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Antigone by Sophocles after Hölderlin's translation

adapted for the stage by Brecht 1948 (Suhrkamp Verlag)

Sister, Ismene, twinsprout

out of Oedipus' stock, do you know of anything

aberration, sorrowful labor, shamefulness

that the Earth's Father has not yet levied

over us, who lived here?

In a long war, one with many,

fell Eteocles our brother. In the tyrant's service

he fell young. And, younger than he, Polynices

sees his brother trampled under horse's hoof. Weeping

he rides out of the unfinished battle, for other things to others

the spirit of battle consigns, when with a hard blow

he shudders with the right someone's hand. Already

the headlong fugitive has crossed the Dircean river, breathing out

he sees Thebes, the seven-gated, standing, when he is seized,

spattered with his brother's blood, by Creon, who from behind

lashes them all into the battle, and cuts him into pieces.

Have they told you, or have they not told you, what

more should be heaped onto Oedipus'

dwindling lineage?

I haven't shown myself at the market, Antigone.

Not a word came to me from the loved ones more

not a lovely one nor a sorrowful one

and I'm not happier or more troubled.

Then hear it from me. And if your heart's beat

stops still, or beats more deeply

in misfortune, then show me.

Gathering your dust, you'd color me

it seems, a red word.

Here you have it: our brothers

both dragged into Creon's war for the grey ore

against the distant Argos, both slaughtered

are not both to be covered in earth.

The one who didn't fear the battle, Eteocles

shall, according to custom be wreathed and buried;

but the other, who died piteously

of Polynices's body it is now said,

and it has been decreed in the city, that for him

shall be made no grave and no mourning.

He is to be left unwept-for, a graveless,

sweet meal for the birds. But whoever

does something about it is to be stoned to death.

So tell me then what you are doing about it.

How, sister, are you testing me?

If you would help me.

In what danger?

To cover him.

He, whom the city has denied?

He, whom the city has failed.

He, who was in revolt!

Yes. My brother and also yours.

Sister, you will be caught unlawful.

But unfaithful I will not be caught.

Hapless one, are you driven now to gather below

all of us from Oedipus' stock?

Leave what is past!

You are younger yet, less horror

have you seen. What is past, if left

doesn't remain past.

Think also this: we are women

and dare not strive against men so

because not strong enough and thus obedient

here and even in much harder things. Therefore

I bid those below, oppressed only by the earth

to forgive me; as violence is done me

I follow the ruler. For to do what is useless

is unwise.

No more will I bid it.

Follow everyone who orders, and do

what he orders. But I

follow the custom and bury my brother.

And if I die of it, so what? Stilled I will lie

with the still ones. Behind me

I'll have brought something holy. Then there is also more time

for me to please those below than here, because below

I will dwell forever. But you

laugh at shame and live.

Antigone, wild one

to suffer shame is bitter, but

even the salt of tears is measured; they don't rush

inexhaustibly from the eye. The sharpness of the axe

ends sweet life, yet for the one who remains

it opens the veins of pain. He may not rest

in crying out lament. And yet, even crying out, he hears

the whirr of birds above him, and again

through veils of tears he sees

the old elms and roofs of home.

I hate you. Do you shamelessly show me the tattered apron

with your dwindling supply of lament?

The flesh of your flesh still lies on naked stone

laid out for the birds of the wider sky, already

it is of yesterday to you.

Only, I'm not good enough to thus rise up; and clumsy

and I fear for you.

Advise me not! Make your own life come out!

But let me do the least and honor what is mine

where it has been shamed. I'm not overall

so sensitive, I hope, that I could not

die an unbeautiful death.

Then go with your dust. For you speak insanely

but lovingly of the beloved.

The booty-laden victory is come,

a boon to the wagon-rich, to Thebes

and after the war here everything is forgotten.

In all the temples of the gods

with choirs the night through come along!

And, Thebes shaking naked under her apron of laurels,

let reign the Bacchus dance!

But he, the bringer of victory,

Creon, son of Menoeceus, hastened it seems

from the battlefield, to proclaim the booty and

at last the return of the warriors, since he has called together

and ordered here the council of the Elders.

You men, tell it to all: Argos

is no more. The reckoning was

complete. Of eleven cities,

few escaped, the fewest.

As it is said of Thebes: to fortune

she delivers twins at once: and misfortune

makes her not soft, rather will misfortune itself

soften. Your spear's thirstiness

was quenched with the first drinking. It was not denied

repeated drinking. On a rough resting place,

you, Thebes, laid down the people of Argos. City-less, graveless,

out in the open lies that which scoffed at you.

And you look over where once their city was

and you see dogs with shining faces.

The noblest vultures fly to her, they stride

from corpse to corpse,

and from the rich meal

they cannot rise into the heights.

Lord, you paint a pretty picture of mighty things.

And, passed down, it will please the city,

if cleverly mixed with one other: wagons

driving up the streets full of our own men!

Soon, friends, soon! But to business! Not yet

have you seen me hang the sword in the temple.

For two reasons I've called you

out of the whole: first, because I know

that you do not charge the god of war for the wheels

on the wagons that mangle the enemy, nor begrudge him

the blood of your sons in battle, however,

when they return exhausted, under the well-sheltered roof,

there is much reckoning in the market, therefore

shall you let me know in time that the bloodletting by Thebes

is not above the usual. And also, because

the all too forgiving Thebes, rescued

once again, hurries to dry the sweat

of those returned home panting, and does not

especially consider if it is the sweat of the angry

combatant or only the sweat of fear, mixed with

the dust of flight. Therefore I cover

and you shall approve it, Eteocles,

who died for the city, with a wreath-decked grave;

but the coward Polynices, his

relative and mine, and friend of the people of Argos,

he shall lie unburied, as this one lies.

