whole thing out.
JOCASTA. I am only thinking of your good—I have ad-
vised you for the best.
OEDIPUS. Your advice makes me impatient.
JOCASTA. May you never come to know who you are, un-
happy man!
OEDIPUS. Go, some one, bring the herdsman here—and
let that woman glory in her noble blood.
JOCASTA. Alas, alas, miserable man! Miserable! That is
all that I can call you now or for ever.
[She goes out.]
CHORUS. Why has the lady gone. Oedipus, in such a
transport of despair? Out of this silence will burst a
storm of sorrows.
OEDIPUS. Let come what will. However lowly my origin
I will discover it. That woman, with all a woman’s
pride, grows red with shame at my base birth. I
think myself the child of Good Luck, and that the
years are my foster-brothers. Sometimes they have
set me up, and sometimes thrown me down, but he
that has Good Luck for mother can suffer no dis-
honour. That is my origin, nothing can change it, so
why should I renounce this search into my birth?
CHORUS. Oedipus’ nurse, mountain of many a hidden glen,
Be honoured among men;
A famous man, deep-thoughted, and his body strong;
Be honoured in dance and song.
Who met in the hidden glen? Who let his fancy run
Upon nymph of Helicon?
Lord Pan or Lord Apollo or the mountain Lord
By the Bacchantes adored?
OEDIPUS. If I, who have never met the man, may ven-
ture to say so, I think that the herdsman we await
approaches; his venerable age matches with this
stranger’s, and I recognise as servants of mine those
who bring him. But you, if you have seen the man
before, will know the man better than I.
CHORUS. Yes, I know the man who is coming; he was
indeed in Laius’ service, and is still the most trusted
of the herdsmen.
OEDIPUS. I ask you first, Corinthian stranger, is this the
man you mean?
MESSENGER. He is the very man.
OEDIPUS. Look at me, old man! Answer my questions.
Were you once in Laius’ service?
HERDSMAN. I was; not a bought slave, but reared up in
the house.
OEDIPUS. What was your work—your manner of life?
HERDSMAN. For the best part of my life I have tended
flocks.
OEDIPUS. Where, mainly?
HERDSMAN. Cithaeron or its neighborhood.
OEDIPUS. Do you remember meeting with this man
there?
HERDSMAN. What man do you mean?
OEDIPUS. This man. Did you ever meet him?
HERDSMAN. I cannot recall him to mind.
MESSENGER. No wonder in that, master; but I will bring
back his memory. He and I lived side by side upon
Cithaeron. I had but one flock and he had two.
Three full half-years we lived there, from spring to
autumn, and every winter I drove my flock to my
own fold, while he drove his to the fold of Laius.
Is that right? Was it not so?
HERDSMAN. True enough; though it was long ago.
MESSENGER. Come, tell me now—do you remember giving
me a boy to rear as my own foster-son?
HERDSMAN. What are you saying? Why do you ask me
that?
MESSENGER. Look at that man, my friend, he is the child
you gave me.
HERDSMAN. A plague upon you! Cannot you hold your
tongue?
OEDIPUS. Do not blame him, old man; your own words
are more blameable.
HERDSMAN. And how have I offended, master?
OEDIPUS. In not telling of that boy he asks of.
HERDSMAN. He speaks from ignorance, and does not
know what he is saying.
OEDIPUS. If you will not speak with a good grace you
shall be made to speak.
HERDSMAN. Do not hurt me for the love of God, I am
an old man.
OEDIPUS. Some one there, tie his hands behind his back.
HERDSMAN. Alas! Wherefore! What more would you
learn?
OEDIPUS. Did you give this man the child he speaks of?
HERDSMAN. I did: would I had died that day!
OEDIPUS. Well, you may come to that unless you speak
the truth.
HERDSMAN. Much more am I lost if I speak it.
OEDIPUS. What! Would the fellow make more delay?
HERDSMAN. No, no. I said before that I gave it to him.
OEDIPUS. Where did you come by it? Your own child,
or another?
HERDSMAN. It was not my own child—I had it from
another.
OEDIPUS. From any of those here? From what house?
HERDSMAN. Do not ask any more, master, for the love
of God do not ask.
OEDIPUS. You are lost if I have to question you again.
HERDSMAN. It was a child from the house of Laius.
OEDIPUS. A slave? Or one of his own race?
HERDSMAN. Alas! I am on the edge of dreadful words.
OEDIPUS. And I of hearing: yet hear I must.
HERDSMAN. It was said to have been his own child. But
your lady within can tell you of these things best.
OEDIPUS. How? It was she who gave it to you?
HERDSMAN. Yes, King.
OEDIPUS. To what end?
HERDSMAN. That I should make away with it.
OEDIPUS. Her own child?
HERDSMAN. Yes: from fear of evil prophecies.
