Chorus. The poor in Thebes are going to be cold thiswinter, Creon. When the Queen was told of her son'sdeath, she waited carefully until she had finished her row,then put down her knitting calmly-as she did everything.She went up to her room, her lavender-scentedroom, withits embroidered doilies and its pictures framed in plush;and there, Creon, she cut her throat. She is laid out nowin one of those two old-fashionedtwin beds, exactly where •you went to her one night when she was still a maiden.Her smile is still the same, scarcelya shade more melan•choly. And if it were not for that great red blot on thebed linen by her neck, one might think she was asleep.Creon [in a dull voice]. She, too. They are all asleep.[Pause.] It must be good to sleep.Chorus.And now you are alone, Creon.Creon. Yes, all alone. (To PAGE.]My lad.Page.Sir?Creon.Listen to me. They don't know it, but the truthis the work is there to be done, and a man can't fold hisarms and refuse to do it. They say it's dirty work. But ifwe didn't do it, who would?Page.I don't know, sir.Creon.Of course you don't. You'll be lucky if you neverfind out. In a hurry to grow up, aren't you?Page.Oh, yes, sir.Creon. I shouldn't be if I were you. Never grow up ifyou can help it. [He is lost in thoughtas the hour chimes.)What time is it?Page.Five o'clock, sir.Creon.What have we on at five o'clock?Page.Cabinet meeting, sir.Creon. Cabinet meeting. Then we had better go alongit.ANTIGONE 53Exeunt CaEONand PAGEslowly through arch, left, andCaoaus moves downstage.Chorus.And there we are. It is quite true that if it hadnot been for Antigone they would all have been at peace.But that is over now. And th!?' are all at peace. All thosewho were meant to die have died: those who believed onething, those who believed the contrary thing, and eventhose who believed nothing at all, yet were caught up inthe web without knowing why. All dead: stiff, useless,rotting. And !hose who have survived will now beginquietly to forget the dead: they won't remember who waswho or which was which. It is all over. Antigone is calmtonight, and we shall never know the name of the feverthat consumed her. She has played her part.Three GUARDS enter, resume their places on steps as atthe rise of the curtain,and begin to play cards.A great melancholy wave of peace now settles downupon Thebes, upon the empty palace, upon Creon, whocan now begin to wait for his own death.Only the guards are left, and none of this matters to.: them. It's no skin off their noses. They go on playing' cards.•.Caoaus walks toward the arch, left, as the curtain fall,,
This passage is bleak and emotionally devastating, using calm, almost domestic imagery to heighten the horror of the Queen’s death. The Chorus’s detached, detailed narration contrasts sharply with the violence it describes, reinforcing the play’s theme of how tragedy becomes normalized by power and routine. Creon is portrayed not as a villain consumed by rage, but as a hollowed-out figure who justifies cruelty as “necessary work,” revealing the moral exhaustion of authority. His interaction with the Page exposes a grim ethical lesson: that adulthood in politics means accepting responsibility for actions one would rather not understand. Overall, the writing emphasizes the emptiness left after moral conflict, suggesting that peace achieved through death and forgetting is deeply unsettling rather than redemptive.