Antigone Quotes

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

Go then if you must, but remember, no matter how foolish your deeds, those who love you will love you still.

A man, though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.

There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money.

I was born to join in love, not hate - that is my nature.

Tomorrow is tomorrow. Future cares have future cures, And we must mind today.

We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.

Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.

When I have tried and failed, I shall have failed.

Leave me to my own absurdity.

No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.

I have been a stranger here in my own land: All my life

A city which belongs to just one man is no true city

It is not right if I am wrong. But if I am young, and right, what does my age matter?

There is no greater evil than men's failure to consult and to consider.

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.

I have no love for a friend who loves in words alone.

I spit on your happiness! I spit on your idea of life--that life that must go on, come what may. You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell. You with your promise of a humdrum happiness--provided a person doesn't ask much of life. I want everything of life, I do; and I want it now! I want it total, complete: otherwise I reject it! I will not be moderate. I will not be satisfied with the bit of cake you offer me if I promise to be a good little girl. I want to be sure of everything this very day; sure that everything will be as beautiful as when I was a little girl. If not, I want to die!

Do not fear for me. Make straight your own path to destiny.

Do not believe that you alone can be right. The man who thinks that, The man who maintains that only he has the power To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul— A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.

Numberless are the world's wonders, but none more wonderful than man

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom...

Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.

What greater wound is there than a false friend?

Antigone: We begin in the dark and birth is the death of us. Ismene: Who said that? Antigone: Hegel. Ismene: Sounds more like Beckett. Antigone: He was paraphrasing Hegel. Ismene: I don't think so.

All men make mistakes.

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State.

It bothered me that whatever was waiting wasn't waiting for me

As Antigone said, I am neither a dweller among men nor ghosts.

I was born to share love, not hate”, said Antigone. “Go then, and share your love for the dead”, responds Creon.

Of all vile things current on earth, none is so vile as money.

Goodbye to the sun that shines for me no longer;

Reason is God's crowning gift to a man...

Tell me the news, again, whatever it is... sorrow and I are hardly strangers. I can bear the worst.

It is my nature to join in love, not hate.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness; and reverence towards the Gods must be inviolate. Great words of prideful men are ever punished with great blows, and, in old age, teach the chastened to be wise.

You're in love with impossibility

How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!

It is the dead, not the living, who make the longest demands.

Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you. All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity - pride is a crime.

What do I care for life when you are dead?

Another husband could be found and with That husband another son. But I have no mother now. I have no father. I cannot bring another brother to the world.

Only a fool could be in love with death.

Sister - if all this is true, what could I do or undo?

My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards—but I am a queen!

Sophokles is a playwright fascinated in general by people who say no, people who resist compromise, people who make stumbling blocks of themselves, like Antigone or Ajax.

If through no fault of his own the hero is crushed by a bulldozer in Act II, we are not impressed. Even though life is often like this—the absconding cashier on his way to Nicaragua is killed in a collision at the airport, the prominent statesman dies of a stroke in the midst of the negotiations he has spent years to bring about, the young lovers are drowned in a boating accident the day before their marriage—such events, the warp and woof of everyday life, seem irrelevant, meaningless. They are crude, undigested, unpurged bits of reality—to draw a metaphor from the late J. Edgar Hoover, they are “raw files.” But it is the function of great art to purge and give meaning to human suffering, and so we expect that if the hero is indeed crushed by a bulldozer in Act II there will be some reason for it, and not just some reason but a good one, one which makes sense in terms of the hero’s personality and action. In fact, we expect to be shown that he is in some way responsible for what happens to him.

A happy love is full of quarrels, you know.

perhaps you know that Ingeborg Bachmann poem from the last years of her life that begins "I lose my screams" dear Antigone, I take it as the task of the translator to forbid that you should ever lose your screams

You chose to live, I chose to die.

Unnatural silence signifies no good.

No yield to the dead! Never stab the fighter when he's down. Where's the glory, killing the dead twice over?

For time is short and the unknown surrounds us; and it isn't enough just to live unthinking and happy, calmly bearing oppression and only learning wisdom with age.

To err is common To all men, but the man who having erred Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.

I will suffer nothing as great as death without glory.

Don't let anyone tell you that the truth can't disappear. If I believe in anything, rather than God, is that I am part of something that goes all the way back to Antigone, and that whatever speaks the truth of our hearts can only make us stronger. Can only give us the power to counter the hate and bigotry and heal this addled world. Just remember: You are not alone.

