Creon Old man, you all shoot your arrows at me, like archers at their mark, and I am not safe even from the plottings of the seer’s divine art, but by their tribe I have long been bought and sold and made their merchandise. Turn your profits, make your deals for the white gold of Sardis and the gold of India, if it pleases you, but you shall not cover that man with a grave, not even if the eagles of Zeus wish to snatch and carry him to be devoured at the god’s throne. No, not even then, for fear of that defilement will I permit his burial, since I know with certainty that no mortal has the power to defile the gods. But even the exceedingly clever, old Teiresias, falls with a shameful fall, when they couch shameful thoughts in fine phrasing for profit’s sake.
Teiresias Alas! Does any man know, does any consider—
Creon What is this? What universal truth are you announcing?
Teiresias —by how much the most precious of our possessions is the power to reason wisely?
Creon By as much, I think, as senselessness is the greatest affliction.
Teiresias Yet you came into being full of that disease.
Creon I have no desire to trade insults with the seer.
Teiresias Yet that is what you do in saying that I prophesy falsely.
Creon Yes, for the prophet-clan was ever fond of money.
Teiresias And the race sprung from tyrants loves shameful gain.
Creon Do you know that you ramble so about your king?
Teiresias I am aware, since through me you have saved this city.
Creon You are a wise seer, but fond of doing injustice.
Teiresias You will stir me to utter the dire secret in my soul.
Creon Out with it! But only if it is not for gain that you speak it.
Teiresias Indeed, I think I speak without mention of gain—where you are concerned.
Creon Be certain that you will not trade in my will.
Teiresias
Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through many more courses of the sun’s swift chariot, before you will give in return one sprung from your own loins, a corpse in requital for corpses. For you have thrust below one of those of the upper air and irreverently lodged a living soul in the grave, while you detain in this world that which belongs to the infernal gods, a corpse unburied, unmourned, unholy. In the dead you have no part, nor do the gods above, but in this you do them violence. For these crimes the avenging destroyers, the Furies of Hades and of the gods, lie in ambush for you, waiting to seize you in these same sufferings. And look closely if I tell you this with a silvered palm. A time not long to be delayed will reveal in your house wailing over men and over women. All the cities are stirred up in hostility, whose mangled corpses the dogs, or the wild beasts or some winged bird buried, carrying an unholy stench to the city that held each man’s hearth. There, now, are arrows for your heart, since you provoke me, launched at you, archer-like, in my anger. They fly true—you cannot run from their burning sting. Boy, lead me home, so that he may launch his rage against younger men, and learn to keep a quieter tongue and a better mind within his breast than he now bears.
Chorus The man is gone, my king, leaving dire prophecies behind. And for all the time that I have had this hair on my head, now white, once dark, I know that he has never been a false prophet to our city.
Creon I, too, know it well, and my mind is troubled. To yield is terrible, but, to resist, to strike my pride with ruin—this, too, inspires terror.
Chorus The moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.
Creon What should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.
Chorus Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then raise a tomb for the unburied dead.
Creon And you recommend this? You think that I should yield?
Chorus Yes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.
Creon Ah, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.
Chorus Go, do these things and do not leave their performance to others.
Creon Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of you! Take axes in your hands, and hurry to that place there in view! But since my judgment has taken this turn, I will be there to set her free, as I myself confined her. I am held by the fear that it is best to keep the established laws to life’s very end.
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