ANTIGONE.
Lend me a hand to bear the corpse away.
ISMENE.
What, bury him despite the interdict?
ANTIGONE.
My brother, and, though thou deny him, thine
No man shall say that I betrayed a brother.
ISMENE.
Wilt thou persist, though Creon has forbid?
ANTIGONE.
What right has he to keep me from my own?
ISMENE.
Bethink thee, sister, of our father’s fate,
Abhorred, dishonored, self-convinced of sin,
Blinded, himself his executioner.
Think of his mother-wife (ill sorted names)
Done by a noose herself had twined to death
And last, our hapless brethren in one day,
Both in a mutual destiny involved,
Self-slaughtered, both the slayer and the slain.
Bethink thee, sister, we are left alone;
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 this too that the stronger rules;
We must obey his orders, these or worse.
Therefore I plead compulsion and entreat
The dead to pardon. I perforce obey
The powers that be. ’Tis foolishness, I ween,
To overstep in aught the golden mean.
ANTIGONE.
I urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,
I would not welcome such a fellowship.
Go thine own way; myself will bury him.
How sweet to die in such employ, to rest,—
Sister and brother linked in love’s embrace—
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.
I scorn them not, but to defy the State
Or break her ordinance I have no skill.
ANTIGONE.
A specious pretext. I will go alone
To lap my dearest brother in the grave.
ISMENE.
My poor, fond sister, how I fear for thee!