Like this one he was the enemy, mine and Thebes'.

And therefore I want no one to mourn

that he be left unburied, visibly,

a meal, torn apart by birds and by dogs.

When someone holds his life greater

than his native town, he is as nothing to me.

But he who means well with my town, dead or

alive, shall always be esteemed by me the same.

I hope you approve this.

We approve it.

So take oversight of what we have said.

Take younger men for this kind of post!

Not that. The watch for the body already stands outside.

And for the living are we to be the watch?

Yes, because there are some who are displeased.

There is no such fool here, who gladly dies.

Not openly. But many have only

shaken their heads so long that they lost them.

And that brings me to this: more, alas, is needed.

The town must be cleansed...

Lord! Breathless, fastest news

I rush to deliver. Don't ask why not

even faster is my foot before my head, or

does my head drag my foot behind, for

where am I going, and how long yet

in the sun, without breath, but yet

I keep going.

Why so out of breath, so hesitant?

I'm not hiding anything. Why should I not say

freely what I didn't do?

And do not know, since I do not even know

who did it to you. Sharp judgment

against someone so unknowing would be disheartening.

You zealous messenger of your own misdeed,

you demand a wreath

for having good legs!

You entrusted your guards with something mighty. However

something mighty takes much effort.

So say it now and go further.

So I say it now. Just now the dead man

has been buried by someone, who escaped, sprinkled the skin

with dust so that the vulture would not spy him.

What do you say? Who dares this undertaking?

I don't know. There was no scratch of a spade,

and no sign of a shovel. And smooth the ground

without any wheel-mark. Without sign

of the culprit. T'was not a real grave,

only some dust, as though frightened by your command

one had not brought much dust.

And also no footprints of wild animals

nor of a dog, who would have come and torn him apart.

When the first light of day showed us that

it struck us all as sinister.

And the lot fell to me, to bring the message to you

and nobody loves the bearer of bad words.

O Creon, son of Menoeceus, can it be

that something godly has occurred?

Leave that! Don't make me angrier yet by saying

that spirits pamper the coward

who would coldly let the pillars of their temples

and their sacrifices be desecrated. No,

some in the city hold some things against me and murmur

and under the harness they don't bow

their neck to me. I know it well,

that these have instigated that, with gifts.

For, of all things engraved,

there is nothing as bad as silver. Whole cities

it seduces, it lures men from their houses

to know every deed of godlessness.

But know that if you don't come deliver me the culprit,

and an earthly one, alive,

bound over on a board, you will be hanged

and will go, with a rope round your neck, to the underworld;

there you will see then how gain is won

you will bequeath plundering to one another and learn

that not all is made for profit.

Lord, our like does have much to fear.

Too many entrances has for us that place below

to which you allude. I fear less

at the moment, I do not say, not at all

that I received something in silver, though

if you think so I'd better turn my purse

twice inside out, if there is not yet something in it

lest I enrage you by contradicting.

Yet what I fear more is that I could, by investigating

get something made of hemp, for in high hands

there is for the likes of us more hemp

than silver. As you may understand.

Are you posing me riddles, you transparent fool?

The high dead found it seems high friends.

Grab them by the shinbone,

if you can't reach them any higher. I know that there are piqued ones here

as there. Many a one will shudder with joy

at my victory and will put on the laurel wreath

with wings of fear. I'll find them out.

An unhealthy place, where high ones

get in high ones' hair: I

am, I think, still here. And it wonders me.

Monstrous is much. But nothing

more monstrous than the human.

For he, over the night

of the sea, when against the winter

the south wind blows, he travels out

in winged, whistling houses.

And the heavenly sublime earth,

the incorruptible, untiring,

he wears it out with the straining plow

from year to year

driving 'round the equine breed.

Birds of lighter kind, he ensnares and hunts them.

And the folk of wild animals.

And Pontos' salt-enlivened nature

with slyly wound ropes,

the cunning man.

And catches with his arts the wild things

that spend the night in the mountains and roam.

Round the neck of the rough-maned steed

he throws the yoke and of the untamed steer

that wanders the mountain.

And speech and the airy flight

of thought and the laws that order the state,

he has learned them, and how to flee the humid air

of the ill-breathing hills, and the rain's barrage. Fit for all,

unfit. He comes to nothing.

Everywhere knows he counsel, nothing finds him without counsel.

This all is boundless to him,

but a measure has been set.

For he who finds none

becomes his own enemy. Like the steer's

he bends the neck of his fellow man, but his fellow man

rips his intestines out. If he steps forward,

he steps hard on his own kind. His stomach

he cannot fill alone, but he builds a wall

around his property, and the wall,

it must be torn down! The roof

open to the rain! What's human

he regards as nothing.

So he becomes monstrous to himself.

As a temptation from the gods it stands before me

that I know she is and yet should say

that it is not the child, Antigone.

You unfortunate child of an unfortunate

father, of Oedipus, what leads you

above yourself and where to, disobedient

to the law of the State?

She is it. She did it. We caught her

as she made the grave. But where is Creon?

He is coming back from the house.

How bring you this one here? Where did you catch her?

She made the grave. There you know everything.

Your word is clear, but did you see it yourself?

As she threw open the grave, where you forbade it.

When you're lucky you can speak clearly.

Give your report.

