The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Index Database

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Due to load times, full text fetching is currently attempted for validated results only.
Full texts for Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts is kindly supplied by Sefaria; for Greek and Latin texts, by Perseus Scaife, for the Quran, by Tanzil.net

For a list of book indices included, see here.

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All subjects (including unvalidated):

subject	book bibliographic info
creon	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 141, 142, 146, 150, 155, 194 Augoustakis (2014), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past, 202, 203, 204, 205, 209 Bednarek (2021), The Myth of Lycurgus in Aeschylus, Naevius, and beyond, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 Bernabe et al. (2013), Redefining Dionysos, 273, 274, 285 Bierl (2017), Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture, 114, 116, 125, 126, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 148, 150, 151, 153, 156, 158, 218 Bremmer (2008), Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible, and the Ancient Near East, 237 Del Lucchese (2019), Monstrosity and Philosophy: Radical Otherness in Greek and Latin Culture, 50, 51 Gazis and Hooper (2021), Aspects of Death and the Afterlife in Greek Literature, 61 Huffman (2019), A History of Pythagoreanism, 90 Johnston and Struck (2005), Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination, 197 Jouanna (2012), Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen, 58, 60, 123 Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 159, 160, 161, 197, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 671 Kirichenko (2022), Greek Literature and the Ideal: The Pragmatics of Space from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Age, 102, 103, 126 Mikalson (2010), Greek Popular Religion in Greek Philosophy, 176 Naiden (2013), Smoke Signals for the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacrifice from the Archaic through Roman Periods, 118, 139, 160, 163 Panoussi(2019), Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women's Rituals in Roman Literature, 106, 109, 110, 241 Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 21, 22, 23, 25 Roumpou (2023), Ritual and the Poetics of Closure in Flavian Literature. 23, 138, 146, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154 Trott (2019), Aristotle on the Matter of Form: ? Feminist Metaphysics of Generation, 128 Verhagen (2022), Security and Credit in Roman Law: The Historical Evolution of Pignus and Hypotheca, 202, 203, 204, 205, 209
creon, and /as eteocles	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 134, 147, 157, 158
creon, and agōn scenes	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 285
creon, and alcmeon’s children	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 120, 121
creon, and antigone	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 354
creon, and boundaries	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 88, 89, 90, 91, 96
creon, and delphi	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 144, 145
creon, and grief	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 69, 70, 72, 78, 79, 80, 81
creon, and haemon’s speech	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 297
creon, and hatred	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 714
creon, and law	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 749 Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 88, 89
creon, and oedipus	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 359, 360, 386, 387, 452, 737
creon, and polynices’ burial	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 397, 398, 399
creon, and song	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 273
creon, and steadfast minds	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 99, 100, 101
creon, and straightness	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 90, 91, 98, 111, 112
creon, and the commoi	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 276, 277
creon, and tragic discovery	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442
creon, and transgression	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 88, 89, 93, 96, 105
creon, and wisdom	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 369
creon, and women	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 338, 339
creon, antigone, vs.	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 333, 334
creon, anxiety of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 428, 429
creon, arrival of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 262, 263, 715
creon, arrival, of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 715
creon, as a political hero	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338
creon, as a repeating character	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 358
creon, as lucan’s caesar	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 153
creon, as medea, creon, statius’	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 76
creon, as pelias	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 69, 70, 72, 79, 80
creon, as tyrant	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 201, 333, 334, 335, 741
creon, chorus, the, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441
creon, demosthenes, on	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 731
creon, destiny, of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 338, 438, 439, 440, 441
creon, eteocles, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 333, 334
creon, eteocles, as pelias and	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 147
creon, eur. med.	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 118
creon, eur. phoenician women	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 35
creon, eurydice, wife of	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 78, 79
creon, feminized	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 128
creon, gods, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 439, 440, 441
creon, in antigone, sophocles	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 358
creon, in episodes	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 261, 265, 266
creon, in medea	Bexley (2022), Seneca's Characters: Fictional Identities and Implied Human Selves, 43, 44, 299
creon, in oedipus	Bexley (2022), Seneca's Characters: Fictional Identities and Implied Human Selves, 248, 249, 258, 259
creon, in oedipus at colonus, sophocles	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 358
creon, in oedipus the king, sophocles	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 358
creon, in the exodos	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 268, 269
creon, in the social hierarchy	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 316, 317
creon, ismene, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 334, 335
creon, justification, of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 337
creon, king of thebes	Csapo et al. (2022), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, 165, 201, 206
creon, king of thebes, characters, tragic/mythical	Liapis and Petrides (2019), Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca, 36, 248, 278, 284, 285, 287, 319
creon, king, antigone	Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 90
creon, king, oedipus the king	Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 79
creon, king, phoenician women	Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 83
creon, law, of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 749
creon, nature, of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 333, 334, 358
creon, oedipus, and	Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 79
creon, oedipus, vs.	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 737
creon, on gender differentiation	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 90, 100, 101
creon, polynices, oedipus’s son, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 333, 334
creon, responsibility, of oedipus vs.	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 441
creon, role of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 208, 213, 217, 223, 224, 234, 253, 254, 255
creon, seers, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 335, 336
creon, sen. king oedipus	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 39, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55
creon, sen. med.	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 118
creon, soph. antigone	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 35, 71, 72, 79, 80
creon, theb.	Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81
creon, tiresias, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 438, 439
creon, transgression, and	Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 88, 89, 93, 96, 105
creon, violence of	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 152
creon, wisdom, and	Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 335, 398, 439

List of validated texts:

16 validated results for "creon"

1. None, None, nan (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon, and Delphi

Found in books: Gazis and Hooper (2021), Aspects of Death and the Afterlife in Greek Literature, 61; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 145

2. None, None, nan (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon

Found in books: Papaioannou et al. (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23; Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23

3. Euripides, Medea, 1383 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon

Found in books: Liatsi (2021), Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature: Aspects of Ethical Reasoning from Homer to Aristotle and Beyond, 135; Lipka (2021), Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism: Textual Genres and 'Reality' from Homer to Heliodorus, 91

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1383 τὸ λοιπὸν ἀντὶ τοῦδε δυσσεβοῦς φόνου.'' None

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1383 that none of their foes may insult them by pulling down their tombs; and in this land of Sisyphus I will ordain hereafter a solemn feast and mystic rites to atone for this impious murder. Myself will now to the land of Erechtheus,'' None

4. Euripides, Phoenician Women, 1090-1199 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon

Found in books: Augoustakis (2014), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past, 205; Verhagen (2022), Security and Credit in Roman Law: The Historical Evolution of Pignus and Hypotheca, 205

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1090 ἐπεὶ Κρέοντος παῖς ὁ γῆς ὑπερθανὼν'¹⁰⁹¹ πύργων ἐπ' ἄκρων στὰς μελάνδετον ξίφος" '¹⁰⁹² λαιμῶν διῆκε τῇδε γῇ σωτήριον, ¹⁰⁹³ λόχους ἔνειμεν ἑπτὰ καὶ λοχαγέτας' "¹⁰⁹⁴ πύλας ἐφ' ἑπτά, φύλακας ̓Αργείου δορός," "¹⁰⁹⁵ σὸς παῖς, ἐφέδρους δ' ἱππότας μὲν ἱππόταις" "¹⁰⁹⁶ ἔταξ', ὁπλίτας δ' ἀσπιδηφόροις ἔπι," '¹⁰⁹⁷ ὡς τῷ νοσοῦντι τειχέων εἴη δορὸς' "¹⁰⁹⁸ ἀλκὴ δι' ὀλίγου. περγάμων δ' ἀπ' ὀρθίων" '¹⁰⁹⁹ λεύκασπιν εἰσορῶμεν ̓Αργείων στρατὸν ¹¹⁰⁰ Τευμησὸν ἐκλιπόντα, καὶ τάφρου πέλας ¹¹⁰¹ δρόμῳ ξυνῆψαν ἄστυ Καδμείας χθονός. ¹¹⁰² παιὰν δὲ καὶ σάλπιγγες ἐκελάδουν ὁμοῦ ¹¹⁰³ ἐκεῖθεν ἔκ τε τειχέων ἡμῶν πάρα. ¹¹⁰⁴ καὶ πρῶτα μὲν προσῆγε Νηίταις πύλαις ¹¹⁰⁵ λόχον πυκναῖσιν ἀσπίσιν πεφρικότα ¹¹⁰⁶ ὁ τῆς κυναγοῦ Παρθενοπαῖος ἔκγονος,' "¹¹⁰⁷ ἐπίσημ' ἔχων οἰκεῖον ἐν μέσῳ σάκει," '¹¹⁰⁸ ἑκηβόλοις τόξοισιν ̓Αταλάντην κάπρον ¹¹⁰⁹ χειρουμένην Αἰτωλόν. ἐς δὲ Προιτίδας' "¹¹¹⁰ πύλας ἐχώρει σφάγι' ἔχων ἐφ' ἅρματι" "¹¹¹¹ ὁ μάντις ̓Αμφιάραος, οὐ σημεῖ' ἔχων" "¹¹¹² ὑβρισμέν', ἀλλὰ σωφρόνως ἄσημ' ὅπλα." "¹¹¹³ ̓Ωγύγια δ' ἐς πυλώμαθ' ̔Ιππομέδων ἄναξ" "¹¹¹⁴ ἔστειχ' ἔχων σημεῖον ἐν μέσῳ σάκει" '¹¹¹⁵ στικτοῖς Πανόπτην ὄμμασιν δεδορκότα, ¹¹¹⁶ τὰ μὲν σὺν ἄστρων ἐπιτολαῖσιν ὄμματα ¹¹¹⁷ βλέποντα, τὰ δὲ κρύπτοντα δυνόντων μέτα, ¹¹¹⁸ ὡς ὕστερον θανόντος εἰσορᾶν παρῆν. ¹¹¹⁹ ̔Ομολωίσιν δὲ τάξιν εἶχε πρὸς πύλαις' "¹¹²⁰ Τυδεύς, λέοντος δέρος ἔχων ἐπ' ἀσπίδι" '¹¹²¹ χαίτῃ πεφρικός: δεξιᾷ δὲ λαμπάδα ¹¹²² Τιτὰν Προμηθεὺς ἔφερεν ὡς πρήσων πόλιν. ¹¹²³ ὁ σὸς δὲ Κρηναίαισι Πολυνείκης πύλαις' "¹¹²⁴ ̓́Αρη προσῆγε: Ποτνιάδες δ' ἐπ' ἀσπίδι" '¹¹²⁵ ἐπίσημα πῶλοι δρομάδες ἐσκίρτων φόβῳ, ¹¹²⁶ εὖ πως στρόφιγξιν ἔνδοθεν κυκλούμεναι' "¹¹²⁷ πόρπαχ' ὑπ' αὐτόν, ὥστε μαίνεσθαι δοκεῖν." "¹¹²⁸ ὁ δ' οὐκ ἔλασσον ̓́Αρεος ἐς μάχην φρονῶν" "¹¹²⁹ Καπανεὺς προσῆγε λόχον ἐπ' ̓Ηλέκτραις πύλαις:" "¹¹³⁰ σιδηρονώτοις δ' ἀσπίδος τύποις ἐπῆν" "¹¹³¹ γίγας ἐπ' ὤμοις γηγενὴς ὅλην πόλιν" '¹¹³² φέρων μοχλοῖσιν ἐξανασπάσας βάθρων, ¹¹³³ ὑπόνοιαν ἡμῖν οἷα πείσεται πόλις.' "¹¹³⁴ ταῖς δ' ἑβδόμαις ̓́Αδραστος ἐν πύλαισιν ἦν," "¹¹³⁵ ἑκατὸν ἐχίδναις ἀσπίδ' ἐκπληρῶν γραφῇ," '¹¹³⁶ ὕδρας ἔχων λαιοῖσιν ἐν βραχίοσιν' "¹¹³⁷ ̓Αργεῖον αὔχημ': ἐκ δὲ τειχέων μέσων" '¹¹³⁸ δράκοντες ἔφερον τέκνα Καδμείων γνάθοις.' "¹¹³⁹ παρῆν δ' ἑκάστου τῶνδέ μοι θεάματα" '¹¹⁴⁰ ξύνθημα παρφέροντι ποιμέσιν λόχων. ¹¹⁴¹ καὶ πρῶτα μὲν τόξοισι καὶ μεσαγκύλοις' "¹¹⁴² ἐμαρνάμεσθα σφενδόναις θ' ἑκηβόλοις" "¹¹⁴³ πετρῶν τ' ἀραγμοῖς: ὡς δ' ἐνικῶμεν μάχῃ," '¹¹⁴⁴ ἔκλαγξε Τυδεὺς καὶ σὸς ἐξαίφνης γόνος: ¹¹⁴⁵ ὦ τέκνα Δαναῶν, πρὶν κατεξάνθαι βολαῖς,' "¹¹⁴⁶ τί μέλλετ' ἄρδην πάντες ἐμπίπτειν πύλαις," "¹¹⁴⁷ γυμνῆτες ἱππῆς ἁρμάτων τ' ἐπιστάται;" "¹¹⁴⁸ ἠχῆς δ' ὅπως ἤκουσαν, οὔτις ἀργὸς ἦν:" "¹¹⁴⁹ πολλοὶ δ' ἔπιπτον κρᾶτας αἱματούμενοι," "¹¹⁵⁰ ἡμῶν τ' ἐς οὖδας εἶδες ἂν πρὸ τειχέων" '¹¹⁵¹ πυκνοὺς κυβιστητῆρας ἐκπεπνευκότας:' "¹¹⁵² ξηρὰν δ' ἔδευον γαῖαν αἵματος ῥοαῖς." "¹¹⁵³ ὁ δ' ̓Αρκάς, οὐκ ̓Αργεῖος, ̓Αταλάντης γόνος" '¹¹⁵⁴ τυφὼς πύλαισιν ὥς τις ἐμπεσὼν βοᾷ ¹¹⁵⁵ πῦρ καὶ δικέλλας, ὡς κατασκάψων πόλιν:' "¹¹⁵⁶ ἀλλ' ἔσχε μαργῶντ' αὐτὸν ἐναλίου θεοῦ" '¹¹⁵⁷ Περικλύμενος παῖς λᾶαν ἐμβαλὼν κάρᾳ' "¹¹⁵⁸ ἁμαξοπληθῆ, γεῖς' ἐπάλξεων ἄπο:" '¹¹⁵⁹ ξανθὸν δὲ κρᾶτα διεπάλυνε καὶ ῥαφὰς' "¹¹⁶⁰ ἔρρηξεν ὀστέων, ἄρτι δ' οἰνωπὸν γένυν" "¹¹⁶¹ καθῃμάτωσεν: οὐδ' ἀποίσεται βίον" '¹¹⁶² τῇ καλλιτόξῳ μητρὶ Μαινάλου κόρῃ.' "¹¹⁶³ ἐπεὶ δὲ τάσδ' ἐσεῖδεν εὐτυχεῖς πύλας," "¹¹⁶⁴ ἄλλας ἐπῄει παῖς σός, εἱπόμην δ' ἐγώ." '¹¹⁶⁵ ὁρῶ δὲ Τυδέα καὶ παρασπιστὰς πυκνοὺς ¹¹⁶⁶ Αἰτωλίσιν λόγχαισιν εἰς ἄκρον στόμα' "¹¹⁶⁷ πύργων ἀκοντίζοντας, ὥστ' ἐπάλξεων" '¹¹⁶⁸ λιπεῖν ἐρίπνας φυγάδας: ἀλλά νιν πάλιν ¹¹⁶⁹ κυναγὸς ὡσεὶ παῖς σὸς ἐξαθροίζεται,' "¹¹⁷⁰ πύργοις δ' ἐπέστης' αὖθις. ἐς δ' ἄλλας πύλας" '¹¹⁷¹ ἠπειγόμεσθα, τοῦτο παύσαντες νοσοῦν.' "¹¹⁷² Καπανεὺς δὲ πῶς εἴποιμ' ἂν ὡς ἐμαίνετο;" '¹¹⁷³ μακραύχενος γὰρ κλίμακος προσαμβάσεις' "¹¹⁷⁴ ἔχων ἐχώρει, καὶ τοσόνδ' ἐκόμπασε," "¹¹⁷⁵ μηδ' ἂν τὸ σεμνὸν πῦρ νιν εἰργαθεῖν Διὸς" "¹¹⁷⁶ τὸ μὴ οὐ κατ' ἄκρων περγάμων ἑλεῖν πόλιν." "¹¹⁷⁷ καὶ ταῦθ' ἅμ' ἠγόρευε καὶ πετρούμενος" "¹¹⁷⁸ ἀνεῖρφ' ὑπ' αὐτὴν ἀσπίδ' εἱλίξας δέμας," "¹¹⁷⁹ κλίμακος ἀμείβων ξέστ' ἐνηλάτων βάθρα." "¹¹⁸⁰ ἤδη δ' ὑπερβαίνοντα γεῖσα τειχέων" '¹¹⁸¹ βάλλει κεραυνῷ Ζεύς νιν: ἐκτύπησε δὲ ¹¹⁸² χθών, ὥστε δεῖσαι πάντας: ἐκ δὲ κλιμάκων ¹¹⁸³ ἐσφενδονᾶτο χωρὶς ἀλλήλων μέλη,' "¹¹⁸⁴ κόμαι μὲν εἰς ̓́Ολυμπον, αἷμα δ' ἐς χθόνα," "¹¹⁸⁵ χεῖρες δὲ καὶ κῶλ' ὡς κύκλωμ' ̓Ιξίονος" "¹¹⁸⁶ εἱλίσσετ': ἐς γῆν δ' ἔμπυρος πίπτει νεκρός." "¹¹⁸⁷ ὡς δ' εἶδ' ̓́Αδραστος Ζῆνα πολέμιον στρατῷ," '¹¹⁸⁸ ἔξω τάφρου καθῖσεν ̓Αργείων στρατόν.' "¹¹⁸⁹ οἱ δ' αὖ παρ' ἡμῶν δεξιὸν Διὸς τέρας" '¹¹⁹⁰ ἰδόντες ἐξήλαυνον ἁρμάτων ὄχους' "¹¹⁹¹ ἱππῆς ὁπλῖται, κἀς μές' ̓Αργείων ὅπλα" "¹¹⁹² συνῆψαν ἔγχη: πάντα δ' ἦν ὁμοῦ κακά:" '¹¹⁹³ ἔθνῃσκον ἐξέπιπτον ἀντύγων ἄπο,' "¹¹⁹⁴ τροχοί τ' ἐπήδων ἄξονές τ' ἐπ' ἄξοσι," "¹¹⁹⁵ νεκροὶ δὲ νεκροῖς ἐξεσωρεύονθ' ὁμοῦ." '¹¹⁹⁶ πύργων μὲν οὖν γῆς ἔσχομεν κατασκαφὰς' "¹¹⁹⁷ ἐς τὴν παροῦσαν ἡμέραν: εἰ δ' εὐτυχὴς" '¹¹⁹⁸ ἔσται τὸ λοιπὸν ἥδε γῆ, θεοῖς μέλει: ¹¹⁹⁹ καὶ νῦν γὰρ αὐτὴν δαιμόνων ἔσῳσέ τις. " None