You disgust me, all of you, with your happiness! With your life that must be loved at all costs. […] I spit on your idea of life! […] You are all like dogs that lick everything they smell! […] I do not want to understand. I am here for something other than understanding. I am here to tell you no, and to die. To tell you no and to die.

And if my present actions strike you as foolish, let's just say I've been accused of folly by a fool.

I don't even exist—I'm no one. Nothing.

Haemon: No city is property of a single man. Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler. Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone.

There was the girl, screaming like an angry bird, When it finds its nest left empt and little ones gone." - Sentry

Mourning suits us Spanish women. Tragedy turns us into Antigone - maybe we are bred for the part.

There let her pray to the one god she worships: Death--who knows?--may just reprieve her from death. Or she may learn a last, better late than never, what a waste of breath it is to worship Death.

Why, he was so handsome and brave that no one would ever have suspected that he was bookish!

C'est plein de disputes, un bonheur.

What a splendid king you'd make of a desert island - you and you alone.

Vous me dégoûtez tous avec votre bonheur ! Avec votre vie qu’il faut aimer coûte que coûte… Moi, je veux tout, tout de suite, et que ce soit entier, ou alors je refuse! Je ne veux pas être modeste , moi, et de me contenter d’un petit morceau, si j’ai été bien sage.

I pleasure those whom I would liefest please.

For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, is full of misery

A State for one man is no State at all.

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, IS no less ominous than excessive grief.

One soul is enough, I know, to pay the debt for thousands, if one will go to the gods in all good faith.

The blind man cannot move without a guide

Sentry: King, may I speak? Creon: Your very voice distresses me. Sentry: Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience? Creon: By God, he wants to analyze me now! Sentry: It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you. Creon: You talk too much.

Cling not to one mood, And deemed not thou art right, all others wrong. For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him, That he alone can speak or think alright, Such oracles are empty breath when tried. The wisest man will let himself be swayed By other's wisdom and relax in time.

The working of the mind discover oft Dark deeds in darkness schemed, before the act. More hateful still the miscreant who seeks When caught, to make a virtue of a crime.

A friend in word is never friend of mine.

Every way Leads but astray,

The dead alone feel no pain.

It's little I ask, and get still less, but quite enough for me.

You'll never find a man on Earth, if a god leads him on, who can escape his fate.

he came to know the god intimately and the strange mad flower of his mind dripped in the dark

Prometheus: Yes, I stopped mortals from foreseeing their doom. Chorus: What cure did you discover for that sickness? Prometheus: I sowed in them blind hopes.

My part is not a heroic one, but I shall play my part.

It's not through words but actions that I want to set the luster on my life.

Show me a man who longs to live a day beyond his time who turns his back on a decent length of life, I'll show the world a man who clings to folly.

The stubbornest of wills Are soonest bended, as the hardest iron, O'er-heated in the fire to brittleness, Flies soonest into fragments, shivered through.

When misfortune comes, The wisest even lose their mother wit

Come, Fate, a friend at need, Come with all speed! Come, my best friend, And speed my end! Away, away! Let me not look upon another day!

I was born to join in love, not hate--that is my nature

They're both mad, I tell you, the two of them. One's just shown it, the other's been that way since she was born.

Even in these straits our life is not as pitiful as you'd think, so long as we find joy in every hour.

May the dead forgive me, I can do no other But as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene, Antigone (The Theban Plays) by Sophocles

Numberless are the world's wonders, but none More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high; Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven With shining furrows where his plows have gone Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions. The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover, The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water, All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind; The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned, Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull. Words also, and thought as rapid as air, He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow, The spears of winter rain: from every wind He has made himself secure--from all but one: In the late wind of death he cannot stand. O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure! O fate of man, working both good and evil! When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands! When the laws are broken, what of his city then? Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth, Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts.

Comprendre... Vous n'avez que ce mot-là à la bouche, tous, depuis que je suis toute petite. Il fallait comprendre qu'on ne peut pas toucher à l'eau, à la belle eau fuyante et froide parce que cela mouille les dalles, à la terre parce que cela tache les robes. Il fallait comprendre qu'on ne doit pas manger tout à la fois, donner tout ce qu'on a dans ses poches au mendiant qu'on rencontre, courir, courir dans le vent jusqu'à ce qu'on tombe par terre et boire quand on a chaud et se baigner quand il est trop tôt ou trop tard, mais pas juste quand on en a envie ! Comprendre. Toujours comprendre. Moi, je ne veux pas comprendre. Je comprendrai quand je serai vieille [...]. Si je deviens vieille. Pas maintenant.

