Æschylos Tragedies and Fragments. Aeschylus
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Ah me, thou Destiny,
Giver of evil gifts, and stern of soul,
And thou dread spectral form of Œdipus,
And swarth Erinnys too,
A mighty one art thou.
Ant. Thou, then, by full trial knowest…
Ism. Thou, too, no whit later learning…
Ant. When thou cam'st back to this city131…
Ism. Rival to our chief in warfare.
Ant. Woe, alas! for all our troubles!
Ism. Woe, alas! for all our evils!
Ant. Evils fallen on our houses!
Ism. Evils fallen on our country!
Ant. And on me before all others…
Ism. And to me the future waiting…
Ant. Woe for those two brothers luckless!
Ism. King Eteocles, our leader!
Ant. Oh, before all others wretched!
Ism...
Ant. Ah, by Atè frenzy-stricken!
Ism. Ah, where now shall they be buried?
Ant. There where grave is highest honour.
Ism. Ah, the woe my father wedded!
Her. 'Tis mine the judgment and decrees to publish
Of this Cadmeian city's counsellors:
It is decreed Eteocles to honour,
For his good-will towards this land of ours,
With seemly burial, such as friend may claim;
For warding off our foes he courted death;
Pure as regards his country's holy things,
Blameless he died where death the young beseems;
This then I'm ordered to proclaim of him.
But for his brother's, Polyneikes' corpse,
To cast it out unburied, prey for dogs,
As working havoc on Cadmeian land,
Unless some God had hindered by the spear
Of this our prince;132 and he, though, dead, shall gain
The curse of all his father's Gods, whom he
With alien host dishonouring, sought to take
Our city. Him by ravenous birds interred
Ingloriously, they sentence to receive
His full deserts; and none may take in hand
To heap up there a tomb, nor honour him
With shrill-voiced wailings; but he still must lie,
Without the meed of burial by his friends.
So do the high Cadmeian powers decree.
Ant. And I those rulers of Cadmeians tell,133
That if no other care to bury him,
I will inter him, facing all the risk,
Burying my brother: nor am I ashamed
To thwart the State in rank disloyalty;
Strange power there is in ties of blood, that we,
Born of woe-laden mother, sire ill-starred,
Are bound by: therefore of thy full free-will,
Share thou, my soul, in woes he did not will,
Thou living, he being dead, with sister's heart.
And this I say, no wolves with ravening maw,
Shall tear his flesh – No! no! let none think that!
For tomb and burial I will scheme for him,
Though I be but weak woman, bringing earth
Within my byssine raiment's fold, and so
Myself will bury him; let no man think
(I say't again) aught else. Take heart, my soul!
There shall not fail the means effectual.
Her. I bid thee not defy the State in this.
Ant. I bid thee not proclaim vain words to me.
Her. Stern is the people now, with victory flushed.
Ant. Stern let them be, he shall not tombless lie.
Her. And wilt thou honour whom the State doth loathe?
Her. It was not so till he this land attacked.
Ant. He, suffering evil, evil would repay.
Her. Not against one his arms were turned, but all.
Ant. Strife is the last of Gods to end disputes:
Him I will bury; talk no more of it.
Her. Choose for thyself then, I forbid the deed.
Chor. Alas! alas! alas!
Ye haughty boasters, race-destroying,
Now Fates and now Erinnyes, smiting
The sons of Œdipus, ye slew them,
With a root-and-branch destruction.
What shall I then do, what suffer?
What shall I devise in counsel?
How should I dare nor to weep thee,
Nor escort thee to the burial?
But I tremble and I shrink from
All the terrors which they threatened,
They who are my fellow-townsmen.
Many mourners thou (looking to the bier of Eteocles) shalt meet with;
But he, lost one, unlamented,
With his sister's wailing only
Passeth. Who with this complieth?
Semi-Chor. A. Let the city doom or not doom
Those who weep for Polyneikes;
We will go, and we will bury,
Maidens we in sad procession;
For the woe to all is common,
And our State with voice uncertain,
Of the claims of Right and Justice;
Hither, thither, shifts its praises.
Semi-Chor. B. We will thus, our chief attending,
Speak, as speaks the State, our praises:
Of the claims of Right and Justice;135
For next those the Blessed Rulers,
And the strength of Zeus, he chiefly
Saved
Here, and perhaps throughout, we must think of Antigone as addressing and looking on the corpse of Polyneikes, Ismene on that of Eteocles.
Perhaps
“Unless some God had stood against the spear
This chief did wield.”
The speech of the Antigone becomes the starting-point, in the hands of Sophocles, of the noblest of his tragedies. The denial of burial, it will be remembered, was looked on as not merely an indignity and outrage against the feelings of the living, but as depriving the souls of the dead of all rest and peace. As such it was the punishment of parricides and traitors.
The words are probably a protest against the changeableness of the Athenian