Light and Dark Antigone Scoring

CHORUS:
Now I, too, am swept away,
Out of bounds, when I see this.
I cannot contain the surge of tears:
For now I see Antigone, soon to gain
The marriage bed where everyone must sleep.

ANTIGONE:
(light) See how I walk the last road,
You who belong to my city,
How I fill my eyes with the last
Shining of the sun.
(dark)There's no return: I follow death, alive,
I will be the bride of Death.

CHORUS:
So much glory attends you
As you pass into the deep place of the dead.
For you are not wasted by disease, not maimed by a
sword.
But true to your own laws, you are the only one,
Of mortals, who'll go down to Hades while still alive.

ANTIGONE:
You grasping, rich old men! What a city you have!
I call on the rising of rivers in Thebes
And on the great chariot reaches of the plain.
(light) The rivers and the plain are on my side, at least.
They'll testify that no friends wept for me,
That the laws of Thebes sent me to prison
In a rock hollowed tomb.
They see how unusual and cruel this is.
(dark) But I have no place with human beings,
Living or dead. No city is home to me.

CHORUS:
You've gone too far! You are extreme, impetuous.
My child, you caught your foot and fell
When you tried to climb against high justice.
This is your father's legacy pain and punishment.

ANTIGONE:
Now you raise the agony that hurts my mind the most:
Grief for my father,
Like raw earth plowed three times,
Grief for the whole huge disaster of us,
Our brilliant family,
Labdacus' descendants.
Your death snuffed out my life.

CHORUS:
You have one kind of reverence.
But a man whose job it is to rule
Will never let you trample on his power.
You chose anger, and anger destroyed you.

ANTIGONE:
(light) No tears for me, no friends, no wedding hymns.
They are taking me away
In misery, by the road before me,
Now and forever forbidden to see
This blessed eye of light.
No friends cry for me,
No one is mourning.

(Enter Creon with his attendants through the great doors.)

CREON:
Singing and wailing? They would never end
Before death, if they made any difference.
Take her away immediately. And when she's locked up,
In the embrace of her covered tomb exactly as I said
Leave her alone, deserted. Let her die if she wants,
Or else live there in her grave, if she feels at home there.
We wash our hands of this girl. But either way,
Her permit to reside above the earth is canceled.

ANTIGONE:
(dark)
My tomb, my marriage, my hollow, scraped in dirt,
I'm coming home forever, to be held in
With my own people, most of them dead now,
And gone where Persephone welcomes them.
I am the last of them that will go under, and my death
It is the worst by far so much before my time.
As I leave, even so, I feed this one strong hope:
That I will have a loving welcome from my father,
More love from you, my mother, and then, love
From you, dear heart, my brother. When you died,
I took you up, all three, and laid you out,
And poured libations at your graves.
And, Polyneices, look: This is my reward
For taking care of you.

(light)
I was right, but wisdom knows
I would not do it for a child, were I a mother,
Not for a husband either. Let them lie, putrefied, dead;
I would not defy the city at such cost for their sake.

What law can I claim on my side for this choice?
I may have another husband if the first should die
And get another child from a new man if I'm a widow.
But my mother and my father lie in the land of death,
And there is no ground to grow a brother for me now.
That is the law I followed when I made you first in honor,
Even though Creon thought I did a terrible thing,
A rash and sinful crime, dear heart, my brother.
Now he has taken me by force, he is driving me down
Unmarried. I've had no man, no wedding celebration,
Shared nothing with a husband, never raised a child.
My friends and family have abandoned me in misery,
And I am going alive to the scraped hollow of the dead.

(both)
(dark) What have I ever done against divine justice?
(light) How can I expect a god to help me in my misery?
To whom should I pray now? Do you see?
They are counting all my reverence to be
Irreverence.
(dark) If the gods really agree with this,
Then suffering should teach me to repent my sin.
But if the sin belongs to those who condemned me,
I hope they suffer every bit as I do now.

CREON:
I have no hope to give.
The death sentence stands.

ANTIGONE:
(both - unison)
City of my fathers, Thebes!
Gods of my people!
They are taking me against my will.
Look at me, 0 you lords of Thebes:
I am the last remnant of kings.
Look what these wretched men are doing to me,
For my pure reverence!