Antigone (Paean & Exodos)

**PAEN**

CHORAGOS:[Strophe 1]
God of many names

CHORUS:
O Iacchos
Son
Of Kadmeian Semele
O born of the Thunder!
Guardian of the West
Regent
Of Eleusis’ plain
O Prince of maenad Thebes
And the Dragon Field by rippling Ismenos

CHORAGOS:[Antistrophe 1]
God of many names

CHORUS:
The flame of torches
Flares on our hills
The nymphs of Iacchos
Dance at the spring of Castalia
From the vine-close mountain
Come ah come in ivy:
Evohe evohe! Sings through the streets of Thebes

CHORAGOS:[Strophe 2]
God of many names

CHORUS:
Iacchos of Thebes
Heavenly Child
Of Semele bride of the Thunderer!
The shadow of plague is upon us:
Come
With clement feet
Oh come from Parnasos
Down the long slopes
Across the lamenting water

CHORAGOS:[Antistrophe 2]
Io Fire! Chorister of the throbbing stars!
O purest among the voices of the night!
Thou son of God, blaze for us!

CHORUS:
Come with choric rapture of circling Maenads
Who cry Io Iacche!
God of many names!

**EXODOS**

[*Enter MESSENGER, L.*]

MESSENGER:
Men of the line of Kadmos you who live
Near Amphion’s citadel:
I cannot say
Of any condition of human life “This is fixed,
This is clearly good, or bad.” Fate raises up,
And Fate casts down the happy and unhappy alike:
No man can foretell his Fate.
Take the case of Creon:
Creon was happy once, as I count happiness:
Victorious in battle, sole governor of the land,
Fortunate father of children nobly born.
And now it has all gone from him! Who can say
That a man is still alive when his life’s joy fails?
He is a walking dead man. Grant him rich,
Let him live like a king in his great house:
If his pleasure is gone, is would not give
So much as the shadow of smoke for all he owns.

CHORAGOS:
Your words hint at sorrow: what is your news for us?

MESSENGER:
They are dead. The living are guilt of their death.

CHORAGOS:
Who is guilty? Who is dead? Speak!

MESSENGER:
Haimon.
Haimon is dead; and the hand that killed him
Is his own hand.

CHORAGOS:
His father’s? or his own?

MESSENGER:
His own, driven mad by the murder his father had done.

CHORAGOS:
Teiresias, Teiresias, how clearly you saw it all!

MESSENGER:
This is my news: you must draw what conclusions you can from it.

CHORAGOS:
But look: Eurydice, our Queen:
Has she overheard us?
[Enter UERYDICE from the Palace, C.]

EURIDICE:
I have heard something, friends:
As I was unlocking the gate of Pallas’ shrine,
For I needed her help today, I heard a voice
Telling of some new sorrow. And I fainted
There at the temple with all my maidens about me.
But speak again: whatever it is, I can bear it:
Grief and I are no strangers.

MESSENGER:
Dearest Lady,
I will tell you plainly all that I have seen.
I shall not try to comfort you: what is the use,
Since comfort could lie only in what is not true?
The truth is always best.
I went with Creon
To the outer plain where Polyneices was lying,
No friend to pity him, his body shredded by dogs.
We made our prayers in that place to Hecate
And Pluto, that they would be merciful. And we bathed
The corpse with holy water, and we brought
Fresh-broken branches to burn what was left of it,
And upon the urn we heaped up a towering barrow
Of the earth of his own land.
When we are done, we ran
To the vault where Antigone lay on her couch of stone.
One of the servants had gone ahead,
And while he was yet far off he heard a voice
Grieving within the chamber, and he came back
And told Creon. And as the King went closer,
The air was full of wailing, the words lost,
And he begged us to make all haste. “Am I a prophet?”
He said, weeping, “And must I walk this road,
The saddest of all that I have gone before?
My son’s voice calls me on. Oh quickly, quickly!
Look through the crevice there, and tell me
If it is Haimon, or some deception of the gods!”
We obeyed; and in the cavern’s farthest corner
We saw her lying:
Haimon lay beside hers,
His arms about her waist, lamenting her,
His love lost under ground, crying out
That his father has stolen her away from him.
When Creon saw him the tears rushed to his eyes
And he called to him: “What have you done, child? Speak to me.
What are you thinking that makes your eyes so stranger?
O my son, my son, I come to you on my knees!”
But Haimon spat in his face. He said not a word,
Staring––
And suddenly drew his sword
And lunged. Creon shrank back, the blade missed; and the boy,
Desperate against himself , drove it half its length
Into his own side, and fell. And as he died
He gathered Antigone close in his arms again.
Choking, his blood bright red on her white cheek.
And now he lies dead with the dead, and she is his
At last, his bride in the houses of the dead.
[*Exit EURDICE into the Palace.*]

