Then she is led away by the guards.
Almost immediately there enters upon the scene a man who is much better fitted to cope with Creon. He is Hæmon, Antigone’s lover. Logical, restrained, and of considerable force of character, he possesses besides a valuable key to his father’s temperament. He knows the man with whom he has to deal, and adopts a quiet, conciliatory tone, deferring from the first to Creon’s rights as his father and his king. He listens with apparent calm to the arraignment of Antigone; and makes no reply when Creon expounds his doctrine of absolute obedience to the laws of the State, be they right or wrong. He even controls himself at the rough exhortation to “cast her off, to wed with some one down below.”
But Hæmon is only biding his time; and when his father concludes, he begins, tactfully and with moderation, to put before him the only plea which he thinks has any hope of influencing him. He appeals to Creon in his public capacity, and asks him to consider the opinion of the citizens of Thebes upon Antigone’s action.
“Thy people mourn this maiden, and complain
That of all women least deservedly,
She perishes for a most glorious deed.
‘Who, when her own true brother on the earth
Lay weltering after combat in his gore,
Left him not graveless, for the carrion-fowl
And raw-devouring field-dogs to consume—