Barbarian! It's a great play. By Sophocles. Antigone buries her brother, a rebel, a forbidden act. Her father, Creon the King, asks if she's done it and disobeyed him. She answers:
Yes; for it was not Zeus that had published me that edict; not such are the laws set among men by the justice who dwells with the gods below; nor deemed I that thy decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of heaven. For their life is not of to-day or yesterday, but from all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth.Creon's own son (Haemon) asks him to spare Antigone's life (and her sister's). He says the city is opposed to the execution. This dialogue follows:
CREON: Am I to rule this land by other judgment than mine own?Great stuff. Compared to this, William Tell ain't nothin'.HAEMON: That is no city which belongs to one man.
CREON: Is not the city held to be the ruler's?
HAEMON: Thou wouldst make a good monarch of a desert.
Final warning: Knock off the Swiss-bashing.
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