Social Media New Frontiers in Hiring and RecruitingJohn G.docx

Social Media: New Frontiers in Hiring and Recruiting
John G. Joos
© 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ert.20188
The Internet profoundly affects how busi-ness is conducted in
the world today, and
recruiting and hiring processes are being
swept along in this current. The Internet
lends itself well to finding and attracting
college graduates, skilled workers, managers,
and executives. These groups tend to be
computer literate, and technology use is an
integral part of their daily routines, helping
them develop and maintain connections at
work as well as in their personal lives.
Much of what is described in this article
falls under the broad category of social media.
Podcasting, blogging, text messaging, Internet
videos, and HR e-mail marketing are all
examples of social media. Popular social-
media Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook,
Wikipedia, and Yahoo! Groups abound and
are subscribed to by millions of people,
prompting employers to explore ways to use
social media in their search for new talent.
This article provides an overview of how social
media are currently being used by leading-

edge companies as well as job seekers.
CORPORATE EXAMPLES
Social media can take a variety of forms, pre-
senting different ways to engage an audience,
including current and prospective employees.
Many are focused on promoting products,
services, and a corporate image.
For example, Budweiser, in collaboration
with JibJab Media (www.JibJab.com), is devel-
oping a series of video commercials that is
being used on broadcast TV and the Internet.
Going to Google Video and typing “Bud Com-
mercials” as the search term will yield
in excess of 140 hits. Most of these hilarious
pieces are available for download to your
computer, iPod, or other handheld device.
Budweiser is counting on a major social-media
driver, word of mouth, to attract viewers to its
commercials.
Volvo, capitalizing on the promotions
related to the release of the motion picture
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,
started a blog campaign in which people
worldwide could hunt for a pirate-themed
Volvo SUV. The “Pirate’s Treasure” contest
allowed people to share tips, clues, and even
poems through a blog entitled “The Hunt.”
Volvo was able to get over 30,000 people
involved in “The Hunt,” leading up to and
during the release of the film.1

Microsoft, on the other hand, is using the
Internet for recruiting purposes. Following is
an excerpt from the first posting on its recruit-
ing Web site:
Microsoft Recruiting Starts a Web Log
(blog). . . . Why would a Recruiting organi-
zation want to create a blog? Let us tell you
more: Our intended audience is anyone
interested in learning more about Microsoft
technologies and career opportunities, but
we are most focused on reaching out to
those who are industry professionals and
interested in pursuing technical/engineering
roles at Microsoft.
51
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Employment Relations Today
Our goal is to not only educate you on hap-
penings, new technologies, and best practices
at Microsoft but also put a “face” to Microsoft
Recruiting.2
The preceding examples are just a few of
the varied applications of social media.
TARGETING THE TALENT POOL
Employers have always tapped into pools of
both active and passive job candidates to fill

a wide range of positions. Active job candi-
dates are those currently unemployed, who
represent 10 percent or less of the total work-
force at any given time. Passive job candi-
dates are those who are currently employed
and not putting a lot of energy into seeking a
new position, but who would consider mak-
ing a job change if the conditions were right.
The old recruiting paradigm, aimed primar-
ily at active candidates, was predominantly a
“spray and pray” method. The tools of the trade
were want ads, paper applications, résumés,
phone calls, face-to-face networking, and so
forth. Employers sprayed want ads across pages
of print media, and job seekers sprayed large
numbers of résumés in the direction of poten-
tial employers; both prayed for good results.
This method was primarily used by (1) compa-
nies who had an immediate need for employees
and (2) the unemployed who were actively
seeking jobs and were willing to spend their
time searching through want ads and/or trade
publications, while at the same time mailing
résumés and crossing their fingers.
With the advent of the Internet, large-scale
employment-related Web sites began to
John G. Joos
Employment Relations Today DOI 10.1002/ert
52
blossom. Monster.com, Yahoo’s HotJobs.com,
and Jobster.com are just three of the hun-

dreds of currently active job-oriented Web
sites that seek to attract the attention of both
job candidates and employers. These job-
oriented Web sites are responsible for creating
the category of “passive” job seeker, who,
although currently working, is curious about
what’s out there. The online job sites make
it easy to browse the job market. And as
employees have become aware that the aver-
age job-tenure rate continues to decline,3 they
are increasingly willing to make a job change
(or even a career change) if the right opportu-
nity presents itself. As reported in 2006 on
the Net-temps.com Web site, a WetFeet.com
survey of more than 3,000 experienced pro-
fessionals conducted in August 2000 showed
that 36 percent of respondents who were
currently employed were open to accepting a
new position within the next six months.4
Given that a large percentage of passive
candidates are only occasionally scanning
job-board Web sites, the challenge is to engage
them in activities that they find useful or
interesting, while at the same time making a
subtle approach to move them into a more
job-seeking mode. Some of the more broadly
used social-media methods and processes
facilitate this concept.
Blogs
Blog is the contraction for the term Web
log—a Web site in which journal or newsletter-
type entries are made and frequently
updated. Blogs often provide commentary or

news on a particular subject such as sports,
food, politics, or local news; some function as
more personal online diaries. Commentary of
all types is a major characteristic of the blog-
ging world. Every imaginable constituency
seems to have one or more blogs available to
The old recruiting paradigm, aimed primarily at active
candidates, was predominantly a “spray and pray” method.
ert351_09_051-060.qxd 3/20/08 1:34 PM Page 52
Spring 2008
them. Blogs may also be included as a feature
of a more comprehensive Web site. Blogs are
usually hosted and written by a particular
individual. In some cases, readers are allowed
to respond to the postings and thus engage in
a two-way conversation with the blogger and
other readers. In other cases, the person writ-
ing the blog has the floor at all times.
A typical blog combines text, images, and
links to other blogs, Web pages, and other
media related to its topic. The word blogo-
sphere has become part of the lexicon of
Internet users due to the large number of
blogs currently present. In April 2006, David
Sifry of the blog Sifry’s Alerts reported that
Technorati.com was tracking 35.3 million
blogs, with the blogosphere doubling in size
every six months. Blogs have become so
numerous that Google has established a

search engine that specializes in finding blogs
at http://blogsearch.google.com/.
Blogs have the potential to be an excellent
method for reaching the large group of pas-
sive candidates who are merely curious. By
providing a steady stream of interesting arti-
cles, research, job-hunting tips, and current
information, blogs can get this group’s atten-
tion. Specializing in various occupational
groups such as accounting, finance and bank-
ing, or computer programming may further
advance the blog’s value.
Microsoft Corporation has two widely
praised blogs of this type. One Louder is a
blog directed toward finance and marketing.
This innovative blog provides a steady stream
of informal chatter, some of which is directed
at jobs and some of which is just interesting
reading about technical issues, employment
processes, and workplace issues and activities
at Microsoft.5 The second Microsoft blog,
Jobsblog, concentrates on technical careers at
Microsoft. A recent posting addressed the
issue of why job seekers may not have heard
53
from a recruiter after sending in their
résumés.6
For Recruiters and Job Seekers

In addition to blogs that are part of a corpo-
rate recruiting effort, hundreds of blogs are
produced by recruiting firms. These blogs are
also designed to get the attention of both
active and passive candidates. Many of these
recruiting firms and their blogs specialize in a
specific discipline such as finance, account-
ing, scientific topics, human resources, mar-
keting, and information technology. Industry
and/or career field specificity help recruiting
firms and candidates focus their efforts in a
more efficient manner.
There are even blogs about recruiting
blogs. Recruiting.com contains a list of 40
recruiting blogs, as well as a steady stream of
conversation about recruiting blogs.
Establishing a blog as a recruiting tool is
well within the reach of any organization or
manager. Free and low-cost software is readily
available for download on the Internet. For
example, Google.com offers blogging software
that sets up in three steps. The major issue in
establishing a blog of any type is keeping the
content timely, interesting, and focused.
Blogging, however, is not just for organiza-
tions that do hiring. Setting up a personal
blog is also a useful tool for those who are
seeking jobs and who want to differentiate
themselves in the job market. An article on
SimplyHired.com titled “7 Things a Job Seeker
Can Do with a Blog” provides a nice checklist
of creative uses of a blog.7 Tips such as “Make

Blogs have the potential to be an excellent method for
reaching the large group of passive candidates who are
merely curious.
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your résumé and video available on your blog”
and “Ask your previous employers to write a
recommendation to be posted on your blog”
are included in this article.
Wikis
Ward Cunningham is credited with introduc-
ing the term wiki, derived from a Hawaiian
term, wiki wiki, meaning fast or quick. A
wiki is a type of Web site that allows authors
to collaborate on the information provided on
the site; generally, if visitors register, they
can easily edit or change the information on
the site. Wikis have come to be known for
their ease of use in collaborative authoring
online. Wiki also refers to the collaborative
software itself.
Unlike blogs, which are usually moderated
and written by one person and sometimes
allow contributions by the readers of the
blog, a wiki is a totally collaborative effort by
all who want to contribute (frequently with
some type of authorization or permission

from the wiki owner). One of the most widely
known wikis is Wikipedia at www.wikipedia.
org. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia cur-
rently containing over 1,400,000 articles in
English, all written by volunteer contributors.
There are also a multitude of Wikipedia con-
tributions in languages other than English. An
important aspect of Wikipedia is that it stays
more current than any printed encyclopedia;
thus, some of the newer terminology that is
developing in the technical world each day is
more likely to be defined or described initially
John G. Joos
54
in Wikipedia than in other reference
resources.
Employment-Oriented Wikis
In the late 1990s, corporations caught on to
the idea of using wikis as a collaborative pro-
cess for developing private databases of
knowledge held by their employees. Project
communication, intranets, and documenta-
tion evolved into wiki-style databases in
many corporations. Much of this information
is hidden behind firewalls and is not avail-
able through the public Internet.
An excellent example of an employment-
oriented wiki can be found at the
WikiBooks.org Web site. WikiBooks.org hosts

a collection of open-content instructional
resources covering a variety of subjects.
Started in mid-2003, WikiBooks has grown to
more than 21,000 instructional modules in
three years.
One of the wikibooks available on this site
is The Find Employment Wikibook. This site
offers a wikibook that is authored by volun-
teer contributors, many who have experience
and expertise in employment matters. Quoting
from the book’s introduction, “This wikibook
is an attempt to explain the process of finding
a job and getting hired for that job. It will
explain such topics as finding a job, writing a
résumé, and performing at an interview.”8
As with blogging software, wiki software
and host sites are readily available on the
Internet at low cost. Setting up a wiki and
hosting it is well within the abilities of the
average manager. The challenge is to capture
the information that will be of interest to
potential employees. Read/write access to a
wiki is controllable, which makes it possible
for company employees to have read/write
access, but allows those outside the organiza-
tion read-only access. An interesting idea for
Unlike blogs, which are usually moderated and written by
one person and sometimes allow contributions by the read-
ers of the blog, a wiki is a totally collaborative effort by all
who want to contribute.
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a wiki is to engage an organization (or a group
of selected employees) in creating a wiki that
describes the jobs in the organization.
Podcasting
On its way to becoming a mainstream com-
munication medium, a podcast is an audio
file that is delivered via the Internet to com-
puters or digital handheld devices. Think of
it as radio on demand. Some 12 percent of
Internet users say they have downloaded a
podcast so they can listen to it or view it at
a later time.9
Originally designed as entertainment or
information files, which were downloaded to
the Apple iPod, podcasts have grown well
beyond their original intended use. Podcast-
ing has exploded to include all types of media
content such as entertainment talk shows,
music, tutorials, lectures, interviews with
subject-matter experts, commentaries, and
information about recruiting and hiring. In
other words, any type of audio content that
can be imagined can become a podcast. Lis-
teners are free to select the time and place
that they want to listen and can maintain
archives of podcasts that they can access on
demand. Podcasting technology allows any-
one to become a citizen broadcaster.

