Antigone's rationale for burying Polyneices

An important passage (if it is genuine) in Sophocles, Antigone is about sixteen lines in which Antigone states her rationale for burying Polyneices. This is omitted by Fitts and Fitzgerald, whose translation H & P use. If included, the passage would be in the section which H & P print as lines 665-678 (p. 779). In their Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle, (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1957), Fitts and Fitzgerald write as follows (p. 240): "We have made cuts only when it seemed absolutely necessary. The most notable excision is that of a passage of sixteen lines beginning with 904 (Antigone's long speech near the end of Scene IV), which has been bracketed as spurious, either in whole or in part, by the best critics." (Note that, as often, there is a discrepancy between H & P's line numbers and those from another source.)

Many translations of Antigone are available online, and most include the lines which Fitts and Fitzgerald bracket. One of these are given below, with the passage under discussion being given in italic type ­ strictly for purposes of identification. Also, the word "brother", discussed below, is in italic type ­ again, strictly for purposes of identification.

Jebb's relatively old translation, now in the public domain, gives the lines as follows:

"Tomb, bridal-chamber, eternal prison in the caverned rock, whither I go to find mine own, those many who have perished, and whom Persephone hath received among the dead! Last of all shall I pass thither, and far most miserably of all, before the term of my life is spent. But I cherish good hope that my coming will be welcome to my father, and pleasant to thee, my mother, and welcome, brother, to thee; for, when ye died, with mine own hands I washed and dressed you, and poured drink-offerings at your graves; and now, Polyneices, 'tis for tending thy corpse that I win such recompense as this.

"And yet I honoured thee, as the wise will deem, rightly. Never, had I been a mother of children, or if a husband had been mouldering in death, would I have taken this task upon me in the city's despite. What law, ye ask, is my warrant for that word? The husband lost, another might have been found, and child from another, to replace the first-born: but, father and mother hidden with Hades, no brother's life could ever bloom for me again. Such was the law whereby I held thee first in honour; but Creon deemed me guilty of error therein, and of outrage, ah brother mine! And now he leads me thus, a captive in his hands; no bridal bed, no bridal song hath been mine, no joy of marriage, no portion in the nurture of children; but thus, forlorn of friends, unhappy one, I go living to the vaults of death.

"And what law of heaven have I transgressed? Why, hapless one, should I look to the gods any more, ­ what ally should I invoke, ­ when by piety I have earned the name of impious? Nay, then, if these things are pleasing to the gods, when I have suffered my doom, I shall come to know my sin; but if the sin is with my judges, I could wish them no fuller measure of evil than they, on their part, mete wrongfully to me."

Another, more recent translation is that by C. Blackwell and R. Prior, copyrighted by Christopher W. Blackwell.
The main problem with the lines which Fitts and Fitzgerald omit is the ostensibly more limited justification for her action which Antigone gives here, as compared with the the rest of the play as a whole. At lines 307-314 (p. 766), for example, Antigone speaks as follows in Jebb's translation:

"Yes; for it was not Zeus that had published me that edict; not such are the laws set among men by the justice who dwells with the gods below; nor deemed I that thy decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of heaven. For their life is not of to-day or yesterday, but from all time, and no man knows when they were first put forth."

Also, a secondary problem may be whether Antigone refers to both of her brothers. In the first part of the passage under consideration, Antigone refers to father, mother, and brother, without any specific names. Most critics take the reference to a "brother" as being to Eteocles; then, she goes on to mention Polyneices by name. Note that in their translation, Blackwell and Prior make this explicit. On the other hand, Fitts and Fitzgerald's translation has only a reference to Polyneices.