has dared thus to disobey the laws. "Yes," she proudly replies,—
"Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,
Nor Justice, dwelling with the gods below,
Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;
Nor did I deem thy edicts strong enough,
That thou, a mortal man, shouldst overpass
The unwritten laws of God that know no change.
They are not of to-day nor yesterday,
But live for ever, nor can man assign
When first they sprang to being. Not through fear
Of any man's resolve was I prepared
Before the gods to bear the penalty
Of sinning against these. That I should die
I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree
Had never spoken. And before my time
If I shall die, I reckon this a gain;
For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
How can it be but he shall gain by death?"—(P.)
This noble appeal of Antigone to a higher law only incenses Creon. This stubbornness of temper, which glories in crime, shall break and shiver like brittle steel. Were she his own sister's child, or more near "than all the kith and kin of household Zeus," she shall not escape her doom. But to his angry denunciations Antigone answers shortly and simply, "Does he wish for anything beyond her death?" To his question why she had insulted the dead patriot by honouring the godless renegade, she replies—and how faintly can the famous line be reproduced in English—
"My love shall go with thine, but not my hate."[1]