After I went away, as you made those mighty threats

and we wiped the dust off the body,

and it lay already in decay, we sat

on a high hill, in the air, because the smell

of the dead man was strong. We agreed

in case we slept to poke each other in the ribs,

with the elbows. Suddenly we stared

wide eyed, because suddenly

a warm wind lifted the fog from the ground

in a whirl, that covered the valley,

tearing the hair of the woods in the valley, and filling

with it the great ether so much, that we had to blink

and, that was it, rub our eyes, and then

we saw her, standing and crying out

with a sharp voice as a bird mourns

when it sees the empty nest, with no young.

She laments because she sees the dead man bare

and she gathers again the dust over him, from the iron jug,

sprinkling the dead man three times.

Quickly we ran and grabbed her

who seemed unmoved. And we accused her

of the present thing and of the one before.

But she denied nothing and was

at once gentle and also troubled before me.

Do you say or do you deny that you have done it?

I say that I did it and deny it not.

Then tell me, not at length, but briefly:

Are you aware of what was announced

in the open city about just this dead man?

I knew it. How not! It was clear enough.

You dared so to break my law?

Because it was yours, from a mortal.

So may a mortal break it, and I am

only slightly more mortal than you are. And if

I die before my time, I think I will,

I say that it is even a gain. Someone who, like me,

lives much with evils, receives at least

in death a little benefit? Further, if I had let my mother's

other dead son lie graveless

that would trouble me.

But that troubles me not at all.

And if it seems folly to you

that I fear the Heavenly, who from above

do not want to see uncovered the dead in pieces,

and so fear you not, let a fool

pass judgment on me now.

Rudely appears in the child the rude father's manner:

she hasn't learned to submit to misfortune.

And yet the toughest iron yields

and loses its stubbornness, tempered

in the oven. You can see it every day.

But this one enjoys making trouble of the prescribed laws.

And here is the second insolence: that,

having done it, she boasts of it, and laughs

that she has done it. I hate that, when one is caught

doing evil, and he tries to make it look pretty.

And yet, she who offends me, though blood related,

I do not want to condemn her at once, because blood related.

Thus I ask you: Since you did it in secret

and now it is out in the open, wouldn't you say,

to avoid heavy punishment, that it grieves you?

Then say why you're so stubborn.

To set an example.

Is it all one to you, that I have you in my hand?

Can you do more, since you have me, than kill me?

Nothing more, but having this, I have all.

What are you waiting for? From your words,

not one pleases me, not one will please me

and thus I am also not pleasing to you.

Although I am to others with what I did.

So you think others see it as you see it?

They see it too, they are affected too.

Aren't you ashamed to interpret them unbidden?

One would well honor the people of one flesh.

And of one blood too who died for his country.

Of the same blood, child of one's own kindred.

And he who spared himself, he is of the same value to you as the other?

He who was no slave to you is still a brother.

If a godless one and another are both the same to you.

It is not the same, to die for one's country or for you.

Then there is no war?

Yes, yours.

Not for the country?

A foreign country. It wasn't enough for you

to rule over the brothers in their own city.

Thebes, lovely when

one lives unafraid under the trees; you

had to drag them far away to Argos,

to rule over them there too.

And you made one of them the butcher

of peaceful Argos, but the frightened one

you lay out now, quartered, to frighten his own people.

I advise you to say nothing, nothing speak

to this one here, if you see what is good for you.

But I appeal to you, that you help me in my distress,

and help yourselves too. For whoever seeks power

drinks salt water, he cannot stop,

he must go on drinking it.

Yesterday it was my brother, today it is I.

And I am waiting to see who stands by her.

So you endure it. And hold your tongue for him.

And be it not forgotten!

She is keeping accounts.

Divided will she have us under the Theban roof.

You who cry for unity, live by discord.

Here I live by discord first and then on Argos' battlefield.

That's right. And where violence is needed against others,

against one's own will violence be needed then.

It seems this good girl wouldn't grudge me to be the vultures.

And wouldn't it matter if Thebes, thus divided, fell,

a meal to a foreign reign?

Always you who reign,

you threaten us with the fall of our own city

that it will fall by division,

a meal for the others and the foreigners

and we bow our neck to you

and we drag sacrifices to you and our city,

thus weakened, falls as a meal for the foreigners.

Are you telling me I would throw the city before the foreigners as a meal?

The city throws herself away, by bowing her neck before you

because man, with neck bowed, does not see what is coming.

He only sees the earth, and oh, the earth will receive him.

Just spurn the earth, you outcast, spurn your home country.

It is false. Earth is a burden. Home is not only

earth, nor house only. Not where one has poured out sweat,

not the house that helplessly sees the approaching fire,

not where he bowed his neck, not that calls he home.

Calls it and doesn't shield it?

Your home country doesn't call you her own any more

but you are outcast like biting filth that sullies.

Who casts me out? There are fewer left

in the city since you reign,

and there will be fewer still.

Why do you come alone? You left with many.

What do you presume?

Where are the young? The men? Will they come no more?

How she lies! Everyone knows they stayed behind

to clear the battlefield of the last axes.

And to do your last mischief

and become a terror, till their fathers

do not recognize them any more when at the end like

rapacious beasts they are brought down.

She's disgracing the dead!

Stupid man, I'm in no mood for being right.

She is unhappy, don't hold her words against her.

When have I ever concealed the sacrifices for what has been won?

But you, don't forget, in your ravings,

because of your own mourning, Thebes' glorious victory.

But she doesn't want

the Theban folk to sit in Argos' houses. Rather

she'd see Thebes smashed.

We would sit better among the ruins of our own city,

and safer too than with you in the enemy's houses.

Now she's said it! And you heard it!

She breaks every law, knows no measure, like a guest who

neither staying long, nor ever wished back again,

insolent, packing his bundle, cuts the strap of the larder.

But I only took what was mine and had to steal it.

