and
autobeguiled
Antigone:
actually no they all think like me
but you’ve nailed their tongues to the floor
Kreon:
you’re not ashamed
Antigone:
no shame in honouring one’s kin
Kreon:
wasn’t the other brother your kin too
Antigone:
same mother same father
Kreon:
yet you honour the one disgrace the other
Antigone:
my dead do not say so
Kreon:
the one a criminal the other a defender of our land
Antigone:
Death needs to have Death’s laws obeyed
Kreon:
same law for good and evil patriot and traitor
Antigone:
oh who knows how these definitions work down there
Kreon:
enemy is always enemy alive or dead
Antigone:
I am born for love not hatred
Kreon:
I will not be worsted by a woman
[enter Ismene]
Chorus:
here’s Ismene
why is she blushing
Kreon:
here’s Ismene
why is she snaking in here
Ismene:
I did the deed I share the blame
Antigone:
you did nothing you shared nothing leave my death alone
Ismene:
I want to row the boat with you
Antigone:
save yourself
Ismene:
I’ll be so lonely
Antigone:
some think the world is made of bodies some think forces
I think a man knows nothing but his foot when he burns it in the hot fire
Ismene:
quoting Hegel again
Antigone:
Hegel says I am wrong
Ismene:
but right to be wrong
Antigone:
no ethical consciousness
Ismene:
is that how he puts it
Antigone:
so I wonder
let’s say my unconscious
while remaining unconscious
could also know the laws of consciousness by which I am
condemned for disobeying them, I mean
can a person be so completely conscious
of being unconscious
that she is guilty of her own repression
is that what I’m guilty of
Ismene:
well we all think you’re a grand girl
Antigone:
is this an argument
Ismene:
I can help you suffer
Antigone:
no
Ismene:
I can give you reasons not to die
Antigone:
no
Ismene [to Kreon]: I can give you reasons not to kill her
your own son for one
Kreon:
oh he’ll find other ruts to plough
you women and your beds make me sick
[calling]
GUARDS, TAKE THEM AWAY
[exit Antigone, Ismene, Kreon]
Chorus:
blessed be they whose lives do not taste of evil
but if some god shakes your house
ruin arrives
ruin does not leave
it comes tolling over the generations
it comes rolling the black night salt up from the ocean floor
and all your thrashed coasts groan
archives of grief I see falling upon this house
death on birth birth on death there is no end to it
some god is piling them on
one last root was reaching up for light in the house of Oidipous
but the bloody dust of death
hacks her down mows her down
all the tall mad mountains of her mind
Zeus you win you always win
the whole oxygen of power
belongs to you
sleep cannot seize it
time does not tire it
your Mt Olympos glows like one white stone around this law
nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without ruin
but of course there is hope look here comes hope
wandering in
to tickle your feet
then you notice the soles are on fire
a wise word
if evil looks good to you
oh here’s Haimon
here’s Haimon in pain and rage
cheated of his future bride
[enter Haimon]
Kreon:
in a rage about your future bride
or are we still friends
Haimon:
father, I’m yours
Kreon:
good attitude, son
good heart in your chest
I need you like that
we hold the same friends damage the same enemies
some children are useless
some are just trouble
and who would disagree
this makes people laugh at the father
a fact of life I’ll say to you now I’ll say it one time
when you lay yourself under a pleasure female
you take an open wound into your house and your life
spit her out
let her snake her way down and seduce some boy in hell
you know she disobeyed me
alone out of all the city
I will not be made a liar
I’ll kill her
let her call on Zeus and blood and kinship who cares
should I nourish disorder within my own family no I should not
my public is watching
Haimon:
father, the gods grow minds in men
as the most precious equipment they have
yet I could not would not do not know how to
say you are wrong
it may be
some other way
I don’t know
might turn out
I delete this line
I am your defender
I’m yours
I keep watch
no one says or does or disparages any of, why your dread eye your displeasure no one
yet I hear
there is talk
there are shadows
this girl
here I posit a lacuna
this girl does not deserve to die the town is sad most glorious of deeds most
terrible of deaths (they say) she only chose
to keep her brother’s body from raw dogs
and eating birds this sort of talk
I don’t know
night’s coming
oh father
when you ride uphill
got to shift your weight
pedal to pedal
side to side
ride the rhythm
don’t hoard your own custom don’t haul old anger up over your tongue and your mind
they go blind
trees bend
ships loosen the rigging
no single human being has perfect knowledge
Chorus:
I like a good argument
marrow versus marrow
you two could learn from each other
Kreon:
me at my a
ge go to school and get wisdom from this stripling
Haimon:
you would learn nothing unjust
Kreon:
nothing unjust to honour anarchy
Haimon:
I do not honour anarchy
Kreon:
is the girl not tainted with that malady
Haimon:
Thebes says otherwise
Kreon:
shall Thebes prescribe to me how I should rule
Haimon:
listen to yourself you sound like a boy dictator
Kreon:
whom else should the government depend on
Haimon:
no city belongs to a single man
Kreon:
surely a city belongs to its ruler
Haimon:
why not find a desert and rule all alone
Kreon [to the Chorus]: this fellow it seems is the woman’s toy
Haimon:
if you are the woman
it’s you I care for
Kreon:
O shameless thou utter miscreant
to prosecute thine own father
Haimon:
yes for I see you doing wrong
Kreon:
wrong to respect mine own prerogatives
Haimon:
you don’t respect you trample on the prerogatives of the gods
Kreon:
O polluted O dastard nature O subject to a woman
Haimon:
but not subject to injustice
Kreon:
all thy words plead for her
Haimon:
and for you and me and the gods below
Kreon:
thou canst never marry her this side the grave
Haimon:
then she’ll die and take another with her
Kreon:
doth thy boldness push thee even to threats
Haimon:
threats what threats
Kreon:
thou shalt rue the day of thy witless teaching
Haimon:
if you weren’t my father I’d say you were mad
Kreon:
thou woman’s chattel seek not to tickle me
Haimon:
you talk and talk and never listen
Kreon:
sayest thou so, well now well now I say
thou shalt revile me to thy cost
fetch out the loathéd creature
let her die hard against her bridegroom now this very instant before his eyes
Haimon:
never
[exit Haimon]
Chorus:
well he’s gone
in anger and pain
Kreon:
let him go
Big Man
I have deaths to do
Chorus:
both girls
Kreon:
no just the loud one
Chorus:
how
Kreon:
I’ll find her a desert
in the neighbourhood
I’ll bury her alive
with a bit of food
sacred closet, terrible leisure
no doubt the god of death will save her life
[exit Kreon]
Chorus:
Eros, no one can fight you
Eros, you clamp down on every living thing
on girls’ cheeks on oceans on wild fields
not even an immortal can evade you
certainly not a creature of the day
why
they go mad
you change the levels of a person’s mind
this Haimon crisis is all your doing
you shook his blood
you glow on girls’ eyelids
who cares about the laws of the land
Aphrodite, you play with us you
play
deeply
[enter Antigone]
Chorus:
I can no longer restrain the stream of tears
when I see Antigone here passing
to the room where we all
go in the end
Antigone:
Hegel says people want to see their lives on stage
look at me
people
I go my last road
I see my last light
look
Death who gathers all of us into his old bent arms in the end
is gathering me
but I am still alive
no wedding
no wedding song
no wedding chamber
yet I shall lie in the bed of the river of Death
while I am still alive
Chorus:
yes but won’t you win glory
won’t you be praised
it’s not as if you’re dying of disease or war
you chose to live autonomous
and so you die
the only one of mortals to go down to Death alive
Antigone:
are you mockers of me
you grabbing old men
are you laughers at me
though I’m not yet gone
O springs of the rivers of Thebes
O reaches of the plains of Thebes
bear me witness
no one shed a tear for me
as I went to my strange new grave
for I’m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren’t I
not at home with the dead nor with the living
Chorus:
you’re clumsy it’s true
clumsy as your father
remember how Brecht had you do the whole play with a door strapped to your back
Antigone:
oh I don’t want to talk about him
or him
or him
all that plowing in the dark
I go to them now
one final intersection
O my brother you have despoiled me
Chorus:
you despoiled yourself
piety is nice but authority is authority
why must you always make your own laws
Antigone:
unwept
unwed
unloved
I go
[enter Kreon]
Kreon:
take her
we are clean of this girl
Antigone:
O tomb
O bridal chamber
O house in the ground forever
I was an organized person and this is my reward
I organized your deaths, my dear ones
all of you father mother brother when you died
you ask would I have done it for a husband or a child
my answer is no I would not
a husband or a child can be replaced
but who can grow me a new brother
is this a weird argument
Kreon thought so
but I don’t know the words go wrong they call my piety impiety
I’m alone on my insides
I died long ago
who suffers more
I wonder who suffers more
Chorus:
your soul is blowing apart
Kreon:
get a move on
Antigone:
next word
is death
Kreon:
DEATH
Antigone:
O Thebes
O gods
O look
I go
I’m the last one left in a line of kings
I was caught
in an act of perfect piety
[exit Antigone]
Chorus:
how is a Greek chorus like a lawyer
they’re both in the business of searching for a precedent
finding an analogy
locating a prior example
so as to be able to say
this terrible thing we’re witnessing now is
not unique you know it happened before
or something much like it
we’re not at a loss how to think about this
we’re not without guidance
there is a pattern
we can find an historically parallel case
and file it away under
ANTIGONE BURIED ALIVE FRIDAY AFTERNOON
COMPARE CASE HISTORIES 7, 17 AND 49
now I could dig up those case histories
tell you about Danaos and Lykourgos and the sons of Phineus
people locked up in a room or a cave or their own dark mind
it wouldn’t help you
it doesn’t help me
it’s Friday afternoon
there goes Antigone to be buried alive
is there
any way
we can say
this is normal
rational
forgivable
or even in the widest definition just
no not really
here comes Teiresias
EPISODE FIVE
[enter Teiresias led by a boy]
Teiresias [to the Chorus]: hail, you kings of Thebes
I begin by addressing the wrong person
because I’m blind
is that what you think
because I’m blind
Kreon:
what’s up, Teiresias
Teiresias [to Kreon]: you’re standing on a razor
I hear the birds they’re bebarbarizmenized they’re
making monster sounds
the fires won’t light
the rites go wrong
you know my technologies you know
the failing of the sign is in itself a sign
from you a sickness
from you a suppuration
from you a surfeit
comes out upon the city
this pile of rot that was the son of Oidipous
the boy is dead stop killing him
Kreon:
you fake
Teiresias:
Kreon:
you profiteer
Teiresias:
Kreon:
you entrepreneur
Teiresias:
Kreon:
you’re too quiet
Teiresias:
watch out Kreon
watch out I see the future plunging toward you
and it contains the corpse of your own son
you’ve made a structural mistake with life and death my dear
you’ve put the living underground
and kept the dead up here
that is so wrong
that is so wrong
[exit Teiresias with boy]
Chorus:
I hate to mention it but