1. None, None, nan (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon, and Delphi
Found in books: Gazis and Hooper (2021) 61; Jouanna (2018) 145
|
2. Euripides, Medea, 1383 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon
Found in books: Liatsi (2021) 135; Lipka (2021) 91
1383. τὸ λοιπὸν ἀντὶ τοῦδε δυσσεβοῦς φόνου.''. None | 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 |
|
3. Euripides, Phoenician Women, 1090-1199 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon
Found in books: Augoustakis (2014) 205; Verhagen (2022) 205
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 | 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 |
|
4. Euripides, Suppliant Women, 399-563 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon • Creon (king of Thebes)
Found in books: Augoustakis (2014) 209; Csapo (2022) 206; Jouanna (2018) 159, 160; Verhagen (2022) 209
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 | 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 |
|
5. 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) 52; Jouanna (2018) 334
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 | 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 |
|
6. Sophocles, Antigone, 7-8, 16, 18-19, 26-34, 53, 59-64, 72-74, 77, 93-94, 96-97, 162-206, 285-289, 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) 71, 72, 74; Bednarek (2021) 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51; Bernabe et al (2013) 273, 274; Bierl (2017) 114, 116, 125, 126, 130, 132, 133, 134, 156; Budelmann (1999) 75, 76, 77; Csapo (2022) 165, 201, 206; Del Lucchese (2019) 51; Fabian Meinel (2015) 88, 89, 90, 91, 93, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 105, 111, 112; Huffman (2019) 90; Johnston and Struck (2005) 197; Jouanna (2012) 123; Jouanna (2018) 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) 102, 103, 126; Liapis and Petrides (2019) 278; Naiden (2013) 139, 160; Papaioannou et al. (2021) 21, 22, 23
| 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 ,
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? 1282. Your wife is dead, true mother of that corpse, poor lady, by wounds newly cut. 1284. O harbor of Hades, hard to purify! 1
285. 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 |
|
7. 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) 71; Jouanna (2018) 354; Liapis and Petrides (2019) 284
| 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 |
|
8. 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) 203, 204, 205; Bierl (2017) 151; Jouanna (2018) 152, 161, 213, 217, 261, 336, 358, 359, 386, 452, 714, 715, 737, 749; Verhagen (2022) 203, 204, 205
| 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 |
|
9. Sophocles, Oedipus The King, 4-5, 96-98, 100-101, 211, 410, 523-524, 543-544, 569, 583-615, 634-636, 660-662, 664-665, 669-670, 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) 273; Bierl (2017) 148, 150, 151, 153, 158; Budelmann (1999) 71, 72, 73, 74; Csapo (2022) 165; Jouanna (2012) 58; Jouanna (2018) 144, 145, 203, 285, 317, 336, 339, 671, 737, 749; Liapis and Petrides (2019) 284; Naiden (2013) 118; Papaioannou et al. (2021) 25; Sommerstein and Torrance (2014) 79; Trott (2019) 128
| 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
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
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 |
|
10. 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 (2022) 201; Sommerstein and Torrance (2014) 90
| 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 |
|
11. 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) 397, 749; Liatsi (2021) 95
|
12. None, None, nan (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
Tagged with subjects: • Creon, Sen. King Oedipus • Creon, in Oedipus
Found in books: Agri (2022) 39, 53, 54; Bexley (2022) 249
|
13. 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) 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 146, 150, 155, 157, 158; Augoustakis (2014) 202, 203, 205; Panoussi(2019) 109, 241; Verhagen (2022) 202, 203, 205
|
