I know I please the souls I ought to please.
She is captured and brought before Creon for judgment and sentenced to death by starvation. Says Creon:
And thou didst dare to disobey these laws?
She 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 dream these edicts strong enough
That thou, a mortal man, shouldst overpass
The unwritten laws of God that know not change.
···
Not through fear
Of any man's resolve was I prepared
Before the Gods to bear the penalty
Of sinning against them.
Nor justice dwelling with the Gods below,
Who traced these laws for all the sons of men:
Nor did I dream these edicts strong enough
That thou, a mortal man, shouldst overpass
The unwritten laws of God that know not change.
···
Not through fear
Of any man's resolve was I prepared
Before the Gods to bear the penalty
Of sinning against them.
The Antigone of Sophocles never lived; and yet she lives forever, and preserves about her that atmosphere of sacred awe without which human life becomes flat and unprofitable. Antigone lives forever: and on this fact rests the case for Antigone and Alcestis and Iphigeneia; and for all those proud and gracious figures that sweep along the frieze of the Parthenon; and
