Part 42

ANTIGONE. Claim not a work in which thou hadst no hand; One death sufficeth. Wherefore should’st thou die?

ISMENE. What would life profit me bereft of thee?

ANTIGONE. Ask Creon, he’s thy kinsman and best friend.

ISMENE. Why taunt me? Find’st thou pleasure in these gibes?

ANTIGONE. ’Tis a sad mockery, if indeed I mock.

ISMENE. O say if I can help thee even now.

ANTIGONE. No, save thyself; I grudge not thy escape.

ISMENE. Is e’en this boon denied, to share thy lot?

ANTIGONE. Yea, for thou chosed’st life, and I to die.

ISMENE. Thou canst not say that I did not protest.

ANTIGONE. Well, some approved thy wisdom, others mine.

ISMENE. But now we stand convicted, both alike.

ANTIGONE. Fear not; thou livest, I died long ago Then when I gave my life to save the dead.

CREON. Both maids, methinks, are crazed. One suddenly Has lost her wits, the other was born mad.

ISMENE. Yea, so it falls, sire, when misfortune comes, The wisest even lose their mother wit.

CREON. I’ faith thy wit forsook thee when thou mad’st Thy choice with evil-doers to do ill.

ISMENE. What life for me without my sister here?

CREON. Say not thy sister here: thy sister’s dead.

ISMENE. What, wilt thou slay thy own son’s plighted bride?

CREON. Aye, let him raise him seed from other fields.

ISMENE. No new espousal can be like the old.

CREON. A plague on trulls who court and woo our sons.

ANTIGONE. O Haemon, how thy sire dishonors thee!

CREON. A plague on thee and thy accursed bride!

CHORUS. What, wilt thou rob thine own son of his bride?

CREON. ’Tis death that bars this marriage, not his sire.

CHORUS. So her death-warrant, it would seem, is sealed.

CREON. By you, as first by me; off with them, guards, And keep them close. Henceforward let them learn To live as women use, not roam at large. For e’en the bravest spirits run away When they perceive death pressing on life’s heels.