You see always only the nose beside you, but the State's

divine order, you do not see.

Divine it may well be, but I'd rather

it were human, Creon, son of Menoeceus.

Go now! You became an enemy to us and will remain so below, forgotten

as the dismembered one was; he is avoided below as well.

Who knows, maybe there is another custom down there.

Never will an enemy, even when dead, become a friend.

But surely. I don't live to hate but to love.

Then go below, if you want to love,

and love down there. People like you don't live long here with me.

But now Ismene comes,

the lovely one, the one for peace.

But tears wash,

wash her face, flushed by the blood of pain.

Yes! You! Who stay inside, at home! Two

monsters I have brought up, sisterly breeding of snakes.

Come, say it, and at once,

did you take part at the grave, or are you innocent?

I am the culprit, if my sister will agree.

I took part too, and I accept my guilt.

But the sister will not permit it.

She didn't want to. I did not take her with me.

You bargain it out! With meanness I won't be mean.

I'm not ashamed of my sister's misfortune,

and I pray her now to take me as her companion.

By all those who are steadily wise

and who converse below:

she who loves with words alone, I do not love her.

Sister, not everyone is good enough to rise up

but to die such a one might be fit too.

Don't die in general. What doesn't concern you,

don't make it yours. My death will be enough.

My sister is too strict. I love you.

If she is gone, what would I have to love?

Creon, love him. Stay with him, and I will leave you.

Maybe it amuses my sister to make fun of me?

Maybe it hurts too, and I desire my glass of pain be full?

But what I said to you is still valid too.

That was nice too. But thus have I decided.

Because I was missing, you do not miss me, is that so?

Be of good cheer, you live. My soul is dead;

and I can serve only those who are dead, sister.

Of these women, I tell you, here

one is going mad, the other has been long.

I cannot live without her.

She is not talked about. She is no more.

But you are killing your own son's bride.

There's more than one field for a man to plow.

Prepare yourself to die. But that you know when it will be:

when drunken Thebes steps to the dance of Bacchus' round.

Get rid

of these women.

You who dress up for the victory dance, don't stamp

on the ground too hard and not there where it grows green.

Whoever has irritated you, mighty one, let him praise you.

Don't throw him down so deep

that you see him no more,

for indeed, once come down to the ground, the naked lies comforted. His shame,

he gets rid of it completely, frightened and frightening

the outcast rises up, the dehumanized recalls

his earlier form and lifts himself up, renewed.

Patiently the Lachmean brothers sat in their fire-gutted house.

Rotting away, living on lichens, always the winters

poured ice on them, and their women

didn't live there at night and sat around by day

secretly in wraps of purple. And at all times

the threatening cliff was leaning over their heads.

But not until Peleas came,

dividing them with his stick though touching them

only lightly, could they rise up and

slaughter their oppressors all.

That was the worst for them, for often the sum of misery

is rounded by the smallest thing. The sightless

sleep full of moaning, as if the exhausted ones

lay in a time without age, comes to an end.

Slowly and swiftly, unevenly wax the moons and

vanish, and all the while

evil is growing, and already

the last light falls on the last root

of Oedipus' house.

And what is great does not fall in itself; on many things then

it falls. As when below

on the Pontian sea, with the ill-blowing

winds of Thrace, the salty night

tears up a hut: from the ground up it disrupts the dark

and disheveled shore,

and with groans roar the stricken banks.

Haemon comes here, your youngest son; he is grieved

that Antigone should perish,

the young woman, the bride,

sickened from the treacherous bed.

Son, there's a rumor you've come before me

for the young woman's sake, not as to your sovereign

rather to your father and, if that's so

you've come all in vain. Returning from the battle

which went well, through blood and sacrifice of many

I met only her insubordinate,

begrudging our house the victory, busy only with her own cause

and that an evil one.

As well come I in this cause and wishing the familiar voice

will not sound evil to my father

when it must bring the evil rumor to the ruler.

When a man sires insolent children

it can be said only that he sires trouble for himself

and great laughter for his enemies.

You govern many things. If you like

always to hear nice rumors,

don't trouble yourself with much effort: let go the sail

like a man who steers no more, and drift!

Frightening is your name to the people. So even when great things

are aflame, small things will be reported to you at most.

But it is an advantage with relatives

that not all goes by deserts: many a debt

won't be claimed at all; and so we can

at times hear truth from relatives,

because we restrain our anger for them.

My brother Megareus cannot tell you,

who fought at Argos and has not come back,

who knows no fear, therefore must I tell you.

Know, the city is full of inner dislike.

And know you: when the native turns rotten,

then I nourish my enemy: the uncommitted man

who neither knows nor finds himself,

disunited even in annoyance, one complaining of taxes,

another of conscription,

both are kept under me and separated

through my spear's power. But when

there are loopholes and the sovereignty too

seems disunited and wavers and gets indecisive, then

the pebble meets the stone and presses

on the house that's surrendered. Speak,

but I hear him whom I sired and

put before the storm of spears, my son.

There is truth in everything. Is there not a saying:

the anvil which doesn't lie steels the tongue? She

who would not let the merciless dog

devour her brother: the city

is with her in this, although rejecting

the dead man's misdeed.

And it's not enough. I call that slackness.

The filth that I've cut off is not enough.

It must be done at the market, truly unforgettable

to the other filth, that I've cut off the filthy.

But you, knowing little of the case,

knowing nothing, advise: look irresolutely round,

take the thoughts of others, speak their language,

as if authority could straighten

the many bodies for a difficult task by being

nothing but a small and cowardly ear.

Yet it eats much force to think of cruel punishments.

To push the plow to earth, so that it plows, takes force.

Yet mild order, playing, achieves much.

