Read the passages to answer the accompanying questions on the exam. DO NOT WRITE ON THIS SHEET!
From Scene III of Antigone
HAIMON. I am your son, father. You are my guide.You make things clear for me, and I obey you.
No marriage means more to me than your continuing wisdom. / 10
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
Sons attentive and dutiful in his house,
Each one hating his father’s enemies, / 15
Honoring his father’s friends. But if his sons
Fail him, if they turn out unprofitably,
What has he fathered but trouble for himself
And amusement for the malicious?
So you are right
Not to lose your head over this woman. / 20
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!
Of all the people in this city, only she
Has had contempt for my law and broken it. / 25
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.
I suppose she’ll plead “family ties.” Well, let her.
If I permit my own family to rebel, / 30
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
With law-breakers, critics of the government:
Whoever is chosen to govern should be obeyed— / 35
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,
Knows how to give commands when the time comes.
You can depend on him, no matter how fast / 40
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,
This is what scatters armies!
No, no: good lives are made so by discipline. / 45
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?
CHORAGOS. Unless time has rusted my wits,
What you say, King, is said with point and dignity. / 50
HAIMON(boyishly earnest). Father:
Reason is God’s crowning 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
Have reasoned badly. Yet there are other men / 55
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
Will tell you only what you like to hear. / 60
But I, at any rate, can listen; and I have heard them
Muttering and whispering in the dark about this girl.
They say no woman has ever, so unreasonably,
Died so shameful a death for a generous act:
“She covered her brother’s body. Is this indecent? / 65
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:
Nothing is closer to me than your happiness. / 70
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.
The man who thinks that, / 75
The man who maintains that only he has the power
To reason correctly, the gift to speak, the soul—
A man like that, when you know him, turns out empty.
It is not reason never to yield to reason!
In flood time you can see how some trees bend, / 80
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,
Head over heels and under: and there’s your voyage. / 85
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;
But since we are all too likely to go astray, / 90
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.
CREON. You consider it right for a man of my years and experience / 95
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?
HAIMON. Not at all. I pay no respect to criminals. / 100
CREON. Then she is not a criminal?
HAIMON. The city would deny it, to a man.
CREON. And the city proposes to teach me how to rule?
HAIMON. Ah. Who is it that’s talking like a boy now?
CREON. My voice is the one voice giving orders in this city! / 105
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 a woman.
HAIMON. If you are a woman: My concern is only for you.
CREON. So? Your “concern”! In a public brawl with your father! / 110
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!
HAIMON. You’ll never see me taken in by anything vile. / 115
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.
CREON. Another? / 120
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,
I’d say you were perverse. / 125
CREON: You girlstruck fool, don’t play at words with me!
HAIMON. I am sorry. You prefer silence.
CREON. Now, by God -- !
I swear, my all the gods in heaven above us,
You’ll watch it, I swear you shall!
(To the SERVANTS) Bring her out!
Bring the woman out! Let her die before his eyes! / 130
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.
[Exit HAIMON.] / 134
Ode III from Antigone
CHORUS. Love, unconquerable
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest visitor!5
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
The just man’s consenting heart,10
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 mocks us,15
Merciless Aphrodite.
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculpture well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Wind Tapped Like a Tired Man
By Emily Dickinson(1830 – 1886)
The wind tapped like a tired man,
And like a host, "Come in,"
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within
A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.
No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once
From a superior bush.
His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.
He visited, still flitting;
Then, like a timid man,
Again he tapped--'t was flurriedly--
And I became alone.
Not My Best Side
by U. A. Fanthorpe
IIII
Not my best side, I’m afraidI have diplomas in Dragon
The artist didn’t give me a chance toManagement and Virgin Reclamation.
Pose properly, and as you can see,My horse is the latest model, with
Poor chap, he had this obsession withAutomatic transmission and built-in
Triangles, so he left off two of myObsolescence. My spear is custom-built,
Feet. I didn’t comment at the timeAnd my prototype armour
(What, after all, are two feetStill on the secret list. You can’t
To a monster?) but afterwardsDo better than me at the moment.
I was sorry for the bad publicity.I’m qualified and equipped to the
Why, I said to myself, should my conquerorEyebrow. So why be difficult?
Be so ostentatiously beardless, and rideDon’t you want to be killed and/or rescued
A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?In the most contemporary way? Don’t
Why should my victim be soYou want to carry out the roles
Unattractive as to be inedible, That sociology and myth designed for you?
And why should she have me literallyDon’t you realize that, by being choosy,
On a string? I don’t mind dyingYou are endangering job prospects
Ritually, since I always rise again, In the spear- and horse-building industries?
But I should have liked a little more bloodWhat, in any case, does it matter what
To show they were taking me seriously.You want? You’re in my way.
II
It’s hard for a girl to be sure if
She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
Took to the dragon. It’s nice to be
Liked, if you know what I mean. He was
So nicely physical, with his claws
And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,
And the way he looked at me . . . .
So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,
On a really dangerous horse, to be honest
I didn’t much fancy him. I mean,
What was he like underneath the hardware?
He might have acne, blackheads, or even
Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon—
Well, you could see all of him
At a glance. Still, what could I do?
The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,
And a girl’s got to think of her future.
Passage from The Indian’s Night Promises to be Dark by Chief Seattle
Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mists on the mountain side flee before the blazing morning sun.
However, your proposition seems a just one, and I think that my folks will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them, and we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the great white chief seem to be the voice of nature speaking to my people out of the thick darkness that is fast gathering around them like a dense fog floating inward from a midnight sea.
It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days. They are not many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. No bright star hovers about the horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Some grim Nemesis of our race is on the red man's trail, and wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of the fell destroyer and prepare to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter. A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of all the mighty hosts that once filled this broad land or that now roam in fragmentary bands through these vast solitudes will remain to weep over the tombs of a people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own.
But why should we repine?[1] Why should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are made up of individuals and are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of the sea. A tear, a tamanawus,[2] a dirge, and they are gone from our longing eyes forever. Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him, as friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers, after all. We shall see.
We will ponder your proposition, and when we have decided we will tell you. But should we accept it, I here and now make this the first condition: That we will not be denied the privilege, without molestation, of visiting at will the graves of our ancestors and friends. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hill-side, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe.
Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.
The sable braves, and fond mothers, and glad-hearted maidens, and the little children who lived and rejoiced here, and whose very names are now forgotten, still love these solitudes, and their deep fastnesses at eventide grow shadowy with the presence of dusky spirits.[3] And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless.
[1]repine: to be discontent or to complain; to yearn for something
[2]tamanawus: a ceremony in which a guardian spirit is summoned, often when death is near
[3]their deep fastness. . . dusky spirits: in the evening, secret places are visited by the souls of the dead