Monologue
Antigone — Guard
Sophocles, adapted by Gregory Mosher
Guard: It went like this. We scrape off the dust from the slimy flesh, then go up on a hill to get away from the smell. Then, around the middle of the day, and it’s really hot by now, suddenly the earth starts swirling around. The wind tears the leaves off the trees, even, like heaven was angry. It was hard to breathe, and see, and so we closed our eyes and took our beating. When it was over, we look and see the child by the body. She’s looking at the naked man, howling curses for what we’d done, shrieking, the way a bird does when it comes home and finds an empty nest. While we’re running down, she quickly gets more dust to put over him, and pours the wine, blessing the corpse, three times. We grab her — she was calm now — and charge her with the crime, and the earlier one, too. She didn’t deny it. To me, she seemed kind of sweet, but at the same time sad, so I felt pity for her. Still, the main thing is that I’m all right.