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1090 After Creon’s son, who gave up his life for his country, had taken his stand on the turret’s top and plunged a dark-hilted sword through his throat to save this land, your son told off seven companies with their captains to the seven gates to keep watch on the Argive warriors,'¹⁰⁹¹ After Creon’s son, who gave up his life for his country, had taken his stand on the turret’s top and plunged a dark-hilted sword through his throat to save this land, your son told off seven companies with their captains to the seven gates to keep watch on the Argive warriors, ¹⁰⁹⁵ and stationed cavalry to cover cavalry, and infantry to support infantry, so that assistance might be close at hand for any weak point in the walls. Then from our lofty towers we saw the Argive army with their white shields leaving ¹¹⁰⁰ Teumesus, and, when near the trench, they charged up to our Theban city at a run. In one loud burst from their ranks and from our walls rang out the battle-cry and trumpet-call. ¹¹⁰⁴ First to the Neitian gate, Parthenopaeus, son of the huntress, ¹¹⁰⁵ led a company bristling with thick rows of shields, and he had his own device in the centre of his shield: Atalanta slaying the Aetolian boar with an arrow shot from far. To the gates of Proetu ¹¹¹⁰ came the prophet Amphiaraus, bringing the victims on a chariot; he had no boastful sign, but weapons chastely plain. ¹¹¹³ Next lord Hippomedon came marching to the Ogygian gates with this device in the middle of his shield: ¹¹¹⁵ Argus the all-seeing dappled with eyes on the watch, some open with the rising stars, others hiding when they set, as could be seen after he was slain. ¹¹¹⁹ At the Homoloian gates Tydeus had his post, ¹¹²⁰ a lion’s skin with shaggy mane upon his shield, while the Titan Prometheus bore a torch in his right hand, to fire the town. ¹¹²³ Your own Polyneices led the battle against the Fountain gate; upon his shield for a device ¹¹²⁵ were the colts of Potniae galloping at frantic speed, revolving by some clever contrivance on pivots by the handle, so as to appear distraught. ¹¹²⁸ At Electra’s gate Capaneus brought up his company, bold as Ares for the battle; ¹¹³⁰ this device his shield bore upon its iron back: an earth-born giant carrying on his shoulders a whole city which he had wrenched from its base, a hint to us of the fate in store for Thebes . ¹¹³⁴ Adrastus was at the seventh gate; ¹¹³⁵ a hundred vipers engraved on his shield, as he bore on his left arm the hydra the boast of Argos , and serpents were carrying off in their jaws the sons of Thebes from within our very walls. Now I was able to see each of them, ¹¹⁴⁰ as I carried the watch-word along to the leaders of our companies. ¹¹⁴¹ To begin with, we fought with bows and thonged javelins, with slings that shoot from far and crashing stones; and as we were conquering, Tydeus and your son suddenly cried aloud: ¹¹⁴⁵ You sons of Danaus, before you are torn to pieces by their attack, why delay to fall upon the gates with all your might, light-armed and cavalry and charioteers? No loitering then, soon as they heard that call; and many fell with bloody head, ¹¹⁵⁰ and many of us you could have seen thrown to the earth like tumblers before the walls, breathing their last, bedewing the dry ground with streams of blood. ¹¹⁵³ Then Atalanta’s son, who was not an Argive but an Arcadian, hurling himself like a hurricane at the gates, called for ¹¹⁵⁵ fire and picks to raze the town; but Periclymenus, son of the ocean-god, stayed his wild career, heaving on his head a wagon-load of stone, the coping from the battlements; and it shattered his head with yellow hair and ¹¹⁶⁰ crashed through the seams of the skull, dabbling with blood his fresh cheek; and he will never go back alive to his mother with her lovely bow, the maid of Maenalus. ¹¹⁶³ Your son then, seeing these gates secure, went on to the next, and I followed him. ¹¹⁶⁵ I saw Tydeus and his thick rows of targeteers hurling their Aetolian spears into the opening at the top of the turrets, so that our men fled and left the battlements; but your son rallied them once more, as a huntsman cheers his hounds, ¹¹⁷⁰ and stationed them at the towers again. And then we hastened to other gates, after stopping the affliction there. As for the madness of Capaneus, how can I describe it? He was going about with a long scaling-ladder, and boasting ¹¹⁷⁵ that even the holy fire of Zeus would not hold him back from giving the city to utter destruction. And even as he spoke, he climbed up beneath the hail of stones, crouched under the shelter of his shield, rung by smooth rung going up the ladder. ¹¹⁸⁰ But, just as he was scaling the parapet of the wall, Zeus smote him with a thunderbolt; the earth re-echoed, and fear seized everyone; for from the ladder his limbs were slung far apart, his head toward Olympus , his blood toward earth, ¹¹⁸⁵ while his legs and arms went spinning round like Ixion’s wheel he was hurled, spinnning; his burning corpse fell to the ground. ¹¹⁸⁷ But when Adrastus saw that Zeus was hostile to his army, he drew the Argive troops outside the trench. Meanwhile our armed cavalry, seeing the lucky omen of Zeus before us, ¹¹⁹⁰ were driving forth their chariots, and the armed men charged with spears into the middle of the Argives, and all troubles happened at once: men were dying, hurled headlong from chariots, wheels flew off, axles crashed together, ¹¹⁹⁵ while the dead were heaped up on the dead. So for to-day we have prevented destruction of the towers of our land; but if this land will be fortunate for the future, that rests with the gods; for even now it owes its safety to some deity. Chorus Leader ' None

5. Euripides, Suppliant Women, 399-563 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon (king of Thebes)

Found in books: Augoustakis (2014), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past, 209; Csapo et al. (2022), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, 206; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 159, 160; Verhagen (2022), Security and Credit in Roman Law: The Historical Evolution of Pignus and Hypotheca, 209

