Creon monologue — Specimens of Greek Tragedy — Aeschylus and Sophocles

Know that the most self-willed most often fall. Iron that hath been tempered by the fire To a surpassing hardness, when it breaks, We often see shattered most thoroughly; And a small bit suffices to subdue The fiery steed. High thoughts beseem not those Who owe subjection to another's will. This maid before displayed her insolence In overstepping what the laws ordained; And now again displays it, glorying And laughing in our face over her crime. It is not I that am the man, but she If she can thus usurp and go unscathed. Be she my sister's child or child of one Nearer in blood than all around our hearth, She shall not the last penalty escape, Nor shall her sister. For she, too, I hold, Conspired to bring about this burial. Summon her hither. Just now in the house I saw her raving like a maid possessed. When wickedness is gendered in the dark The heart is apt its secret to betray. But not less hateful is the shamelessness Which, of foul acts convicted, calls them fair.