Orders are manifold, yet: who orders?

Were I not your son, I'd still say: you.

If it were forced on me, I'd have to do it in my way.

In your way, yet be it the right way.

Not knowing what I know, you could not know it.

Are you my friend, however I may act?

I would that you acted so that I were your friend,

yet didn't say you alone are right, none other.

For he who considers only himself has

not thoughts or speech or soul like another,

if such a man were opened,

he would seem empty. But for a man

if there is a wise man somewhere, there is no shame

in learning much and not carrying anything too far.

See, like on the edge of the rain-swollen brook

all the trees make way, of all those

grow the branches warm; but the resisting ones

are soon destroyed. Further, when a well laden ship

goes abroad and won't slacken,

she must finally bend back her way from the rowing-bench

and runs aground.

Give in, where the spirit is, offer us change

and take it from us, where we creatures shudder

and shudder with us.

And let the team

drive the horses' driver?

And the team,

when a stench of carrion hits its nostrils,

from the slaughter yard could rear up, wondering

where it is being driven, so sharply driven,

and it throws itself into the abyss with wheel and driver.

Know that the city, spurred by doubts

that threaten its peace, is already in a panic about war.

There is no more war. Thanks for the instruction.

Then too, that preparing for the victory celebration,

you plan bloodily to do away with all

who ever offended you in your house, this suspicion

was often confided to me.

By whom?

Here you would have merit. Much more

than when you want to be only the mouthpiece of those

so suspiciously babbling of suspicion.

Forget them.

Of the virtues of rulers

the most salutary, so they say, is: to forget well.

Let that which is old be old.

Since I am too old,

forgetting is difficult for me.

But you, could you not, if I bid you,

forget her for whom you're exposing yourself so much,

that all who wish me ill whisper:

this one seems to be that woman's brother-in-arms.

That I am to what is right, wherever it shows itself.

And where it has a hole.

Even insulted my concern for you won't keep silent.

Neither will your bed remain empty.

I'd call that stupid, came it not from my father.

I'd call that insolent, came it not from a woman's slave.

Better a woman's slave than yours.

Now it's out and cannot be retracted.

And shouldn't either. You want to say all

and hear nothing.

That is so. And now get

out of my sight. Do like the coward who

spared himself too, in the hour of doubt.

Take the brat away, and at once.

And I take myself away, so that you need see none

who goes upright, and makes you tremble.

Lord, he who went away in anger is your youngest-born.

But he won't rescue those women from their death.

So you're thinking now of killing them both?

No, not the one who stayed away; you are right.

And thinking of the other one, how will you kill her?

Lead her out of the city, where now the Bacchus dances

are lifting the soles of my people; but let the guilty one

be held there, where the trace of men is lonely,

alive, in the cave in the rocks, with only millet and wine

as is due to the dead; as though she herself were buried.

So I dispose,

that the city not bring me shame.

But like a mountain of clouds it stands before me,

now that this is the hour when Oedipus' child in her chamber

hears Bacchus from afar and prepares for her last way.

Now he calls on his people, and always thirsting for joy

our city woefully gives him the joyous answer.

For victory is great and irresistible is Bacchus

when he nears the sorrowful

and reaches her the drink of forgetting.

Away she throws the mourning robe she was sewing for her sons

and hastens to the orgy of Bacchus, seeking exhaustion.

Spirit of the lusts of the flesh,

who wins every battle! Even those related by blood

he throws among one another, mightily bidding.

Never will he be shamed,

having this in himself is not himself anymore. Possessed, he rages and

heaves under the yoke and gives it

his neck afresh. Not fearing

the breath of the salt mines nor the thin-walled

ship on the black waters. He mixes other skins

and throws them all together, yet despoils not

the earthly realm with violent hands, but

peacefully from the beginning is companioned with the growing

of great conciliations. Not warlike

divine beauty joins here in the game.

But now I myself

get out of step, and I can't

hold back any more the welling of tears, when

now Antigone shall receive the gifts for the dead,

the wine and the millet.

Citizens of the father's city, see

me walk my last way

and look at the last light of the sun.

And never again?

For he who beds us all alike, the god of death,

he leads me living

to the bank of the Acheron.

And there won't be any wedding for me, no

bridal song will celebrate me,

I am the bride of Acheron.

But well-known are you going, escorted with praise,

into this the chamber of death.

No infirmity consumed you, the wage of iron,

iron you didn't receive.

But living your own life, you go alive

down into the world of the dead.

Woe is me, they mock me!

While I, not yet gone under,

am still in daylight.

My city and oh, my city's

wealthy men! But you must

bear witness for me one day, how I must go unwept for

by those I loved and under such

laws, to the hollow grave,

in an unheard of tomb. I,

who do not belong to the mortals, nor to the shadows,

who belong to life, not to death.

Power, when it is at stake,

doesn't yield. You have been ruined

by your angry self-knowledge.

O my father, o unhappy mother,

from whom I once gloomily came

to whom I come cursed to dwell without a man.

Oh, oh, my brother, sweet in life, now fallen!

Me too, who was just now still here,

you draw me down to you.

But the body of Danae too

had to endure instead of the light of heaven

the iron gate. She lay in the dark.

And yet she was of a mighty lineage, child.

She counted then for the creator of time

the strokes of the golden hours.

I've heard how pitifully the Phrygian girl died,

Tantalus' daughter on the summit of Sipylus.

She would have become rough and bent beneath

wreaths of ivy gathered

into the slow rock; and always near her,

as men say, the winter stays

and washes her throat

under the snowbright tears of her eyelids.

Right like her, a spirit brings me to bed.

