Question

What is the meaning of this text ? CREON: My lords: for what concerns the state, the gods Who tossed it on the angry surge of strife Have righted it again . . . . A man who rules a state And will not ever steer the wisest course, But is afraid, and says not what he thinks, That man is worthless . . . For be sure of this: It is the city that protects us all: She bears us through the storm; only when she Rides safe and sound can we make loyal friends.

Answer 1

SOPHOCLES

Translation by F. Storr, BA

Formerly Scholar of Trinity College,

Cambridge

From the Loeb Library Edition

Originally published

by

Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA

and

William

Heinemann Ltd, London

First published in 1912

Argument

Step-by-step explanation:

Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, the late king of Thebes, in defiance of

Creon who rules in his stead, resolves to bury her brother Polyneices,

slain in his attack on Thebes. She is caught in the act by Creon's

watchmen and brought before the king. She justifies her action, asserting

that she was bound to obey the eternal laws of right and wrong in spite of

any human ordinance. Creon, unrelenting, condemns her to be immured in a

rock-hewn chamber. His son Haemon, to whom Antigone is betrothed, pleads

in vain for her life and threatens to die with her. Warned by the seer

Teiresias Creon repents him and hurries to release Antigone from her rocky

prison. But he is too late: he finds lying side by side Antigone who had

hanged herself and Haemon who also has perished by his own hand. Returning

to the palace he sees within the dead body of his queen who on learning of

her son's death has stabbed herself to the heart.