Euripides' PHOENISSAE Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

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81 pages - You are on Page 71

Creon: Thy words are brave in refusing to touch my knees, and I am
equally resolved not to let thee abide in the land. For these dead,
bear one forth-with to the palace; but the other, who came with stranger
folk to sack his native town, the dead Polyneices, cast forth unburied
beyond our frontiers. To all the race of Cadmus shall this be proclaimed,
that whosoe'er is caught decking his corpse with wreaths or giving
it burial, shall be requited with death; unwept, unburied let him
lie, a prey to birds. As for thee, Antigone, leave thy mourning for
these lifeless three and betake thyself indoors to abide there in
maiden state until to-morrow, when Haemon waits to wed thee.

Antigone: O father, in what cruel misery are we plunged! For thee
I mourn more than for the dead; for in thy woes there is no opposite
to trouble, but universal sorrow is thy lot. As for thee, thou new-made
king, why, I ask, dost thou mock my father thus with banishment? Why
start making laws over a helpless corpse?

Creon: This was what Eteocles, not I, resolved.

Antigone: A foolish thought, and foolish art thou for entertaining
it!

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