However she is proclaimed holy, holy sired

is she, but we are earth and earthly sired.

Surely you perish, but great. And not

unlike divine victims.

And you sighing give me up already.

You gaze upwards at the blue light, never more

into my eyes. And yet I have only

done what's holy in a holy way.

Soon was caught the son of Dryas too

during his rapturous protesting against iniquity by

Dionysus and covered

with rushing heaps of stones. And he learned to know

the god, groping in madness, with insulting tongue.

And it would be better too, you

would gather the insult of iniquity and dry it

of my tears and use it. You do not look far.

But on the chalky cliffs with

the sea on both sides, on the banks of the Bosporus,

there, near the city, the spirit of battles watched as both

Phineans, who saw all too far,

had their eagle eyes

pierced through with spears, and it was dark

in their brave eyes' circles.

For the strength of fate is frightful.

Not riches, not the spirit of battles,

no tower escapes it.

Do not, I bid you, speak of fate.

That I know. Speak of him

who does me in, guiltless; him

knots a fate! Don't think namely

you will be spared, unfortunates!

More mangled bodies

will lie before you unburied, heaped up all round

the unburied. You, who dragged Creon's war

across foreign frontiers, although

he had many lucky battles, the last

will swallow you. You, who called for booty, you

will not see full wagons coming, but

empty ones. I mourn for you, the living,

what you shall see

when my eye will be full of dust! Lovely Thebes,

city of the fathers! And you, Dircean springs

around Thebes, where the wagons

draw up! Oh, you woods! How it clenches my throat

what should happen to you! Out of you are come

the inhuman ones, therefore you must come to dust. Tell

anyone who asks about Antigone,

we saw her flee into the grave.

Turned round and went, with a broad step, as though

she led her guard. Across the square there

she went, where the columns of victory

have already been erected. There she went faster;

vanished.

But she too once

ate of the bread that was baked

in the dark rock. In the shade of the towers

which shelter from misfortune: she sat conveniently, till

all that went out deadly from Labdacus' houses,

deadly returned. The bloody hand

deals out to its own, and they

don't just take it, they grab it.

Only thereafter lay she angry in the open also,

thrust into the good!

The cold awakened her.

Not until the last

of her patience was exhausted and the last

crime measured out, would the child of unseeing Oedipus

remove the age-cracked blindfold from her eyes

to look into the abyss.

So unseeing too lifts

Thebes its soles now and giddily

tastes the victory drink of highly-spiced

herbs mixed in the darkness

and swallows it and exults.

Tiresias, the blind man, comes here, the seer. Driven surely

by evil rumors of growing dissent

and simmering unrest below.

Always conveniently, child, go steady

unshaken by the round dance, you

lead. The leader

shouldn't follow Bacchus.

He cannot but fall who lifts his soles

too high from the ground.

On the victory columns you shouldn't bang either. Victory

they scream in the city,

and the city is full of fools! And the blind one follows

the seeing, but the blind man

is followed by a blinder one.

What are you muttering there, grumbler, of war?

That is it, because you are dancing, fool, before the victory.

Stubborn old man, seer

of that which is not, but

the columns erected all around, towering,

you do not see them.

I do not see them. And my mind

remains untwisted. And this is why I come,

you dear friends. Even the fat

laurel leaves, I know them seldom

before they are withered and rattle

or I bite into them and taste the bitterness and know it is laurel.

You don't like celebrations. Then at once

you speak to us with a more terrible mouth.

I have seen terrible things. Hear, what the bird oracles

portend for Thebes, so drunken

with premature victory and deafened by the droning

shouts of the Bacchus dances: I sat

on an old stool, with before me a haven of all birds.

There I heard a murderous turbulence in the air.

And there was a fury of scratching claws

in a battle of wings. Frightened,

I tested the quickly lit altars. And

not in a single spot could I find good fire. Only smoke

waltzed rancid skyward and the sacrificial cattle's thighs

jutted out of the fat which covered them.

Very bad signs on the day of victory

and rumor that devours joy!

This is the deadly meaning of the meaningless orgies:

You, Creon, are the one who caused the city's sickness.

Because the altars and hearths are

profaned by dog and bird who satisfied their hunger

on Oedipus' indecently fallen son.

Therefore it doesn't resound any more, the song of good omen

from the birds, because they've eaten the fat of a dead human.

But for the Divine

such a smoke has no good taste. Therefore

yield to the dead man and don't persecute

the one who is beyond!

Your birds, old man,

fly as you will. I know that. They flew

for me too. I am not quite unschooled

in this business and in the arts of the seers,

because I am not greedy. So pocket

the electrum from Sardis and the gold from India,

but know that I will not let the coward be buried,

and that I do not fear the heavenly sicknesses.

No human being can provoke the gods, I know that.

But there may fall, old man,

many mortals even very powerful

with a very devastating fall, when such words

which are devastating, they pronounce beautifully for a profit.

I am too old to place myself for such a short time.

No one is so old

that he doesn't want to grow older.

I know.

But I know more yet.

Say it, Tiresias.

Lord, let the seer be heard.

Say it, in all ways but leave the haggling.

All the guild of seers does love silver.

Tyrants offer it, I've heard.

And if somebody is blind,

then he'll bite into the coin and know:

'tis silver.

And I would that you offered me none.

For in wartime no one knows what he'll keep.

Be it silver, be it sons, be it power.

The war is over.

Is it?

I've asked you something!

Since, as you tell me, I know nothing,

the likes of us must ask. Since, as you tell me,

I can't see into the future, I must

see into the present and into the past and so I stay

within my art and still a seer. Of course I only see

what a child sees: that the bronze of the victory columns

is very thin; I say: that's because

they're still making spears. That for the army

furs are being sewn, I say: as if autumn were coming.

