Guard: We then charged her with her past and present doings, but she made no denial of anything—at once to my joy and to my pain. For to have escaped from trouble one’s self gives the greatest joy, but it stings to lead friends to evil. Naturally, though, all such things are of less account to me than my own safety.
Creon: You, you with your face bent to the ground, do you admit, or deny that you did this?
Antigone: I declare it and make no denial.
Creon: To the Guard. You can take yourself wherever you please, free and clear of a heavy charge. Exit Guard.
To Antigone. You, however, tell me—not at length, but briefly—did you know that an edict had forbidden this?
Antigone: I knew it. How could I not? It was public.
Creon: And even so you dared overstep that law?
Antigone: Yes, since it was not Zeus that published me that edict, and since not of that kind are the laws which Justice who dwells with the gods below established among men.
The quote: Antigone: Nor did I think that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes given us by the gods. For their life is not of today or yesterday, but for all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth.
Antigone: Not for fear of any man’s pride was I about to owe a penalty to the gods for breaking these. Die I must, that I knew well (how could I not?). That is true even without your edicts. But if I am to die before my time, I count that a gain. When anyone lives as I do, surrounded by evils, how can he not carry off gain by dying? So for me to meet this doom is a grief of no account. But if I had endured that my mother’s son should in death lie an unburied corpse, that would have grieved me. Yet for this, I am not grieved.
