Creon remains alone, the chorus enters and goes up to him. ✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —You are mad, Creon. What have you done? 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ looking into the distance before him. ✎ — She had to die. 🔊✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —Don't let Antigone die, Creon! We will all feel this wound in us, through the centuries to come. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —She wanted to die. None of us were strong enough to persuade her to live. 🔊✎ I understand her now. Antigone was made to die. Maybe she didn't know it herself, but Polynices was just an excuse. If she'd had to change her mind this time, she'd have found something else. What was important for her was to say no and die. 🔊✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —She's a child, Creon. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —What I am supposed to do? Condemn her to live? 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ enters, shouting. ✎ — Father! 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ runs to him, kisses him. ✎ — Forget her, Haemon; forget her, my son. 🔊✎
HAEMON ✎ —You're crazy, father. Let go of me. 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ holds him more tightly. ✎ — I did everything I could to try and save her, Haemon. I tried everything, I swear it. She doesn't love you. She could have lived. She preferred madness and death. 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ cries, trying to wrench himself from his embrace. ✎ — But father, you see they're taking her away! Father, don't let those men take her away! 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —She's talked. All Thebes knows what she's done. I have to put her to death. 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ pulls himself from his arms. ✎ — Let me go! 🔊✎ A silence. ✎ They face each other. ✎ They look at each other. ✎
THE CHORUS, ✎ draws near. ✎ — Can't you think of something, say she's mad, lock her up? 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —They'll say it's not true. That I'm just saving her because she's going to marry my son. I can't do it. 🔊✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —Can't you gain some time, let her escape tomorrow? 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —The crowd knows already, they're all round the palace. I can't do it. 🔊✎
HAEMON ✎ —Father, the crowd is nothing. You are the master. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —I am the master before the law. Not after. 🔊✎
HAEMON ✎ —Father, I'm your son, you can't tell me to let them take her. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —Yes, Haemon. Yes, son. Be strong. Antigone couldn't live. Antigone has already left us. 🔊✎
HAEMON ✎ —Do you think I can live without her? Do you think I'll accept your life? All those days, from morning to night, without her. All those stupid things you do, those stupid things you say, without her. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —You just have to accept it, Haemon. Everyone has a day, sad or happy, now or later, when he has to accept that he's a man. For you, that day is today. 🔊✎ And here you are in front of me with those tears in your eyes and your heart hurting in your chest, my little boy, for the last time... 🔊✎ When you've turned round, when you've walked through that door a minute from now, it'll be over. 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ moves back a little, says softly. ✎ — It's already over. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —Don't judge me, Haemon. Don't judge me, not you too. 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ looks at him, says suddenly. ✎ — That strength and that courage, that god who lifted me in his arms and saved me from monsters and shadows, was that you? That comforting smell in the evening, under the lamp, when you showed me books in your study, do you think that was you? 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ humbly. ✎ — Yes, Haemon. 🔊✎
HAEMON ✎. — All the care you took of me, all your pride, all those books full of heroes, that was to get here? To be a man, like you say, and happy to be alive? 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ cries suddenly like a child, throws himself into his arms. ✎ — Father, it's not true! It's not you, it's not today! We're not both of us in front of that wall where you can only say yes. You are still strong, like you were when I was little. 🔊✎ Oh, I'm begging you, father, I want to be able to look up to you, I still want to look up to you! I'm too alone and the world is too empty if I can't look up to you anymore. 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ pulls loose from him. ✎ — We're all alone, Haemon. The world is empty. And you've looked up to me too long. Look straight at me, this is what it means to be a man, to look your father straight in the face one day. 🔊✎
HAEMON, ✎ looks at him, then backs away crying. ✎ — Antigone! Antigone! Help! 🔊✎ He runs out. ✎
THE CHORUS, ✎ goes to Creon. ✎ — Creon, he ran out like a madman. 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ motionless, looking into the distance. ✎ — Yes. Poor kid, he loves her. 🔊✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —Creon, you have to do something. 🔊✎
CREON ✎ —I can't do anything anymore. 🔊✎
THE CHORUS ✎ —He's gone, he's received a deadly wound. 🔊✎
CREON, ✎ dully. ✎ — Yes, we've all received a deadly wound. 🔊✎