Many podcasts that provide information
on a regularly scheduled basis have a feed-
reader technology called RSS (an acronym for
really simple syndication) feeds associated
with them. RSS feeds were originally used as
a means to automatically deliver updated
news headlines to computers and handheld
devices. RSS has evolved to become a simple
method for readers to automatically check for
updates of the content on their choice of Web
sites. Feed readers, such as RSS and Atom,
are widely available freeware downloads that
read and display updated Web-site content.
55
Podcasting Job Information
Simple five-minute podcasts with job infor-
mation, career tips, or on-camera interviews
from new hires or current employees can be
created inexpensively and produced quickly.
The fact that a company makes podcasts
available and its competitors do not is a signi-
ficant message about which is the more
forward-thinking organization.
Goulston & Storrs, a Boston-based law firm,
has a series of podcasts on its Web site called
the “Goulston & Storrs Recruiting Podcast
Series.” The podcasts let potential employees
“listen directly to our partners and associates
answering questions about different aspects

of what it’s like to be a lawyer at our firm.”
Each one-to-two-minute podcast addresses
questions that a candidate may have about
the law firm and its policies and working
conditions.10
The Technical Careers Group at Microsoft
has produced a series of podcasts featuring
short pieces that interest technical-type peo-
ple. Interviews with newly hired employees,
experts, and product specialists are all found
on this Web site.11
IBM created a series of online peer-to-peer
podcasts designed so employees can share
their knowledge with other interested profes-
sionals inside and outside the organization.
“The New Intellectual Property Marketplace”
is a podcast by Irving Wladawsky-Berger,
IBM vice president of technology, strategy,
and innovation. Dr. Wladawsky-Berger
discusses intellectual property issues and
how the ability to share ideas stimulates
innovation. IBM podcasts allow listeners to
Originally designed as entertainment or information files,
which were downloaded to the Apple iPod, podcasts have
grown well beyond their original intended use.
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subscribe to the series using a specialized

feed, which will automatically provide access
to future lectures as they are released. An
RSS feed is available for those who want to
automatically keep up with this series.12
Employer Marketing Videos
Video is an excellent tool for small- to
medium-sized companies that do not have a
large footprint in the job marketplace. Videos
allow the company to put a name and face
together to project to potential employees a
sense of the culture and working conditions
of a company. It also gives the company a
progressive, leading-edge image.
GettingHired.com is an excellent example
of a recruiting Web site that uses streaming
videos as part of its selection of tools. The
Web site features two types of videos:
employer marketing videos and job-seeker
video marketing profiles.13
GettingHired’s employer marketing video
site allows its employer clients to upload a
two- to three-minute video to “present your
company to the potential candidate.” Its job-
seeker video marketing tool is particularly
useful for graduating students seeking jobs
where excellent communication and presenta-
tion skills are strong job requirements. Get-
tingHired’s unique technology creates a Web
link on the candidate’s professional profile
(résumé) that connects to his or her video
profile, thus providing potential employers
with a more complete package.

Truckflix.com is a transportation industry
job board Web site that features both recruiting
podcasts and recruiting vlogs (or videoblogs, a
John G. Joos
56
blog that includes video) by various trucking
companies. According to the Web site, “Truck
Drivers, Owner Operators, Truck Driving
School Graduates, Truck Driving Jobs, Trucking
Companies, and Streaming Media Technology
all come together at Truckflix.com.”14 The site
also provides links to employers’ job applica-
tions as part of the service. This site is particu-
larly well done and is worth a visit just to
observe the depth and scope of the social media
approach.
Many organizations have proven them-
selves to be quite clever at creating short
in-house videos for training and development.
Creating videos that support the recruiting
and hiring process is well within their capa-
bility. Software that converts videos for use
on the Internet is readily available.
Text Messaging
Technically known as SMS (short message ser-
vice), text messaging is a popular service with
many younger-generation cell-phone users. SMS
permits the sending of short messages (text

messages) between cell phones, other hand-
held devices, computers, and even landline
telephones and is an enormously popular
medium among members of Generation Y
(millennials). Text messages are the digital
equivalent of whispering. They are discreet,
quiet (that is, no ringing cell phone announc-
ing an incoming message), and quick.
Attracting Younger Members of the Workforce
An article on TMC.net notes that a recruit-
ing coordinator with MetLife’s Goodman
Financial Group, James Barra,15 sends text
messages to confirm interviews with young
candidates or answer questions; however, he
does not use them to make an initial contact.
Just four years out of college himself, Barra
Videos allow the company to put a name and face together
to project to potential employees a sense of the culture and
working conditions of a company.
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says texting is great for students because “it
doesn’t disturb people around you.” It’s a
quick, concise way to communicate “under
the radar screen.”
Members of Generation Y, who are the
college graduates of 2002 and beyond, have

been steeped in a fast-response culture. High-
speed Internet connections, communicating
by text message in real-time, cell phones, and
social media Web sites have all had a strong
influence on this generation. To appeal to this
group, recruiters and employers currently use
two strategies: (1) send a targeted e-mail and
then follow up with the same people at some
point in the future by text messages, or (2)
send a text message to just those candidates
who click through in response to the initial
e-mail.
ON THE LEADING EDGE
Companies increasingly are using advanced
Internet technologies to find potential employ-
ees and get a very focused message in front of
them. This process is known as search-engine
marketing (SEM), a marketing process that
drives traffic to a particular Web site by plac-
ing the Web site listing in a variety of search
engines— for example, Google, Dog Pile, Alta
Vista, and Yahoo.
Search-engine optimization (SEO) is all
about having the appropriate keywords asso-
ciated with a company’s Web site to optimize
a company’s SEM efforts. SEO increases traf-
fic to a company’s site by having the site
rank high (hopefully, on the first page) in the
results that search engines return when being
queried on keywords that describe the busi-
ness, its products, or services. It can be
expanded to attract potential employees as
well, simply by including the appropriate

keywords. SEO is best left to professionals
who specialize in this area; it is a process that
57
is part art and part technology that considers
over a hundred variables and requires expert-
level familiarity with the rules that search
engines use to determine page rank.
Once traffic is driven to a particular site, a
company’s Web site must be able to capture
and hold the attention of the types of candi-
dates who are being sought for a given job.
This means providing the types of media and
the topics that will resonate with prospective
employees. For this reason, leading-edge
companies are including blogging, podcast-
ing, and video blogs as an integral part of
their Web sites.
The latest revolutionary change in hiring
and recruiting is a process that combines
social networking blogs with job-search tech-
nology. Seattle-based start-up Jobster, Inc., has
a new Web site with a unique approach.16
Jobster’s main source of revenue is from
doing deals with employers (400 clients and
growing) for posting job listings. Boeing, Star-
bucks, and Google are some of its clients. In
addition, Jobster provides job tips, Webcasts,
blogs, and personalized job alerts. However,

the thing that makes Jobster unique is that it
has a blog that allows employees, past and
present, to blog about their companies. This
allows people to provide an inside look at a
company and its culture. Jobster makes it
easy to find these listed companies by simply
typing their names in a “search tags” box.
Another unique Jobster service is client-
based recruiting campaigns. Jobster’s employer
clients have the ability to create recruiting
campaigns that contain multiple job listings.
Jobster works with clients to develop and
send e-mails to the clients’ employees whom
Companies increasingly are using advanced Internet
technologies to find potential employees and get a very
focused message in front of them.
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they think could be helpful in finding
qualified job candidates. Employees are
encouraged to share the job openings with
others in their social circles, recommend a
potential candidate, or apply for the opening
themselves.
Job candidates have an increasing ability
to access information that isn’t provided by a
company’s PR firm, HR department, or pro-
fessional marketers. Now current and former

employees, and anyone else, can generate
information about a company and its jobs.
Social-media processes are fueling this trend.
A company’s desire to control the image it
wants to present to potential employees is in
serious jeopardy from thousands of millenni-
als and other social-media users who can,
and do, communicate with their colleagues
by the click of a send button.
PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
Social-media tools and techniques as currently
used are not a direct replacement for tradi-
tional hiring processes, but rather a supplement
to them. College recruiting, particularly of
millennials, is a high-growth area for social
media. This group, with their past and current
exposure to technology, responds extremely
well to the social-media environment.
Social-media processes are dependent on
the education and skill level of the targeted
audience. Those seeking minimum-wage jobs,
low-skill jobs, and many hourly positions are
not good candidates for these processes due
to the low computer literacy and use rates in
this target population.
Successful use of social media is also
dependent on industry norms. The informa-
tion technology industry is abuzz with social
media. If you are hiring and recruiting in this
industry, you must not only use social media,
but also use it well. Information technology,
engineering, accounting, and finance all

have a robust array of discipline-specific,
employment-related, social-media choices.
Whether or not to take the time and
expense to develop social-media processes
often is a function of the size of the hiring
organization and the amount of employee
throughput. This is determined by turnover
rates and growth in the organization. An
organization that has only occasional need for
hiring may want to consider adding some of
these processes to its main Web site rather
than going to the expense of setting up a
recruitment and hiring site that stands alone.
Keep in mind that one of the best uses of
social media is to attract the about 30 percent
of people who are lurking about looking
for better opportunities but are not yet
committed to a full-blown job search. Many
managers have ultimately arrived at the
conclusion that the best way to win in the
ongoing search for talent is to entice those
already employed elsewhere. Social media
provides a means of attracting that pool of
high-quality candidates.
NOTES
1. http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2006/06/27/
012864.html.
2. Originally accessed September 17, 2006 at http://blog.
simplyhired.com/job-seekers/.
3. Engeman, K. (2005, January). Keep your résumé current:

