"The gods no more hear prayers of sacrifice,
Nor own the flame that burns the victim's limbs;
Nor do the birds give cry of omen good,
But feed on carrion of a slaughtered corpse."—(P.)
Let the king, then, concludes the seer, listen to good counsel, and not reverse the common laws of humanity. Let him restore Antigone to the upper air, and bury Polynices.
But Creon, like Œdipus before him, is deaf to the voice of prophecy, and scorns repentance or atonement till repentance and atonement come too late. Like Œdipus, he adds impiety to crime, and in the stubbornness of his pride utters blasphemous words which must have outraged the pious sense of the Athenian audience. Teiresias may play his "augur's tricks" on others, and make his gains of amber from Sardis and gold from India; but
"That corpse ye shall not hide in any tomb,
Not though the eagles, birds of Zeus, should bear
Their carrion morsels to the throne of God,—
Not even fearing this pollution dire,
Will I consent to burial."—(P.)
And then, inspired by his evil genius (or, as the Greeks would have put it, infatuated by Até, the demon-goddess of destruction), Creon adds insult to reproach, until the prophet, sorely vexed, declares the doom which awaits the shedder of innocent blood. Sorrow shall come upon his own house; few and evil shall be the days that remain of his life. The sun shall not rise and set again before he shall repay blood for blood;—
