Than all our family, she shall not escape

The direst penalty; no, nor shall her sister:

I judge her guilty too; she played her part

In burying the body. Summon her.

Just now I saw her raving and distracted

Within the palace. So it often is:

Those who plan crime in secret are betrayed

Despite themselves; they show it in their faces.

But this is worst of all: to be convicted

And then to glorify the crime as virtue.

[Exeunt some GUARDS.]

ANTIGONE. Would you do more than simply take and kill me?

CREON. I will have nothing more, and nothing less.

ANTIGONE. Then why delay? To me no word of yours

Is pleasing—God forbid it should be so!—

And everything in me displeases you.

Yet what could I have done to win renown

More glorious than giving burial

To my own brother? These men too would say it,

Except that terror cows them into silence.

A king has many a privilege: the greatest,

That he can say and do all that he will.

CREON. You are the only one in Thebes to think it!

ANTIGONE. These think as I do—but they dare not speak.

CREON. Have you no shame, not to conform with others?

ANTIGONE. To reverence a brother is no shame.

CREON. Was he no brother, he who died for Thebes?

ANTIGONE. One mother and one father gave them birth.

CREON. Honouring the traitor, you dishonour him.

ANTIGONE. He will not bear this testimony, in death.

CREON. Yes! if the traitor fare the same as he.

ANTIGONE. It was a brother, not a slave who died!

CREON. He died attacking Thebes; the other saved us.

ANTIGONE. Even so, the god of Death demands these rites.

CREON. The good demand more honour than the wicked.

ANTIGONE. Who knows? In death they may be reconciled.

CREON. Death does not make an enemy a friend!

ANTIGONE. Even so, I give both love, not share their hatred.

CREON. Down then to Hell! Love there, if love you must.

While I am living, no woman shall have rule.

[Enter GUARDS, with ISMENE.]

CHORUS. [Chants] See where Ismene leaves the palace-gate,

In tears shed for her sister. On her brow

A cloud of grief has blotted out her sun,

And breaks in rain upon her comeliness.

CREON. You, lurking like a serpent in my house,

Drinking my life-blood unawares; nor did

I know that I was cherishing two fiends,

Subverters of my throne; come, tell me this:

Do you confess you shared this burial.

Or will you swear you had no knowledge of it?

ISMENE. I did it too, if she allows my claim;

I share the burden of this heavy charge.

ANTIGONE. No! Justice will not suffer that; for you

Refused, and I gave you no part in it.

ISMENE. But in your stormy voyage I am glad

To share the danger, travelling at your side.

ANTIGONE. Whose was the deed the god of Death knows well;