OEDIPUS. What prophecies?
HERDSMAN. That he should kill his father.
OEDIPUS. Why, then, did you give him up to this old
man?
HERDSMAN. Through pity, master, believing that he
would carry him to whatever land he had himself
come from—but he saved him for dreadful misery;
for if you are what this man says, you are the most
miserable of all men.
OEDIPUS. O! O! All brought to pass! All truth! Now,
O light, may I look my last upon you, having been
found accursed in bloodshed, accursed in marriage,
and in my coming into the world accursed!
ONE GIRL VERSUS THE LAW
Antigone
Sophocles
Translated by H. D. F. Kitto, 1962
Oedipus’ troubles did not end there. In the final scenes of Oedipus Rex, his wife Jocasta kills herself and he blinds himself with her brooch pins before leaving Thebes. Jocasta’s brother Creon is now guardian of the city. Sophocles’ play, Antigone, sees Creon at odds with Oedipus’ daughter Antigone. Her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, have killed one another. Creon has forbidden the burial of Polyneices on the grounds that he was a traitor. Antigone urges her sister Ismene to help her lay Polyneices to rest. Ismene is afraid to break Creon’s law. The only law Antigone recognises is divine law. She therefore proceeds to bury her brother alone. In this scene her act of defiance is reported to Creon.
Strophe 1
CHORUS. [Sings] Wonders are many, yet of all
Things is Man the most wonderful.
He can sail on the stormy sea
Though the tempest rage, and the loud
Waves roar around, as he makes his
Path amid the towering surge.
Earth inexhaustible, ageless, he wearies, as
Backwards and forwards, from season to season, his
Ox-team drives along the ploughshare.
Antistrophe 1
He can entrap th
e cheerful birds,
Setting a snare, and all the wild
Beasts of the earth he has learned to catch, and
Fish that teem in the deep sea, with
Nets knotted of stout cords; of
Such inventiveness is man.
Through his inventions he becomes lord
Even of the beasts of the mountain: the long-haired
Horse he subdues to the yoke on his neck, and the
Hill-bred bull, of strength untiring.
Strophe 2
And speech he has learned, and thought
So swift, and the temper of mind
To dwell within cities, and not to lie bare
Amid the keen, biting frosts
Or cower beneath pelting rain;
Full of resource against all that comes to him
Is Man. Against Death alone
He is left with no defence.
But painful sickness he can cure
By his own skill.
Antistrophe 2
Surpassing belief, the device and
Cunning that Man has attained,
And it bringeth him now to evil, now to good.
If he observe Law, and tread
The righteous path God ordained,
Honoured is he; dishonoured, the man whose reckless heart
Shall make him join hands with sin:
May I not think like him,
Nor may such an impious man
Dwell in my house.
[Enter GUARD, with ANTIGONE.]
CHORUS. What evil spirit is abroad? I know
Her well: Antigone. But how can I
Believe it? Why, O you unlucky daughter
Of an unlucky father, what is this?
Can it be you, so mad and so defiant,
So disobedient to a King’s decree?
GUARD. Here is the one who did the deed, this girl;
We caught her burying him.—But where is Creon?
CHORUS. He comes, just as you need him, from the palace.
[Enter CREON, attended.]
CREON. How? What occasion makes my coming timely?
GUARD. Sir, against nothing should a man take oath,
For second thoughts belie him. Under your threats
That lashed me like a hailstorm, I’d have said
I would not quickly have come here again;
But joy that comes beyond our dearest hope
Surpasses all in magnitude. So I
Return, though I had sworn I never would,
Bringing this girl detected in the act
Of honouring the body. This time no lot
Was cast; the windfall is my very own.
And so, my lord, do as you please: take her
Yourself, examine her, cross-question her.
I claim the right of free and final quittance.
CREON. Why do you bring this girl? Where was she taken?
GUARD. In burying the body. That is all.
CREON. You know what you are saying? Do you mean it?
GUARD. I saw her giving burial to the corpse
You had forbidden. Is that plain and clear?
CREON. How did you see and take her so red-handed?
GUARD. It was like this. When we had reached the place,
Those dreadful threats of yours upon our heads,
We swept aside each grain of dust that hid
The clammy body, leaving it quite bare,
And sat down on a hill, to the windward side
That so we might avoid the smell of it.
We kept sharp look-out; each man roundly cursed
His neighbour, if he should neglect his duty.
So the time passed, until the blazing sun
Reached his mid-course and burned us with his heat.
Then, suddenly, a whirlwind came from heaven
And raised a storm of dust, which blotted out
The earth and sky; the air was filled with sand
And leaves ripped from the trees. We closed our eyes
And bore this visitation as we could.
At last it ended; then we saw the girl.
She raised a bitter cry, as will a bird
Returning to its nest and finding it
Despoiled, a cradle empty of its young.