The causes behind declining job tenure. Regional
Economist. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://www.
stls.frb.org/publications/re/2005/a/pages/keep_resume.html.
John G. Joos
58
Social-media tools and techniques as currently used are not
a direct replacement for traditional hiring processes, but
rather a supplement to them.
ert351_09_051-060.qxd 3/20/08 1:34 PM Page 58
Spring 2008
4. http://www.net-temps.com/recruiters/recart/index.
htm?id=27.
5. http://blogs.msdn.com/heatherleigh/.
6. http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/.
7. http://blogs.msdn.com/jobsblog/.
8. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Find_Employment.
9. http:// www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/193/report_display.asp.
10. http://www.goulstonstorrs.com/JoinUs/AttorneysAnd
ParaLegals/attyPara.asp?id=672.
59

11. http://feeds.feedburner.com/jobsblogscast.
12. http://domino.watson.ibm.com/comm/www_innovate.nsf/
pages/world.intellectual.html.
13. http://www.flashvue.com/learnmore_ee.html.
14. http://www.truckflix.com/drivers.php.
15. Barra, J. (2006, February 5). Employers take on the
“millennials.” Retrieved February 13, 2008, from
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/02/05/1343245.htm.
16. http://www.jobster.com.
John G. Joos, DBA, is an adjunct professor in the Nova
Southeastern University Huizenga
School of Business and Entrepreneurship, teaching in both the
master’s in business admin-
istration and master’s in human resources programs. Previously,
he served as a line
manager and HR manager at BellSouth Corporation. His
consulting services focus on
organizational development. He may be contacted via e-mail at
[email protected] This article
is excerpted and adapted from the 2008 Pfeiffer Annual:
Management Development
(with CD-ROM), Robert C. Preziosi (Ed.), by permission of
Pfeiffer/A Wiley Imprint.
ert351_09_051-060.qxd 3/20/08 1:34 PM Page 59

CC
CLASSICAL GREEK TRAGEDY
Sophocles
ANTIGONE
SOPHOCLES (496?-406 B.C.)
Antigone
An English Version by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald
Person Represented
ANTIGONE
ISMENE
EURYDICE
CREON
HAIMON
TEIRESIAS
A SENTRY
A MESSENGER
CHORUS
SCENE: Before the Palace of Creon, King of Thebes. A central
double door, and two
lateral doors. A platform extends the length of the façade, and

from this platform
three steps lead down into the “orchestra”, or chorus-ground.
TIME: Dawn of the
day after the repulse of the Argive army from the assault on
Thebes.
PROLOGUE
[ANTIGONE and ISMENE enter from the central door of the
Palace.]
ANTIGONE:
Ismene, dear sister,
You would think that we had already suffered enough
For the curse on Oedipus:1
I cannot imagine any grief
That you and I have not gone through. And now –– 5
Have they told you of the new decree of our King Creon?
ISMENE:
I have heard nothing: I know
That two sisters lost two brothers, a double death
In a single hour; and I know that the Argive army
Fled in the night; but beyond this, nothing. 10
ANTIGONE:
I thought so. And that is why I wanted you
To come out here with me. There is something we must do.

1 Oedipus, once King of Thebes, was the father of Antigone and
Ismene, and of their brothers Polyneices and Eteocles. Oedipus
unwittingly killed his father, Laios, and married his own
mother, Iocaste. When he learned what he had done, he blinded
himself and left Thebes. Eteocles and Polyneices quarreled,
Polyneices was driven out but returned to assault Thebes. In the
battle each brother killed the other; Creon became king and
ordered that Polyneices be left to rot unburied on the battlefield
as a
traitor. [Editors’ note]
ISMENE:
Why do you speak so strangely?
ANTIGONE:
Listen, Ismenê:
Creon buried our brother Eteoclês 15
With military honors, gave him a soldier’s funeral,
And it was right that he should; but Polyneicês,
They fought as bravely and died as miserably,--
They say that Creon has sworn
No one shall burry him, no one mourn for him, 20
But this body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure
For carrion birds to find as they search for food.
That is what they say, and our good Creon is coming here
To announce it publicly; and the penalty ––
Stoning to death I the public squarel
There it is, 25
And now you can prove what you are:
A true sister, or a traitor to your family.

ISMENE:
Antigone, you are mad! What could I possibly do?
ANTIGONE:
You must decide whether you will help me or not.
ISMENE:
I do not understand you. Help you in what? 30
ANTIGONE:
Ismene, I am going to bury him. Will you come?
ISMENE:
Bury him! You have just said the new law forbids it.
ANTIGONE:
He is my brother. And he is your brother, too.
ISMENE:
But think of the danger! Think what Creon will do!
ANTIGONE:
Creon is not enough to stand in my way. 15
ISMENE:

Ah sister!
Oedipus died, everyone hating him
For what his own search brought to light, his eyes
Ripped out by his own hand; and Iocaste died,
His mother and wife at once: she twisted the cords 40
That strangled her life; and our two brothers died,
Each killed by the other’s sword. And we are left:
But oh, Antigone,
Think how much more terrible than these
Our own death would be if we should go against Creon 45
And do what he has forbidden! We are only women,
We cannot fight with men, Antigone!
The law is strong, we must give in to the law
In this thing, and in worse. I beg the Dead
To forgive me, but I am helpless: I must yield 50
To those in authority. And I think it is dangerous business
To be always meddling.
ANTIGONE:
If that is what you think,
I should not want you, even if you asked to come.
You have made your choice, you can be what you want to be.
But I will bury him; and if I must die, 55
I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down
With him in death, and I shall be as dear
To him as he to me.
It is the dead
Not the living, who make the longest demands:
We die for ever…

You may do as you like
Since apparently the laws of the god mean nothing to you.
ISMENE:
They mean a great deal to me, but I have no strength
To break laws that were made for the public good.
ANTIGONE:
That must be your excuse, I suppose. But as for me,
I will bury the brother I love.
ISMENE:
Antigone,
I am so afraid for you!
ANTIGONE:
You need not be:
You have yourself to consider, after all.
ISMENE:
But no one must hear of this, you must tell no one!
I will keep it a secret, I promise!

ANTIGONE:
Oh tell it! Tell everyone
Think how they’ll hate you when it all comes out 70
If they learn that you knew about it all the time!
ISMENE:
So fiery! You should be cold with fear.
ANTIGONE:
Perhaps. But I am doing only what I must.
ISMENE:
But can you do it? I say that you cannot.
ANTIGONE
Very well: when my strength gives out, I shall do no more. 75
ISMENE:
Impossible things should not be tried at all.
ANTIGONE:
Go away, Ismene:
I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too,
For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan:
I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, 80
It will not be the worst of deaths ––death without honor.

ISMENE:
Go then, if you feel that you must.
You are unwise,
But a loyal friend indeed to those who love you.
[Exit into the Palace. ANTIGONE goes off, L. Enter the
CHORUS.]
PARODOS
CHORUS:
Now the long blade of the sun, lying [Strophe 1] 85
Level east to west, touches with glory
Thebes of the Seven Gates. Open, unlidded
Eye of golden day! O marching light
Across the eddy and rush of Dirce’s stream, 2
Striking the white shields of the enemy 90
Thrown headlong backward from the blaze of morning!
2 Dirce: a stream west of Thebes. [Editor’s note]
CHORAGOS: 3
Polyneices their commander
Roused them with windy phrases,
He the wild eagle screaming
Insults above our land, 95
His wings their shields of snow,
His crest their marshaled helms.
CHORUS: [Antistrophe 1]

Against our seven gates in a yawning ring
The famished spears came onward in the night;
But before his jaws were sated with our blood, 100
Or pine fire took the garland of our towers,
He was thrown back; and as he turned, great Thebes––
No tender victim for his noisy power––
Rose like a dragon behind him, shouting war.
CHORAGOS:
For God hates utterly 105
The bray of bragging tongues;
And when he beheld their smiling,
Their swagger of golden helms,
The frown of his thunder blasted
Their first man from our walls 110
CHORUS: [Strophe 2]
We heard his shout of triumph high in the air
Turn to a scream; far out in a flaming are
He fell with his windy torch, and the earth struck him.
And others storming in fury no less than his
Found shock of death in the dusty joy of battle 115
CHORAGOS:
Seven captains at seven gates
Yielded their clanging arms to the god
That bends the battle-line and breaks it.
These two only, brothers in blood,
Face to face in matchless rage, 120

Mirroring each the other’s death,
Clashed in long combat.
CHORUS: [Antistrophe 2]
But now in the beautiful morning of victory
Let Thebes of the many chariots sing for joy!
With hearts for dancing we’ll take leave of war: 125
Our temples shall be sweet with hymns of praise,
3 Leader of the Chorus. [Editors’ note]
And the long night shall echo with our chorus.
SCENE I
CHORAGUS:
But now at last our new King is coming:
Creon of Thebes, Menoikeus’ son.
In this auspicious dawn of his reign 130
What are the new complexities
That shifting Fate has woven for him?
What is his counsel? Why has he summoned
The old men to hear him?
[Enter CREON from the Palace, C. He addresses the CHORUS
from the top step.]
CREON:

Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform you that our Ship of
State, which recent storms have threatened to destroy, has come
safely to harbor at last, guided by the merciful wisdom of
Heaven. I
have summoned you here this morning because I know that I
can
depend upon you: your devotion to King Laios was absolute;
you
never hesitated in your duty to our late ruler Oedipus; and when
Oedipus died, your loyalty was transferred to his children.
Unfortunately, as you know, his two sons, the princes Eteocles
and
Polyneices, have killed each other in battle, and I, as the next in
blood, have succeeded to the full power of the throne.
I am aware, of course, that no Ruler can expect complete
loyalty from his subjects until he has been tested in office.
Nevertheless, I say to you at the very outset that I have nothing
but
contempt for the kind of Governor who is afraid, for whatever
reason,
to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as
for the
man who sets private friendship above the public welfare, ––I
have
no use for him, either. I call God to witness that if I saw my
country
headed for ruin, I should not be afraid to speak out plainly; and
I need
hardly remind you that I would never have any dealings with an
enemy of the people. No one values friendship more highly than
I;
but we must remember that friends made at the risk of wrecking
our
Ship are not real friends at all.