And that fish are being dried, as if there would be a winter camp.

I thought that was before the victory battle

and is now discontinued? And booty should come

with bronze and fish now from Argos?

And there are many guards; whether they guard much

or little, no one knows. But there is a great

quarrel in your house and no forgetting

as is customary after happy businesses. And it is said

that your son Haemon has gone from you upset,

because you have thrown Antigone, his bride

into a cave, as she wanted

to open a grave for her brother, for Polynices,

because you left him graveless, as he turned against you, because

your war has taken from him his brother, Eteocles.

So I know you're cruelly bound up with cruelty,

and since I'm not made stupid by silver, I ask you

the second question: why are you cruel,

Creon, son of Menoeceus? I'll make it easier:

is it because there's not enough bronze for your war?

What is it that you've done, mad or evil,

that now you must go on doing evil and madness?

You double-tongued rascal!

Half-tongued would be worse.

I have now my double answer, it is called: none.

And I tie up nothing with nothing and say:

mismanagement cries for great men, finds none.

War goes beyond itself and breaks its leg.

Theft follows theft and harshness needs harshness

and more needs more and comes at the end to nothing.

And as I have looked back and round myself,

look you ahead and shudder.

Lord, if my hair had still been black, it would

now have turned white. That angry man

has said dreadful things,

more dreadful he didn't say.

And so I say: why parse what has not been said?

Creon, son of Menoeceus, when

are the youths returning to the city empty of men, and how

fares your war, Creon, son of Menoeceus?

Since that troublemaker has steered your eyes

to this, I'll say it:

the war that treacherous Argos has waged on us

is not yet at an end and doesn't fare

too well. When I ordained the peace,

there was only but a little missing, and that

because of Polynices' treason.

But he lies chastised

he and she who mourned him.

And this too is not

at an end: he has turned against you, he who leads here

the storms of your spears, your youngest,

Haemon, your son.

And too desire him

no more. He must out of my sight and yours,

he who deserted me for the little care of his bed.

Megareus, my son, still fights for me,

sending endless thrusts

against the shaking walls of Argos

with the armoured youth of Thebes.

Which is not inexhaustible.

Creon, son of Menoeceus, we have always followed you.

And there was order in the city, and you kept away from our throats

all enemies from here, under the Theban roof,

robbers, who have nothing and of whom the war takes good care,

and those who live on discord, the shouting ones

with empty stomachs and strong lungs in the market place,

talking because they are paid or because they are not paid.

Now they are shouting again, and have unpleasant matter too: have you

started something all too daring, son of Menoeceus?

When I attacked Argos,

who sent me? The bronze in the spears went out

to get bronze in the mountains

at your request; for Argos

is rich in bronze.

And therefore rich in spears, as it seems. Some evil things

we have heard and we dismissed them, trusting you

with the reports and we closed our ears

for fear of fear. And we shut our eyes when you pulled

the reins tighter; only one more

pull on the reins and one more battle

is needed, you said; but now

you begin to deal with our own kind

as with the enemy. And cruelly

you wage the double war.

Your war!

Your war!

If I had Argos,

it would be yours again! Enough of this!

So has that rebellious girl stirred you up

and all those who listened to her!

Surely the sister had a right to bury the brother.

Surely the commander had a right to chastise the traitor.

Asserting itself nakedly, right drives us right into the abyss.

War shapes new right.

And lives by the old one.

And war devours itself, when what it needs is not given.

Ingrates! Meat-eaters, but

not pleased with the cook's bloody apron! The sandalwood

I gave you for your houses, where

the sound of swords doesn't reach, was grown in Argos!

And no one has sent back to me the bronze plate

I brought from Argos, but bent down over it

you babble about the massacre there and complain of my roughness.

I am used to greater indignation when booty does not run in.

Man, how long yet should Thebes go on without men?

Until her men have conquered rich Argos for her.

Call them back, unholy one, before they die!

Empty-handed? You will have to swear to that order!

Empty-handed and without hands, whatever is left of flesh and blood!

Certainly. Soon Argos will fall, soon I will then call them.

And my first-born, Megareus, will bring them to you.

And see to it that door and gate are not too small,

only high enough for those who walk bent down.

The shoulders of men of greater girth could otherwise

crash here a palace gate and there a small treasury chamber door.

And they might embrace you too with such a joy

when they see you again, that they shake your hands and even your arms

out of their sockets. And if the armour presses stormily

against the anxious breast, mind your ribs!

Many a hesitant victor

has been garlanded with chains and has danced on sinking knees.

Miserable one, will you threaten us with our own people? Are you whipping up

our own men against us now?

I will

discuss it with my son, Megareus.

Lord! Stiffen your neck! I am an emissary

of bad luck! Halt the hasty celebration

of a victory announced all too early!

In a new battle

your army was beaten at Argos as it fled.

Your son Megareus is no more. In pieces

he lies on the hard ground of Argos. When you

punished the flight of Polynices and seized

the many in the army who took it ill,

and publicly hanged them, and you yourself

hurried back to Thebes, your first-born at once, anew,

drove us forward.

The stormers, who had not yet slept off the blood bath

in their own ranks, only tiredly raised

their axes, still wet with Theban blood

against the Argos folk. And all too many

faces turned back toward Megareus, who,

in order to seem fiercer than the enemy,

perhaps had urged them forward in too raw a voice.

Yet the battle's luck seemed with us at first.

The fight engenders its own fighting pleasure

and blood smells alike, be it ours or theirs,

and it intoxicates. What bravery cannot do,

fear can. Yet terrain

and equipment and nourishment play a part in it.