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399 τίς γῆς τύραννος; πρὸς τίν' ἀγγεῖλαί με χρὴ"⁴⁰⁰ λόγους Κρέοντος, ὃς κρατεῖ Κάδμου χθονὸς' "⁴⁰¹ ̓Ετεοκλέους θανόντος ἀμφ' ἑπταστόμους" '⁴⁰² πύλας ἀδελφῇ χειρὶ Πολυνείκους ὕπο; ⁴⁰³ πρῶτον μὲν ἤρξω τοῦ λόγου ψευδῶς, ξένε,' "⁴⁰⁴ ζητῶν τύραννον ἐνθάδ': οὐ γὰρ ἄρχεται" "⁴⁰⁵ ἑνὸς πρὸς ἀνδρός, ἀλλ' ἐλευθέρα πόλις." "⁴⁰⁶ δῆμος δ' ἀνάσσει διαδοχαῖσιν ἐν μέρει" '⁴⁰⁷ ἐνιαυσίαισιν, οὐχὶ τῷ πλούτῳ διδοὺς ⁴⁰⁸ τὸ πλεῖστον, ἀλλὰ χὡ πένης ἔχων ἴσον.' "⁴⁰⁹ ἓν μὲν τόδ' ἡμῖν ὥσπερ ἐν πεσσοῖς δίδως" "⁴¹⁰ κρεῖσσον: πόλις γὰρ ἧς ἐγὼ πάρειμ' ἄπο" '⁴¹¹ ἑνὸς πρὸς ἀνδρός, οὐκ ὄχλῳ κρατύνεται:' "⁴¹² οὐδ' ἔστιν αὐτὴν ὅστις ἐκχαυνῶν λόγοις" "⁴¹³ πρὸς κέρδος ἴδιον ἄλλοτ' ἄλλοσε στρέφει," "⁴¹⁴ τὸ δ' αὐτίχ' ἡδὺς καὶ διδοὺς πολλὴν χάριν," "⁴¹⁵ ἐσαῦθις ἔβλαψ', εἶτα διαβολαῖς νέαις" "⁴¹⁶ κλέψας τὰ πρόσθε σφάλματ' ἐξέδυ δίκης." '⁴¹⁷ ἄλλως τε πῶς ἂν μὴ διορθεύων λόγους' "⁴¹⁸ ὀρθῶς δύναιτ' ἂν δῆμος εὐθύνειν πόλιν;" '⁴¹⁹ ὁ γὰρ χρόνος μάθησιν ἀντὶ τοῦ τάχους' "⁴²⁰ κρείσσω δίδωσι. γαπόνος δ' ἀνὴρ πένης," '⁴²¹ εἰ καὶ γένοιτο μὴ ἀμαθής, ἔργων ὕπο' "⁴²² οὐκ ἂν δύναιτο πρὸς τὰ κοίν' ἀποβλέπειν." '⁴²³ ἦ δὴ νοσῶδες τοῦτο τοῖς ἀμείνοσιν,' "⁴²⁴ ὅταν πονηρὸς ἀξίωμ' ἀνὴρ ἔχῃ" '⁴²⁵ γλώσσῃ κατασχὼν δῆμον, οὐδὲν ὢν τὸ πρίν.' "⁴²⁶ κομψός γ' ὁ κῆρυξ καὶ παρεργάτης λόγων." "⁴²⁷ ἐπεὶ δ' ἀγῶνα καὶ σὺ τόνδ' ἠγωνίσω," "⁴²⁸ ἄκου': ἅμιλλαν γὰρ σὺ προύθηκας λόγων." '⁴²⁹ οὐδὲν τυράννου δυσμενέστερον πόλει, ⁴³⁰ ὅπου τὸ μὲν πρώτιστον οὐκ εἰσὶν νόμοι' "⁴³¹ κοινοί, κρατεῖ δ' εἷς τὸν νόμον κεκτημένος" "⁴³² αὐτὸς παρ' αὑτῷ: καὶ τόδ' οὐκέτ' ἔστ' ἴσον." "⁴³³ γεγραμμένων δὲ τῶν νόμων ὅ τ' ἀσθενὴς" '⁴³⁴ ὁ πλούσιός τε τὴν δίκην ἴσην ἔχει,' "⁴³⁵ ἔστιν δ' ἐνισπεῖν τοῖσιν ἀσθενεστέροις" "⁴³⁶ τὸν εὐτυχοῦντα ταὔθ', ὅταν κλύῃ κακῶς," "⁴³⁷ νικᾷ δ' ὁ μείων τὸν μέγαν δίκαι' ἔχων." "⁴³⁸ τοὐλεύθερον δ' ἐκεῖνο: Τίς θέλει πόλει" "⁴³⁹ χρηστόν τι βούλευμ' ἐς μέσον φέρειν ἔχων;" "⁴⁴⁰ καὶ ταῦθ' ὁ χρῄζων λαμπρός ἐσθ', ὁ μὴ θέλων" "⁴⁴¹ σιγᾷ. τί τούτων ἔστ' ἰσαίτερον πόλει;" '⁴⁴² καὶ μὴν ὅπου γε δῆμος αὐθέντης χθονός, ⁴⁴³ ὑποῦσιν ἀστοῖς ἥδεται νεανίαις: ⁴⁴⁴ ἀνὴρ δὲ βασιλεὺς ἐχθρὸν ἡγεῖται τόδε,' "⁴⁴⁵ καὶ τοὺς ἀρίστους οὕς τ' ἂν ἡγῆται φρονεῖν" '⁴⁴⁶ κτείνει, δεδοικὼς τῆς τυραννίδος πέρι.' "⁴⁴⁷ πῶς οὖν ἔτ' ἂν γένοιτ' ἂν ἰσχυρὰ πόλις," '⁴⁴⁸ ὅταν τις ὡς λειμῶνος ἠρινοῦ στάχυν ⁴⁴⁹ τόλμας ἀφαιρῇ κἀπολωτίζῃ νέους; ⁴⁵⁰ κτᾶσθαι δὲ πλοῦτον καὶ βίον τί δεῖ τέκνοις' "⁴⁵¹ ὡς τῷ τυράννῳ πλείον' ἐκμοχθῇ βίον;" '⁴⁵² ἢ παρθενεύειν παῖδας ἐν δόμοις καλῶς, ⁴⁵³ τερπνὰς τυράννοις ἡδονάς, ὅταν θέλῃ,' "⁴⁵⁴ δάκρυα δ' ἑτοιμάζουσι; μὴ ζῴην ἔτι," '⁴⁵⁵ εἰ τἀμὰ τέκνα πρὸς βίαν νυμφεύσεται. ⁴⁵⁶ καὶ ταῦτα μὲν δὴ πρὸς τὰ σὰ ἐξηκόντισα. ⁴⁵⁷ ἥκεις δὲ δὴ τί τῆσδε γῆς κεχρημένος;' "⁴⁵⁸ κλαίων γ' ἂν ἦλθες, εἴ σε μὴ '†πεμψεν πόλις," '⁴⁵⁹ περισσὰ φωνῶν: τὸν γὰρ ἄγγελον χρεὼν' "⁴⁶⁰ λέξανθ' ὅς' ἂν τάξῃ τις ὡς τάχος πάλιν" "⁴⁶¹ χωρεῖν. τὸ λοιπὸν δ' εἰς ἐμὴν πόλιν Κρέων" "⁴⁶² ἧσσον λάλον σου πεμπέτω τιν' ἄγγελον." '⁴⁶³ φεῦ φεῦ: κακοῖσιν ὡς ὅταν δαίμων διδῷ' "⁴⁶⁴ καλῶς, ὑβρίζους' ὡς ἀεὶ πράξοντες εὖ." "⁴⁶⁵ λέγοιμ' ἂν ἤδη. τῶν μὲν ἠγωνισμένων" "⁴⁶⁶ σοὶ μὲν δοκείτω ταῦτ', ἐμοὶ δὲ τἀντία." "⁴⁶⁷ ἐγὼ δ' ἀπαυδῶ πᾶς τε Καδμεῖος λεὼς" '⁴⁶⁸ ̓́Αδραστον ἐς γῆν τήνδε μὴ παριέναι:' "⁴⁶⁹ εἰ δ' ἔστιν ἐν γῇ, πρὶν θεοῦ δῦναι σέλας," '⁴⁷⁰ λύσαντα σεμνὰ στεμμάτων μυστήρια' "⁴⁷¹ τῆσδ' ἐξελαύνειν, μηδ' ἀναιρεῖσθαι νεκροὺς" "⁴⁷² βίᾳ, προσήκοντ' οὐδὲν ̓Αργείων πόλει." '⁴⁷³ κἂν μὲν πίθῃ μοι, κυμάτων ἄτερ πόλιν ⁴⁷⁴ σὴν ναυστολήσεις: εἰ δὲ μή, πολὺς κλύδων' "⁴⁷⁵ ἡμῖν τε καὶ σοὶ συμμάχοις τ' ἔσται δορός." '⁴⁷⁶ σκέψαι δέ, καὶ μὴ τοῖς ἐμοῖς θυμούμενος ⁴⁷⁷ λόγοισιν, ὡς δὴ πόλιν ἐλευθέραν ἔχων,' "⁴⁷⁸ σφριγῶντ' ἀμείψῃ μῦθον ἐκ βραχιόνων:" "⁴⁷⁹ ἐλπὶς γάρ ἐστ' ἄπιστον, ἣ πολλὰς πόλεις" "⁴⁸⁰ συνῆψ', ἄγουσα θυμὸν εἰς ὑπερβολάς." '⁴⁸¹ ὅταν γὰρ ἔλθῃ πόλεμος ἐς ψῆφον λεώ,' "⁴⁸² οὐδεὶς ἔθ' αὑτοῦ θάνατον ἐκλογίζεται," "⁴⁸³ τὸ δυστυχὲς δὲ τοῦτ' ἐς ἄλλον ἐκτρέπει:" "⁴⁸⁴ εἰ δ' ἦν παρ' ὄμμα θάνατος ἐν ψήφου φορᾷ," "⁴⁸⁵ οὐκ ἄν ποθ' ̔Ελλὰς δοριμανὴς ἀπώλλυτο." '⁴⁸⁶ καίτοι δυοῖν γε πάντες ἄνθρωποι λόγοιν' "⁴⁸⁷ τὸν κρείσσον' ἴσμεν, καὶ τὰ χρηστὰ καὶ κακά," '⁴⁸⁸ ὅσῳ τε πολέμου κρεῖσσον εἰρήνη βροτοῖς: ⁴⁸⁹ ἣ πρῶτα μὲν Μούσαισι προσφιλεστάτη,' "⁴⁹⁰ Ποιναῖσι δ' ἐχθρά, τέρπεται δ' εὐπαιδίᾳ," "⁴⁹¹ χαίρει δὲ πλούτῳ. ταῦτ' ἀφέντες οἱ κακοὶ" '⁴⁹² πολέμους ἀναιρούμεσθα καὶ τὸν ἥσσονα' "⁴⁹³ δουλούμεθ', ἄνδρες ἄνδρα καὶ πόλις πόλιν." "⁴⁹⁴ σὺ δ' ἄνδρας ἐχθροὺς καὶ θανόντας ὠφελεῖς," "⁴⁹⁵ θάπτων κομίζων θ' ὕβρις οὓς ἀπώλεσεν;" "⁴⁹⁶ οὔ τἄρ' ἔτ' ὀρθῶς Καπανέως κεραύνιον" '⁴⁹⁷ δέμας καπνοῦται, κλιμάκων ὀρθοστάτας ⁴⁹⁸ ὃς προσβαλὼν πύλῃσιν ὤμοσεν πόλιν ⁴⁹⁹ πέρσειν θεοῦ θέλοντος ἤν τε μὴ θέλῃ;' "⁵⁰⁰ οὐδ' ἥρπασεν χάρυβδις οἰωνοσκόπον," '⁵⁰¹ τέθριππον ἅρμα περιβαλοῦσα χάσματι, ⁵⁰² ἄλλοι τε κεῖνται πρὸς πύλαις λοχαγέται ⁵⁰³ πέτροις καταξανθέντες ὀστέων ῥαφάς; ⁵⁰⁴ ἤ νυν φρονεῖν ἄμεινον ἐξαύχει Διός, ⁵⁰⁵ ἢ θεοὺς δικαίως τοὺς κακοὺς ἀπολλύναι. ⁵⁰⁶ φιλεῖν μὲν οὖν χρὴ τοὺς σοφοὺς πρῶτον τέκνα,' "⁵⁰⁷ ἔπειτα τοκέας πατρίδα θ', ἣν αὔξειν χρεὼν" '⁵⁰⁸ καὶ μὴ κατᾶξαι. σφαλερὸν ἡγεμὼν θρασύς: ⁵⁰⁹ νεώς τε ναύτης ἥσυχος, καιρῷ σοφός.' "⁵¹⁰ καὶ τοῦτ' ἐμοὶ τἀνδρεῖον, ἡ προμηθία." '⁵¹¹ ἐξαρκέσας ἦν Ζεὺς ὁ τιμωρούμενος,' "⁵¹² ὑμᾶς δ' ὑβρίζειν οὐκ ἐχρῆν τοιάνδ' ὕβριν." "⁵¹³ ὦ παγκάκιστε — σῖγ', ̓́Αδραστ', ἔχε στόμα," "⁵¹⁴ καὶ μὴ 'πίπροσθεν τῶν ἐμῶν τοὺς σοὺς λόγους" '⁵¹⁵ θῇς: οὐ γὰρ ἥκει πρὸς σὲ κηρύσσων ὅδε,' "⁵¹⁶ ἀλλ' ὡς ἔμ': ἡμᾶς κἀποκρίνασθαι χρεών." "⁵¹⁷ καὶ πρῶτα μέν σε πρὸς τὰ πρῶτ' ἀμείψομαι." "⁵¹⁸ οὐκ οἶδ' ἐγὼ Κρέοντα δεσπόζοντ' ἐμοῦ" "⁵¹⁹ οὐδὲ σθένοντα μεῖζον, ὥστ' ἀναγκάσαι" "⁵²⁰ δρᾶν τὰς ̓Αθήνας ταῦτ': ἄνω γὰρ ἂν ῥέοι" "⁵²¹ τὰ πράγμαθ' οὕτως, εἰ 'πιταξόμεσθα δή." '⁵²² πόλεμον δὲ τοῦτον οὐκ ἐγὼ καθίσταμαι,' "⁵²³ ὃς οὐδὲ σὺν τοῖσδ' ἦλθον ἐς Κάδμου χθόνα:" '⁵²⁴ νεκροὺς δὲ τοὺς θανόντας, οὐ βλάπτων πόλιν' "⁵²⁵ οὐδ' ἀνδροκμῆτας προσφέρων ἀγωνίας," '⁵²⁶ θάψαι δικαιῶ, τὸν Πανελλήνων νόμον ⁵²⁷ σῴζων. τί τούτων ἐστὶν οὐ καλῶς ἔχον;' "⁵²⁸ εἰ γάρ τι καὶ πεπόνθατ' ̓Αργείων ὕπο," '⁵²⁹ τεθνᾶσιν, ἠμύνασθε πολεμίους καλῶς,' "⁵³⁰ αἰσχρῶς δ' ἐκείνοις, χἡ δίκη διοίχεται." "⁵³¹ ἐάσατ' ἤδη γῇ καλυφθῆναι νεκρούς," "⁵³² ὅθεν δ' ἕκαστον ἐς τὸ φῶς ἀφίκετο," "⁵³³ ἐνταῦθ' ἀπελθεῖν, πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς αἰθέρα," "⁵³⁴ τὸ σῶμα δ' ἐς γῆν: οὔτι γὰρ κεκτήμεθα" '⁵³⁵ ἡμέτερον αὐτὸ πλὴν ἐνοικῆσαι βίον, ⁵³⁶ κἄπειτα τὴν θρέψασαν αὐτὸ δεῖ λαβεῖν. ⁵³⁷ δοκεῖς κακουργεῖν ̓́Αργος οὐ θάπτων νεκρούς; ⁵³⁸ ἥκιστα: πάσης ̔Ελλάδος κοινὸν τόδε, ⁵³⁹ εἰ τοὺς θανόντας νοσφίσας ὧν χρῆν λαχεῖν ⁵⁴⁰ ἀτάφους τις ἕξει: δειλίαν γὰρ ἐσφέρει ⁵⁴¹ τοῖς ἀλκίμοισιν οὗτος ἢν τεθῇ νόμος.' "⁵⁴² κἀμοὶ μὲν ἦλθες δείν' ἀπειλήσων ἔπη," "⁵⁴³ νεκροὺς δὲ ταρβεῖτ', εἰ κρυβήσονται χθονί;" '⁵⁴⁴ τί μὴ γένηται; μὴ κατασκάψωσι γῆν' "⁵⁴⁵ ταφέντες ὑμῶν; ἢ τέκν' ἐν μυχῷ χθονὸς" '⁵⁴⁶ φύσωσιν, ἐξ ὧν εἶσί τις τιμωρία; ⁵⁴⁷ σκαιόν γε τἀνάλωμα τῆς γλώσσης τόδε, ⁵⁴⁸ φόβους πονηροὺς καὶ κενοὺς δεδοικέναι.' "⁵⁴⁹ ἀλλ', ὦ μάταιοι, γνῶτε τἀνθρώπων κακά:" "⁵⁵⁰ παλαίσμαθ' ἡμῶν ὁ βίος: εὐτυχοῦσι δὲ" "⁵⁵¹ οἳ μὲν τάχ', οἳ δ' ἐσαῦθις, οἳ δ' ἤδη βροτῶν," "⁵⁵² τρυφᾷ δ' ὁ δαίμων: πρός τε γὰρ τοῦ δυστυχοῦς," '⁵⁵³ ὡς εὐτυχήσῃ, τίμιος γεραίρεται,' "⁵⁵⁴ ὅ τ' ὄλβιός νιν πνεῦμα δειμαίνων λιπεῖν" '⁵⁵⁵ ὑψηλὸν αἴρει. γνόντας οὖν χρεὼν τάδε ⁵⁵⁶ ἀδικουμένους τε μέτρια μὴ θυμῷ φέρειν' "⁵⁵⁷ ἀδικεῖν τε τοιαῦθ' οἷα μὴ βλάψαι πόλιν." '⁵⁵⁸ πῶς οὖν ἂν εἴη; τοὺς ὀλωλότας νεκροὺς ⁵⁵⁹ θάψαι δὸς ἡμῖν τοῖς θέλουσιν εὐσεβεῖν.' "⁵⁶⁰ ἢ δῆλα τἀνθένδ': εἶμι καὶ θάψω βίᾳ." "⁵⁶¹ οὐ γάρ ποτ' εἰς ̔́Ελληνας ἐξοισθήσεται" "⁵⁶² ὡς εἰς ἔμ' ἐλθὼν καὶ πόλιν Πανδίονος" '⁵⁶³ νόμος παλαιὸς δαιμόνων διεφθάρη.' "' None

