And when asked by Creon why she had dared disobey the laws, she nobly replied,-- "Not through fear Of any man's resolve was I prepared Before the gods to bear the penalty Of sinning against these. That I should die I knew (how should I not?) though thy decree Had never spoken. And before my time If I shall die, I reckon this a gain; For whoso lives, as I, in many woes, How can it be but he shall gain by death?" At the king's command the unhappy maiden was taken from his presence and thrust into a sepulchre, where she was condemned to perish in hunger and loneliness. But Antigone was not without her advocate. She had a lover,--almost the only one in Greek literature. Haemon, the son of Creon, to whom her hand had been promised in marriage, and who loved her dearly, appeared before his father and earnestly interceded for her life. Not on the plea of his love,--such a plea would have had no weight with a Greek tribunal,--but on those of mercy and justice. His plea was vain; Creon was obdurate: the unhappy lover left his presence and sought Antigone's living tomb, where he slew himself at the feet of his love, already dead. His mother, on learning of his fatal act, also killed herself by her own hand, and Creon was left alone to suffer the consequences of his unnatural act. The story goes on to relate that Adrastus, with the disconsolate mothers of the fallen chieftains, sought the hero Theseus at Athens, and begged his aid in procuring the privilege of interment for the slain warriors whose bodies lay on the plain of Thebes. The Thebans persisting in their refusal to permit burial, Theseus at length led an army against them, defeated them in the field, and forced them to consent that their fallen foes should be interred, that last privilege of the dead which was deemed so essential by all pious Greeks. The tomb of the chieftains was shown near Eleusis within late historical times.