And, lord, the Argos folk fought with villainous cunning.

Women fought and children fought.

Kettles, long without edible contents,

filled with boiling water were poured down on us

from the burned out rooftops; even houses left whole

were set afire in our backs, as if no one

thought of ever more living anywhere. For entrenchments

and weapons were made of household goods and dwelling.

But still your son drove us forward and drove

us deeper into the city, which, devastated

now transformed itself into a grave. The ruins

began to separate us from one another. Smoke from all

the captured districts, seas of fire

enveiled our vision. Fleeing the fire

and seeking enemies, we collided with our own.

And no one knows by what hand your son fell.

The flower of Thebes, all is vanished.

And not long more can Thebes itself stand, because

the Argos folk are coming now with men and wagons

on all the roads. And I who have seen it

am glad that I'm already at my end.

Woe!

Megareus! Son!

Don't waste

time with grieving. Gather the troops!

Gather the void! In a sieve!

In the victory rush

Thebes leaps up and all around

with grey iron the enemy heaves up!

To deceive us you gave the sword away. Now

may you remember the other son! Call for the younger!

Yes, Haemon, last one! Yes, my youngest born!

Come help me now in the great downfall! Forget

what I have said, for when I was mighty

I had not my senses in my might.

To the bottom of the rock

hurry and release the one who sprinkled the grave quickly,

release Antigone!

If I get her out of the grave

will you stand by me then? You have

tolerated everything, when you didn't demand it. That

implicates you!

Go!

Axes! Axes!

Stop the dancing!

Spirit of joy, who is all the pride

of the waters that Cadmus loved,

come, if you desire to see her again

your city, and travel swiftly and come

yet before break of night, for later

is she no more.

Here namely, god of joy

in your mother city, the Bacchantic

in Thebes you lived, near Ismenus' cold brook.

The sacrificial smoke, well-formed above

the shoulders of the roof, has seen you.

Not the fire of her many houses,

not the smoke of the fire nor the shadow of the smoke may you find.

Those who for a thousand years saw themselves her children,

sitting at the farthest seas,

have tomorrow, have today

hardly a stone on which to lay their head.

On the Cocytus, in your time

god of joy, you sat with the lovers

and in Castalia's wood. Yet

you visited also the smithy and tested

with your thumb smilingly the sharpness of the swords.

Often you walked according to the immortal songs of Thebes

through the streets, when they still rejoiced.

Ah, the weapons have mauled their own men

yet the arm was consumed by exhaustion!

Ah, violence needs a wonder

and mildness needs a little wisdom.

So now the much battered enemy stands over

our palaces and shows

all around his seven-gated mouth,

full of bloody spears;

and he will not go from there

ere he has filled his cheeks with our blood.

But there draws near one of the maids,

parting the fleeing crowd, surely with a message

from Haemon, whom his father

has set at the fore of the rescuing troops.

Oh, much used up! Oh, last sword broken!

Haemon is dead, bleeding by his own hands.

I was an eyewitness; what happened before

I heard from the vassals, going with the lord

to the high field, where, gnawed by the dogs,

the poor corpse of Polynices lay.

They washed him silently and laid him out

among fresh branches, what was left of him,

and carefully built a small hill

made of native earth.

Hurrying ahead with others, the lord drew near

the grave in the rock, where we maids were standing.

One of us heard a voice

and loud plaintive calls from inside the chamber

and ran to the lord to tell him.

He hurried; and as he went he was surrounded

more noticeably by the dark, tired voice.

Then, coming close, he cried out and with a poor moan

he saw the bolt which had been torn out of the wall

and said beseechingly, yet

as though he believed himself: "That is not Haemon's voice,

my child's." According to the words

of the frightened lord, we inquired.

And behind, at the very back of the graves, we see her

hanged by the neck, Antigone,

a noose of linen round her throat

and him, stretched out at her high feet,

bemoaning the bridal bed and the abyss below

and this his father's work. Who, as he sees it,

goes in to him and speaks to him:

"Oh come out, my child, I beg you on my knees."

Saying nothing, staring at him coldly his son

draws the double-edged sword against him.

And since the frightened father turned to flee,

he faltered. Saying nothing further,

standing upright, slowly he pierces

the sword into his own side. Wordless he falls.

The dead lie with the dead, bridal

fulfillment is found shyly in the houses

of the underworld. There comes now the lord himself.

It is done with our city, accustomed to the reins and

without reins. Leaning on women the defeated man comes, and

in his hands he carries a great memento

of stupid raging...

See what I've got. 'Tis the skirt. I have believed

it could be a sword that I went to get. He died

early, my child. Yet one more battle

and Argos would be leveled. But what there came up

of courage and the utmost was turned only against me.

So now Thebes falls.

And fall it should, should fall with me, and should be done with

and left there for vultures. That's how I want it.

And turned around and went, in

his hands no more than a bloodstained cloth

from the whole house of Labdacus

into the collapsing city.

But we all follow him even now

though it be downwards. It will be cut off

so that it shall not strike again,

our forcible hand. But she who saw it all

could only help the enemy, who now

comes and wipes us out at once. For short is the time

all around is disaster

and time never suffices

to go on living, unthinking and lightly,

from tolerance to crime and to become wise with age.

The memory of humanity for suffering borne

is astonishingly short. Its gift of imagination

for coming sufferings is almost even lesser.

It is this insensibility that we have to combat.

For humanity is threatened by wars compared to which

those past are like pitiful attempts,

and they will come without any doubt

if the hands of those who prepare them in all openness

are not broken.

Bertolt Brecht, 1952

Translation and subtitling by Danièle Huillet and Barton Byg