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399 Who is the despot of this land? To whom must I announce'⁴⁰⁰ the message of Creon, who rules o’er the land of Cadmus, since Eteocles was slain by the hand of his brother Polynices, at the sevenfold gates of Thebes? Theseu ⁴⁰³ Sir stranger, thou hast made a false beginning to thy speech, in seeking here a despot. For this city is not ruled ⁴⁰⁵ by one man, but is free. The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich. Herald ⁴⁰⁹ Thou givest me here an advantage, as it might be in a game of draughts Possibly referring to a habit of allowing the weaker player so many moves or points. ; ⁴¹⁰ for the city, whence I come, is ruled by one man only, not by the mob; none there puffs up the citizens with specious words, and for his own advantage twists them this way or that,—one moment dear to them and lavish of his favours, ⁴¹⁵ the next a bane to all; and yet by fresh calumnies of others he hides his former failures and escapes punishment. Besides, how shall the people, if it cannot form true judgments, be able rightly to direct the state? Nay, ’tis time, not haste, that affords a better ⁴²⁰ understanding. A poor hind, granted he be not all unschooled, would still be unable from his toil to give his mind to politics. Verily Kirchhoff considers lines 423 to 425 spurious. the better sort count it no healthy sign when the worthless man obtains a reputation ⁴²⁵ by beguiling with words the populace, though aforetime he was naught. Theseu ⁴²⁶ This herald is a clever fellow, a dabbler in the art of talk. But since thou hast thus entered the lists with me, listen awhile, for ’twas thou didst challenge a discussion. Naught is more hostile to a city than a despot; ⁴³⁰ where he is, there are in the first place no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end. But when the laws are written down, rich and poor alike have equal justice, ⁴³⁵ and Nauck omits lines 435, 436, as they are not given by Stobaeus in quoting the passage. it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he have justice on his side. Freedom’s mark is also seen in this: Who A reference to the question put by the herald in the Athenian ἐκκλησία, Τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται ; It here serves as a marked characteristic of democracy. hath wholesome counsel to declare unto the state? ⁴⁴⁰ And he who chooses to do so gains renown, while he, who hath no wish, remains silent. What greater equality can there be in a city? ⁴⁴² Again, where the people are absolute rulers of the land, they rejoice in having a reserve of youthful citizens, while a king counts The words ἐχθρὸν . . . ἀρίστους are regarded by Nauck as spurious. this a hostile element, ⁴⁴⁵ and strives to slay the leading men, all such as he deems discreet, for he feareth for his power. How then can a city remain stable, where one cuts short all i.e. τόλμας for which Prinz suggests κλῶνας . enterprise and mows down the young like meadow-flowers in spring-time? ⁴⁵⁰ What boots it to acquire wealth and livelihood for children, merely Kirchhoff rejects this line. to add to the tyrant’s substance by one’s toil? Why train up virgin daughters virtuously in our homes to gratify a tyrant’s whim, whenso he will, and cause tears to those who rear them? May my life end ⁴⁵⁵ if ever my children are to be wedded by violence! This bolt I launch in answer to thy words. Now say, why art thou come? what needest thou of this land? Had not thy city sent thee, to thy cost hadst thou come with thy outrageous utterances; for it is the herald’s duty ⁴⁶⁰ to tell the message he is bidden and hie him back in haste. Henceforth forth let Creon send to my city some other messenger less talkative than thee. Choru ⁴⁶³ Look you! how insolent the villains are, when Fortune is kind to them, just as if it would be well with them for ever. Herald ⁴⁶⁵ Now will I speak. On these disputed points hold thou this view, but I the contrary. ⁴⁶⁷ So I and all the people of Cadmus forbid thee to admit Adrastus to this land, but if he is here, ⁴⁷⁰ drive him forth in disregard of the holy suppliant Reading ἰκτήρια with Nauck. bough he bears, ere sinks yon blazing sun, and attempt not violently to take up the dead, seeing thou hast naught to do with the city of Argos. And if thou wilt hearken to me, thou shalt bring thy barque of state into port unharmed by the billows; but if not, fierce shall the surge of battle be, ⁴⁷⁵ that we and our allies shall raise. Take good thought, nor, angered at my words, because forsooth thou rulest thy city with freedom, return a vaunting answer from Hartung’s emendation of this doubtful expression is ’εν βραχεῖ λόγῳ . thy feebler means. Hope is man’s curse; many a state hath it involved ⁴⁸⁰ in strife, by leading them into excessive rage. For whenso the city has to vote on the question of war, no man ever takes his own death into account, but shifts this misfortune on to his neighbour; but if death had been before their eyes when they were giving their votes, ⁴⁸⁵ Hellas would ne’er have rushed to her doom in mad desire for battle. And yet each man amongst us knows which of the two to prefer, the good or ill, and how much better peace is for mankind than war,—peace, the Muses’ chiefest friend, ⁴⁹⁰ the foe of sorrow, whose joy is in glad throngs of children, and its delight in prosperity. These are the blessings we cast away and wickedly embark on war, man enslaving his weaker brother, and cities following suit. ⁴⁹⁴ Now thou art helping our foes even after death, ⁴⁹⁵ trying to rescue and bury those whom their own acts of insolence haye ruined. Verily then it would seem Capaneus was unjustly blasted by the thunderbolt and charred upon the ladder he had raised against our gates, swearing he would sack our town, whether the god would or no; ⁵⁰⁰ nor should the yawning earth have snatched away the seer, i.e. Amphiaraus, who disappeared in a chasm of the earth. opening wide her mouth to take his chariot and its horses in, nor should the other chieftains be stretched at our gates, their skeletons to atoms crushed ’neath boulders. Either boast thy wit transcendeth that of Zeus, ⁵⁰⁵ or else allow that gods are right to slay the ungodly. The wise should love their children first, next their parents and country, whose fortunes it behoves them to increase rather than break down. Rashness in a leader, as in a pilot, causeth shipwreck; who knoweth when to be quiet is a wise man. ⁵¹⁰ Yea and this too is bravery, even forethought. Choru ⁵¹³ The punishment Zeus hath inflicted was surely enough; there was no need to heap this wanton insult on us. Adrastu ⁵¹⁴ Peace, Adrastus! say no more; set not thy words before mine, ⁵¹⁵ for ’tis not to thee this fellow is come with his message, but to me, and I must answer him. Thy first assertion will I answer first: I am not aware that Creon is my lord and master, or that his power outweigheth mine, that so he should compel ⁵²⁰ Athens to act on this wise; nay! for then would the tide of time have to flow backward, if we are to be ordered about, as he thinks. ’Tis not I who choose this war, seeing that I did not even join these warriors to go unto the land of Cadmus; but still I claim to bury the fallen dead, not injuring any state ⁵²⁵ nor yet introducing murderous strife, but preserving the law of all Hellas. What is not well in this? If ye suffered aught from the Argives—lo! they are dead; ye took a splendid vengeance on your foe ⁵³⁰ and covered them with shame, and now your right is at an end. Let Nauck regards these lines 531 to 536 as an interpolation. the dead now be buried in the earth, and each element return Restoring ἀπελθεῖν from Stobseus (Hartung). to the place from whence it came to the body, the breath to the air, the body to the ground; for in no wise did we get it ⁵³⁵ for our own, but to live our life in, and after that its mother earth must take it back again. Dost think ’tis Argos thou art injuring in refusing burial to the dead? Nay! all Hellas shares herein, if a man rob the dead of their due ⁵⁴⁰ and keep them from the tomb; for, if this law be enacted, it will strike dismay into the stoutest hearts. And art thou come to cast dire threats at me, while thy own folk are afraid of giving burial to the dead? What is your fear? Think you they will undermine your land ⁵⁴⁵ in their graves, or that they will beget children in the womb of earth, from whom shall rise an avenger? A silly waste of words, in truth it was, to show your fear of paltry groundless terrors. ⁵⁴⁹ Go, triflers, learn the lesson of human misery; ⁵⁵⁰ our life is made up of struggles; some men there be that find their fortune soon, others have to wait, while some at once are blest. Fortune lives a dainty life; to her the wretched pays his court and homage to win her smile; her likewise doth the prosperous man extol, for fear the favouring gale ⁵⁵⁵ may leave him. These lessons should we take to heart, to bear with moderation, free from wrath, our wrongs, and do naught to hurt a whole city. What then? Let us, who will the pious deed perform, bury the corpses of the slain. ⁵⁶⁰ Else is the issue clear; I will go and bury them by force. For never shall it be proclaimed through Hellas that heaven’s ancient law was set at naught, when it devolved on me and the city of Pandion. Choru ' None

6. Herodotus, Histories, 3.80 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Antigone, vs. Creon • Creon, Sen. King Oedipus • Creon, as a political hero • Eteocles, and Creon • Ismene, and Creon • Polynices (Oedipus’s son), and Creon • nature, of Creon • tyrant, Creon as

Found in books: Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 52; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 334

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3.80 ἐπείτε δὲ κατέστη ὁ θόρυβος καὶ ἐκτὸς πέντε ἡμερέων ἐγένετο, ἐβουλεύοντο οἱ ἐπαναστάντες τοῖσι Μάγοισι περὶ τῶν πάντων πρηγμάτων καὶ ἐλέχθησαν λόγοι ἄπιστοι μὲν ἐνίοισι Ἑλλήνων, ἐλέχθησαν δʼ ὦν. Ὀτάνης μὲν ἐκέλευε ἐς μέσον Πέρσῃσι καταθεῖναι τὰ πρήγματα, λέγων τάδε. “ἐμοὶ δοκέει ἕνα μὲν ἡμέων μούναρχον μηκέτι γενέσθαι. οὔτε γὰρ ἡδὺ οὔτε ἀγαθόν. εἴδετε μὲν γὰρ τὴν Καμβύσεω ὕβριν ἐπʼ ὅσον ἐπεξῆλθε, μετεσχήκατε δὲ καὶ τῆς τοῦ Μάγου ὕβριος. κῶς δʼ ἂν εἴη χρῆμα κατηρτημένον μουναρχίη, τῇ ἔξεστι ἀνευθύνῳ ποιέειν τὰ βούλεται; καὶ γὰρ ἂν τὸν ἄριστον ἀνδρῶν πάντων στάντα ἐς ταύτην ἐκτὸς τῶν ἐωθότων νοημάτων στήσειε. ἐγγίνεται μὲν γάρ οἱ ὕβρις ὑπὸ τῶν παρεόντων ἀγαθῶν, φθόνος δὲ ἀρχῆθεν ἐμφύεται ἀνθρώπῳ. δύο δʼ ἔχων ταῦτα ἔχει πᾶσαν κακότητα· τὰ μὲν γὰρ ὕβρι κεκορημένος ἔρδει πολλὰ καὶ ἀτάσθαλα, τὰ δὲ φθόνῳ. καίτοι ἄνδρα γε τύραννον ἄφθονον ἔδει εἶναι, ἔχοντά γε πάντα τὰ ἀγαθά. τὸ δὲ ὑπεναντίον τούτου ἐς τοὺς πολιήτας πέφυκε· φθονέει γὰρ τοῖσι ἀρίστοισι περιεοῦσί τε καὶ ζώουσι, χαίρει δὲ τοῖσι κακίστοισι τῶν ἀστῶν, διαβολὰς δὲ ἄριστος ἐνδέκεσθαι. ἀναρμοστότατον δὲ πάντων· ἤν τε γὰρ αὐτὸν μετρίως θωμάζῃς, ἄχθεται ὅτι οὐ κάρτα θεραπεύεται, ἤν τε θεραπεύῃ τις κάρτα, ἄχθεται ἅτε θωπί. τὰ δὲ δὴ μέγιστα ἔρχομαι ἐρέων· νόμαιά τε κινέει πάτρια καὶ βιᾶται γυναῖκας κτείνει τε ἀκρίτους. πλῆθος δὲ ἄρχον πρῶτα μὲν οὔνομα πάντων κάλλιστον ἔχει, ἰσονομίην, δεύτερα δὲ τούτων τῶν ὁ μούναρχος ποιέει οὐδέν· πάλῳ μὲν ἀρχὰς ἄρχει, ὑπεύθυνον δὲ ἀρχὴν ἔχει, βουλεύματα δὲ πάντα ἐς τὸ κοινὸν ἀναφέρει. τίθεμαι ὦν γνώμην μετέντας ἡμέας μουναρχίην τὸ πλῆθος ἀέξειν· ἐν γὰρ τῷ πολλῷ ἔνι τὰ πάντα.”'' None

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3.80 After the tumult quieted down, and five days passed, the rebels against the Magi held a council on the whole state of affairs, at which sentiments were uttered which to some Greeks seem incredible, but there is no doubt that they were spoken. ,Otanes was for turning the government over to the Persian people: “It seems to me,” he said, “that there can no longer be a single sovereign over us, for that is not pleasant or good. You saw the insolence of Cambyses, how far it went, and you had your share of the insolence of the Magus. ,How can monarchy be a fit thing, when the ruler can do what he wants with impunity? Give this power to the best man on earth, and it would stir him to unaccustomed thoughts. Insolence is created in him by the good things to hand, while from birth envy is rooted in man. ,Acquiring the two he possesses complete evil; for being satiated he does many reckless things, some from insolence, some from envy. And yet an absolute ruler ought to be free of envy, having all good things; but he becomes the opposite of this towards his citizens; he envies the best who thrive and live, and is pleased by the worst of his fellows; and he is the best confidant of slander. ,of all men he is the most inconsistent; for if you admire him modestly he is angry that you do not give him excessive attention, but if one gives him excessive attention he is angry because one is a flatter. But I have yet worse to say of him than that; he upsets the ancestral ways and rapes women and kills indiscriminately. ,But the rule of the multitude has in the first place the loveliest name of all, equality, and does in the second place none of the things that a monarch does. It determines offices by lot, and holds power accountable, and conducts all deliberating publicly. Therefore I give my opinion that we make an end of monarchy and exalt the multitude, for all things are possible for the majority.” '' None

7. Sophocles, Antigone, 7-8, 16, 18-19, 26-34, 53, 59-64, 72-74, 77, 93-94, 96-97, 162-206, 282-289, 332-341, 367, 446-472, 481, 484-485, 487, 491, 502-504, 508-509, 517, 519, 523, 531-581, 631-765, 781-782, 791-794, 804-871, 905-912, 940, 955-965, 988, 998-1090, 1101, 1108-1110, 1113-1152, 1198, 1204-1207, 1219-1225, 1231-1243, 1260-1353 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Antigone, Creon as a character • Antigone, vs. Creon • Creon • Creon (king of Thebes) • Creon, • Creon, Soph. Antigone • Creon, Theb. • Creon, and Antigone • Creon, and Haemon’s speech • Creon, and Polynices’ burial • Creon, and agōn scenes • Creon, and boundaries • Creon, and grief • Creon, and hatred • Creon, and law • Creon, and song • Creon, and steadfast minds • Creon, and straightness • Creon, and the commoi • Creon, and tragic discovery • Creon, and transgression • Creon, and wisdom • Creon, and women • Creon, as Pelias • Creon, as a political hero • Creon, feminized • Creon, in the social hierarchy • Creon, on gender differentiation • Creon, role of • Demosthenes, on Creon • Eteocles, and Creon • Ismene, and Creon • Polynices (Oedipus’s son), and Creon • Tiresias, and Creon • characters, tragic/mythical, Creon, king of Thebes • chorus, the, and Creon • destiny, of Creon • gods, and Creon • law, of Creon • nature, of Creon • responsibility, of Oedipus vs. Creon • seers, and Creon • transgression, and Creon • tyrant, Creon as • wisdom, and Creon

Found in books: Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 71, 72, 74; Bednarek (2021), The Myth of Lycurgus in Aeschylus, Naevius, and beyond, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51; Bernabe et al. (2013), Redefining Dionysos, 273, 274; Bierl (2017), Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture, 114, 116, 125, 126, 130, 132, 133, 134, 156; Budelmann (1999), The Language of Sophocles: Communality, Communication, and Involvement, 75, 76, 77; Csapo et al. (2022), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, 165, 201, 206; Del Lucchese (2019), Monstrosity and Philosophy: Radical Otherness in Greek and Latin Culture, 51; Huffman (2019), A History of Pythagoreanism, 90; Johnston and Struck (2005), Mantikê: Studies in Ancient Divination, 197; Jouanna (2012), Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen, 123; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 197, 203, 208, 224, 234, 255, 273, 276, 277, 285, 297, 317, 333, 334, 335, 336, 339, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 369, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 714, 731, 741, 749; Kirichenko (2022), Greek Literature and the Ideal: The Pragmatics of Space from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Age, 102, 103, 126; Liapis and Petrides (2019), Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca, 278; Meinel (2015), Pollution and Crisis in Greek Tragedy, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 105, 111, 112; Naiden (2013), Smoke Signals for the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacrifice from the Archaic through Roman Periods, 139, 160; Papaioannou et al. (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 21, 22, 23; Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 21, 22, 23

