KING CREON: HIS DYING SOLILOQUY
To have been made king by mad mischance,
A nephew's act of unwitting regicide, O Orestes!
I welcomed that sad Fortune,
Though mourning lost loved ones.
Not scorning, I, that new-got palace, I relished windowed chambers,
The luxury of breezes and sunlight on the walls,
After years in shabby hovels,
These almost as precious
As a crown and rule of law.
Rule of law, ah yes! None dared defy me,
Except another nephew, Polynices,
Whom my soldiers left dead, unburied in the dust.
Dead, unburied, until my niece Antigone
Threw clots of dirt upon his slaughtered form, and thus,
Thus sent him to Elysium. What punishment this for him?
Justice that was not. No, She undid my law, and therefore
She herself should lie unburied and unkilled,
To gasp her last within a sealed cave.
So led they then Antigone, that bedimned cortege,
My long-faced soldiers and rag-tag populace,
Following her, whom I should rather have immurred unnoticed.
The portals of that cave,
Bright in the noontide, yet night did fall for her,
Unending.
Unlit solitude her bridal chamber
Thirst her bridal dower...
Faithfulness to a brother! Oh, sisterhood!
So charmed her deed the crowd who followed her up to that mountain cave.
More brave than armies she
With hand that held the dust, not sword,
Defying tyrant to honor brother dead.
Shackled like a thief, to stand before the king,
"King, nay!" she said, "Not King but Tyrant, who would out-deity the gods
And take upon thyself the office of the Furies!"
Her face was raised to me who knew
Only the mockery of her bold denial,
And though I sensed her loyalty was true
I trembled at the triumph of her smile.
She embraced her sister, then walked into the cave.
The chill and fear of tyrannical decree,
When in that cave with boulder stoppered
Her faithful heart did beat against, and waver,
And stop, and beat no more.
Enough, Antigone! Thy sentence filled, thy filial duty done,
When boulder rolled against the mouth of cave
And sunshine stoppered into airless dun,
Nor one tribbling birdnote rode upon a breeze
Nor ear again did hear the rustling of the trees
Airless became the once-calm solitudes
Midnight hers, but not so dark as that day's doomed noon
Next dawn, said Rumor, did light the Grecian landscape
At her star's rising.
Kind to me was Chance again
In giving me long reign.
Kind, but fickle. All kinsmen dead.
Courtiers and slaves
Loiter in the hallways.
None come into this my palatial chamber
To lay hand upon my fevered brow or give me
Cool taste of beverage.
Bright sunshine gilds my chamber walls.
Mine eyes grow dim.
Fresh breezes waft across my window ledge.
My breath grows faint.
I, too, lie dying in the Kithaeron Cave.
NAME: Margaret
LIBRARY NAME: Library of Congress
LOCATION: Washington, DC
My interest in Antigone and the unending historical argument between rule of law and humanitarian mercy began when my then 12 year old son Dan was asked to be the page boy in a Northwestern University production of Sophocles' ANTIGONE. Sophocles did not have a page boy in his drama, but the director wanted King Creon to have one, so Dan was it. Every evening I and my family would enjoy a leisurely supper, and then when it was time to clean up, Dan would exclaim, "Hey! I'm late!" He would dash out of the house and run full-speed the four blocks to the rehearsal hall. He'd arrive just as he was to make an entrance, thus:
"Here" (puff, puff, pant, pant) "is your (gasp, puff, pant) face-towel" (gasp, gasp) O (puff, puff, pant) O King!"
The student who played the messenger bringing the bad tidings that someone had thrown burial dirt upon the body of the traitor Polynices was a lethargic, slow-moving fellow who would shamble onto the stage, saying in a dull monotone, "Bad news, O King." After several weeks of rehearsal, the actor who played the king stood up and roared, "Why is it that the page-boy ALWAYS arrives the way the MESSENGER SHOULD!"