And painful. Yet my nature bids me count
Above all these things safety for myself.440
Creon. [To Antigone.] Thou, then—yes, thou, who
bend'st thy face to earth—
Confessest thou, or dost deny the deed?
Antig. I own I did it, and will not deny.
Creon. [To Guard.] Go thou thy way, where'er thy will
may choose,
Freed from a weighty charge.
[To Antigone.] And now for thee.
Say in few words, not lengthening out thy speech,
Knew'st thou the edicts which forbade these things?
Antig. I knew them. Could I fail? Full clear were they.
Creon. And thou did'st dare to disobey these laws?
Antig. Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave them forth,450
Nor Justice, dwelling with the Gods below,
Who traced these laws for all the sons of men;
Nor did I deem thy edicts strong enough,
That thou, a mortal man, should'st over-pass
The unwritten laws of God that know not change.
They are not of to-day nor yesterday,
But live for ever, nor can man assign
When first they sprang to being. Not through fear
Of any man's resolve was I prepared
Before the Gods to bear the penalty
Of sinning against these. That I should die
I knew, (how should I not?) though thy decree460
Had never spoken. And, before my time
If I shall die, I reckon this a gain;
For whoso lives, as I, in many woes,
How can it be but he shall gain by death?
And so for me to bear this doom of thine
Has nothing painful. But, if I had left
