ANTIGONE
A monologue from the
play by Sophocles
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Greek Dramas. Ed. Bernadotte Perrin. New York: D.
Appleton and Company, 1904. |
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HAEMON: Father, the gods implant reason in men, the
highest of all things that we call our own. Not mine the skill--far
from me be the quest!--to say wherein thou speakest not aright;
and yet another man, too, might have some useful thought. At
least, it is my natural office to watch, on thy behalf, all that
men say, or do, or find to blame. For the dread of thy frown
forbids the citizen to speak such words as would offend thine
ear; but I can hear these murmurs in the dark, these moanings
of the city for this maiden; "No woman," they say,
"ever merited her doom less--none ever was to die so shamefully
for deeds so glorious as hers; who, when her own brother had
fallen in bloody strife, would not leave him unburied, to be
devoured by carrion dogs, or by any bird:--deserves not she
the meed of golden honour?" Such is the darkling rumour
that spreads in secret. For me, my father, no treasure is so
precious as thy welfare. What, indeed, is a nobler ornament for
children than a prospering sire's fair fame, or for sire than
son's? Wear not, then, one mood only in thyself; think not that
thy word, and thine alone, must be right. For if any man thinks
that he alone is wise--that in speech, or in mind, he hath no
peer--such a soul, when laid open, is ever found empty. No, though
a man be wise, 'tis no shame for him to learn many things, and
to bend in season. Seest thou, beside the wintry torrent's course,
how the trees that yield to it save every twig, while the stiff-necked
perish root and branch? And even thus he who keeps the sheet
of his sail taut, and never slackens it, upsets the boat, and
finishes his voyage with keel uppermost. Nay, forego thy wrath;
permit thyself to change. For if I, a younger man, may offer
my thought, it were far best, I ween, that men should be all-wise
by nature; but, otherwise--and oft the scale inclines not so--'tis
good also to learn from those who speak aright.
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MONOLOGUES BY SOPHOCLES |
