Creon You, you with your face bent to the ground, do you admit, or deny that you did this?
Antigone I declare it and make no denial.
Creon You can take yourself wherever you please, free and clear of a heavy charge.
You, however, tell me—not at length, but briefly—did you know that an edict had forbidden this?
Antigone I knew it. How could I not? It was public.
Creon And even so you dared overstep that law?
Antigone Yes, since it was not Zeus that published me that edict, and since not of that kind are the laws which Justice who dwells with the gods below established among men. Nor did I think that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes given us by the gods. For their life is not of today or yesterday, but for all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth. Not for fear of any man’s pride was I about to owe a penalty to the gods for breaking these. Die I must, that I knew well (how could I not?). That is true even without your edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain. When anyone lives as I do, surrounded by evils, how can he not carry off gain by dying? So for me to meet this doom is a grief of no account. But if I had endured that my mother’s son should in death lie an unburied corpse, that would have grieved me. Yet for this, I am not grieved. And if my present actions are foolish in your sight, it may be that it is a fool who accuses me of folly.
Chorus She shows herself the wild offspring of a wild father, and does not know how to bend before troubles.
Creon Yet remember that over-hard spirits most often collapse. It is the stiffest iron, baked to utter hardness in the fire, that you most often see snapped and shivered. And I have witnessed horses with great spirit disciplined by a small bit. For there is no place for pride, when one is his neighbors’ slave. This girl was already practiced in outrage when she overstepped the published laws. And, that done, this now is a second outrage, that she glories in it and exults in her deed. In truth, then, I am no man, but she is, if this victory rests with her and brings no penalty. No! Whether she is my sister’s child, or nearer to me in blood than any of my kin that worship Zeus at the altar of our house, she and her sister will not escape a doom most harsh. For in truth I charge that other with an equal share in the plotting of this burial. Call her out! I saw her inside just now, raving, and not in control of her wits. Before the deed, the mind frequently is convicted of stealthy crimes when conspirators are plotting depravity in the dark. But, truly, I detest it, too, when one who has been caught in treachery then seeks to make the crime a glory.
Antigone What more do you want than to capture and kill me?
Creon I want nothing else. Having that, I have everything.
Antigone Why then do you wait? In none of your maxims 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, 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 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 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 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 if you must. While I live, no woman will rule me.
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