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7 no shame, nor dishonor—that I have not seen in your sufferings and mine. And now what is this new edict that they say the general has just decreed to all the city? Do you know anything? Have you heard? Or does it escape you that ¹⁶ And since the Argive army has fled during this night, I have learned nothing further, whether better fortune is mine, or further ruin. ¹⁸ I knew it well, so I was trying to bring you outside the courtyard gates to this end, that you alone might hear. ²⁶ for his honor among the dead below. As for the poor corpse of Polyneices, however, they say that an edict has been published to the townsmen that no one shall bury him or mourn him, but instead leave him unwept, unentombed, for the birds a pleasing store ³⁰ as they look to satisfy their hunger. Such, it is said, is the edict that the good Creon has laid down for you and for me—yes, for me—and it is said that he is coming here to proclaim it for the certain knowledge of those who do not already know. They say that he does not conduct this business lightly, ⁵³ perished in hatred and infamy, when, because of the crimes that he himself detected, he smashed both his eyes with self-blinding hand; then his mother-wife, two names in one, with a twisted noose destroyed her life; ⁵⁹ lastly, our two brothers in a single day, both unhappy murderers of their own flesh and blood, worked with mutual hands their common doom. And now we, in turn—we two who have been left all alone—consider how much more miserably we will be destroyed, if in defiance of the law ⁶⁰ we transgress against an autocrat’s decree or his powers. No, we must remember, first, that ours is a woman’s nature, and accordingly not suited to battles against men; and next, that we are ruled by the more powerful, so that we must obey in these things and in things even more stinging. ⁷² would I welcome you as my partner in this action. No, be the sort that pleases you. I will bury him—it would honor me to die while doing that. I shall rest with him, loved one with loved one, a pious criminal. For the time is greater ^7
7 that I must serve the dead than the living, since in that world I will rest forever. But if you so choose, continue to dishonor what the gods in honor have established. ⁹³ If you mean that, you will have my hatred, and you will be subject to punishment as the enemy of the dead. ⁹⁶ But leave me and the foolish plan I have authored to suffer this terrible thing, for I will not suffer anything so terrible that my death will lack honor. ¹⁶² My fellow citizens! First, the gods, after tossing the fate of our city on wild waves, have once more righted it. Second, I have ordered you through my messengers to come here ¹⁶⁵ apart from all the rest, because I knew, first of all, how constant was your reverence for the power of the throne of Laius; how, again, you were reverent, when Oedipus was guiding our city; and lastly, how, when he was dead, you still maintained loyal thoughts towards his children. ^1
70 Since, then, these latter have fallen in one day by a twofold doom—each striking, each struck, both with the stain of a brother’s murder—I now possess all the power and the throne according to my kinship with the dead. ^1
75 Now, it is impossible to know fully any man’s character, will, or judgment, until he has been proved by the test of rule and law-giving. For if anyone who directs the entire city does not cling to the best and wisest plans, ¹⁸⁰ but because of some fear keeps his lips locked, then, in my judgment, he is and has long been the most cowardly traitor. And if any man thinks a friend more important than his fatherland, that man, I say, is of no account. Zeus, god who sees all things always, be my witness— ¹⁸⁵ I would not be silent if I saw ruin, instead of safety, marching upon the citizens. Nor would I ever make a man who is hostile to my country a friend to myself, because I know this, that our country is the ship that bears us safe, and that only when ¹⁹⁰ we sail her on a straight course can we make true friends. Such are the rules by which I strengthen this city. Akin to these is the edict which I have now published to the citizenry concerning the sons of Oedipus: Eteocles, who fell fighting ¹⁹⁵ in behalf of our city and who excelled all in battle, they shall entomb and heap up every sacred offering that descends to the noblest of the dead below. But as for his brother, Polyneices, I mean, who on his return from exile wanted to burn to the ground ²⁰⁰ the city of his fathers and his race’s gods, and wanted to feed on kindred blood and lead the remt into slavery—it has been proclaimed to the city that no one shall give him funeral honors or lamentation, ²⁰⁵ but all must leave him unburied and a sight of shame, with his body there for birds and dogs to eat. This is my will, and never will I allow the traitor to stand in honor before the just. But whoever has good will to Thebes , ²⁸² Quiet, before your words truly fill me with rage, so that you not be found at the same time foolish as well as old. You say what is intolerable when you claim that the gods have concern for that corpse. Was it in high esteem for his benefaction ²⁸⁵ that they sought to hide him, when he had come to burn their columned shrines, their sacred treasures and their land, and scatter its laws to the winds? Or do you see the gods honoring the wicked? It cannot be. No! From the very first ³³² Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. ³³⁵ This power spans the sea, even when it surges white before the gales of the south-wind, and makes a path under swells that threaten to engulf him. Earth, too, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, ³⁴⁰ he wears away to his own ends, turning the soil with the offspring of horses as the plows weave to and fro year after year. ^36
7 Possessing resourceful skill, a subtlety beyond expectation he moves now to evil, now to good. When he honors the laws of the land and the justice of the gods to which he is bound by oath, ⁴⁴⁶ You, however, tell me—not at length, but briefly—did you know that an edict had forbidden this? ⁴⁴⁸ I knew it. How could I not? It was public. ⁴⁴⁹ And even so you dared overstep that law? ⁴⁵⁰ 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 ⁴⁵⁵ 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. ⁴⁶⁰ 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? ⁴⁶⁵ 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, ^4
70 it may be that it is a fool who accuses me of folly. ^4
71 She shows herself the wild offspring of a wild father, and does not know how to bend before troubles. ⁴⁸¹ 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, ⁴⁸⁵ 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 ⁴⁹¹ 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. ⁵⁰² 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, ⁵⁰⁸ You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way. ⁵⁰⁹ They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues. ^51
7 It was his brother, not his slave, who died. ⁵¹⁹ Hades craves these rites, nevertheless. ⁵²³ It is not my nature to join in hate, but in love. ⁵³¹ You who were lurking like a viper in my own house and secretly gulping up my life’s blood, while I was oblivious that I was nurturing two plagues, two revolutions against my throne—tell me now, will you also affirm ⁵³⁵ your share in this burial, or will you forswear all knowledge of it? ⁵³⁶ I performed the deed—as long as she concurs—and I share and carry the burden of guilt. ⁵³⁸ No, justice will not permit you to do this, since you were not willing to help with the deed, nor did I give you a part in it. ⁵⁴⁰ But now with this sea of troubles around you, I am not ashamed to sail in a sea of suffering at your side. ⁵⁴² As to whose deed it is, Hades and the dead are witnesses. A friend in words is not the type of friend I love. ⁵⁴⁴ No, sister, do not strip me of death’s honor, ⁵⁴⁵ but let me die with you and make due consecration to the dead. ⁵⁴⁶ Do not share my death. Do not claim deeds to which you did not put your hand. My death will suffice. ⁵⁴⁸ And how can I cherish life, once I am deprived of you? ⁵⁴⁹ Ask Creon. Your concern is for him. ⁵⁵⁰ Why do you torture me like this, when it does not help you? ⁵⁵¹ No, if I mock you, it is to my own pain that I do so. ⁵⁵² Tell me, how can I help you, even now? ^5
53 Save yourself. I do not grudge your escape. ⁵⁵⁴ Ah, misery! Will I fall short of sharing your fate? ⁵⁵⁵ Your choice was to live, it was mine to die. ⁵⁵⁶ At least your choice was not made without my protests. ^55
7 One world approved your wisdom, another approved mine. ⁵⁵⁸ Nevertheless, the offense is identical for both of us. ^5
59 Take heart! You live. But my life has long been ⁵⁶⁰ in Death’s hands so that I might serve the dead. ⁵⁶¹ One of these maidens, I declare, has just revealed her foolishness; the other has displayed it from the moment of her birth. ⁵⁶³ Yes, Creon. Whatever amount of reason nature may have given them does not remain with those in dire straits, but goes astray. ⁵⁶⁵ Yours did, I know, when you chose dire actions with dire allies. ⁵⁶⁶ What life would there be for me alone, without her presence? ^56
7 Do not speak of her presence . She lives no longer. ⁵⁶⁸ What? You will kill your own son’s bride? ⁵⁶⁹ Why not? There are other fields for him to plough. ^5
70 But not fitted to him as she was. ^5
71 I abhor an evil wife for my son. ^5

72 Haemon, dearest! How your father wrongs you! ^5
73 Enough! Enough of you and of your marriage! ^5
74 Will you really cheat your son of this girl? ^5
75 Death it is who will end these bridals for me. ^5
76 Then it seems that it is resolved that she will die. ^5
7
7 Resolved, yes, for you and by me. To the two Attendants. No more delay! Servants, take them inside! Hereafter they must be women, and not left at large. ⁵⁸⁰ For it is known that even the brave seek to flee, when they see Death now closing on their life. Exeunt Attendants, guarding Antigone and Ismene. Creon remains. ⁶³¹ We will soon know better than seers could tell us.—My son, can it be that after hearing the final judgment concerning your betrothed, you have come in rage against your father? Or do I have your loyalty, act how I may? ⁶³⁵ Father, I am yours, and you keep me upright with precepts good for me—precepts I shall follow. No marriage will be deemed by me more important than your good guidance. ⁶⁴⁰ Yes, my son, this is the spirit you should maintain in your heart—to stand behind your father’s will in all things. It is for this that men pray: to sire and raise in their homes children who are obedient, that they may requite their father’s enemy with evil and honor his friend, just as their father does. ⁶⁴⁵ But the man who begets unhelpful children—what would you say that he has sown except miseries for himself and abundant exultation for his enemies? Never, then, my son, banish your reason for pleasure on account of a woman, ⁶⁵⁰ knowing that this embrace soon becomes cold and brittle—an evil woman to share your bed and home. For what wound could strike deeper than a false friend? No, spit her out as if she were an enemy, let her go find a husband in Hades. ⁶⁵⁵ For since I caught her alone of all the city in open defiance, I will not make myself a liar to my city. I will kill her. So let her call on Zeus who protects kindred blood. If I am to foster my own kin to spurn order, ⁶⁶⁰ urely I will do the same for outsiders. For whoever shows his excellence in the case of his own household will be found righteous in his city as well. But if anyone oversteps and does violence to the laws, or thinks to dictate to those in power, ⁶⁶⁵ uch a one will never win praise from me. No, whomever the city may appoint, that man must be obeyed in matters small and great and in matters just and unjust. And I would feel confident that such a man would be a fine ruler no less than a good and willing subject, ^6
70 and that beneath a hail of spears he would stand his ground where posted, a loyal and brave comrade in the battle line. But there is no evil worse than disobedience. This destroys cities; this overturns homes; this break ^6
75 the ranks of allied spears into headlong rout. But the lives of men who prosper upright, of these obedience has saved the greatest part. Therefore we must defend those who respect order, and in no way can we let a woman defeat us. It is better to fall from power, if it is fated, by a man’s hand, ⁶⁸⁰ than that we be called weaker than women. ⁶⁸¹ To us, unless our years have stolen our wit, you seem to say what you say wisely. ⁶⁸³ Father, the gods implant reason in men, the highest of all things that we call our own. ⁶⁸⁵ For my part, to state how you are wrong to say those things is beyond my power and my desire, although another man, too, might have a useful thought. In any case, it is my natural duty to watch on your behalf all that men say, or do, or find to blame. ⁶⁹⁰ For dread of your glance forbids the ordinary citizen to speak such words as would offend your ear. But I can hear these murmurs in the dark, how the city moans for this girl, saying: No woman ever merited death less— ⁶⁹⁵ none ever died so shamefully for deeds so glorious as hers, who, when her own brother had fallen in bloody battle, would not leave him unburied to be devoured by savage dogs, or by any bird. Does she not deserve to receive golden honor? ⁷⁰⁰ Such is the rumor shrouded in darkness that silently spreads. For me, father, no treasure is more precious than your prosperity. What, indeed, is a nobler ornament for children than the fair fame of a thriving father, or for a father than that of his children? ⁷⁰⁵ Do not, then, bear one mood only in yourself: do not think that your word and no other, must be right. For if any man thinks that he alone is wise—that in speech or in mind he has no peer—such a soul, when laid open, is always found empty. ⁷¹⁰ No, even when a man is wise, it brings him no shame to learn many things, and not to be too rigid. You see how the trees that stand beside the torrential streams created by a winter storm yield to it and save their branches, while the stiff and rigid perish root and all? ⁷¹⁵ And in the same way the pilot who keeps the sheet of his sail taut and never slackens it, upsets his boat, and voyages thereafter with his decking underwater. Father, give way and allow a change from your rage. For if even from me, a younger man, a worthy thought may be supplied, ⁷²⁰ by far the best thing, I believe, would be for men to be all-wise by nature. Otherwise—since most often it does not turn out that way—it is good to learn in addition from those who advise you well. ⁷²⁴ My king, it is right, if he speaks something appropriate, that you should learn from him ⁷²⁵ and that you, in turn, Haemon, should learn from your father. On both sides there have been wise words. ^7
26 Men of my age—are we, then, to be schooled in wisdom by men of his? ⁷²⁸ Not in anything that is not right. But if I am young, you should look to my conduct, not to my years. ⁷³⁰ Is it worthy conduct to honor disrupters? ⁷³¹ I could not urge anyone to show respect for the wicked. ⁷³² And is she not in the grasp of that disease? ⁷³³ All the people of this city of Thebes deny it. ⁷³⁴ Shall Thebes prescribe to me how I must rule? ⁷³⁵ See, there, how you have spoken so much like a child. ⁷³⁶ Am I to rule this land by the will of another than myself? ^73
7 That is no city, which belongs to one man. ⁷³⁸ Does not the city by tradition belong to the man in power? ⁷³⁹ You would make a fine monarch in a desert. ⁷⁴⁰ This boy seems to be fighting on the side of the woman. ⁷⁴¹ If you are a woman, for, to be sure, my concern is for you. ⁷⁴² You traitor, attacking your father, accusing him! ⁷⁴³ Because I see you making a mistake and committing injustice. ⁷⁴⁴ Am I making a mistake when I respect my own prerogatives? ⁷⁴⁵ Yes. You do not respect them, when you trample on the gods’ honors. ⁷⁴⁶ Polluted creature, submitting to a woman! ^74
7 You will never catch me submitting to shamelessness. ⁷⁴⁸ You do. Your every word, after all, pleads her case. ⁷⁴⁹ And yours, and mine, and that of gods below. ⁷⁵⁰ You can never marry her, not while she is still alive. ⁷⁵¹ Then she will die, and in death destroy another. ⁷⁵² What! Does your audacity run to open threats? ^7
53 How is it a threat to speak against empty plans? ⁷⁵⁴ You will regret your unwise instructions in wisdom. ⁷⁵⁵ If you were not my father, I would have called you insane. ⁷⁵⁶ You woman’s slave, do not try to cajole me. ^75
7 Do you want to have your say and then have done without a reply? ⁷⁵⁸ Is that so? By Olympus above—know this well—you will have no joy for taunting me over and above your censures. ⁷⁶⁰ Bring out that hated thing, so that with him looking on she may die right now in her bridegroom’s presence and at his side! ⁷⁶² No, not at my side will she die—do not ever imagine it. Nor shall you ever look at me and set eyes on my face again. ⁷⁶⁵ Indulge in your madness now with whomever of your friends can endure it. Exit Haemon. ⁷⁸¹ Love, the unconquered in battle, Love, you who descend upon riches, and watch the night through on a girl’s soft cheek, ⁷⁹¹ You seize the minds of just men and drag them to injustice, to their ruin. You it is who have incited this conflict of men whose flesh and blood are one. ⁸⁰⁴ But now, witnessing this, I too am carried beyond the bounds of loyalty. The power fails me to keep back my streaming tears any longer, when I see Antigone making her way to the chamber where all are laid to rest, ⁸⁰⁵ now her bridal chamber. ⁸⁰⁶ Citizens of my fatherland, see me setting out on my last journey, looking at my last sunlight, ⁸¹⁰ and never again. No, Hades who lays all to rest leads me living to Acheron ’s shore, though I have not had my due portion of the chant that brings the bride, nor has any hymn been mine ⁸¹⁵ for the crowning of marriage. Instead the lord of Acheron will be my groom. ^81
7 Then in glory and with praise you depart to that deep place of the dead, neither struck by wasting sickness, ⁸²⁰ nor having won the wages of the sword. No, guided by your own laws and still alive, unlike any mortal before, you will descend to Hades. ⁸²³ I have heard with my own ears how our Phrygian guest, the daughter of Tantalus, perished ⁸²⁵ in so much suffering on steep Sipylus—how, like clinging ivy, the sprouting stone subdued her. And the rains, as men tell, do not leave her melting form, nor does the snow, ⁸³⁰ but beneath her weeping lids she dampens her collar. Most like hers is the god-sent fate that leads me to my rest. ⁸³⁴ Yet she was a goddess, as you know, and the offspring of gods, ⁸³⁵ while we are mortals and mortal-born. Still it is a great thing for a woman who has died to have it said of her that she shared the lot of the godlike in her life, and afterwards, in death. ⁸³⁹ Ah, you mock me! In the name of our fathers’ gods, ⁸⁴⁰ why do you not wait to abuse me until after I have gone, and not to my face, O my city, and you, her wealthy citizens? Ah, spring of Dirce, and you holy ground of Thebes whose chariots are many, ⁸⁴⁵ you, at least, will bear me witness how unwept by loved ones, and by what laws I go to the rock-closed prison of my unheard-of tomb! Ah, misery! ⁸⁵⁰ I have no home among men or with the shades, no home with the living or with the dead. ^8
53 You have rushed headlong to the far limits of daring, and against the high throne of Justice ⁸⁵⁵ you have fallen, my daughter, fallen heavily. But in this ordeal you are paying for some paternal crime. ⁸⁵⁸ You have touched on my most bitter thought ⁸⁶⁰ and moved my ever-renewed pity for my father and for the entire doom ordained for us, the famed house of Labdacus. Oh, the horrors of our mother’s bed! Oh, the slumbers of the wretched mother at the side ⁸⁶⁵ of her own son, my own father! What manner of parents gave me my miserable being! It is to them that I go like this, accursed and unwed, to share their home. ^8
70 Ah, my brother, the marriage you made was doomed, and by dying you killed me still alive! ⁹⁰⁵ Never, if I had been a mother of children, or if a husband had been rotting after death, would I have taken that burden upon myself in violation of the citizens’ will. For the sake of what law, you ask, do I say that? A husband lost, another might have been found, ⁹¹⁰ and if bereft of a child, there could be a second from some other man. But when father and mother are hidden in Hades, no brother could ever bloom for me again. Such was the law whereby I held you first in honor, but for that Creon judged me guilty of wrongdoing ⁹⁴⁰ Look at me, you who are Thebes ’ lords—look at the only remaining daughter of the house of your kings. See what I suffer, and at whose hands, because I revered reverence! Antigone is led away by the guards. ⁹⁵⁵ And Dryas’s son, the Edonian king swift to rage, was tamed in recompense for his frenzied insults, when, by the will of Dionysus, he was shut in a rocky prison. There the fierce and swelling force of his madness trickled away. ⁹⁶⁰ That man came to know the god whom in his frenzy he had provoked with mockeries. For he had sought to quell the god-inspired women and the Bacchanalian fire, ⁹⁶⁵ and he angered the Muses who love the flute. ⁹⁸⁸ Princes of Thebes , we have come on a shared journey, two scouting the way by the eyes of one. ⁹⁹⁸ You will understand, when you hear the signs revealed by my art. As I took my place on my old seat of augury ¹⁰⁰⁰ where all birds regularly gather for me, I heard an unintelligible voice among them: they were screaming in dire frenzy that made their language foreign to me. I realized that they were ripping each other with their talons, murderously—the rush of their wings did not lack meaning.' ¹⁰⁰¹ where all birds regularly gather for me, I heard an unintelligible voice among them: they were screaming in dire frenzy that made their language foreign to me. I realized that they were ripping each other with their talons, murderously—the rush of their wings did not lack meaning. ¹⁰⁰⁵ Quickly, in fear, I tried burnt-sacrifice on a duly-kindled altar, but from my offerings Hephaestus did not blaze. Instead juice that had sweated from the thigh-flesh trickled out onto the embers and smoked and sputtered; ¹⁰¹⁰ the gall was scattered high up in the air; and the streaming thighs lay bared of the fat that had been wrapped around them. Such was the failure of the rites that yielded no sign, as I learned from this boy. For he is my guide, as I am guide to others. ¹⁰¹⁵ And it is your will that is the source of the sickness now afflicting the city. For the altars of our city and our hearths have one and all been tainted by the birds and dogs with the carrion taken from the sadly fallen son of Oedipus. And so the gods no more accept prayer and sacrifice at our hands, ¹⁰²⁰ or the burning of thigh-meat, nor does any bird sound out clear signs in its shrill cries, for they have tasted the fatness of a slain man’s blood. Think, therefore, on these things, my son. All men are liable to err. ¹⁰²⁵ But when an error is made, that man is no longer unwise or unblessed who heals the evil into which he has fallen and does not remain stubborn. Self-will, we know, invites the charge of foolishness. Concede the claim of the dead. Do not kick at the fallen. ¹⁰³⁰ What prowess is it to kill the dead all over again? I have considered for your good, and what I advise is good. The sweetest thing is to learn from a good advisor when his advice is to your profit. ¹⁰³³ Old man, you all shoot your arrows at me, like archers at their mark, and I am not safe ¹⁰³⁵ 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, ¹⁰⁴⁰ 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. ¹⁰⁴⁵ But even the exceedingly clever, old Teiresias, falls with a shameful fall, when they couch shameful thoughts in fine phrasing for profit’s sake. ¹⁰⁴⁸ Alas! Does any man know, does any consider— ¹⁰⁴⁹ What is this? What universal truth are you announcing? ¹⁰⁵⁰ —by how much the most precious of our possessions is the power to reason wisely? ¹⁰⁵¹ By as much, I think, as senselessness is the greatest affliction. ¹⁰⁵² Yet you came into being full of that disease. ^10
53 I have no desire to trade insults with the seer. ¹⁰⁵⁴ Yet that is what you do in saying that I prophesy falsely. ¹⁰⁵⁵ Yes, for the prophet-clan was ever fond of money. ¹⁰⁵⁶ And the race sprung from tyrants loves shameful gain. ^105
7 Do you know that you ramble so about your king? ¹⁰⁵⁸ I am aware, since through me you have saved this city. ^10
59 You are a wise seer, but fond of doing injustice. ¹⁰⁶⁰ You will stir me to utter the dire secret in my soul. ¹⁰⁶¹ Out with it! But only if it is not for gain that you speak it. ¹⁰⁶² Indeed, I think I speak without mention of gain—where you are concerned. ¹⁰⁶³ Be certain that you will not trade in my will. ¹⁰⁶⁴ Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through many more ¹⁰⁶⁵ 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, ^10
70 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, ^10
75 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. ¹⁰⁸⁰ 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, ¹⁰⁸⁵ 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 ¹⁰⁹⁰ and a better mind within his breast than he now bears. Exit Teiresias. ¹¹⁰¹ Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then raise a tomb for the unburied dead. ¹¹⁰⁸ Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of you! Take axes in your hands, ¹¹¹⁰ 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. ¹¹¹⁵ God of many names, glory of the Cadmeian bride and offspring of loud-thundering Zeus, you who watch over far-famed Italy and reign ¹¹²⁰ in the valleys of Eleusinian Deo where all find welcome! O Bacchus, denizen of Thebes , the mother-city of your Bacchants, dweller by the wet stream of Ismenus on the soil ¹¹²⁵ of the sowing of the savage dragon’s teeth! ^11
26 The smoky glare of torches sees you above the cliffs of the twin peaks, where the Corycian nymphs move inspired by your godhead, ¹¹³⁰ and Castalia’s stream sees you, too. The ivy-mantled slopes of Nysa ’s hills and the shore green with many-clustered vines send you, when accompanied by the cries of your divine words, ¹¹³⁵ you visit the avenues of Thebes . ^113
7 Thebes of all cities you hold foremost in honor, together with your lightning-struck mother. ¹¹⁴⁰ And now when the whole city is held subject to a violent plague, come, we ask, with purifying feet over steep Parnassus , ¹¹⁴⁵ or over the groaning straits! ¹¹⁴⁶ O Leader of the chorus of the stars whose breath is fire, overseer of the chants in the night, son begotten of Zeus, ¹¹⁵⁰ appear, my king, with your attendant Thyiads, who in night-long frenzy dance and sing you as Iacchus the Giver! ¹¹⁹⁸ The truth is always best. I attended your husband as his guide to the furthest part of the plain, where unpitied the body of Polyneices, torn by dogs, still lay. After we had prayed to the goddess of the road ¹²⁰⁴ and to Pluto to restrain their anger in mercy, we washed him with pure washing, and with freshly-plucked boughs we burned what remains there were. Lastly we heaped a high-mounded tomb of his native earth. Afterwards we turned away to enter the maiden’s stoney-bedded ¹²⁰⁵ bridal chamber, the caverned mansion of Hades’ bride. From a distance, one of us servants heard a voice of loud wailing near that bride’s unwept bed and came to tell our master Creon. And as the King moved closer and closer, obscure signs rising from a bitter cry surrounded him— ¹²¹⁹ This search, at our desperate master’s word, ¹²²⁰ we went to make, and in the furthest part of the tomb we saw her hanging by the neck, fastened by a halter of fine linen threads, while he was embracing her with arms thrown around her waist, bewailing the loss of his bride to the spirits below, as well as his father’s deeds, and his grief-filled marriage. ¹²²⁵ But his father, when he saw him, cried aloud with a dreadful cry and went in and called to him with a voice of wailing: Ah, unhappy boy, what have you done! What plan have you seized on? By what misfortune have you lost your reason? ¹²³¹ Come out, my son, I pray you, I beg you! But the boy glared at him with savage eyes, spat in his face, and without a word in response drew his twin-edged sword. As his father rushed out in flight, he missed his aim. Then the ill-fated boy was enraged with himself ¹²³⁵ and straightway stretched himself over his sword and drove it, half its length, into his side. Still conscious, he clasped the maiden in his faint embrace, and, as he gasped, he shot onto her pale cheek a swift stream of oozing blood. ¹²⁴⁰ Corpse enfolding corpse he lay, having won his marriage rites, poor boy, not here, but in Hades’ palace, and having shown to mankind by how much the failure to reason wisely is the most severe of all afflictions assigned to man. Eurydice departs into the house. ^1
260 was the madness of this error. ^1
261 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! ^1
265 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! ^12
70 Ah, how late you seem to see the right! ^12
71 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, ^12
75 —ah!—and overthrew my joy to be trampled on! Ah, the labors men must toil through! ^12
78 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; ¹²⁸⁰ econd, you will soon look upon further sufferings inside your house. ¹²⁸¹ What worse suffering is still to follow upon these sufferings? ^1
282 Your wife is dead, true mother of that corpse, poor lady, by wounds newly cut. ¹²⁸⁴ O harbor of Hades, hard to purify! ¹²⁸⁵ 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 ¹²⁹⁰ God no!—what new slaughter, my wife’s doom, is heaped upon this ruin? ^12
93 The sight is at hand. It is no longer hidden inside. ¹²⁹⁴ Ah, misery! ¹²⁹⁵ 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! ¹³⁰⁰ Oh, tormented mother! Oh, my son! ¹³⁰¹ 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, ¹³⁰⁵ he called down evil fortune upon you, the slayer of her sons. ¹³⁰⁶ Ah, no! I tremble with fear. Why does no one strike me full on my chest with a two-edged sword? ¹³¹⁰ I am miserable—ah—and bathed in miserable anguish! ¹³¹² Yes, because you were accused of responsibility for both this son’s death, and the other’s, by her whose corpse you see. ¹³¹⁴ What was the manner of the violent deed by which she departed? ¹³¹⁵ Her own hand struck her to the heart upon learning her son’s sharply-lamented fate. ^131
7 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. ¹³²⁰ I admit the truth. Lead me away, my servants, lead me from here with all haste, who am no more than a dead man! ¹³²⁵ 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. ¹³²⁸ Let it come, let it appear, that fairest of fates for me, that brings my final day, ¹³³⁰ the fate supreme! Oh, let it come, so that I may never see tomorrow’s light! ¹³³⁴ These things are in the future. We must see to present affairs. ¹³³⁵ Fulfillment of these things rests in the hands where it should rest. ¹³³⁶ All that I crave was summed in that prayer. ^133
7 Then pray no more; for mortals have no release from destined misfortune. ¹³³⁹ Lead me away, I beg you, a rash, useless man. ¹³⁴⁰ 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 i ¹³⁴⁵ amiss that is in my hands, and, again, a crushing fate has leapt upon my head. ' None

