Page:The Antigone of Sophocles (1911).djvu/36

32 Doth bear good will to Thebes, in life and death

Alike from me high honor shall receive.

Such is thy pleasure, son of Menoeceus,

Towards Thebes’s enemy and toward her friend.

Full jurisdiction hast thou o’er the dead,

And over all us Thebans who still live.

See to it then that no one breaks this law.

Impose this task upon some younger men.

To watch the corpse? Already they are there.

What further mandate, then, hast thou to give?

Range not yourselves with those who disobey.

No man ’s so foolish that he yearns to die.

Death is the wages, of a truth. Yet hope

Of gain hath oft brought men to doom.

My lord, I will not say that I have plied

A nimble foot and come all out of breath,

So fleet was I; for often did I halt

In anxious thought, and wheel about to take

The back road in my coming; for I heard

A voice within me saying many things:

Fool! Do n’t you know you ’ll catch it, if you go?

You wretch! Stopping again? If Creon learns

This from another, do n’t you know you ’ll smart?”

Debating “yea” and “nay” I came with slow

Reluctant steps, and though the road was short,

It turned out long. The “yea,” at last,

However, won the day—to come to thee;

It may be nothing, what I have to tell;

Yet I will tell it; for I have a grip

On this one faith: whatever will be, will be,

I ’ll suffer naught save what ’s foredoomed for me.

Well, then, what is ’t that troubles you so sore?

I ’ll tell my own case first, my whole connection

With the affair—I did not do the deed,