ISMENE: How can I live alone, without her? CREON: Her? Don't even mention her-- she no longer exists. ISMENE: What? You'd kill your own son's bride? CREON: Absolutely: there are other fields for him to plow.

There is no more deadly peril than disobedience; States are devoured by it, homes laid in ruins, Armies defeated, victory turned to rout. White simple obedience saves the lives of hundreds Of honest folk." - Creon

The garden was still asleep. I caught it unawares. A garden that hasn't yet begun to think about people. Beautiful.

No man, my lord, should make a vow, for if He ever swears he will not do a thing.

For e'en the bravest spirits run away When they perceive death pressing on life's heels.

Know'st not whate'er we do is done in love?

By God, I'll have more booty in a moment.

True, as unwisdom is the worst of ills

To yield is grievous, but the obstinate soul That fights with Fate, is smitten grievously.

For if any man thinks that he is alone is wise--that in speech, or in mind, he hath no peer--such a soul, when laid open, is ever found empty.

But if I am young, thou shouldest look to my merits, not to my years.

It is not in words that I should wish my life to be distinguished, but rather in things done.

We begin in the dark and birth is the death of us

Commit cruelty on a person long enough and the mind begins to go.

...Time, sweeping through its rounds, gives birth to infinite nights and days...

Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye, Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie, Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?

Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.

One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

Hail the sun! the brightest of all that ever Dawned on the City of Seven Gates, City of Thebes! Hail the golden dawn over Dirce's river Rising to speed the flight of the white invaders Homeward in full retreat!" - Chorus

I didn't say yes. I can say no to anything I say vile, and I don't have to count the cost. But because you said yes, all that you can do, for all your crown and your trappings, and your guards—all that your can do is to have me killed.

What will my happiness be like? What kind of happy woman will Antigone grow into? What base things will she have to do, day after day, in order to snatch her own little scrap of happiness? Tell me – who will she have to lie to? Smile at? Sell herself to? Who will she have to avert her eyes from, and leave to die?

We all laughed and laughed Because, yes, my mother was Exactly the kind of mortal Who challenged the Gods. She was the reservation Medea. She was the indigenous Antigone. But just imagine how it felt to be Her fragile child. I never stopped Being afraid of her. I never left That dark porch. I am still Sleeping with those dogs.

All of us would like to have been born Infallible, but since we knew we weren't, It's better to attend to those who speak In honesty and good faith, and learn from them.

Be the necklace-fire of stars, The cauterizing lightning. Bewilder us with good.

Alas! How sad when reasoners reason wrong.

The dead clay makes no protest.

May the dead forgive me, I can do no other But as I am commanded; to do more is madness." - Ismene

I say that this crime is holy.

That will come when it comes; we must deal with all that lies before us. The future rests with the ones who tend the future.

To a terrible place which men’s ears             may not hear of, nor their eyes see it.

So here I am, against my will and yours too, well I know-- no one wants the man who brings bad news.

Mad are thy subjects all, and even the wisest heart Straight to folly will fall, at a touch of thy poisoned dart.

Good advice, if there's any good in suffering. Quickest is best when trouble blocks the way.

It's no city at all, owned by one man alone.

Love, you mock us for your sport.

There's no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by.

Oh it's terrible when the one who does the judging judges things all wrong.

I was born to join in love, not hate— that is my nature.

Poor Antigone. Bury the horses, instead, I tell her. What will we eat then? she weeps, not knowing weeping isn't what it used to be, not here. Poor, poor Antigone.

Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know. Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

If I had been deceived, it was because, for a moment, I had loved. 'I am one of those who love, not those who hate,' declares Sophocles' Antigone. No one has ever said anything more beautiful.

Et puis, surtout, c'est reposant, la tragédie, parce qu'on sait qu'il n'y a plus d'espoir, le sale espoir ; qu'on est pris, qu'on est enfin pris comme un rat, avec tout le ciel sur son dos, et qu'on n'a plus qu'à crier, - pas à gémir, non, pas à se plaindre, à gueuler à pleine voix ce qu'on avait à dire, qu'on n'avait jamais dit et qu'on ne savait peut-être même pas encore. Et pour rien : pour se le dire à soi, pour l'apprendre, soi.

Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater. That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes, Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul, Pointing out the way to infamy and shame." - Creon

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don’t need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone’s destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn’t any hope. You’re trapped.

Both noun (eusebia) and verb (sebizo) derive from the Greek root seb-, which refers to the awe that radiates from gods to humans and is given back as worship. Everything related to this root has fear in it.

Sister, forbear, or I shall hate thee soon, And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death.   ISMENE

Your edict, King, was strong, But all your strength is weakness itself against The immortal unrecorded laws of God. They are not merely now: they were, and shall be, Operative for ever, beyond man utterly. I knew I must die, even without your decree: I am only mortal. And if I must die Now, before it is my time to die, Surely this is no hardship: can anyone Living, as I live, with evil all about me, Think Death less than a friend?

Creon: See that you never side with those who break my orders. Leader: Never. Only a fool could be in love with death. Creon: Death is the price - you're right. But all too often the mere hope of money has ruined many men.

Cyrus walked straight to the tallest crack of light, a seam between two doors. They were locked, but they were also thin and old, and they bent a little with pressure from his shoulder. He backed up. "Try one of Skelton's keys," said Antigone. "Is there a keyhole?" "Nope." Cyrus threw himself against the doors. Wood popped, but he bounced back. "I can break it." "You mean a rib? Maybe your shoulder?" Antigone adjusted her grip, propping Horace in front of her. "There's just one little bolt," said Cyrus. "And it's set in old wood." He paused. What was he hearing? Voices. Shouting. "You hear that?" he asked. Antigone nodded. "They don't sound happy." This time, Cyrus used his foot. The wood splintered, and the two doors wobbled open onto a world of emerald and sunlight.

I believe in prophetic speech . . . still. I believe in Cassandra, I believe in Electra and in the charming Antigone. . . . For me, they’re more alive than the [Institute for] Intellectual Cooperation and its choice group of old men.

The women of Juarez, and women across the world, do not want to have to take revenge, any more than Procne and Philomela did. What they want is to be able to rely on the modern gods -- the police, the courts, and the media -- for justice.

Nobody, Nobody can be sure they're always right. The ones who are fullest of themselves that way Are the emptiest vessels.

And they all died happily ever after. A very happy ending," the littlest one said.

Nothing is true but what is never said.

Good news. I tell you even the hardest things to bear, if they should turn out well, all would be well.

Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.

Of happiness the chiefest part IS a wise heart

Thou wouldst make a good monarch of a desert

..."for I owe a longer allegiance to the dead than to the living:

I only ask to live, with pure faith keeping In word and deed that Law which leaps the sky, Made of no mortal mould, undimmed, unsleeping Whose living godhead does not age or die.

A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth, But by the dead commended; and with them I shall abide for ever.  As for thee, Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven.   ISMENE

What a splendid king you'd make of a desert island-- you and you alone.

I owe more to the dead, with whom I will spend a much longer time, than I will ever owe to the living.

The penalty is death: yet hope of gain Hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes.

What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?

To me, excessive silence seems to bode as ill as too much shouting.

I am determined that never, if I can help it, Shall evil triumph over good." - Creon

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong!

I owe more to the dead, with whom I will spend a much longer time, than I will ever owe to the living.

Alas for the seed of man.

Like father like daughter, passionate, wild . . . she hasn’t learned to bend before adversity.

And remember that the captor is now the captive; the hunter is in the snare. What was won by stealth will not be kept.

O waste no fears on me; look to thyself.

And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death.

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.

Shall we not perish wretchedest of all, If in defiance of the law we cross A monarch's will?—weak women, think of that, Not framed by nature to contend with men. Remember

Creon: Why not? You and the whole breed of seers are mad for money. Tiresias: And the whole race of tyrants lusts for filthy gain.

What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.

they would praise me too if their lips weren't locked in fear. Lucky tyrants - the perquisites of power! Ruthless power to do and say whatever pleases them.

just thinking of all your days to come, the bitterness, the life that rough mankind will thrust upon you.