8. Sophocles, Electra, 528-548, 552-557 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon, and Antigone • Oedipus Rex, Creon as a character • characters, tragic/mythical, Creon, king of Thebes

Found in books: Budelmann (1999), The Language of Sophocles: Communality, Communication, and Involvement, 71; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 354; Liapis and Petrides (2019), Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca, 284

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528 Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind.'⁵²⁹ Your father—this and nothing else is your constant pretext—was slain by me. Yes, by me. I know it well. I make no denial. Justice took hold of him, not I alone—Justice, whom you ought to have supported, if you had been in your right mind. ⁵³⁰ For this father of yours whom you constantly bewail alone of all the Greeks had the heart to sacrifice your own blood, your sister, to the gods—he, who, when sowing his seed, felt none of the pains I did when I gave birth. Come, tell me now, why, or to please whom, ⁵³⁵ did he sacrifice her? To please the Argives, you will say? No, they had no right to kill my daughter. Or, if indeed it was for the sake of his brother Menelaus that he killed my child, was he not to pay me the penalty for that? Did Menelaus not have two children, ⁵⁴⁰ who should in fairness have died instead of my daughter, since the father and mother from whom they were sprung had caused that voyage? Did Hades have some greater desire to feast on my offspring than on hers? Or had all love of the children of my womb been ⁵⁴⁵ abandoned by their accursed father, while love for the children of Menelaus filled him? Were these not the marks of a thoughtless and malicious parent? I think so, even if I differ from your judgment. So, too, would the dead girl speak, if she could find a voice. For myself, then, I view the past without ⁵⁵² This time, at least, you cannot say that I first gave you cause for upset and thereby provoked such words from you. But, if you will permit me, ⁵⁵⁵ I would gladly declare the truth, on behalf of my dead father and my sister alike. Clytaemnestra ⁵⁵⁶ Certainly I permit you; and if you always addressed me in such a tone, you would not be difficult to listen to. Electra ' None

9. Sophocles, Oedipus At Colonus, 41-45, 66-67, 78-80, 87-95, 109-110, 636-637, 720-1043, 1156-1180, 1254-1396 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Antigone (Sophocles), Creon in • Creon • Creon, and Oedipus • Creon, and hatred • Creon, and law • Creon, arrival of • Creon, as a political hero • Creon, as a repeating character • Creon, in episodes • Creon, role of • Creon, violence of • Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles), Creon in • Oedipus the King (Sophocles), Creon in • Oedipus, vs. Creon • arrival, of Creon • law, of Creon • nature, of Creon • seers, and Creon

Found in books: Augoustakis (2014), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past, 203, 204, 205; Bierl (2017), Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture, 151; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 152, 161, 213, 217, 261, 336, 358, 359, 386, 452, 714, 715, 737, 749; Verhagen (2022), Security and Credit in Roman Law: The Historical Evolution of Pignus and Hypotheca, 203, 204, 205

