by stoning."

"But if it be so, my sister, how can we avail to change it?"

"Think whether or no thou wilt share with me the doing of this deed."

"What deed? What meanest thou?"

"To pay due honor to this dead body."

"What? Wilt thou bury him when the king hath forbidden it?"

"Yes, for he is my brother and also thine, though perchance thou wouldst
not have it so. And I will not play him false."

"O my sister, wilt thou do this when Creon hath forbidden it?"

"Why should he stand between me and mine?"

"But think now what sorrows are come upon our house. For our father
perished miserably, having first put out his own eyes; and our mother
hanged herself with her own hands; our two brothers fell in one day,
each by the other's spear; and now we two only are left. And shall we
not fall into a worse destruction than any, if we transgress these
commands of the king? Think, too, that we are women and not men, and of
necessity obey them that are stronger. Wherefore, as for me, I will pray
the dead to pardon me, seeing that I am thus constrained; but I will
obey them that rule."

"I advise thee not, and if thou thinkest thus, I would not have thee for
helper. But know that I will bury my brother, nor could I better die
than for doing such a deed. For as he loved me, so also do I love him
greatly. And shall not I do pleasure to the dead rather than to the
living, seeing that I shall abide with the dead for ever? But thou, if
thou wilt do dishonor to the laws of the gods?"

"I dishonor them not. Only I cannot set myself against the powers that
be."

"So be it; but I will bury my brother."

"O my sister, how I fear for thee!"

"Fear for thyself. Thine own lot needeth all thy care."

"Thou wilt at least keep thy counsel, nor tell the thing to any man."

"Not so: hide it not. I shall scorn thee more if thou proclaim it not
aloud to all."

So Antigone departed; and after a while came to the same place King
Creon, clad in his royal robes and with his scepter in his hand, and set
forth his counsel to the elders who were assembled, how he had dealt
with the two princes according to their deserving, giving all honor to
him that loved his country and casting forth the other unburied. And he
bade them take care that this decree should be kept, saying that he had
also appointed certain men to watch the dead body.

And he had scarcely left speaking when there came one of these same
watchers, and said:

"I have not c