These are my principles, at any rate, and that is why I have
made the following decision concerning the sons of Oedipus:
Eteocles, who died as a man should die, fighting for his
country, is to
be buried with full military honors, with all the ceremony that is
usual
when the greatest heroes die; but his brother Polyneices, who
broke
his exile to come back with fire and sword against his native
city and
the shrines of his fathers’ gods, whose one idea was to spill the
blood
of his blood and sell his own people into slavery–– Polyneices,
I say,
is to have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least
prayer for
135
140
145
150

155
160
165
170
him; he shall lie on the plain, unburied; and the birds and the
scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like.
This is my command, and you can see the wisdom behind it. As
long as I am King, no traitor is going to be honored with the
loyal
man. But whoever shows by word and deed that he is on the side
of
the State,––he shall have my respect while he is living and my
reverence when he is dead.
175

CHORAGOS:
If that is your will, Creon son of Menoikeus,
You have the right to enforce it: we are yours. 180
CREON:
That is my will. Take care that you do your part.
CHORAGOS:
We are old men: let the younger ones carry it out.
CREON:
I do not mean that: the sentries have been appointed.
CHORAGOS:
Then what is t that you would have us do?
CREON:
You will give no support to whoever breaks this law. 185
CHORAGOS:
Only a crazy man is in love with death!
CREON:
And death it is; yet money talks, and the wisest

Have sometimes been known to count a few coins too many.
[Enter SENTRY from L.]
SENTRY:
I’ll not say that I’m out of breath from running, King, because
every
time I stopped to think about what I have to tell you, I felt like
going
back. And all the time a voice kept saying, “You fool, don’t you
know you’re walking straight into trouble?”; and then another
voice:
“Yes, but if you let somebody else get the news to Creon first,
it will
be even worse than that for you!” But good sense won out, at
least I
hope it was good sense, and here I am with a story that makes
no
sense at all; but I’ll tell it anyhow, because, as they say, what’s
going
to happen’s going to happen, and––
190
195
CREON:
Come to the point. What have you to say?

SENTRY:
I did not it. I did not see who did it. You must not punish me for
what someone
else has done.
CREON:
A comprehensive defense! More effective, perhaps,
If I knew its purpose. Come: what is it?
SENTRY:
A dreadful thing… I don’t know how to put it––
CREON:
Out with it!
SENTRY:
Well, then;
The dead man–––
Polyneices––
[Pause. The SENTRY is overcome, fumbles for words. CREON
waits impassively.]
out there––
someone, –– 205
new dust on the slimy flesh!

[Pause. No sign from CREON.]
Someone has given it burial that way, and
Gone …
[Long pause. CREON finally speaks with deadly control.]
CREON:
And the man who dared do this?
SENTRY:
I swear I 210
Do not know! You must believe me!
Listen:
The ground was dry, not a sign of digging, no,
Not a wheel track in the dust, no trace of anyone.
It was when they relieved us this morning: and one of them,
The corporal, pointed to it.
There it was, 215
The strangest––
Look:
The body, just mounded over with light dust: you see?
Not buried really, but as if they’d covered it
Just enough for the ghost’s peace. And no sign
Of dogs or any wild animal that had been there. 220
And then what a scene there was! Every man of us
Accusing the other: we all proved the other man did it,
We all had proof that we could not have done it.
We were ready to take hot iron in our hands,
Walk through fire, swear by all the gods,

It was not I! 225
I do not know who it was, but it was not I!
[CREON’s rage has been mounting steadily, but the SENTRY
is too intent upon his story to notice it.]
And then, when this came to nothing, someone said
A thing that silenced us and made us stare
Down at the ground: you had to be told the news,
And one of us had to do it! We threw the dice, 230
And the bad luck fell to me. So here I am,
No happier to be here than you are to have me:
Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.
CHORAGOS:
I have been wondering, King: can it be that the gods have done
this? 235
CREON: [Furiously.]
Stop!
Must you doddering wrecks
Go out of your heads entirely? “The gods!”
Intolerable!
The gods favor this corpse? Why? How had he served them?
240
Tried to loot their temples, burn their images,
Yes, and the whole State, and its laws with it!
Is it your senile opinion that the gods love to honor bad men?
A pious thought! ––
No, from the every beginning
There have been those who have whispered together, 245
Stiff-necked anarchists, putting their heads together,
Scheming against me in alleys. These are the men,
And they have bribed my own guard to do this thing.

Money! [Sententiously.]
There’s nothing in the world so demoralizing as money. 250
Find that man, bring him here to me, or your death
Will be the least of your problems: I’ll string you up
Alive, and there will be certain ways to make you
Discover your employer before you die;
And the process may teach you e lesson you seem to have
missed 260
The dearest profit is sometimes all too dear:
That depends on the source. Do you understand me?
A fortune won is often misfortune.
SENTRY:
King, may I speak?
CREON:
Your very voice distresses me.
SENTRY:
Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your conscience? 265
CREON:
By God, he wants to analyze me now!
SENTRY:
It is not what I say, but what has been done, that hurts you.

CREON:
You talk too much.
SENTRY:
Maybe; but I’ve done nothing.
CREON:
Sold your soul for some silver: that’s all you’ve done.
SENTRY:
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong! 270
CREON:
Your figures of speech
May entertain you now; but unless you bring me the man,
You will get little profit from them in the end.
[Enter CREON into the Palace.]
SENTRY:
“Bring me the man” ––!
I’d like nothing better than bringing him the man! 275
But bring him or not, you have seen the last of me here.
At any rate, I am safe! [Exit SENTRY.]
ODE I
CHORUS: [Strophe 1]

Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the stormgray sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high; 280
Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions.
[Antistrope 1]
The lightboned birds and beasts that cling to cover, 285
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind;
The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned,
Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken
The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.
[Strophe 2]
Words also, ant thought as rapid as air, 290
He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his,
And his the skill that deflect the arrows of snow,
The spears of winter rain: from every wind
He has made himself secure––from all but one:
In the late wind of death he cannot stand.
[Antistrophe 2]
O clear intelligence, force beyond all measure! 295
O fate of man, working both good and evil!
When the laws are kept, how proudly his city stands!
When the laws are broken, what of his city then?
Never may the anarchic man find rest at my hearth,
Never be it said that my thoughts are his thoughts. 330
SCENE II

[Re-enter SENTRY leading ANTIGONE.]
CHORAGOS:
What does this mean? Surely this captive woman
Is the Princess, Antigone. Why should she be taken?
SENTRY:
Here is the one who did it! We caught her
In the very act of burying him. ––Where is Creon?
CHORAGOS:
Just coming from the house.
[Enter CREON, C.]
CREON:
What has happened? 305
Why have you come back so soon?
SENTRY:
O King,
A man should never be too sure of anything:
I would have sworn
That you’d not see me here again: your anger
Frightened me so, and the things you threatened me with; 310
But how could I tell then

That I’d be able to solve the case so soon?
No dice-throwing this time: I was only too glad to come!
Here is this woman. She is the guilty one:
We found her trying to bury him. 315
Take her, then; question her; judge her as you will.
I am through with the whole thing now, and glad of it.
CREON:
But this is Antigone! Why have you brought her here?
SENTRY:
She was burying him, I tell you!
CREON: [Severely.]
Is this the truth?
SENTRY:
I saw her with my own eyes. Can I say more? 320
CREON:
The details: come, tell me quickly!
SENTRY:
It was like this:
After those terrible threats of yours King.
We went back and brushed the dust away from the body.
The flesh was soft by now, and stinking, 325

So we sat on a hill to windward and kept guard.
No napping happened until the white round sun
Whirled in the center of the round sky over us:
Then, suddenly,
A storm of dust roared up from the earth, and the sky 330
Went out, the plain vanished with all its trees
In the stinging dark. We closed our eyes and endured it.
The whirlwind lasted a long time, but it passed;
And then we looked, and there was Antigone!
I have seen 335
A mother bird come back to a stripped nest, heard
Her crying bitterly a broken note or two
For the young ones stolen. Just so, when this girl
Found the bare corpse, and all her love’s work wasted,
She wept, and cried on heaven to damn the hands 340
That had done this thing
And then she brought more dust
And sprinkled wine three times for her brother’s ghost.
We ran and took her at once. She was not afraid,
Not even when we charged her with what she had done.
She denied nothing.
And this was a comfort to me, 345
And some uneasiness: for it is a good thing
To escape from death, but it is no great pleasure
To bring death to a friend.
Yet I always say
There is nothing so comfortable as your own safe skin!
CREON: {Slowly, dangerously.]
And you, Antigone, 350
You with your head hanging––do you confess this thing?

ANTIGONE:
I do. I deny nothing.
CREON: [To SENTRY:]
You may go.
{Exit SENTRY. To ANTIGONE:]
Tell me, tell me briefly:
Had you heard my proclamation touching this matter?
ANTIGONE:
It was public. Could I help hearing it? 355
CREON:
And yet you dared defy the law.
ANTIGONE:
I dared.
It was not God’s proclamation. That final Justice
That rules the world below makes no such laws.
Your edict, King, was strong,
But all your strength is weakness itself against 360
The immortal unrecorded laws of God.
They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,
Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.

I knew I must die, even without your decree:
I am only mortal. And if I must die 365
Now, before it is my time to die,
Surely this is no hardship: can anyone
Living, as I live, with evil all about me,
Think Death less than a friend? This death of mine
Is of no importance; but if I had left my brother 370
Lying in death unburied, I should have suffered.
Now I do not.
You smile at me. Ah Creon,
Think me a fool, if you like; but it may well be
That a fool convicts me of folly.
CHORAGOS:
Like father, like daughter: both headstrong, deaf to reason! 375
She has never learned to yield.
She has much to learn.
The inflexible heart breaks first, the toughest iron
Cracks first, and the wildest horses bend their necks
At the pull of the smallest curb.
Pride? In a slave?
This girl is guilty of a double insolence, 380
Breaking the given laws and boasting of it.
Who is the man here,
She or I, if this crime goes unpunished?
Sister’s child, or more than sister’s child,
Or closer yet in blood––she and her sister 385
Win bitter death for this!
[To servants:]
Go, some of you,
Arrest Ismene. I accuse her equally.