Of course you cannot know a man completely, his character, his principles, sense of judgment, not till he's shown his colors, ruling the people, making laws. Experience, there's the test.

how is a Greek chorus like a lawyer they’re both in the business of searching for a precedent finding an analogy locating a prior example so as to be able to say this terrible thing we’re witnessing now is not unique you know it happened before or something much like it we’re not at a loss how to think about this we’re not without guidance there is a pattern we can find an historically parallel case and file it away under ANTIGONE BURIED ALIVE FRIDAY AFTERNOON COMPARE CASE HISTORIES 7, 17 AND 49 now I could dig up those case histories tell you about Danaos and Lykourgos and the sons of Phineus people locked up in a room or a cave or their own dark mind it wouldn’t help you it doesn’t help me it’s Friday afternoon there goes Antigone to be buried alive

All men make mistakes, it is only human. But once the wrong is done, a man can turn his back on folly, misfortune too, if he tries to make amends, however low he's fallen, and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity—pride is a crime.

forbear, or I shall hate thee soon, And the dead man will hate thee too, with cause. Say I am mad and give my madness rein To wreck itself; the worst that can befall Is but to die an honorable death.

Reason is God's crowning gift to man, and you are right To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say— I hope that I shall never want to say!— that you Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful. You are not in a position to know everything That people say or do, or what they feel: Your temper terrifies them—everyone Will tell you only what you like to hear.

Men are of little worth. Their brief lives last a single day. They cannot hold elusive pleasure fast; It melts away. All laurels wither; all illusions fade; Hopes have been phantoms, shade on air-built shade, since time began.

ANTIGONE: Tell me the truth! I beg you to tell me the truth! When you think about me, when it strikes you suddenly that I am going to belong to you―do you have the feeling that―that a great empty space is being hollowed out inside you, that there is something inside you that is just―dying? HAEMON: Yes, I do, I do.

In flood time you can see how some trees bend, and because they bend, even their twigs are safe, while stubborn trees are torn up, roots and all. And the same thing happens in sailing: make your sheet fast, never slacken,--and over you go

I once wrote a book about George Orwell, who might have been my hero if I had heroes, and was upset by his callousness about the burning of churches in Catalonia in 1936. Sophocles showed, well before the rise of monotheism, that Antigone spoke for humanity in her revulsion against desecration. I leave it to the faithful to burn each other’s churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can always be relied upon to do. When I go to the mosque, I take off my shoes. When I go to the synagogue, I cover my head.

ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could’st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven.  I knew that I must die, E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery.  Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother’s son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly’s not acquit.

No windfall or good fortune comes to mortals That isn't paid for in the coin of pain.

Moi, je suis née pour partager l'amour et non la haine.

קראון:ניראה שהוא נילחם למען אישה היימון:כן, אם אתה אישה. לך אני דואג

No siento yo amor por la que sólo con palabras ama. [...] No mueras tú conmigo ni hagas tuyo un acto en el que no pusiste tu mano.

Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money - you demolish cities, root men from their homes, you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime - money!

No? Believe me, the stiffest stubborn wills fall the hardest; the toughest iron tempered strong in the white-hot fire, you'll see it crack and shatter first of all. And I've known spirited horses you can break with a light bite—proud, rebellious horses. There's no room for pride, not in a slave, not with the lord and master standing by.

Though he has watched a decent age pass by, A man will sometimes still desire the world. I swear I see no wisdom in that man. The endless hours pile up a drift of pain More unrelieved each day; and as for pleasure, When he is sunken in excessive age, You will not see his pleasure anywhere. - Choral Poem between Scenes V & VI, Oedipus at Colonus

You are the king no doubt, but in one respect, at least, I am your equal: the right to reply. I claim that privilege too. I am not your slave. I serve Apollo. I don't need Creon to speak for me in public. So, you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this. You with your precious eyes, you're blind to the corruption in your life, to the house you live in, those you live with- who are your parents? Do you know? All unknowing you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood, the dead below the earth and the living here above, and the double lash of your mother and your father's curse will whip you from this land one day, their footfall treading you down in terror, darkness shrouding your eyes that now can see the light! Soon, soon, you'll scream aloud - what haven won't reverberate? What rock of Cithaeron won't scream back in echo? That day you learn the truth about your marriage, the wedding-march that sang you into your halls, the lusty voyage home to the fatal harbor! And a crowd of other horrors you'd never dream will level you with yourself and all your children. There. Now smear us with insults - Creon, myself and every word I've said. No man will ever be rooted from the earth as brutally as you.

