Epeisodion 5
Creon
Do you know that you ramble so about your king?
Teiresias
I am aware, since through me you have saved this city.
Creon
You are a wise seer, but fond of doing injustice.
Teiresias
You will stir me to utter the dire secret in my
soul.
1060
Creon
Out with it! But only if it is not for gain that you speak
it.
Teiresias
Indeed, I think I speak without mention of gain—where you
are concerned.
Creon
Be certain that you will not trade in my will.
Teiresias
Then know, yes, know it well! You will not live through
many more
courses of the sun’s swift chariot, before you will
give in return one sprung from your own loins, a corpse in requital for
corpses. For you have thrust below one of those of the upper air and
irreverently lodged a living soul in the grave,
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while you detain in this world that which belongs to
the infernal gods, a corpse unburied, unmourned, unholy. In the dead you
have no part, nor do the gods above, but in this you do them violence.
For these crimes the avenging destroyers,
1070
the Furies of Hades and of the gods, lie in ambush for
you, waiting to seize you in these same sufferings. And look closely if
I tell you this with a silvered palm. A time not long to be delayed will
reveal in your house wailing over men and over women.
1075
All the cities are stirred up in hostility, whose
mangled corpses the dogs, or the wild beasts or some winged bird buried,
carrying an unholy stench to the city that held each man’s hearth.
There, now, are arrows for your heart, since you provoke me,
1080
launched at you, archer-like, in my anger. They fly
true—you cannot run from their burning sting. Boy, lead me home, so that
he may launch his rage against younger men, and learn to keep a quieter
tongue
1085
and a better mind within his breast than he now
bears. Exit Teiresias.
1090
Chorus
The man is gone, my king, leaving dire prophecies behind.
And for all the time that I have had this hair on my head, now white,
once dark, I know that he has never been a false prophet to our
city.
Creon
I, too, know it well, and my mind is troubled. To yield
is terrible, but, to resist, to strike my pride with ruin—this, too,
inspires terror.
1095
Chorus
The moment, Creon, requires that you reason wisely.
Creon
What should I do, then? Speak, and I will obey.
Chorus
Go and free the girl from her hollowed chamber. Then
raise a tomb for the unburied dead.
1100
Creon
And you recommend this? You think that I should yield?
Chorus
Yes, my king, and with all possible speed. For harms sent
from the gods swiftly cut short the follies of men.
Creon
Ah, it is a struggle, but I depart from my heart’s
resolve and obey. We must not wage vain wars with necessity.
1105
Chorus
Go, do these things and do not leave their performance to
others.
Creon
Right away I will go. Go, go, my servants, each and all of
you! Take axes in your hands,
and hurry to that place there in view! But since my
judgment has taken this turn, I will be there to set her free, as I
myself confined her. I am held by the fear that it is best to keep the
established laws to life’s very end.
1110