So, when she saw the body bare, she raised
A cry of anguish mixed with imprecations
Laid upon those who did it; then at once
Brought handfuls of dry dust, and raised aloft
A shapely vase of bronze, and three times poured
The funeral libation for the dead.
We rushed upon her swiftly, seized our prey.
And charged her both with this offence and that.
She faced us calmly; she did not disown
The double crime. How glad I was!—and yet
How sorry too; it is a painful thing
To bring a friend to ruin. Still, for me,
My own escape comes before everything.
CREON. You there, who keep your eyes fixed on the ground,
Do you admit this, or do you deny it?
ANTIGONE. No, I do not deny it. I admit it.
CREON. [To GUARD] Then you may go; go where you like. You have
Been fully cleared of that grave accusation.
[Exit GUARD.]
You: tell me briefly—I want no long speech:
Did you not know that this had been forbidden?
ANTIGONE. Of course I knew. There was a proclamation.
CREON. And so you dared to disobey the law?
ANTIGONE. It was not Zeus who published this decree,
Nor have the Powers who rule among the dead
Imposed such laws as this upon mankind;
Nor could I think that a decree of yours—
A man—could override the laws of Heaven
Unwritten and unchanging. Not of today
Or yesterday is their authority;
They are eternal; no man saw their birth.
Was I to stand before the gods’ tribunal
A man? I knew that I should have to die,
Even without your edict; if I die
Before my time, why then, I count it gain;
To one who lives as I do, ringed about
With countless miseries, why, death is welcome.
For me to meet this doom is little grief;
But when my mother’s son lay dead, had I
Neglected him and left him there unburied,
That would have caused me grief; this causes none.
And if you think it folly, then perhaps
I am accused of folly by the fool.
CHORUS. The daughter shows her father’s temper—fierce,
Defiant; she will not yield to any storm.
CREON. But it is those that are most obstinate
Suffer the greatest fall; the hardest iron,
Most fiercely tempered in the fire, that is
Most often snapped and splintered. I have seen
The wildest horses tamed, and only by
The tiny bit. There is no room for pride
In one who is a slave! This girl already
Had fully learned the art of insolence
When she transgressed the laws that I established;
And now to that she adds a second outrage—
To boast of what she did, and laugh at us.
Now she would be the man, not I, if she
Defeated me and did not pay for it.
But though she be my niece, or closer still
Than all our family, she shall not escape
The direst penalty; no, nor shall her sister:
I judge her guilty too; she played her part
In burying the body. Summon her.
Just now I saw her raving and distracted
Within the palace. So it often is:
Those who plan crime in secret are betrayed
Despite themselves; they show it in thei
r faces.
But this is worst of all: to be convicted
And then to glorify the crime as virtue.
[Exeunt some GUARDS.]
ANTIGONE. Would you do more than simply take and kill me?
CREON. I will have nothing more, and nothing less.
ANTIGONE. Then why delay? To me no word of yours
Is pleasing—God forbid it should be so!—
And everything in me displeases you.
Yet what could I have done to win renown
More glorious than giving burial
To my own brother? These men too would say it,
Except that terror cows them into silence.
A king has many a privilege: the greatest,
That he can say and do all that he will.
CREON. You are the only one in Thebes to think it!
ANTIGONE. These think as I do—but they dare not speak.
CREON. Have you no shame, not to conform with others?
ANTIGONE. To reverence a brother is no shame.
CREON. Was he no brother, he who died for Thebes?
ANTIGONE. One mother and one father gave them birth.
CREON. Honouring the traitor, you dishonour him.
ANTIGONE. He will not bear this testimony, in death.
CREON. Yes! if the traitor fare the same as he.
ANTIGONE. It was a brother, not a slave who died!
CREON. He died attacking Thebes; the other saved us.
ANTIGONE. Even so, the god of Death demands these rites.
CREON. The good demand more honour than the wicked.
ANTIGONE. Who knows? In death they may be reconciled.
CREON. Death does not make an enemy a friend!
ANTIGONE. Even so, I give both love, not share their hatred.
CREON. Down then to Hell! Love there, if love you must.
While I am living, no woman shall have rule.
[Enter GUARDS, with ISMENE.]
CHORUS. [Chants] See where Ismene leaves the palace-gate,
In tears shed for her sister. On her brow
A cloud of grief has blotted out her sun,
And breaks in rain upon her comeliness.
CREON. You, lurking like a serpent in my house,
Drinking my life-blood unawares; nor did
I know that I was cherishing two fiends,
Subverters of my throne; come, tell me this:
Do you confess you shared this burial.
Or will you swear you had no knowledge of it?
ISMENE. I did it too, if she allows my claim;
I share the burden of this heavy charge.
ANTIGONE. No! Justice will not suffer that; for you
Refused, and I gave you no part in it.