In his play Antigone, Sophocles summed it up: Wonders are many and none more wonderful than man . . . In the meshes of his woven nets, cunning of mind, ingenious man . . . He snares the lighthearted birds and the tribes of savage beasts, and the creatures of the deep seas . . . He puts the halter round the horse’s neck And rings the nostrils of the angry bull. He has devised himself a shelter against the rigours of frost and the pelting rains. Speech and science he has taught himself, and artfully formed laws for harmonious civic life . . . Only against death he fights in vain. But clear intelligence—a force beyond measure— moves to work both good and ill . . . When he obeys the laws and honors justice, the city stands proud . . . But man swerves from side to side, and when the laws are broken, and set at naught, he is like a person without a city, beyond human boundary, a horror, a pollution to be avoided.29 The

Oui, j'aime Hémon. J'aime un Hémon dur et jeune; un Hémon exigeant et fidèle, comme moi. Mais si votre vie, votre bonheur doivent passer sur lui avec leur usure, si Hémon ne doit plus pâlir quand je pâlis, s'il ne doit plus me croire morte quand je suis en retard de cinq minutes, s'il ne doit plus se sentir seul au monde et me détester quand je ris sans qu'il sache pourquoi, s'il doit devenir près de moi le monsieur Hémon, s'il doit appendre à dire «oui», lui aussi, alors je n'aime plus Hémon.

Pues así como estoy, me voy a ir. Venid, venid, compañeros los que estáis presentes y ausentes; y con hachas en las manos corred hacia el lugar famoso. Y yo, puesto que mi opinión así ha cambiado, y yo mismo la aprisioné, quiero estar presente para salvarla; pues temo no sea la mejor resolución el vivir observando las leyes establecidas.

Creonte: (...) Entre os mortais não germinou ainda instituição tão perversa como o dinheiro. É ele quem destrói cidades, ele que arranca os homens do seu lar; ele que ensina e alicia um caráter honesto a cometer ações vergonhosas. Mostrou aos humanos como praticar vilezas e deu-lhes conhecimento de toda a espécie de impiedade. Porém, todos os que se vendem acabam por conseguir esta vantagem - cedo ou tarde terão de pagar a sua pena.

Ah me! think, sister, how our father perished, amid hate and scorn, when sins bared by his own search had moved him to strike both eyes with self-blinding hand; then the mother wife, two names in one, with twisted noose did despite unto her life; and last, our two brothers in one day,-each shedding, hapless one, a kinsman's blood,-wrought out with mutual hands their common doom. And now we in turn-we two left all alone think how we shall perish, more miserably than all the rest, if, in defiance of the law, we brave a king's decree or his powers. Nay, we must remember, first, that we were born women, as who should not strive with men; next, that we are ruled of the stronger, so that we must obey in these things, and in things yet sorer. I, therefore, asking the Spirits Infernal to pardon, seeing that force is put on me herein, will hearken to our rulers. for 'tis witless to be over busy.

This consideration takes us very close to what it is that makes Greek tragedy “tragic.” A play about an unambiguously heroic young woman, someone’s mother or sister or daughter, squaring off against an unambiguously villainous general or king, a man greedy for military renown or for power, would not be morally interesting. What gives Antigone and Agamemnon and other plays their special and unforgettable force is that they present the irresistible spectacle of two worldviews, each with its own force, harrowingly locked in irreducible conflict. And yet while the characters in these plays are unable to countenance, let alone accept, their opponents’ viewpoints, the audience is being invited to do just that—to weigh and compare the principles the characters adhere to, to reflect on the necessity of seeing the whole and on the difficulties of keeping the parts in equilibrium. Or, at least, to appreciate the costs of sacrificing some values for others, when the occasion demands.

Now don't, please, be quite so single-minded, self-involved, or assume the world is wrong and you are right. Whoever thinks that he alone possesses intelligence, the gift of eloquence, he and no one else, and character too . . . such men, I tell you, spread them open--you will find them empty. No, it's no disgrace for a man, even a wise man, to learn many things and not to be too rigid. You've seen trees by a raging winter torrent, how many sway with the flood and salvage every twig, but not the stubborn--they're ripped out, roots and all. Bend or break. The same when a man is sailing: haul your sheets too taut, never give an inch, you'll capsize, and go the rest of the voyage keep up and the rowing-benches under. Oh give way. Relax your anger--change! I'm young, I know, but let me offer this: it would be best by far, I admit, if a man were born infallible, right by nature. If not--and things don't often go that way, it's best to learn from those with good advice.