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41 Who are they? Whose awful name might I hear and invoke in prayer? Stranger ⁴² The all-seeing Eumenides the people here would call them: but other names please elsewhere. Oedipu ⁴⁴ Then graciously may they receive their suppliant! ⁴⁵ Nevermore will I depart from my seat in this land. Stranger ⁶⁶ Have they a king? Or does speaking in assembly rest with the masses? Stranger ⁶⁷ These parts are ruled by the king in the city. Oedipu ⁷⁸ Take care now, stranger, that you come to no harm; for you are noble, if I may judge by your looks, leaving your ill-fortune aside. Stay here, where I found you, until I go and tell these things to the people of this district—not in the city. ⁸⁰ They will decide for you whether you should stay or go back. Stranger exits. Oedipu ⁸⁷ the first in this land at which I have bent my knee, show yourselves not ungracious to Phoebus or to myself; who, when he proclaimed that doom of many woes, spoke to me of this rest after long years: on reaching my goal in a land where I should find a seat of the Awful Goddesse ⁹⁰ and a shelter for foreigners, there I should close my weary life, with profit, through my having fixed my abode there, for those who received me, but ruin for those who sent me forth, who drove me away. And he went on to warn me that signs of these things would come, ⁹⁵ in earthquake, or in thunder, or in the lightning of Zeus. Now I perceive that in this journey some trusty omen from you has surely led me home to this grove; never otherwise could I have met with you, first of all, in my wanderings—I, in my sobriety, with you who touch no wine, ¹⁰⁹ enslaved as I am evermore to woes the sorest on the earth. Hear, sweet daughters of primeval Darkness! Hear, you that are called the city of great Pallas, Athens , given most honor of all cities! Pity this poor ghost of the man Oedipus! ¹¹⁰ For in truth it is the former living body no more. Antigone ⁶³⁶ paying no small recompense to this land and to me. In reverence for these claims, I will never spurn his favor, and I will establish a dwelling for him as a citizen in the land. And if it is the pleasure of the stranger to remain here, I will command you to ⁷²⁰ Land that is praised above all lands, now it is your task to make those bright praises seen in deeds! Oedipu ⁷²⁴ Ah, dearest old men, now give me ⁷²⁵ the final proof of my salvation! Choru ⁷²⁶ Courage! It will be yours. For even if I am aged, this country’s strength has not grown old. Enter Creon, with attendants. Creon ⁷²⁸ Gentlemen, noble dwellers in this land, I see from your eyes that a sudden fear has troubled you at my coming; ⁷³⁰ but do not shrink back from me, and let no evil word escape you. I am here with no thought of force; I am old, and I know that the city to which I have come is mighty, if any in Hellas has might. ⁷³⁵ No, I have been sent, aged as I am, to plead with this man to return with me to the land of Cadmus. I am not one man’s envoy, but have a mandate from all our people; since it belonged to me, by family, beyond all other Thebans to mourn his woes. ⁷⁴⁰ Unhappy Oedipus, hear us, and come home! Justly are you summoned by all the Cadmeans, and most of all by me, since I—unless I am the worst of all men born—feel most sorrow for your woes, old man, ⁷⁴⁵ when I see you, unhappy as you are, a stranger and a wanderer evermore, roaming in beggary, with one handmaid for your support. Ah, me, I had not thought that she could fall to such a depth of misery as that to which she has fallen— ⁷⁵⁰ this poor girl!—as she tends forever your dark life amid poverty; in ripe youth, but unwed: a prize for the first passerby to seize. Is it not a cruel reproach—alas!—that I have cast at you, and me, and all our race? ⁷⁵⁵ But indeed an open shame cannot be hidden. Oedipus, in the name of your ancestral gods, listen to me! Hide it, and consent to return to the city and the house of your ancestors, after bidding a kind farewell to this city. Athens is worthy; yet your own city has the first claim on your reverence, ⁷⁶⁰ ince it was Thebes that nurtured you long ago. Oedipu ⁷⁶¹ You who will dare anything, who from any just plea would derive a crafty trick, why do you make this attempt on me, and seek once more to snare me in your trap where I would feel most grief? ⁷⁶⁵ Long ago, when I labored under the sickness of my self-made evils, and I yearned to be cast out of the land, you refused to grant the favor. But when my fierce anger had spent its force, and seclusion in the house was sweet to me, ⁷⁷⁰ it was then that you thrust me from the house and cast me from the land. And this common race that you mention—that was not at all dear to you then. Now, in turn, when you see that I have a kindly welcome from this city and all its race, you try to pluck me away, wrapping your cruel thoughts in soft words. ⁷⁷⁵ And yet what pleasure do you find in this, in treating me as dear against my will? As if a man should refuse you a gift, bring you no aid, when you continually begged for it; but after your heart was sated with your desires, he should grant it then, when the favor could bring no joy ⁷⁸⁰ —would you not find your delight in this empty? Yet such is the nature of your own offers to me: noble in appearance, but in substance base. And I will declare it to these men too, to show you up as base. You have come to get me, ⁷⁸⁵ not to bring me home, but to plant me near your borders, so that your city might escape uninjured by evils from this land. That fate is not for you, but this one: the brooding of my vengeful spirit on your land forever; and for my sons, this heirloom: ⁷⁹⁰ just so much soil in my realm in which to die. Am I not wiser than you in the fortunes of Thebes ? Yes, far wiser, by as much as the sources of my knowledge are truer: Phoebus I mean, and his father, Zeus himself. But you have come here with fraud on your lips, yes, ⁷⁹⁵ and with a tongue keener than the edge of a sword; yet by their use you may well reap more sorrow than salvation. Still, since I know that I cannot persuade you of this, go! Allow us to live on here; for even in this plight our life would not be bad, if we should be content with it. Creon ⁸⁰⁰ Which of us, do you think, suffers more in this exchange—I by your action, or you by your own? Oedipu ⁸⁰² For me, it is enough if your pleading fails both with me and with these men nearby. Creon ⁸⁰⁴ Unhappy man, will you let everyone see that even in your years you have gained no sense? ⁸⁰⁵ Must you live on to disgrace your old age? Oedipu ⁸⁰⁶ You have a clever tongue, but I know no just man who can produce from every side a pretty speech. Creon ⁸⁰⁸ Words may be many, and yet not to the point. Oedipu ⁸⁰⁹ As if yours, indeed, were few, but on the mark. Creon ⁸¹⁰ They cannot be, not for one whose mind is such as yours. Oedipu ⁸¹¹ Begone! I will say it for these men too. And do not besiege me with a jealous watch where I am destined to remain. Creon ⁸¹³ I call these men, and not you, to witness the tenor of your words to your friends. And if I ever catch you— Oedipu ⁸¹⁵ And who could catch me against the will of these allies? Creon ⁸¹⁶ I promise you, soon you will be pained even without that. Oedipu ⁸¹⁷ Where is the deed which backs that threatening word? Creon ⁸¹⁸ One of your two daughters I have myself just seized and sent away. The other I will drag off immediately. Oedipu ⁸²² Oh! Strangers, what will you do? Will you betray me? Will you not drive the godless man from this land? Choru ⁸²⁴ Depart, stranger! Quick! ⁸²⁵ Your present deed is not just, nor the deed which you have done. Creon To his attendants. ⁸²⁶ It is time for you to drag this girl off against her will, if she will not go freely. Antigone ⁸²⁸ Wretched that I am! Where can I flee? Where find help from gods or men? Choru ⁸³⁰ I will not touch this man, but her who is mine. Oedipu ⁸³³ Oh, city ! Choru ⁸³⁴ What are you doing, stranger? Release her! ⁸³⁵ Your strength and ours will soon come to the test. Creon ⁸³⁷ There will be war with Thebes for you, if you harm me. Oedipu ⁸³⁹ Do not make commands where you are not the master. Choru ^8
41 Help, men of Colonus , bring help! The city, our city, is attacked by force! Come to our aid! Antigone ⁸⁴⁴ I am being dragged away in misery. Strangers, strangers! Oedipu ⁸⁴⁸ So those two staffs will never again support your path. ⁸⁵⁰ But since you wish to overcome your country and your friends, whose will I, though tyrant as well, am here discharging, then I wish you victory. For in time, I am sure, you will come to recognize all this, that now too as in time past, it is you who have done yourself no good, by indulging your anger despite your friends. ⁸⁵⁵ This has always been your ruin. Choru ⁸⁵⁷ I will not let go, unless you give back the maidens. Creon ⁸⁵⁸ Then you will soon give the city a more valuable prize, for I will lay hands on more than those two girls. Choru ⁸⁶² Indeed, unless the ruler of this realm prevents you. Oedipu ⁸⁶³ Voice of shamelessness! Will you really lay hands on me? Creon ⁸⁷⁰ grant in time an old age such as mine! Creon ⁸⁷¹ Do you see this, people of the land? Oedipu ⁸⁷² They see both you and me. They know that I have suffered in deeds, and my defense is mere words. Creon ⁸⁷⁴ I will not check my anger. Though I am alone ⁸⁷⁵ and slow with age, I will take this man by force. Oedipu ⁸⁷⁶ Ah, my wretchedness! Choru ⁸⁷⁷ What arrogance you have come with, stranger, if you think you will achieve this! Creon ^8
78 I will. Choru ⁸⁷⁹ Then I think this city no longer exists. Creon ⁸⁸⁰ For men who are just, you see, the weak vanquishes the strong. Oedipu ⁸⁸⁴ Hear people, hear rulers of the land! Come quickly, come! ⁸⁸⁵ These men are on their way to cross our borders! Enter Theseus. Theseu ^8
87 What is this shout? What is the trouble? What fear has moved you to stop my sacrifice at the altar to the sea-god, the lord of your Colonus ? Speak, so that I may know the situation; for that is why I have sped ⁸⁹⁰ here more swiftly than was pleasant. Oedipu ⁸⁹¹ Dearest of men! I know your voice. Terrible are the things I have just suffered at the hands of this man here. Theseu ⁸⁹³ What things are these? And who has pained you? Speak! Oedipu ⁸⁹⁴ Creon, whom you see here, ⁸⁹⁵ has torn from me my children—my only two. Theseu ⁸⁹⁷ Hurry, one of you attendants, to the altars there, and order the people to leave the sacrifice ⁹⁰⁰ and race on foot and by horse full speed, to the region where the two highways meet, so that the maidens may not pass, and I not become a mockery to this stranger as one worsted by force. Quick, I say, away with you! Turning towards Creon. ⁹⁰⁵ anger went as far as he deserves, I would not let him go uninjured from my hand. But now, just such law as he himself has brought will be the rule for his correction. Addressing Creon. ⁹⁰⁹ You will never leave this land ⁹¹⁰ until you bring those maidens and produce them in my sight. For your action is a disgrace to me, and to your own ancestors, and to your country. You have come to a city that practices justice and sanctions nothing without law, ⁹¹⁵ yet you have spurned her lawful authorities and made this violent assault. You are taking captives at will and subjugating them by force, as if you believed that my city was void of men, or manned by slaves, and that I counted for nothing. Yet it was not Thebes that trained you to be evil. Thebes is not accustomed to rearing unjust men;— ⁹²⁰ nor would she praise you, if she learned that you are despoiling me, and despoiling the gods, when by force you drive off their unfortunate suppliants. If my foot were upon your land, never would I drag off or lead away someone ⁹²⁵ without permission from the ruler of the land, whoever he might be—no, even if my claim were the most just of all. I would know how a stranger ought to live among citizens. But you are disgracing a city that does not deserve it: your own, ⁹³⁰ and your years, despite their fullness, bring you an old age barren of sense. Now, I have said before, and I say it once again: let the maidens be brought here speedily, unless you wish to be an unwilling immigrant to this country by force. ⁹³⁵ These are the words of my lips; my mind is in accord. Choru ⁹³⁷ Do you see your plight, stranger? You are judged to be just by where you are from, but your deeds are found to be evil. Creon ⁹³⁹ It is not because I thought this city void of men, son of Aegeus, or of counsel, as you say, ⁹⁴⁰ that I have done this deed; but because I judged that its people could never be so zealous for my relatives as to support them against my will. And I knew that this people would not receive a parricide and a polluted man, ⁹⁴⁵ a man whose unholy marriage—a marriage with children—had been found out. Such wisdom, I knew, was immemorial on the Areopagus, which does not allow such wanderers to dwell within this city. Trusting in that, I sought to take this prize. ⁹⁵⁰ And I would not have done so, had he not been calling down bitter curses on me and on my race. As I was wronged in this way, I judged that I had a right to this requital. For anger knows no old age, until death comes; ⁹⁵⁵ the dead alone feel no galling pain. In response to this, you will do what pleases you; for, though my case is just, the lack of aid makes me weak. Yet in the face of your actions, despite my age, I will endeavor to pay you back. Oedipu ⁹⁶⁰ Shameless arrogance, where do you think this outrage falls—on my old age, or on your own? Bloodshed, incest, misery—all this your tongue has launched against me, and all this I have borne in my wretchedness by no choice of mine. ⁹⁶⁵ For this was dear to the gods, who were angry, perhaps, with my race from of old. Taking me alone, you could not find a reproach for any crime, in retribution for which I was driven to commit these sins against myself and against my kin. Tell me now: if, by the voice of an oracle, some divine doom was coming on my father, ⁹⁷⁰ that he should die by a son’s hand, how could you justly reproach me with this, when I was then unborn, when no father had yet begotten me, no mother’s womb conceived me? But if, having been born to misery—as I was born—I came to blows with my father and slew him, ignorant of what ⁹⁷⁵ I was doing and to whom, how could you reasonably blame the unwitting deed? And my mother—wretch, do you feel no shame in forcing me to speak of her marriage, when she was your sister, and when it was such as I will now tell? ⁹⁸⁰ For I will not be silent, when you have gone so far in impious speech. Yes, she was my mother, yes—alas, for my miseries! I did not know it, nor did she, and to her shame she bore children to the son whom she had borne. ⁹⁸⁵ But one thing, at least, I know: that you willingly revile her and me, but I did not willingly marry her, and I do not willingly speak now. No, I will not be called evil on account of this marriage, nor in the slaying of my father, which you charge me with again and again in bitter insult. ⁹⁹⁰ Answer just one thing of those I ask. If, here and now, someone should come up and try to murder you—you, the just one—would you ask if the murderer was your father, or would you revenge yourself on him straightaway? ⁹⁹⁵ I think that if your life is dear to you, you would requite the criminal, and not look around for a justification. Such then were the evils into which I came, led by the gods; and in this, I think, my father’s soul, could it come back to life, would not contradict me. ¹⁰⁰⁰ But you are not just; you are one who considers it a fine thing to utter every sort of word, both those which are sanctioned and those which are forbidden—such are your taunts against me in the presence of these men. And to you it seems a fine thing to flatter the renowned Theseus, and Athens , saying how well it is governed.'¹⁰⁰¹ But you are not just; you are one who considers it a fine thing to utter every sort of word, both those which are sanctioned and those which are forbidden—such are your taunts against me in the presence of these men. And to you it seems a fine thing to flatter the renowned Theseus, and Athens , saying how well it is governed. ¹⁰⁰⁵ Yet while giving such generous praise, you forget that if any land knows how to worship the gods with honors, this land excels in that. It is from her that you had planned to steal me, a suppliant and an old man, and tried to seize me, having already carried off my daughters. ¹⁰¹⁰ Therefore I now call on the goddesses here, I supplicate them, I beseech them with prayers, to bring me help and to fight on my behalf, that you may learn well what kind of men this city is guarded by. Choru ¹⁰¹⁴ The stranger is a good man, lord. ¹⁰¹⁵ His fate has been accursed, but it is worthy of our aid. Theseu ¹⁰¹⁶ Enough of words. The doers of the deed are in flight, while we, the sufferers, stand still. Creon ¹⁰¹⁸ What order, then, do you have for a powerless man? Theseu ¹⁰¹⁹ Guide the way on the path to them while I escort you, ¹⁰²⁰ in order that if you are keeping the maidens whom we seek in these lands, you yourself may reveal them to me. But if your men are fleeing with the spoils in their grasp, we may spare our trouble; the chase is for others, from whom they will never escape out of this land to thank their gods. ¹⁰²⁵ Come, lead the way! And know that the captor has been captured; fate has seized you as you hunted. Gains unjustly got by guile are soon lost. And you will have no ally in your purpose; for I well know that it is not without accomplice or resource that you have come to such ¹⁰³⁰ outrage, from the daring mood which has inspired you here. There was someone you were trusting in when you did these deeds. This I must consider, and I must not make this city weaker than one man. Do you take my drift? ¹⁰³⁵ Or do these words seem as empty as the warnings given when you were laying your plans? Creon ¹⁰³⁶ Say what you wish while you are here; I will not object. But at home I too will know how to act. Theseu ¹⁰³⁸ Make your threats, then, but go forward. As for you, Oedipus, stay here in peace with my pledge that, unless I die beforehand, ¹⁰⁴⁰ I will not cease until I put you in possession of your children. Oedipu ¹⁰⁴² Thanks to you, Theseus, for your nobleness and your righteous care for me! Theseus exits with attendants and Creon. Choru ¹¹⁵⁶ They say a man—not from your city, yet of your race—has somehow thrown himself down, as a suppliant, at our altar of Poseidon, where I was sacrificing when I first set out here. Oedipu ¹¹⁶⁰ What land does he come form? What does he desire by his supplication? Theseu ¹¹⁶¹ I know one thing only: they tell me he asks to speak briefly with you, a thing of no great burden. Oedipu ¹¹⁶³ On what topic? That suppliant state is of no small account. Theseu ¹¹⁶⁴ He asks, they say, no more than that he may confer with you, ¹¹⁶⁵ and return unharmed from his journey here. Oedipu ^11
66 Who can he be that implores the god in this way? Theseu ¹¹⁶⁷ Consider whether there is anyone in your race at Argos , who might desire this favor from you. Oedipu ¹¹⁷¹ From hearing these things I know who the suppliant is. Theseu ¹¹⁷² And who can he be, that I should have an objection to him? Oedipu ¹¹⁷³ My son, lord, a hated son whose words would vex my ear like the words of no man besides. Theseu ¹¹⁷⁵ What? Can you not listen, without doing what you do not wish to do? Why does it pain you to hear him? Oedipu ¹¹⁷⁷ Lord, that voice has become most hateful to his father. Do not constrain me to yield in this. Theseu ¹¹⁷⁹ But consider whether his suppliant state constrains you; ¹¹⁸⁰ what if you have a duty of respect for the god? Antigone ¹²⁵⁴ Ah, me, what should I do? Should I weep first ¹²⁵⁵ for my own woes, sisters, or for those of my father here, in his old age? I have found him in a foreign land, here with you two as an exile, clad in such garments as these. Their unfriendly filth has resided with the old man for long, ¹²⁶⁰ wasting his flesh; while above the sightless eyes the unkempt hair flutters in the breeze; and matching with these things, it seems, is the food that he carries, sustece for his poor stomach. Wretch that I am! I learn all this too late. ¹²⁶⁵ And I bear witness that I have proved the worst of men in all that concerns care for you; from my own lips hear what I am. But seeing that Zeus himself in all his actions has Shame beside him to share his throne, may she come to your aid too, father. For the sins committed can be healed, ¹²⁷⁰ but can never be made worse. Why are you silent? Speak, father. Do not turn away from me. Do you not have any answer at all for me? Will you dismiss me without a word, dishonored, and not tell me why you are angry? ¹²⁷⁵ Seed of this man, my sisters, you at least must try to move our father’s implacable, inexorable silence, so that he may not send me away like this, dishonored and with no word in return, when I am the suppliant of the god. Antigone ¹²⁸⁰ Tell him yourself, unhappy man, what you have come to seek. When words flow, you know, they may give joy, or incite anger or pity, and so they may give a voice to the mute. Polyneice ¹²⁸⁴ Then I will speak boldly, for you give me excellent guidance, ¹²⁸⁵ first claiming the help of the god himself, from whose altar the king of this land raised me to come to you, with a guarantee to speak and hear, and go my way unharmed. And I wish these pledges, strangers, to be kept with me by you, and by my sisters here, and by my father. ¹²⁹⁰ But now I want to tell you, father, why I came. I have been driven as an exile from my fatherland, because, as eldest-born, I thought it right to sit on your sovereign throne. ¹²⁹⁵ Therefore Eteocles, though the younger, thrust me from the land, when he had neither defeated me by an argument of law, nor made a trial of might and deed. He brought over the city by persuasion. The cause of this, I claim, is most of all the curse on your house; ¹³⁰⁰ I also hear this from soothsayers. For when I came to Dorian Argos, I made Adrastus my father-in-law. And I bound to me by oath all men of the Apian land who are foremost in their renown for war, ¹³⁰⁵ o that with their aid I might collect the seven armies of spearmen against Thebes , and die in a just cause, or drive the doers of this wrong from the land. All right then, why have I come to you now? Bearing prayers of supplication, father, in person to you, ¹³¹⁰ my own prayers and those of my allies, who now with seven armies behind their seven spears have set their blockade around the plain of Thebes . One such is swift-speared Amphiaraus, a matchless warrior, and a matchless diviner; ¹³¹⁵ then comes the son of Oeneus, Aetolian Tydeus; Eteoclus is third, of Argive birth; the fourth, Hippomedon, is sent by Talaos, his father; while Capaneus, the fifth, boasts that he will burn Thebes to the ground with fire; and sixth, Arcadian Parthenopaeus rushes to the war. ¹³²⁰ He is named for that virgin of long ago from whose marriage in later time he was born, the trusty son of Atalanta. Last come I, your son—or if not yours, then the offspring of an evil fate, but yours at least in name— ¹³²⁵ leading the fearless army of Argos to Thebes . It is we who implore you, father, every one of us, by your daughters here and by your soul, begging you to forgo your fierce anger against me, as I go forth to punish my brother, ¹³³⁰ who has expelled me and robbed me of my fatherland. For if anything trustworthy comes from oracles, they said that whoever you join with in alliance will have victorious strength. Then, by the streams of water and gods of our race, I ask you to listen and to yield. ¹³³⁵ I am a beggar and a stranger, as you are yourself; by paying court to others both you and I have a home, obtaining by lot the same fortune. But he is tyrant at home—wretched me!—and in his pride laughs at you and me alike. ¹³⁴⁰ But if you join as ally to my purpose, with little trouble or time I will scatter his strength to the winds, so that I will bring you home and set you in your own house, and set me in mine, when I have cast him out by force. If you are with me, then I can make this boast; but without you ¹³⁴⁵ I cannot even return alive. Choru ¹³⁴⁶ For the sake of him who has sent this man, Oedipus, speak what seems good to you, before you send him away. Oedipu ¹³⁴⁸ Guardians of this land, if it were not Theseus who had sent him here to me, thinking it just that he should hear my response, ¹³⁵⁰ then never would he have heard my voice of prophecy. But now he will be graced with it, before he goes, and hear from me such words as never will gladden his life. ¹³⁵⁵ Worst of men, when you had the scepter and the throne, which now your brother has in Thebes , you drove me, your own father, into exile; and by making me an exile you caused me to wear this clothing at whose sight you weep, now that you have come to the same state of misery as I. ¹³⁶⁰ The time for tears is past. I must bear this burden as long as I live, and keep you before my mind as a murderer. For it is you that have made me subject to this anguish; it is you that have thrust me out, and because of you I wander, begging my daily bread from strangers. ¹³⁶⁵ And had these daughters not been born to me to be my comfort, in truth I would be dead, for lack of help from you. But now these girls preserve me; they are my nurses; they are men, not women, in sharing my toil. But you are from another and are no sons of mine. ¹³⁷⁰ Therefore the divinity looks upon you—not yet as he soon will look, if indeed those armies of yours are moving against Thebes . There is no way in which you can ever overthrow that city. Before that you will fall, polluted by bloodshed, and so too your brother. ¹³⁷⁵ Such curses as my heart before now sent up against you both, I now invoke to fight for me, in order that you may think it fit to revere your parents and not to dishonor your father utterly, because he who begot such sons is blind. For my daughters here did not act in this way. ¹³⁸⁰ This supplication of yours, and this throne of yours, will lie in the power of my curses, if indeed Justice, revealed long ago, sits beside Zeus, to share his throne through sanction of primordial laws. But off to damnation with you, abhorred by me and disowned! ¹³⁸⁵ Take these curses which I call down on you, most evil of evil men: may you never defeat your native land, and may you never return to the valley of Argos ; I pray that you die by a related hand, and slay him by whom you have been driven out. This is my prayer. ¹³⁹⁰ And I call on the hateful darkness of Tartarus that your father shares, to take you into another home; and I call on the divinities of this place, and I call on the god of war, who has set dreadful hatred in you both. Go with these words in your ear; ¹³⁹⁵ go and announce to all the Cadmeans, and to your own faithful allies, that Oedipus has distributed such portions to his sons. Choru ' None