Bring her: you will find her sniffling in the house there.
Her mind’s a traitor: crimes kept in the dark 390
Cry for light, and the guardian brain shudders:
But now much worse than this
Is brazen boasting of barefaced anarchy!
ANTIGONE:
Creon, what more do you want than my death?
CREON:
Nothing.
That gives me everything.
ANTIGONE:
Then I beg you: kill me.
This talking is a great weariness: your words 395
Are distasteful to me, and I am sure that mine
Seem so to you. And yet they should not seem so:
I should have praise and honor for what I have done.
All these men here would praise me
Were their lips not frozen shut with fear of you. 400
[Bitterly.]
Ah the good fortune of kings,
Licensed to say and do whatever they please!
CREON:

You are alone here in that opinion.
ANTIGONE:
No, they are with me. But they keep their tongues in leash.
CREON:
Maybe. But you are guilty, and they are not. 405
ANTIGONE:
There is no guilt in reverence for the dead.
CREON:
But Eteocles––was he not your brother too?
ANTIGONE:
My brother too.
CREON:
And you insult his memory?
ANTIGONE: [Softly.]
The dead man would not say that I insult it.
CREON:
He would: for you honor a traitor as much as him. 410

ANTIGONE:
His own brother, traitor or not, and equal in blood.
CREON:
He made war on his country. Eteocles defended it.
ANTIGONE:
Nevertheless, there are honors due all the dead.
CREON:
But not the same for the wicked as for the just.
ANTIGONE:
Ah Creon, Creon, 415
Which of us can say what the gods hold wicked?
CREON:
An enemy is an enemy, even dead.
ANTIGONE:
It is may nature to join in love, not hate.
CREON: {Finally losing patience.]
Go join them, then; if you must have your love,

Find it in hell! 420
CHORAGOS:
But see, Ismene comes:
[Enter ISMENE, guarded.]
Those tears are sisterly, the cloud
That shadows her eyes rains down gentle sorrow.
CREON:
You too, Ismene,
Snake in my ordered house, sucking my blood 425
Stealthily––and all the time I never knew
That these two sisters were aiming at my throne!
Ismene,
Do you confess your share in this crime, or deny it?
Answer me.
ISMENE:
Yes, if she will let me say so. I am guilty. 430
ANTIGONE: [Coldly.]
No, Ismene. You have no right to say so.
You would not help me, and I will not have you help me.
ISMENE:
But now I know what you meant; and I am here
To join you, to take my share of punishment.

ANTIGONE:
The dead man and the gods who rule the dead 435
Know whose act this was. Words are not friends.
ISMENE:
Do you refuse me, Antigone? I want to die with you:
I too have a duty that I must discharge to the dead.
ANTIGONE:
You shall not lessen my death by sharing it.
ISMENE:
What do I care for life when you are dead? 440
ANTIGONE:
Ask Creon. You’re always hanging on his opinions.
ISMENE:
You are laughing at me. Why, Antigone?
ANTIGONE:
It’s a joyless laughter, Ismene.

ISMENE:
But can I do nothing?
ANTIGONE:
Yes. Save yourself. I shall not envy you.
There are those who will praise you; I shall have honor, too.
445
ISMENE:
But we are equally guilty!
ANTIGONE:
No more, Ismene.
You are alive, but I belong to Death.
CREON: {To the CHORUS:]
Gentlemen, I beg you to observe these girls:
One has just now lost her mind; the other,
It seem, has never had a mind at all. 450
ISMENE:
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver, King.
CREON:
Yours certainly did, when you assumed guild with the guilty!

ISMENE:
But how could I go on living without her?
CREON:
You are.
She is already dead.
ISMENE:
But your own son’s bride!
CREON:
There are places enough for him to push his plow. 455
I want no wicked women for my sons!
ISMENE:
O dearest Haimon, how your father wrong you!
CREON:
I’ve had enough of your childish talk of marriage!
CHORAGOS:
Do you really intend to steal this girl from your son?
CREON:

No; Death will do that for me.
CHORAGOS:
Then she must die? 460
CREON: [Ironically.]
You dazzle me.
––But enough of this talk!
[To GUARDS:]
You, there, take them away and guard them well:
For they are but women, and even brave men run
When they see Death coming.
[Exeunt ISMENE, ANTIGONE, and GUARDS.]
ODE II
CHORUS: [Strophe 1]
Fortunate is the man who has never tasted God’s vengeance!
465
Where once the anger of heaven has struck, that house is shaken
For ever: damnation rises behind each child
Like a wave cresting out of the black northeast,
When the long darkness under sea roars up
And bursts drumming death upon the windwhipped sand. 470
[Antistrophe 1]

I have seen this gathering sorrow from time long past
Loom upon Oedipus’ children: generation from generation
Takes the compulsive rage of the enemy god.
So lately this last flower of Oedipus’ line
Drank the sunlight! but now a passionate word 475
And a handful of dust have closed up all its beauty
What mortal arrogance [Strophe 2]
Transcends the wrath of Zeus?
Sleep cannot lull him, nor the effortless long months
Of the timeless gods: but he is young for ever, 480
And his house is the shining day of high Olympos.
All that is and shall be,
And all the past, is his.
No pride on earth is free of the curse of heaven.
The straying dreams of men [Antistrophe 2] 485
May bring them ghosts of joy:
But as they drowse, the waking embers burn them;
Or they walk with fixed eyes, as blind men walk.
But the ancient wisdom speaks for our own time:
Fate works most for woe 490
With Folly’s fairest show.
Man’s little pleasure is the spring of sorrow.
SCENE III
CHORAGOS:
But here is Haimon, King, the last of all your sons.
Is it grief for Antigone, that brings him here,
And bitterness at being robbed of his bride? 495
[Enter HAIMON.]

CREON:
We shall soon see, and no need of diviners.
––Son,
You have heard my final judgment on that girl:
Have you come here hating me, or have you come
With deference and with love, whatever I do?
HAIMON:
I am your son, father. You are my guide. 500
You make things clear for me, and I obey you.
No marriage means more to me than your continuing wisdom.
CREON:
Good. That is the way to behave: subordinate
Everything else, my son, to your father’s will
This is what a man prays for, that he may get 505
Sons attentive and dutiful in his house,
Each one hating his father’s enemies,
Honoring his father’s friends. But if his sons
Fail him, if they turn out unprofitably,
What has he fathered but trouble for himself 510
And amusement for the malicious?
So you are right
Not to lose your head over this woman.
Your pleasure with her would soon, grow cold, Haimon,
And then you’d have a hellcat in bed and elsewhere.
Let her find her husband in Hell! 515
Of all the people in this city, only she

Has had contempt for my law and broken it.
Do you want me to show myself weak before the people?
Or to break my sworn word? No, and I will not.
The woman dies. 520
I suppose she’ll plead “family ties.” Well, let her.
If I permit my own family to rebel,
How shall I earn the world’s obedience?
Show me the man who keeps his house in hand,
He’s fit for public authority.
I’ll have no dealings 525
With law-breakers, critics of the government:
Whoever is chosen to govern should be obeyed––
Must be obeyed, in all things, great and small,
Just and unjust! O Haimon,
The man who knows how to obey, and that man only, 530
Knows how to give commands when the time comes.
You can depend on him, no matter how fast
The spears come: he’s a good soldier, he’ll stick it out.
Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil!
This is why cities tumble and the great houses rain down, 535
This is what scatters armies!
No, no: good lives are made so by discipline.
We keep the laws then, and the lawmakers,
And no woman shall seduce us. If we must lose,
Let’s lose to a man, at least! Is a woman stronger than we? 540
CHORAGOS:
Unless time has rusted my wits,
What you say, King, is said with point and dignity.

HAIMON: [Boyishly earnest.]
Father:
Reason is God’s crowing gift to man, and you are right
To warn me against losing mine. I cannot say––
I hope that I shall never want to say! ––that you 545
Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men
Who can reason, too; and their opinions might be helpful.
You are not in a position to know everything
That people say or do, or what they feel:
Your temper terrifies them––everyone 550
Will tell you only what you like to hear.
But I, at any rate, can listen; and I have heard them
Muttering and whispering in the dark abut this girl.
They say no woman has ever, so unreasonably,
Died so shameful a death for a generous act: 555
“She covered her brother’s body. Is this indecent?
She kept him from dogs and vultures. Is this a crime?
Death? ––She should have all the honor that we can give her!”
This is the way they talk out there in the city.
You must believe me: 560
Nothing is closer to me than your happiness.
What could be closer? Must not any son
Value his father’s fortune as his father does his?
I beg you, do not be unchangeable:
Do not believe that you alone can be right. 565
The man who thinks that,
The man who maintains that only he has the power
To reason correctly, the gift to speak, to soul––
A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.
It is not reason never to yield to reason! 570
In flood time you can see how some trees bend,

And because they bend, even their twigs are safe,
While stubborn trees are torn up, roots and all.
And the same thing happens in sailing:
Make your sheet fast, never slacken,––and over you go, 575
Head over heels and under: and there’s your voyage.
Forget you are angry! Let yourself be moved!
I know I am young; but please let me say this:
The ideal condition
Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; 580
But since we are all too likely to go astray,
The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.
CHORAGOS:
You will do well to listen to him, King,
If what he says is sensible. And you, Haimon,
Must listen to your father. ––Both speak well. 585
CREON:
You consider it right for a man of my years and experience
To go to school to a boy?
HAIMON:
It is not right
If I am wrong. But if I am young, and right,
What does my age matter?
CREON:

You think it right to stand up for an anarchist? 590
HAIMON:
Not at all. I pay no respect to criminals.
CREON:
Then she is not a criminal?
HAIMON:
The City proposes to teach me how to rule?
CREON:
And the City proposes to teach me how to rule?
HAIMON:
Ah. Who is it that’s talking like a boy now? 595
CREON:
My voice is the one voice giving orders in this City!
HAIMON:
It is no City if it takes orders from one voice.
CREON:
The State is the King!
HAIMON:

Yes, if the State is a desert.
[Pause.]
CREON:
This boy, it seems, has sold out to w woman.
HAIMON:
If you are a woman: my concern is only for you. 600
CREON:
So? Your “concern”! In a public brawl with your father!
HAIMON:
How about you, in a public brawl with justice?
CREON:
With justice, when all that I do is within my rights?
HAIMON:
You have no right to trample on God’s right.
CREON: [Completely out of control.]
Fool, adolescent fool! Taken in by a woman! 605
HAIMON:

You’ll never see me taken in by anything vile.
CREON:
Every word you say is for her!
HAIMON: [Quietly, darkly.]
And for you.
And for me. And for the gods under the earth.
CREON:
You’ll never marry her while she lives.
HAIMON:
Then she must die. ––But her death will cause another. 610
CREON:
Another?
Have you lost your senses? Is this an open threat?
HAIMON:
There is no threat in speaking to emptiness.
CREON:
I swear you’ll regret this superior tone of yours!
You are the empty one!

