[Oe List ...] Another quote to identify

Mon May 23 16:06:46 CDT 2011

Excerpt from Antigone 

Creon. Very well. I am afraid, then. Does that satisfy you? I am afraid that if you insist upon it, I shall have to have you killed. And I don’t want to.
Antigone. I don’t have to do things that I think are wrong. If it comes to that, you didn’t really want to leave my brother’s body unburied, did you? Say it! Admit that you didn’t.
Creon. I have said it already.
Antigone. But you did it just the same. And now, though you don’t want to do it, you are going to have me killed. And you call that being a king!
Creon. Yes, I call that being a king.
Antigone. Poor Creon! My nails are broken, my fingers are bleeding, my arms are covered with the welts left by the paws of your guards—but I am a queen!
Creon. Then why not have pity on me, and live? Isn’t your brother’s corpse, rotting there under my windows, payment enough for peace and order in Thebes? My son loves you. Don’t make me add your life to the payment. I’ve paid enough.
Antigone. No, Creon! You said yes, and made yourself king. Now you will never stop paying.
Creon. But God in heaven! Won’t you try to understand me! I’m trying hard enough to understand you! There had to be one man who said yes. Somebody had to agree to captain the ship. She had sprung a hundred leaks; she was loaded to the water line with crime, ignorance, poverty. The wheel was swinging with the wind. The crew refused to work and were looting the cargo. The officers were building a raft, ready to slip overboard and desert the ship. The mast was splitting, the wind was howling, the sails were beginning to rip. Every man jack on board was about to drown—and only because the only thing they thought of was their own skins and their cheap little day-to-day traffic. Was that a time, do you think, for playing with words like yes and no? Was that a time for a man to be weighing the pros and cons, wondering if he wasn’t going to pay too dearly later on; if he wasn’t going to lose his life, or his family, or his touch with other men? You
 grab the wheel, you right the ship in the face of a mountain of water. You shout an order, and if one man refuses to obey, you shoot straight into the mob. Into the mob, I say! The beast as nameless as the wave that crashes down upon your deck; as nameless as the whipping wind. The thing that drops when you shoot may be someone who poured you a drink the night before; but it has no name. And you, braced at the wheel, you have no name, either. Nothing has a name—except the ship, and the storm. [A pause as he looks at her.] Now do you understand?
Antigone. I am not here to understand. That’s all very well for you. I am here to say no to you, and die.
Creon. It is easy to say no.
Antigone. Not always.
Creon. It is easy to say no To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death. All you have to do is to sit still and wait. Wait to go on living; wait to be killed. That is the coward’s part.

Jim Wiegel

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--- On Mon, 5/23/11, jlepps at pc.jaring.my <jlepps at pc.jaring.my> wrote:

From: jlepps at pc.jaring.my <jlepps at pc.jaring.my>
Subject: [Oe List ...] Another quote to identify
To: "OE Listserve (oe at wedgeblade.net)" <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Date: Monday, May 23, 2011, 1:25 PM

Thanks. Now here's another: Who is the author and what's the reading for "that old poem which talked about firing into a crowd and somebody having to captain the ship ?" Was it from Antigone? If so, who was the author?

John

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