10. Sophocles, Oedipus The King, 4-5, 96-101, 211, 410, 523-524, 543-544, 569, 583-615, 634-636, 660-662, 664-665, 669-670, 688-696, 711-714, 787-793, 1508-1510, 1518-1519 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon (king of Thebes) • Creon, and Delphi • Creon, and Oedipus • Creon, and agōn scenes • Creon, and law • Creon, and women • Creon, as a political hero • Creon, in the social hierarchy • Creon, role of • Creon,King, Oedipus the King • Oedipus Rex, Creon as a character • Oedipus, and Creon • Oedipus, vs. Creon • characters, tragic/mythical, Creon, king of Thebes • law, of Creon • seers, and Creon

Found in books: Bernabe et al. (2013), Redefining Dionysos, 273; Bierl (2017), Time and Space in Ancient Myth, Religion and Culture, 148, 150, 151, 153, 158; Budelmann (1999), The Language of Sophocles: Communality, Communication, and Involvement, 71, 72, 73, 74; Csapo et al. (2022), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, 165; Jouanna (2012), Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen, 58; Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 144, 145, 203, 285, 317, 336, 339, 671, 737, 749; Liapis and Petrides (2019), Greek Tragedy After the Fifth Century: A Survey from ca, 284; Naiden (2013), Smoke Signals for the Gods: Ancient Greek Sacrifice from the Archaic through Roman Periods, 118; Papaioannou et al. (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23, 25; Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23, 25; Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 79; Trott (2019), Aristotle on the Matter of Form: ? Feminist Metaphysics of Generation, 128

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4 My children, latest-born wards of old Cadmus, why do you sit before me like this with wreathed branches of suppliants, while the city reeks with incense, ⁵ rings with prayers for health and cries of woe? I thought it unbefitting, my children, to hear these things from the mouths of others, and have come here myself, I, Oedipus renowned by all. Tell me, then, venerable old man—since it is proper that you ⁹⁶ I will tell you what I heard from the god. Phoebus our lord clearly commands us to drive out the defilement which he said was harbored in this land, and not to nourish it so that it cannot be healed. Oedipu ⁹⁹ With what sort of purification? What is the manner of the misfortune? Creon ¹⁰⁰ By banishing the man, or by paying back bloodshed with bloodshed, since it is this blood which brings the tempest on our city. Oedipu'¹⁰¹ By banishing the man, or by paying back bloodshed with bloodshed, since it is this blood which brings the tempest on our city. Oedipu ²¹¹ who is named with the name of this land, ruddy Bacchus to whom Bacchants cry, to draw near with the blaze of his shining torch, ⁴¹⁰ For I do not live as your slave, but as Loxias’. I will not stand enrolled as Creon’s client. And I tell you, since you have taunted my blindness, that though you have sight, you do not see what a state of misery you are in, or where you dwell, or with whom. ⁵²³ But perhaps this taunt came under the stress of anger, rather than from the purpose of his heart. Creon ^5
43 Mark me now: hear a fair reply in answer to your words, and then judge for yourself on the basis of knowledge. Oedipu ⁵⁶⁹ I do not know: where I lack insight it is my custom to be silent. Oedipu ⁵⁸³ Not so, if you would reason with your heart as I do with mine. Weigh this first—whether you think that anyone would ⁵⁸⁵ choose to rule amid terrors rather than in unruffled peace, granted that he is to have the same powers. Now I, for one, have by nature no yearning to rule as a king rather than to do kingly deeds, and neither does any man I know who has a sound mind. ⁵⁹⁰ For now I attain all everything from you without fear, but, if I were ruler myself, I would have to do much that went against my own pleasure. How, then, could royalty be sweeter to me to have than painless rule and influence? I am not yet so misguided ⁵⁹⁵ that I desire other honors than those which bring profit. Now, every man has a greeting for me; now, all that have a request of you crave to speak with me, since in me lies all their hope of success. Why then should I give up these things and take those others? ⁶⁰⁰ No mind will become false while it is wise. No, I am no lover of such a policy, and if another put it into action, I could never bear to go along with him. And, in proof of this, first go to Pytho , and ask whether I brought a true report of the oracle. ⁶⁰⁵ Then next, if you have found that I have planned anything in concert with the soothsayer, take and slay me, by the sentence not of one mouth, but of two—by my own no less than yours. But do not assume my guilt on unproven inference. It is not just to judge bad men good at random, ⁶¹⁰ or good men bad. I think that casting off a true friend is for a man like casting away the life in his own bosom, which he most loves. You will surely learn about these affairs in time, since time alone reveals a just man. ⁶¹⁵ But you can discern a bad man even in one day alone. Choru ^63
4 Misguided men, why have you raised ⁶³⁵ uch a foolish argument? Are you not ashamed, while the land is so sick, to stir up troubles of your own? Come, go into the house—and you, Creon, go to yours—and stop making so much of a petty grief. Creon ⁶⁶⁰ No, by the god that stands at the head of all the host of the gods, no, by the sun. Unblest, unbefriended, may I die the worst possible death, if I have this thought! ⁶⁶⁵ But my unhappy soul is worn by the withering of the land, as well as by the thought that our old sorrows should be crowned by new ones arising from the two of you. Oedipu ⁶⁶⁹ Then let him go, though I am surely doomed to be killed ⁶⁷⁰ or thrust dishonored from the land. Your words, not his, move me to compassion. Creon ⁶⁸⁸ Do you see to what you have come, for all your noble intent, in seeking to slacken and blunt my zeal? Choru ⁶⁸⁹ King, I have said it more than once— ⁶⁹⁰ be sure that I would have proved myself a madman, bankrupt in sane counsel, if I forsook you—you, who gave a true course to my beloved country when it wa ⁶⁹⁵ distraught with troubles, and who now are likely to prove our prospering guide. Iocasta ⁷¹¹ I will give you a pithy proof of this. An oracle came to Laius once—I will not say from Phoebus himself, but from his ministers—saying that he would suffer his doom at the hands of the child to be born to him and me. ⁷⁸⁷ So I had comfort about them, but the matter rankled in my heart, for such a rumor still spread widely. I went to Delphi without my parents’ knowledge, and Phoebus sent me forth disappointed of the knowledge for which I had come, ⁷⁹⁰ but in his response set forth other things, full of sorrow and terror and woe: that I was fated to defile my mother’s bed, that I would reveal to men a brood which they could not endure to behold, and that I would slay the father that sired me. When I heard this, I turned in flight from the land of Corinth , ¹⁵⁰⁸ do not allow them to wander poor and unwed, for they are your own kin, nor abase them to the level of my woes. Pity them, seeing them deprived of everything but you at such an age. ¹⁵¹⁰ Promise, noble man, and touch them with your hand. To you, children, I would have given much counsel, if your minds were mature. But now pray that you may live where occasion allows, and that the life which is your lot may be happier than your father’s. Creon ¹⁵¹⁸ Your grief has had a sufficient scope: move on into the house. Oedipu ' None

11. Sophocles, Women of Trachis, 423-424 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon (king of Thebes) • Creon,King, Antigone

Found in books: Csapo et al. (2022), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World, 201; Sommerstein and Torrance (2014), Oaths and Swearing in Ancient Greece, 90

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423 To many of our own citizens you said it. In the public gathering of Trachinians a great crowd heard this much, at least, from you. Lichas: '⁴²⁴ Sure, ' None

12. None, None, nan (4th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon, and Polynices’ burial • Creon, and law • law, of Creon

Found in books: Jouanna (2018), Sophocles: A Study of His Theater in Its Political and Social Context, 397, 749; Liatsi (2021), Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature: Aspects of Ethical Reasoning from Homer to Aristotle and Beyond, 95

13. None, None, nan (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon

Found in books: Papaioannou et al. (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 25; Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 25

14. None, None, nan (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon, Sen. King Oedipus • Creon, in Oedipus

Found in books: Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 39, 53, 54; Bexley (2022), Seneca's Characters: Fictional Identities and Implied Human Selves, 249

15. None, None, nan (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon, Soph. Antigone • Creon, Statius’ Creon as Medea • Creon, Theb. • Creon, and /as Eteocles • Creon, and grief • Creon, as Pelias • Creon, feminized • Eurydice (wife of Creon)

Found in books: Agri (2022), Reading Fear in Flavian Epic: Emotion, Power, and Stoicism, 70, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 128, 146, 150, 155, 157, 158; Augoustakis (2014), Flavian Poetry and its Greek Past, 202, 203, 205; Panoussi(2019), Brides, Mourners, Bacchae: Women's Rituals in Roman Literature, 109, 241; Roumpou (2023), Ritual and the Poetics of Closure in Flavian Literature. 23, 148, 151, 152, 153, 154; Verhagen (2022), Security and Credit in Roman Law: The Historical Evolution of Pignus and Hypotheca, 202, 203, 205

16. Demosthenes, Orations, 43.66
Tagged with subjects: • Creon

Found in books: Papaioannou et al. (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23; Papaioannou, Serafim and Demetriou (2021), Rhetoric and Religion in Ancient Greece and Rome, 23

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43.66 (To the clerk.) Now please read the words of the oracle brought from Delphi, from the shrine of the god, that you may see that it speaks in the same terms concerning relatives as do the laws of Solon. Oracle May good fortune attend you. The people of the Athenians make inquiry about the sign which has appeared in the heavens, asking what the Athenians should do, or to what god they should offer sacrifice or make prayer, in order that the issue of the sign may be for their advantage. It will be well for the Athenians with reference to the sign which has appeared in the heavens that they sacrifice with happy auspices to Zeus most high, to Athena most high, to Heracles, to Apollo the deliverer, and that they send due offerings to the Amphiones; Possibly, Amphion and Zethus; but their tomb was near Thebes . See Paus. 9.17.4 that they sacrifice for good fortune to Apollo, god of the ways, to Leto and to Artemis, and that they make the streets steam with the savour of sacrifice; that they set forth bowls of wine and institute choruses and wreathe themselves with garlands after the custom of their fathers, in honor of all the Olympian gods and goddesses, lifting up the right hand and the left, and that they be mindful to bring gifts of thanksgiving after the custom of their fathers. And ye shall offer sacrificial gifts after the custom of your fathers to the hero-founder after whom ye are named; and for the dead their relatives shall make offerings on the appointed day according to established custom. '' None

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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database