HAIMON:
If you were not my father, 615
I’d say you were perverse.
CREON:
You girlstruck fool, don’t play at words with me!
HAIMON:
I am sorry. You prefer silence.
CREON:
Now, by God––!
I swear, by all the gods in heaven above us,
You’ll watch it, I swear you shall
[To the SERVANTS:]
Bring her out! 620
Bring the woman out! Let her die before his eyes!
Here, this instant, with her bridegroom beside her!
HAIMON:
Not here, no; she will not die here, King.
And you will never see my face again.
Go on raving as long as you’ve a friend to endure you. 625
[Exit HAIMON.]
CHORAGOS:

Gone, gone.
Creon, a young man in a rage is dangerous!
CREON:
Let him do, or dream to do, more than a man can.
He shall not save these girls from death.
CHORAGOS:
These girls?
You have sentenced them both?
CREON:
No, you are right 630
I will not kill the one whose hands are clean.
CHORAGOS:
But Antigone?
CREON: [Somberly.]
I will carry her far away
Out there in the wilderness, and lock her
Living in a vault of stone. She shall have food,
As the custom is, to absolve the State of her death. 635
And there let her pray to the gods of hell:

They are her only gods:
Perhaps they will show her an escape from death,
Or she may learn,
though late,
That piety shown the dead is pity in vain. 640
[Exit CREON.]
ODE III
CHORUS:
Love, unconquerable [Strophe]
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
Even the pure Immortals cannot escape you,
And mortal man, in his one day’s dusk,
Trembles before your glory.
Surely you swerve upon ruin [Antistrope]
The just man’s consenting heart, 650
As here you have made bright anger
Strike between father and son––
And none has conquered but Love!
A girl’s glance working the will of heaven:
Pleasure to her alone who mock us, 655
Merciless Aphrodite.4
SCENE IV

CHORAGOS: [As ANTIGONE enter guarded.]
But I can no longer stand in awe of this,
Nor, seeing what I see, keep back my tears.
Here is Antigone, passing to that chamber
Where all find sleep at last 660
ANTIGONE:
Look upon me, friends, and pity me [Strophe 1]
Turning back at the night’s edge to say
Good-by to the sun that shines for me no longer;
Now sleepy Death
Summons me down to Acheron,5 that cold shore: 665
There is no bridesong there, nor any music.
4 Goddess of Love. [Editors’ note]
5 A river of the underworld, which was ruled by Hades.
[Editors’ note]
CHORUS:
Yet not unpraised, not without a kind of honor,
You walk at last into the underworld;
Untouched by sickness, broken by no sword.
What woman has ever found your way to death? 670
ANTIGONE:
[Antistrophe 1]
How often I have heard the store of Niobe,6
Tantalos’ wretched daughter, how the stone

Clung fast about her, ivy-close: and they say
The rain falls endlessly
And rifting soft snow; her tears are never done. 675
I feel the loneliness of her death in mine.
CHORUS:
But she was born of heaven, and you
Are woman, woman-born. If her death is yours,
A mortal woman’s, is this not for you
Glory in our world and in the world beyond? 680
ANTIGONE:
You laugh at me. Ah, friends, friends, [Strophe2]
Can you not wait until I am dead? O Thebes,
O men many-charioted, in love with Fortune,
Dear spring of Dirce, sacred Theban grove,
Be witnesses for me, denied all pity, 685
Unjustly judge! and think a word of love
For her whose path turns
Under dark earth, where there are no more tears.
CHORUS:
You have passed beyond human daring and come at last
Into a place of stone where Justice sits 690
I cannot tell
What shape of your father’s guilt appears in this.
ANTIGONE:

[Antistrophe 2]
You have touched it at last: that bridal bed
Unspeakable, horror of son an mother mingling: 695
Their crime, infection of all our family!
O Oedipus, father and brother!
Your marriage strikes from the grave to murder mine.
I have been a stranger here in my own land:
6 Niobe boasted of her numerous children, provoking Leto, the
mother of Apollo, to destroy them. Niobe wept profusely, and
finally was turned into a stone on Mount Sipylus, whose streams
are her tears. [Editors’ note]
All my life
The blasphemy of my birth has followed me. 700
CHORUS:
Reverence is a virtue, but strength
Lives in established law: that must prevail.
You have made your choice,
Your death is the doing of your conscious hand.
ANTIGONE:
[Epode]
Then let me go, since all your words are bitter, 705
And the very light of the sun is cold to me.
Lead me to my vigil, where I must have
Neither love nor lamentation; no song, but silence.
[CREON interrupts impatiently.]

CREON:
If dirges and planned lamentations could put of death,
Men would be singing for ever.
[To the SERVANTS:]
Take her, go! 710
You know your orders: take her to the vault
And leave her alone there. And if she lives or dies,
That’s her affair, not ours: our hands are clean.
ANTIGONE:
O tomb, vaulted bride-bed in eternal rock,
Soon I shall be with my own again 715
Where Persephone 7 welcome the thin ghost underground:
And I shall see my father again, and you, mother,
And dearest Polyneices––
dearest indeed
To me, since it was my hand
That washed him clean and poured the ritual wine: 720
And my reward is death before my time!
And yet, as men’s hearts know, I have done no wrong,
I have not sinned before God. Or if I have,
I shall know the truth in death. But if the guilt
Lies upon Creon who judged me, then, I pray, 725
May his punishment equal my own.
CHORAGOS:
O passionate heart,
Unyielding, tormented still by the same winds!

7 Queen of the underworld. [Editors’ note]
CREON:
Her guards shall have good cause to regret their delaying.
ANTIGONE:
Ah! That voice you no reason to think voice of death!
CREON:
I can give you no reason to think you are mistaken. 730
ANTIGONE:
Thebes, and you my fathers’ gods,
And rulers of Thebes, you see me now, the last
Unhappy daughter of a line of kings,
Your kings, led away to death. You will remember
What things I suffer, and at what men’s hands, 735
Because I would not transgress the laws of heaven.
[To the GUARDS, simply:]
Come: let us wait no longer.
[Exit ANTIGONE, L., guarded.]
ODE IV
CHORUS:
All Danae’s beauty was locked away {Strophe 1]

In a brazen cell where the sunlight could not come:
A small room, still as any grave, enclosed her. 740
Yet she was a princess too,
And Zeus in a rain of gold poured love upon her.
O child, child,
No power in wealth or war
Or tough sea-blackened ships 745
Can prevail against untiring Destiny!
{Antistrophe 1]
And Dryas’ son 8 also, that furious king,
Bore the god’s prisoning anger for his pride:
Sealed up by Dionysos in deaf stone,
His madness died among echoes. 750
So at the last he learned what dreadful power
His tongue had mocked:
For he had profaned the revels,
And fired the wrath of the nine
Implacable Sisters9 that love the sound of the flute. 755
8 Drays’ son: Lycurgus, King of Thrace. [Editors’ note]
9 The Muses. [Editors’ note]
[Strophe 2]
And old men tell a half-remembered tale
Of horror done where a dark ledge splits the sea
And a double surf beats on the gray shores:
How a king’s new woman, 10 sick
With hatred for the queen he had imprisoned, 760
Ripped out his two son’s eyes with her bloody hands
While grinning Ares 11 watched the shuttle plunge

Four times: four blind wounds crying for revenge,
[Antistrophe 2]
Crying, tears and blood mingled, ––Piteously born,
Those sons whose mother was of heavenly birth! 765
Her father was the god of the North Wind
And she was cradled by gales,
She raced with young colts on the glittering hills
And walked untrammeled in the open light:
But in her marriage deathless Fate found means 770
To build a tomb like yours for all her joy.
SCENE V
[Enter blind TEIRESIAS, led by a boy. The opening speeches
of TEIRESIAS
should be in singsong contrast to the realistic lines of CREON.]
TEIRESIAS:
This is the way the blind man comes, Princes, Princes,
Lock-step, two heads lit by the eyes of one.
CREON:
What new thing have you tell us, old Teiresias?
TEIRESIAS:
I have much to tell you: listen to the prophet, Creon. 775
CREON:
I admit my debt to you. But what have you to say?

TEIRESIAS:
Listen, Creon:
I was sitting in my chair of augury, at the place
Where the birds gather about me. They were all a-chatter,
As is their habit, when suddenly I heard
A strange note in their jangling, a scream, a 785
10 Eidothea, second wife of King Phineus, blinded her stepsons.
(Their mother, Cleopatra, had been imprisoned in a
cave.).Phineus was the son of a king, and Cleopatra, his first
wife, was the daughter of Boreas, the North Wind; but this
illustrious ancestry could not protect his sons from violence and
darkness. [Editors’ note]
11 God of war. [Editors’ note]
Whirring fury; I knew that they were fighting,
Tearing each other, dying
In a whirlwind of wings clashing. And I was afraid.
I began the rites of burnt-offering at the altar,
But Hephaistos 12 failed me: instead of bright flame, 790
There was only the sputtering slime of the fat thigh-flesh
Melting: the entrails dissolved in gray smoke,
The bare bone burst from the welter. And no blaze!
This was a sign from heaven. My boy described it,
Seeing for me as I see for others. 795
I tell you, Creon, you yourself have brought
This new calamity upon us. Our hearths and altars
Are stained with the corruption of dogs and carrion birds
That glut themselves on the corpse of Oedipus’ son.

The gods are deaf when we pray to them, their fire 800
Recoils from our offering, their birds of omen
Have no cry of comfort, for they are gorged
With the thick blood of the dead.
O my son,
These are no trifles! Think: all men make mistakes,
But a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, 805
And repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
Give in to the dead man, then: do not fight with a corpse––
What glory is it to kill a man who is dead?
Think, I beg you:
It is for your own good that I speak as I do. 810
You should be able to yield for your own good.
CREON:
It seems that prophets have made me their especial province.
All my life long
I have been a kind of butt for dull arrows
Of doddering fortune-tellers!
No, Teiresias: 815
If your birds––if the great eagles of God himself
Should carry him stinking bit by bit to heaven,
I would not yield. I am not afraid of pollution:
No man can defile the gods.
Do what you will,
Go into business, make money, speculate 820
In India gold or that synthetic gold from Sardis,
Get rich otherwise than by my consent to bury him.
Teiresias, it is a sorry thing when a wise man
12 God of fire. [Editors’ note]

Sells his wisdom, lets out his words for hire!
TEIRESIAS:
Ah Creon! Is there no man left in the world–– 825
CREON:
To do what? ––Come, let’s have the aphorism!
TEIRESIAS:
No man who knows that wisdom outweighs any wealth?
CREON:
As surely as bribes are baser than any baseness.
TEIRESIAS:
You are sick, Creon! You are deathly sick!
CREON:
As you say: it is not my place to challenge a prophet. 830
TEIRESIAS:
Yet you have said my prophecy is for sale.
CREON:
The generation of prophets has always loved gold.

TEIRESIAS:
The generation of kings has always loved brass.
CREON:
You forget yourself! You are speaking to your King.
TEIRESIAS:
I know it. You are a king because of me. 835
CREON:
You have a certain skill; but you have sold out.
TEIRESIAS:
King, you will drive me to words that––
CREON:
Say them, say them!
Only remember: I will not pay you for them.
TEIRESIAS:
No, you will find them too costly.
No doubt. Speak:
Whatever you say, you will not change my will.

