
Creon
Yes, he will, if you honor him equally with the wicked one.
Antigone
It was his brother, not his slave, who died.
Creon
But he died ravaging this land, while he fell in its defense.
Antigone
Hades craves these rites, nevertheless.
Creon
[520]
But the good man craves a portion not equal to the evil's.
Antigone
Who knows but that these actions are pure to those below?
Creon
You do not love someone you have hated, not even after death.
Antigone
It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love.
Creon
Then, go down to hell and love them
[525]
if you must. While I live, no woman will rule me.
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Sophocles. The Antigone of Sophocles. Edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1891.
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