Free Delphi Complete Works of Aeschylus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) by Aeschylus Page A

the Cadmean authorities.
    ANTIGONE
[1032] I at
least will say something to the rulers of the Cadmeans: even if no one else is
willing to share in burying him, I will bury him alone and risk the peril
 of burying my own brother. Nor am I ashamed to act in defiant opposition
to the rulers of the city. A thing to be held in awe is the common womb from
which we were born, of a wretched mother and unfortunate father. Therefore, my
soul, willingly share his evils, even though they are unwilling, and live in
kindred spirit with the dead. No hollow-bellied wolves will tear his flesh — let
no one “decree” that! Even though I am a woman, I will myself find the means to
give him burial and a grave, carrying the earth in the fold of my linen robe.
With my own hands I will cover him over — let no one “decree” it otherwise.
Take heart, I will have the means to do it.
    HERALD
[1048] I forbid
you to act thus in violation of the city.
    ANTIGONE
[1049] I forbid
you to make useless proclamations to me.
    HERALD
[1050]  And
yet a citizenry that has escaped evil can be harsh.
    ANTIGONE
[1051] Let it be
harsh! This man will not be unburied.
    HERALD
[1052] What!
Will you honor with burial a man whom the city detests?
    ANTIGONE
[1053] For a
long time now the gods have ceased to hold him in honor.
    HERALD
[1054] No, he
was honored until he put this land in jeopardy.
    ANTIGONE
[1055]  He
suffered evil and gave evil in return.
    HERALD
[1056] But this
act was against all the citizens, not only one man.
    ANTIGONE
[1057] Discord
is the last of the gods to close an argument. I will bury him. Put an end to
your big talk.
    HERALD
[1059] Well
then, follow your own rash plan, but I forbid it.
[ Exit. ]
    CHORUS
[1060] Ah,
misery! O Erinyes, far-famed destroyers of families, goddesses of death who
have thus laid ruin to the family of Oedipus, digging it up from the roots!
What will happen to me? What should I do? What plan shall I devise? How can I
have the heart neither to weep for you nor escort you to your tomb? But I am
afraid and turn away in terror of the citizens. You, at least, Eteocles, will
have many mourners, while he, wretched man, departs without lamentation and has
a dirge sung only by one sister. Now who could comply with that?
    FIRST HALF-CHORUS
[1072] Let the
city take action or not take action against those who lament for Polynices. We,
at all events, will go and bury him with her, following the funeral procession.
For this grief is shared by all our race, and the city approves as just
different things at different times.
    SECOND HALF-CHORUS
[1078] We will
go with this other corpse, as the city and justice, too, approves. For after
the blessed gods and powerful Zeus, he it was who saved the city of the
Cadmeans from being capsized and flooded by a wave of foreign men — he beyond
all others.
    [ Exeunt omnes. ]

THE SUPPLIANTS

    Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth
    The Suppliants appeared in 463 BC when
democratic undercurrents were running through Athens in advance of the establishment of a new
democratic government in 461 BC. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters
of Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced
marriage to their cousins in Egypt.
They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for
protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision, a distinctly
democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the Danaids
deserve protection and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests.
    The Suppliants is the first play part of
a trilogy, which was followed by two lost plays The Egyptians and The Danaids .
A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy’s last two-thirds runs thus: during
the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus rules Argos. He negotiates a
peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty daughters
will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of
an oracle predicting that one of his