Excerpt from Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes

This is a public domain text translated by John Stuart Blackie and published in 1906.

HERALD:

When Thebes commands, ’tis duty to obey.

ANTIGONE:

When ears are deaf, ’tis wisdom to be dumb.

HERALD:

Fierce is a people with young victory flushed.

ANTIGONE:

Fierce let them be; he shall not go unburied.

HERALD:

What? wilt thou honour whom the city hates?

ANTIGONE:

And did the gods not honour whom I honour?

HERALD:

Once: ere he led the spear against his country.

ANTIGONE:

Evil entreatment he repaid with evil.

HERALD:

Should thousands suffer for the fault of one?

ANTIGONE:

Strife is the last of gods to end her tale;

My brother I will bury. Make no more talk.

HERALD:

Be wilful, if thou wilt. I counsel wisdom.

CHORUS:

Mighty Furies that triumphant

Ride on ruin’s baleful wings,

Crushed ye have and clean uprooted

This great race of Theban kings.

Who shall help me? Who shall give me,

Sure advice, and counsel clear?

Shall mine eyes freeze up their weeping?

Shall my feet refuse to follow

Thy loved remnant? but I fear

Much the rulers, and their mandate

Sternly sanctioned. Shall it be?

Him shall many mourners follow?

Thee, rejected by thy country,

Thee no voice of wailing nears,

All thy funeral march a sister

Weeping solitary tears?

[The Chorus now divides itself into two parts, of which one attaches itself to Antigone and the corpse of Polyneices; the other to Ismene and the corpse of Eteocles.]

SEMI-CHORUS:

Let them threaten, or not threaten,

We will drop the friendly tear,

With the pious-minded sister,

We will tend the brother’s bier.

And though public law forbids

These tears, free-shed for public sorrow,

Laws oft will change, and in one state

What’s right to-day is wrong tomorrow.

SEMI-CHORUS:

For us we’ll follow, where the city

And the law of Cadmus leads us,

To the funeral of the brave.

By the aid of Jove Supernal,

And the gods that keep the city,

Mighty hath he been to save;

He hath smote the proud invader,

He hath rolled the ruin backward

Of the whelming Argive wave.