CHORAGOS:
She has left us without a word. What can this mean?

MESSENGER:
It troubles me, too; yet she knows what is best,
Her grief is too great for public lamentation,
And doubtless she has gone to her chamber to weep
For dead son, leading her maidens in his dirge.

CHORAGOS:
It may be so: but I fear this deep silence.

MESSENGER: [*Pause.*]
I will see what she is doing. I will go in.
[*Exit MESSENGER into the Palace.*]
[*Enter CREON with attendants,
Bearing HAIMON’S body.*]

CHORAGOS:
But here is the King himself: oh look at him,
Bearing his own damnation in his arms.

CREON:
Nothing you say can touch me any more. My own blind heart has brought me
From darkness to final darkness. Here you see
The father murdering, the murdered son––
And all my civic wisdom!
Haimon my son, so young, so young to die,
I was the fool, not you; and you died for me.

CHORAGOS:
That is the truth; but you were late in learning it.

CREON:
This truth is hard to bear. Surely a god
Has crushed me beneath the hugest weight of heaven,
And driven me headlong a barbaric way
To trample out the thing I held most dear.
The pains that men will take to come to pain!
[*Enter MESSENGER from the Palace.*]

MESSENGER:
The burden you carry in your hands is heavy,
But it is not all: you will find more in your house.

CREON:
What burden worse than this shall I find there?

MESSENGER:
The Queen is dead.

CREON:
O port of death, deaf world,
Is there no pity for me? And you, Angel of evil,
I was dead, and your words are death again.
Is it true, boy? Can it be true?
Is my wife dead? Has death bred death?

MESSENGER:
You can see for yourself.
[*The doors are opened, and the body
Of EURDICE is disclosed within.*]

CREON:
Oh pity!
All true, all true, and more than I can bear!
O my wife, my son!

MESSENGER:
She stood before the altar, and her heart
Welcome the knife her own hand guided.
And a great cry burst from her lips for Megareus dead,
And for Haimon dead, her sons; and her last breath
Was a curse for their father, the murdered of her sons.
And she fell, and the dark flowed in through her closing eyes.

CREON:
O God, I am sick with fear.
Are there no swords here? Has no one a blow for me?

MESSENGER:
Her curse is upon you for the deaths of both.

CREON:
It is right that it should be. I alone am guilty.
I know it, and I say it. Lead me in,
Quickly, friends.
I have neither life nor substance. Lead me in.

CHORAGOS:
You are right, if there can be right in so much wrong.
The briefest way is best in a world of sorrow.

CREON:
Let it come,
Let death come quickly, and be kind to me.
I would not ever see the sun again.

CHORAGOS:
All that will come when it will; but we, meanwhile, 1030
Have much to do. Leave the future to itself.

CREON:
All my heart was in that prayer!

CHORAGOS:
Then do not pray any more: the sky is deal

CREON:
Lead me away. I have been rash and foolish.
I have killed my son and my wife.
I look for comfort; my comfort lies here dead.
Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing.
Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust.
[*As CREON is being led into the house, the CHORAGOS advances and speaks
Directly to the audience.*]

CHORAGOS:
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.