Antigone, BBC, 1986, Juliet Stevenson:
To play this sequence of ANTIGONE please click here or on the image above. A transcript is provided below:
CREON: And you. You with your head down. What do you say to this accusation? You admit it, you guilty or not?
ANTIGONE: Yes. I’m guilty. I don’t pretend otherwise.
CREON: You, soldier, get out. You’re cleared of all charges against you, and free to go back to your unit. [The SOLDIER seems about to speak, thinks better of it, and goes much relieved]
Now, tell me a simple yes or no.
Did you hear of my order forbidding the burial?
ANTIGONE: Of course I heard it. How could I not?
CREON: And yet you dare to disobey the law?
ANTIGONE: Yes I did because it’s your law. Not the Lord of God natural Justice,
Which is of all times and places, numinous,
Not material, a quality of Zeus,
Not of kings, recognizes no such law.
You are merely a man, mortal,
Like me, and laws that you enact
Cannot overturn ancient moralities
Or common human decency.
They speak the language of eternity,
Are not written down, and never change.
They are for today, yesterday, and all time.
No one understands where they came from,
But everyone recognizes their force:
And no man’s arrogance or power
Can make me disobey them. I would rather
Suffer the disapproval and punishment
Of men than dishonour such ancient truths.
I shall die, of course, sometime,
Whether you make laws or not, if my death
Comes sooner rather than later, I shall welcome it.
My life has been misery – is misery now.
I shall be more than happy to leave it.
There will be no pain and no despair
In that. But to leave my mother’s son
Out there in the open, unburied,
That would have been unendurable,
I could not have worn it Whereas this
I shall endure. By your judgment
Of course. I’m a fool. But by mine,
It’s the judge, not the accused who’s behaving foolishly.