The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

Be the necklace-fire of stars, The cauterizing lightning. Bewilder us with good.

All of us would like to have been born Infallible, but since we knew we weren't, It's better to attend to those who speak In honesty and good faith, and learn from them.

Nobody, Nobody can be sure they're always right. The ones who are fullest of themselves that way Are the emptiest vessels.

You can't just pluck your honour off a bush You didn't plant.

No windfall or good fortune comes to mortals That isn't paid for in the coin of pain.

The land of the living, sister, Is neither here nor there. We enter it and we leave it. The dead in the land of the dead Are the ones you'll be with longest.

Wise conduct is the key to happiness. Always rule by gods and reverence them. Those who overbear will be brought to grief. Fate will flail them on its winnowing floor And in due season teach them to be wise.

Chorus: Consider well, my son. All men make mistakes. But mistakes don't have to be forever, They can be admitted and atoned for. It's the overbearing man who is to blame.

I am not the target. I am the archer. My shafts are tipped with truth and they stick deep.

Money has a long and sinister reach. It slips into the system, changes hands And starts to eat away at the foundations Of everything we stand for.

Chorus: Steadfast Antigone, Never before did Death Open his stone door To one so radiant. You would not live a lie. Vindicated, lauded, Age and disease outwitted, YOu go with head held high.

Well has it been said: the man obsessed Is a cock of the walk in a hurry towards the worst.

Whoever has been spared the worst is lucky. When high gods shake a house That family is going to feel the blow Generation after generation. It starts like an undulation underwater, A surge that hauls black sand up off the bottom, Then turns itself into a tidal current Lashing the shingle and shaking promontories.

You can't, friend, have your palm greased and expect To get away clean. Everything comes out.

Until a man has passed this test of office And proved himself in the exercise of power, He can't be truly known--for what he is, I mean, In his heart and mind and capabilities. Worst is the man who has all the good advise And then because his nerve fails, fails to act In accordance with it, as a leader should.

Bear with the present; what will be will be. The future is cloth waiting to be cut.

Whoever has been spared the worst is lucky.

Obedience And respect must be instilled. And that is why No woman here is going to be allowed To walk all over us. Otherwise, as men We'll be disgraced. We won't deserve the name.

Worst is the man who has all the good advice And then because his nerve fails, fails to act In accordance with it, as a leader should. And equally to blame Is anyone who puts the personal Above the overall thing, puts friend Or family first.