Sunday, November 27, 2005
Civil Disobedience
Sophocles, Antigone 446-457 (tr. R.C. Jebb):
Newer› ‹Older
CREON: Now, tell me thou - not in many words, but briefly - knewest thou that an edict had forbidden this?
ANTIGONE: I knew it: could I help it? It was public.
CREON: And thou didst indeed dare to transgress that law?
ANTIGONE: 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.