TEIRESIAS:
Then take this, and take it to heart!
The time is not far off when you shall pay back
Corpse for corpse, flesh of your own flesh.
You have thrust the child of this world into living night,
You have kept from the gods below the child that is theirs: 845
The one on a grave before her death, the other,
Dead, denied the grave. This is your crime:
And the Furies and the dark gods of Hell
Are swift with terrible punishment for you.
Do you want to buy me now, Creon?
Not many days, 850
And your house will be full of men and women weeping,
And curses will be hurled at you from far
Cities grieving for sons unburied, left to rot
Before the walls of Thebes.
These are my arrows, Creon: they are all for you. 855
[To BOY:]
But come, child: lead me home.
Let him waste his fine anger upon younger men.
Maybe he will learn at last
To control a wiser tongue in a better head.
[Exit TEIRESIAS.]
CHORAGOS:
The old man has gone, King, but his words 860
Remain to plague us. I am old, too,
But I cannot remember that he was ever false.

CREON:
That is true… . It troubles me.
Oh it is hard to give in! but it is worse
To risk everything for stubborn pride. 865
CHORAGOS:
Creon: take my advice.
CREON:
What shall I do?
CHORAGOS:
Go quickly: free Antigone from her vault
And build a tomb for the body of Polyneices.
CREON:
You would have me do this?
CHORAGOS:
Creon, yes!
And it must be done at once: God moves 870
Swiftly to cancel the folly of stubborn men.

CREON:
It is hard to deny the heart! But i
Will do it: I will not fight with destiny.
CHORAGOS:
You must go yourself, you cannot leave it to others.
CREON:
I will go.
––Bring axes, servants: 875
Come with me to the tomb. I buried her, i
Will set her free.
Oh quickly!
My mind misgives––
The laws of the gods are mighty, and a man must serve them
To the last day of his life! 880
[Exit CREON.]
PAEN 13
CHORAGOS:
God of many names [Strophe 1]
CHORUS:
O Iacchos
son
of Kadmeian Semele
O born of the Thunder!

Guardian of the West
Regent
of Eleusis’ plain
O Prince of maenad Thebes
13 A hymn here dedicated to Iacchos (also called Dionysos).
His father was Zeus, his mother was
Semele, daughter of Kadmos. Iacchos’ worshippers were the
Maenads, whose cry was “Evohe evohe.’
[Editors’ note]
and the Dragon Field by rippling Ismenos:14 885
CHORAGOS:
God of many names [Antistrophe 1]
CHORUS:
the flame of torches
flares on our hills
the nymphs of Iacchos
dance at the spring of Castalia: 15
from the vine-close mountain
come ah come in ivy:
Evohe evohe! Sings through the streets of Thebes 890
CHORAGOS:
God of many names [Strophe 2]

CHORUS:
Iacchos of Thebes
heavenly Child
of Semele bride of the Thunderer!
The shadow of plague is upon us:
come
with clement feet
oh come from Parnasos
down the long slopes
across the lamenting water 895
CHORAGOS:
[Antistrophe 2]
Io Fire! Chorister of the throbbing stars!
O purest among the voices of the night!
Thou son of God, blaze for us!
CHORUS:
Come with choric rapture of circling Maenads
Who cry Io Iacche! 900
God of many names!
EXODOS
[Enter MESSENGER, L.]

14 A river east of Thebes. From a dragon’s teeth (sown near the
river) there sprang men who became the ancestors of the Theban
nobility. [Editors’ note]
15 A spring on Mountain Parnasos. [Editors’ note]
MESSENGER:
Men of the line of Kadmos 16you who live
Near Amphion’s citadel:
I cannot say
Of any condition of human life “This is fixed,
This is clearly good, or bad.” Fate raises up,
And Fate casts down the happy and unhappy alike: 905
No man can foretell his Fate.
Take the case of Creon:
Creon was happy once, as I count happiness:
Victorious in battle, sole governor of the land,
Fortunate father of children nobly born.
And now it has all gone from him! Who can say 910
That a man is still alive when his life’s joy fails?
He is a walking dead man. Grant him rich,
Let him live like a king in his great house:
If his pleasure is gone, is would not give
So much as the shadow of smoke for all he owns. 915
CHORAGOS:
Your words hint at sorrow: what is your news for us?
MESSENGER:

They are dead. The living are guilt of their death.
CHORAGOS:
Who is guilty? Who is dead? Speak!
MESSENGER:
Haimon.
Haimon is dead; and the land that killed him
Is his own hand.
CHORAGOS:
His father’s? or his own? 920
MESSENGER:
His own, driven mad by the murder his father had done.
CHORAGOS:
Teiresias, Teiresias, how clearly you saw it all!
MESSENGER:
This is my news: you must draw what conclusions you can from
it.
16 Kadmos, who sowed the dragon’s teeth, was the founder of
Thebes; Amphion played so sweetly on his lyre that he charmed
stones to form a wall around. [Editors’ note]

CHORAGOS:
But look: Eurydice, our Queen:
Has she overheard us? 925
[Enter UERYDICE from the Palace, C.]
EURIDICE:
I have heard something, friends:
As I was unlocking the gate of Pallas’ 17 shrine,
For I needed her help today, I heard a voice
Telling of some new sorrow. And I fainted
There at the temple with all my maidens about me. 930
But speak again: whatever it is, I can bear it:
Grief and I are no strangers.
MESSENGER:
Dearest Lady,
I will tell you plainly all that I have seen.
I shall not try to comfort you: what is the use,
Since comfort could lie only in what is not true? 935
The truth is always best.
I went with Creon
To the outer plain where Polyneices was lying,
No friend to pity him, his body shredded by dogs.
We made our prayers in that place to Hecate
And Pluto, 18 that they would be merciful. And we bathed 940
The corpse with holy water, and we brought
Fresh-broken branches to burn what was left of it,
And upon the urn we heaped up a towering barrow
Of the earth of his own land.

When we are done, we ran
To the vault where Antigone lay on her couch of stone. 945
One of the servants had gone ahead,
And while he was yet far off he heard a voice
Grieving within the chamber, and he came back
And told Creon. And as the King went closer, 950
The air was full of wailing, the words lost,
And he begged us to make all haste. “Am I a prophet?”
He said, weeping, “And must I walk this road,
The saddest of all that I have gone before?
My son’s voice calls me on. Oh quickly, quickly!
Look through the crevice there, and tell me 955
If it is Haimon, or some deception of the gods!”
We obeyed; and in the cavern’s farthest corner
We saw her lying:
17 Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom. [Editors’ note]
18 Hecate and Pluto (also known as Hades) were deities of the
underworld. [Editors’ note]
She had made a noose of her fine linen veil
And hanged herself. Haimon lay beside hers, 960
His arms about her waist, lamenting her,
His love lost under ground, crying out
That his father has stolen her away from him.
When Creon saw him the tears rushed to his eyes
And he called to him: “What have you done, child? Speak to
me. 965
What are you thinking that makes your eyes so stranger?
O my son, my son, I come to you on my knees!”
But Haimon spat in his face. He said not a word,

Staring––
And suddenly drew his sword
And lunged. Creon shrank back, the blade missed; and the boy,
970
Desperate against himself , drove it half its length
Into his own side, and fell. And as he died
He gathered Antigone close in his arms again.
Choking, his blood bright red on her white cheek.
And now he lies dead with the dead, and she is his 975
At last, his bride in the houses of the dead.
[Exit EURDICE into the Palace.]
CHORAGOS:
She has left us without a word. What can this mean?
MESSENGER:
It troubles me, too; yet she knows what is best,
Her grief is too great for public lamentation,
And doubtless she has gone to her chamber to weep 980
For dead son, leading her maidens in his dirge.
CHORAGOS:
It may be so: but I fear this deep silence.
MESSENGER: [Pause.]
I will see what she is doing. I will go in.
[Exit MESSENGER into the Palace.]
[Enter CREON with attendants,
bearing HAIMON’S body.]

CHORAGOS:
But here is the King himself: oh look at him,
Bearing his own damnation in his arms. 985
CREON:
Nothing you say can touch me any more.
My own blind heart has brought me
From darkness to final darkness. Here you see
The father murdering, the murdered son––
And all my civic wisdom! 990
Haimon my son, so young, so young to die,
I was the fool, not you; and you died for me.
CHORAGOS:
That is the truth; but you were late in learning it.
CREON:
This truth is hard to bear. Surely a god
Has crushed me beneath the hugest weight of heaven, 995
And driven me headlong a barbaric way
To trample out the thing I held most dear.
The pains that men will take to come to pain!
[Enter MESSENGER from the Palace.]

MESSENGER:
The burden you carry in your hands is heavy,
But it is not all: you will find more in your house. 1000
CREON:
What burden worse than this shall I find there?
MESSENGER:
The Queen is dead.
CREON:
O port of death, deaf world,
Is there no pity for me? And you, Angel of evil,
I was dead, and your words are death again.
Is it true, boy? Can it be true? 1005
Is my wife dead? Has death bred death?
MESSENGER:
You can see for yourself.
[The doors are opened, and the body
of EURDICE is disclosed within.]
CREON:
Oh pity!
All true, all true, and more than I can bear! 1010

O my wife, my son!
MESSENGER:
She stood before the altar, and her heart
Welcome the knife her own hand guided.
And a great cry burst from her lips for Megareus 19 dead,
And for Haimon dead, her sons; and her last breath 1015
Was a curse for their father, the murdered of her sons.
And she fell, and the dark flowed in through her closing eyes.
CREON:
O God, I am sick with fear.
Are there no swords here? Has no one a blow for me?
MESSENGER:
Her curse is upon you for the deaths of both. 1020
CREON:
It is right that it should be. I alone am guilty.
I know it, and I say it. Lead me in,
Quickly, friends.
I have neither life nor substance. Lead me in.
CHORAGOS:
You are right, if there can be right in so much wrong. 1025
The briefest way is best in a world of sorrow.

