Epeisodion 3
Creon
We will soon know better than seers could tell us.—My son, can it be that
after hearing the final judgment concerning your betrothed, you have
come in rage against your father? Or do I have your loyalty, act how I
may?
Haemon
Father, I am yours, and you keep
me upright with precepts good for me—precepts I shall follow. No
marriage will be deemed by me more important than your good
guidance.
635
Creon
Yes, my son, this is the spirit you should maintain in
your heart—to stand behind your father’s will in all things. It is for
this that men pray: to sire and raise in their homes children who are
obedient, that they may requite their father’s enemy with evil and honor
his friend, just as their father does.
640
But the man who begets
unhelpful children—what would you say that he has sown except miseries
for himself and abundant exultation for his enemies? Never, then, my
son, banish your reason for pleasure on account of a woman,
645
knowing that this embrace soon becomes
cold and brittle—an evil woman to share your bed and home. For what
wound could strike deeper than a false friend? No, spit her out as if
she were an enemy, let her go find a husband in Hades.
650
For since I caught her alone of all the city in
open defiance, I will not make myself a liar to my city. I will kill
her. So let her call on Zeus who protects kindred blood. If I am to
foster my own kin to spurn order,
655
surely I will do the same for outsiders. For whoever shows his
excellence in the case of his own household will be found righteous in
his city as well. But if anyone oversteps and does violence to the laws,
or thinks to dictate to those in power,
660
such a one will never win praise from me. No, whomever
the city may appoint, that man must be obeyed in matters small and great
and in matters just and unjust. And I would feel confident that such a
man would be a fine ruler no less than a good and willing
subject,
665
and that beneath a
hail of spears he would stand his ground where posted, a loyal and brave
comrade in the battle line. But there is no evil worse than
disobedience. This destroys cities; this overturns homes; this
breaks
670
the ranks of allied spears into headlong rout. But the
lives of men who prosper upright, of these obedience has saved the
greatest part. Therefore we must defend those who respect order, and in
no way can we let a woman defeat us. It is better to fall from power, if
it is fated, by a man’s hand,
675
than that we be called weaker than
women.
680
Chorus
To us, unless our years have stolen our wit, you seem to say what you say
wisely.
Haemon
Father, the gods implant reason in men, the highest of all things that we
call our own.
For my part, to
state how you are wrong to say those things is beyond my power and my
desire, although another man, too, might have a useful thought. In any
case, it is my natural duty to watch on your behalf all that men say, or
do, or find to blame.
685
For dread of
your glance forbids the ordinary citizen to speak such words as would
offend your ear. But I can hear these murmurs in the dark, how the city
moans for this girl, saying: No woman ever merited death
less—
690
none ever died so
shamefully for deeds so glorious as hers, who, when her own brother had
fallen in bloody battle, would not leave him unburied to be devoured by
savage dogs, or by any bird. Does she not deserve to receive golden
honor?
695
Such is the rumor
shrouded in darkness that silently spreads. For me, father, no treasure
is more precious than your prosperity. What, indeed, is a nobler
ornament for children than the fair fame of a thriving father, or for a
father than that of his children?
700
Do not, then, bear one mood only in yourself: do not think that your
word and no other, must be right. For if any man thinks that he alone is
wise—that in speech or in mind he has no peer—such a soul, when laid
open, is always found empty.
705
No,
even when a man is wise, it brings him no shame to learn many things,
and not to be too rigid. You see how the trees that stand beside the
torrential streams created by a winter storm yield to it and save their
branches, while the stiff and rigid perish root and all?
710
And in the same way the pilot who keeps
the sheet of his sail taut and never slackens it, upsets his boat, and
voyages thereafter with his decking underwater. Father, give way and
allow a change from your rage. For if even from me, a younger man, a
worthy thought may be supplied,
715
by
far the best thing, I believe, would be for men to be all-wise by
nature. Otherwise—since most often it does not turn out that way—it is
good to learn in addition from those who advise you well.
720
Chorus
My king, it is right, if he speaks something appropriate, that you should
learn from him
and that you, in
turn, Haemon, should learn from your father. On both sides there have
been wise words.
725
Creon
Men of my age—are we, then, to be schooled in wisdom by men of his?
Haemon
Not in anything that is not right. But if I am young, you should look to
my conduct, not to my years.
Creon
Is it worthy conduct to honor
disrupters?
730
Haemon
I could not urge anyone to show respect for the wicked.
Creon
And is she not in the grasp of that disease?
Haemon
All the people of this city of Thebes deny it.
Creon
Shall Thebes prescribe to me
how I must rule?
