Sophocles, Antigone 1257–1353: Exodos: Creon's lament

Look, here is the King himself approaching, his hands grasping a monument plainly signing that his—if we may say it—and no one else’s, was the madness of this error.

Ah, the blunders of an unthinking mind, blunders of rigidity, yielding death! Oh, you witnesses of the killers and the killed, both of one family! What misery arises from my reasonings! Haemon, you have died after a young life, youngest and last of my sons! O God! You have departed not by your foolishness, but by my own!

Chorus Ah, how late you seem to see the right!

Creon God, I have mastered the bitter lesson! But then, then, I think, some god struck me on my head with a crushing weight, and drove me into savage paths, —ah!—and overthrew my joy to be trampled on! Ah, the labors men must toil through!

My master, you have come, I think, like one whose hands are not empty, but who has a ready store: first, you carry that burden visible in your arms; second, you will soon look upon further sufferings inside your house.

Creon What worse suffering is still to follow upon these sufferings?

Messenger Your wife is dead, true mother of that corpse, poor lady, by wounds newly cut.

O harbor of Hades, hard to purify! Why, why do you ruin me? Herald of evil, of grief, what word do you say? Ah, you have done in a dead man anew! What are you saying, boy? What is this you report to me God no!—what new slaughter, my wife’s doom, is heaped upon this ruin?

The sight is at hand. It is no longer hidden inside.

Creon Ah, misery! There I see a new, a second evil! What destiny, ah, what, can still await me? I have just now taken my son in my arms, and now I see another corpse before me! Oh, tormented mother! Oh, my son!

Messenger By the altar, with a sharp-whetted sword, she struck until her eyes went slack and dark. Before that she bewailed the noble fate of Megareus who died earlier, and then the fate of this boy, and also, with her last breath, she called down evil fortune upon you, the slayer of her sons.

Creon Ah, no! I tremble with fear. Why does no one strike me full on my chest with a two-edged sword? I am miserable—ah—and bathed in miserable anguish!

Messenger Yes, because you were accused of responsibility for both this son’s death, and the other’s, by her whose corpse you see.

Creon What was the manner of the violent deed by which she departed?

Messenger Her own hand struck her to the heart upon learning her son’s sharply-lamented fate.

Creon Ah this guilt can never be fastened onto any other mortal so as to remove my own! It was I, yes, I, who killed you, I the wretch. I admit the truth. Lead me away, my servants, lead me from here with all haste, who am no more than a dead man!

Chorus The course you recommend is to your gain, if there can be gain amidst evil. What is briefest is best, when trouble lies at your feet.

Let it come, let it appear, that fairest of fates for me, that brings my final day, the fate supreme! Oh, let it come, so that I may never see tomorrow’s light!

Chorus These things are in the future. We must see to present affairs. Fulfillment of these things rests in the hands where it should rest.

Creon All that I crave was summed in that prayer.

Chorus Then pray no more; for mortals have no release from destined misfortune.

Lead me away, I beg you, a rash, useless man. I have murdered you, son, unwittingly, and you, too, my wife—the misery! I do not know which way I should look, or where I should seek support. All is amiss that is in my hands, and, again, a crushing fate has leapt upon my head.

Wisdom is provided as the chief part of happiness, and our dealings with the gods must be in no way unholy. The great words of arrogant men have to make repayment with great blows, and in old age teach wisdom.