CREON:
Let it come,
Let death come quickly, and be kind to me.
I would not ever see the sun again.
CHORAGOS:
All that will come when it will; but we, meanwhile, 1030
Have much to do. Leave the future to itself.
CREON:
All my heart was in that prayer!
CHORAGOS:
Then do not pray any more: the sky is deal
CREON:
Lead me away. I have been rash and foolish.
I have killed my son and my wife. 1035
I look for comfort; my comfort lies here dead.
Whatever my hands have touched has come to nothing.
Fate has brought all my pride to a thought of dust.
19 Megareus, brothe of Haimon, had died in the assault on
Thebes. [Editors’ note]

[As CREON is being led into the house, the CHORAGOS
advances and speaks
directly to the audience.]
CHORAGOS:
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods. 1040
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.
© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/ert.21451
33
from clients or commit violent acts that result
in property damage, injury, or death.
Although it is in everyone’s best interest to
keep workplaces free of unfit employees for
both fiscal and ethical reasons, there are legal
reasons as well. A firm may be held liable
if the injured third party can demonstrate a
connection between the injury and the firm’s
negligence in its hiring and employment prac-
tices; firms are legally required to exercise
reasonable care when hiring, training, super-

vising, and retaining employees. Employer
negligence in these areas constitutes a viola-
tion of tort law, potentially costing employers
millions of dollars.
Although the courts’ interpretations of
negligence vary by state, there are some com-
monalities. The courts have consistently held
employers liable for negligence when charg-
ing parties can prove that the following three
conditions exist:
1. The actions of an unfit worker caused
them to sustain a harmful injury.
2. The employer hired or retained the worker
despite the fact that it knew or should have
known that the worker was unfit.
3. The employer’s negligence was a proxi-
mate cause of the injury. That is, the
injury sustained by a third party was a
foreseeable outcome of the employer’s
Carlos Gomez, a Wells Fargo Bank employee, was arrested at
gunpoint in his
home in front of his wife and two daughters,
charged with fraud and money laundering.
He spent two weeks in a federal prison and
then nearly eight months on house arrest
before clearing his name of all charges. How
did this happen? It turns out that Gomez’s
coworker at the bank, Noel Mendez, alleg-
edly framed him by opening a new bank
account under Gomez’s name, using his
confidential information without his con-

sent and laundering over $100,000 of stolen
money through this account. In court, Gomez
blamed the bank for allowing this to happen,
claiming that had Wells Fargo properly super-
vised its employees, it would have quickly
discovered what Mendez was up to and
would have fired him, thus sparing Gomez
from suffering such harm.1
As illustrated by this case, employers may
put others at risk when they hire and/or
retain unfit workers. Such workers are likely
to harm others because they perform their
jobs in an unsafe manner or engage in dys-
functional behaviors, such as theft, harass-
ment, bullying, physical violence, and the
like. These behaviors often undermine orga-
nizational productivity and damage employee
morale. They can also endanger the general
public, as such employees may steal funds
Employer Liability for Hiring and Retaining Unfit Workers:
How Employers Can Minimize Their Risks
Lawrence S. Kleiman and Darrin Kass
34 Lawrence S. Kleiman and Darrin Kass
Robertson because it neglected to conduct a
background check that would have revealed
his sexually violent tendencies. On discover-

ing these tendencies, the firm surely would
have rejected Robertson, thus sparing Keen
from experiencing such a traumatic event.
Screen Job Applications
To avoid liability, firms should begin the
selection process by carefully screening can-
didates’ completed applications. Prior to mak-
ing any preemployment inquiries, employers
should check state law to identify questions
that the state deems unlawful. Where lawful,
the application form should include ques-
tions asking applicants to state why they left
their previous jobs and whether they have a
conviction record. Answers to these questions
could cast doubt on an applicant’s fitness.
For instance, being fired from a previous job
for fighting with another employee or serving
time in jail for assault and battery may indi-
cate that the applicant has violent tendencies.
Applicants with “checkered pasts,” how-
ever, may avoid truthfully answering these
questions fearing that honest answers would
disqualify them from job consideration. Firms
should thus do a little detective work when
screening applications by searching for vari-
ous clues or “red flags” that may indicate pos-
sible past dysfunctional behaviors. One red
flag is unexplained time gaps in employment,
which are extended periods of time that are
unaccounted for on applicants’ resumes; they
neither held a job nor attended school dur-
ing those periods. Unexplained time gaps are
red flags because they may be indicative of

a number of undesirable qualities possessed
by an applicant. For example, time gaps could
indicate that applicants are hiding something
that might diminish their chances of being
negligence in the way it hired, trained,
supervised, or retained the worker.
This article offers suggestions on what
employers can do to minimize the risk of
engaging in negligent employment practices
during prehiring process and posthiring.
EXERCISE REASONABLE CARE IN HIRING:
START WITH BACKGROUND CHECKS
Deborah Keen, employed by the Miller
Environmental Group, became ill while
performing her job. A coworker, Rundy
Robertson, offered to drive her home after
work. On arrival at her home, Keen alleged
that Robertson forcibly raped her. Keen
sued her employer for negligent hiring when
confronted with the fact that Robertson was
hired despite a lengthy criminal history that
included charges of sexual battery and forc-
ible rape; he was a registered sex offender.
At the time of hire, Robertson claimed he
had no criminal history and signed a consent
form allowing the firm to conduct a back-
ground check. However, no such check was
performed.2
Employers may be liable for negligent hir-
ing if they knew of an applicant’s incompe-

tence or unfitness at the time of hire or could
have discovered such problems by exercising
reasonable care during the hiring process.
In the case of Keen v. Miller Environmental
Group, Keen argued in court that the firm
failed to exercise reasonable care when hiring
Employers may be liable for negligent hiring if
they knew of an applicant’s incompetence or
unfitness at the time of hire or could have dis-
covered such problems by exercising reasonable
care during the hiring process.
35Employer Liability for Hiring and Retaining Unfit Workers:
Summer 2014
Incidents of past dysfunctional behavior
can also be revealed from reference checks.
As noted earlier, the information gleaned
from applicants may be tainted by applicants’
attempts to hide the truth. Consequently,
partial truths, exaggerations, and withheld
information are common occurrences during
employment interviews.4 For example, few
applicants would admit that they are seeking
employment because they were fired from
their previous position or were just released
from prison. Seeking information from some-
one other than the applicant (e.g., references
who are familiar with the applicants’ work
histories) introduces a note of reality into the

process. When checking references, employ-
ers should inquire about the applicant’s rea-
son for leaving (if no longer employed there)
and whether the applicant ever posed any
disciplinary problems.
Caveats about the Use of Background
Checks and Criminal Records
Conducting background investigations repre-
sents an additional step that employers can
take to ensure they have exercised reasonable
care during the selection process. As noted
earlier regarding Keen v. Miller Environmental
Group, the employer’s hiring practices were
questioned because the firm did not conduct
a background check. This argument is com-
monly used by victims’ attorneys. If someone
is harmed at the workplace by an employee,
the first thing the victim’s lawyer will do is
to get information on the alleged perpetrator.
hired. Some applicants may hide the fact that
they served time in prison. Fearing that most
employers would be reluctant to hire an ex-
con, these applicants omit this information
from their resumes, thus leaving a time gap.
Other applicants may hide the fact that they
were actually employed during the time gap,
but left the job under unfavorable circum-
stances, such as being fired for stealing or for
engaging in violent behavior, like bullying or
sexual harassment. Such applicants omit such
jobs from their resumes because they do not
want prospective employers to contact refer-

ences there, fearing the reference giver would
reveal these violent behaviors.
Another red flag is “job hopping” (i.e.,
frequently changing jobs). Job hopping is
a red flag because it may indicate any of a
number of undesirable qualities. It could be
a sign that a candidate was fired from past
jobs because of poor performance or miscon-
duct. Moreover, people may hop from job to
job because they have difficulty getting along
with their superiors or peers, which may
indicate that they have trouble dealing with
authority figures or socially interacting with
people.3
Ask the Right Questions during
the Selection Interview
The selection interview provides an addi-
tional opportunity to uncover applicants’ dys-
functional tendencies by following up on red
flags that may have been identified earlier.
For example, interviewers could ask appli-
cants to explain why they have changed jobs
so frequently or why there is an unexplained
time gap on their resumes. Moreover, inter-
viewers can inquire about the nature and
severity of any convictions that a candidate
listed on the application form.
When checking references, employers should
inquire about the applicant’s reason for leaving
(if no longer employed there) and whether the
applicant ever posed any disciplinary problems.

36 Lawrence S. Kleiman and Darrin Kass
❏ Jobs aff ording access to the homes and
personal possessions of others.
❏ Jobs in which the employee has access to
drugs.
❏ Jobs in which the employee is given unsu-
pervised access to property.
❏ Jobs involving public safety and transpor-
tation.
What should a firm do on discovering
that an applicant has a criminal record? Such
applicants should not be automatically barred
from employment. Policies that exclude appli-
cants with criminal records can dispropor-
tionately impact the selection rates of various
protected groups.7 The criminal conviction
rate in the United States is 6.6 percent of
its population. The rate rises to 32 percent
for black males and 17 percent for Hispanic
males. These high rates signal the potential
for disparate impact claims if employers
use conviction records to bar applicants.8
However, conviction records should not be
ignored. Employers are obligated to provide a
safe working environment and run the risk of

a negligent hiring suit if hiring someone with
a conviction record who is likely to engage in
incidents of violence, harassment, or theft.
There is no easy solution to this conun-
drum. The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) takes the position that
it is illegal for a firm to reject applicants
because of past convictions unless doing so is
a business necessity. To determine business
necessity, firms must consider three factors9:
If that individual has a criminal record, the
lawyer will argue that had the employer con-
ducted a background investigation, it would
have discovered that this person has a his-
tory of engaging in dysfunctional behaviors.
The lawyer would then argue that had the
employer properly done its job, it would not
have hired this person and the victim would
have been spared from harm.5
Despite the fact that conducting back-
ground checks helps ensure that firms meet
the reasonable care standard, such action is
not legally required in all situations. As noted
by the judge in Keen v. Miller Environmental
Group, the legal need to conduct a back-
ground investigation depends on the nature
of the job being filled:
Here, it is undisputed that Aerotek hired Rob-
inson to work on the Miller contract to remove
tar balls from the Gulf Coast. Nothing about the
nature of that work could have suggested to Aero-
tek or Miller that Robinson was likely to subject

Keen to the risk of assault. … If a criminal back-
ground check were necessary to screen for indicia
that a manual laborer might assault a coworker,
it is difficult to envision a fact pattern in which a
background check would not be necessary.6
The employer’s obligation to conduct back-
ground checks is heaviest for jobs that are
classified as “special duty of care,” such as
the following:
❏ Personal-care jobs involving contact with
children, older persons, mentally ill, and
other vulnerable types of people.
❏ Jobs involving medical treatment.
❏ Jobs in which the work is relatively unsu-
pervised.
❏ Jobs providing security involving the use
of fi rearms.
Employers are obligated to provide a safe work-
ing environment and run the risk of a negligent
hiring suit if hiring someone with a conviction
record who is likely to engage in incidents of
violence, harassment, or theft.
37Employer Liability for Hiring and Retaining Unfit Workers:
Summer 2014

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