sophocles: antigone

Sophocles' Antigone, a play about the family, the state, and the daylight between the legal and the moral.

Normally I wouldn't do two works by the same author back-to-back (and in fact this chapter was originally going to be about Euripides' Bacchae, so I could round out the set of the three great tragedians) but (a) it's been forever since the last chapter (thank graduate school for that) and (b) I started doing the sort of fic this guide is meant to facilitate, and I'm using Antigone, so we're doing Antigone!

Originally published on the Archive of Our Own.

about

author: Sophocles (Σοφοκλῆς [Sophokles], c. 497/6–406/5 BCE)

Same guy from last time! Tl;dr: Sophocles was the most popular of the three great tragedians of ancient Athens during his lifetime.

orig. language: Greek (Attic)

date: 442 BCE

The dating on this play is based on ancient biography, which is always rather dubious. In this case, though, it seems likely that the dubious biographical detail, if fabricated, would have been fabricated precisely because of the dating.^[1] So it's shaky, but it's not totally out of thin air, and it's what we've got.

Notably, this would place Antigone closer to the beginning of Sophocles' career than the end—if the also-dubious dating of the Ajax is correct, it might be the second of Sophocles' seven surviving plays by production date.

rec. translation(s): Sophocles: Antigone and Other Tragedies, trans. Oliver Taplin

Oliver Taplin is a scholar of Greek tragedy who has turned to translation in his retirement. His translation of the Oresteia is, in my opinion, fine but nothing particularly special, so I wasn't expecting too much from his Antigone, but he did a really solid job with this one.

Note that Ian Johnston's translation, while not quite as enjoyable as Taplin's, is both perfectly serviceable and free. If acquiring Taplin's version poses any sort of hardship, this is absolutely a viable alternative. Johnston (quite generously) releases a number of translations under a Creative Commons license, which allows not only free distribution with proper attribution but also the use of his translations in dramatic productions.

Also noteworthy is that Anne Carson has two versions of Antigone (Antigone and Antigonick), neither of which I like very much. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

synopsis

Antigone tells her sister Ismene that she intends to bury their brother, Polynices, in defiance of the edict of their uncle, Creon, the new king of Thebes. Ismene refuses to help and attempts to dissuade Antigone; Antigone is unmoved.

The chorus of Theban elders enters and tells the story of Thebes' recent civil war, in which brothers Eteocles and Polynices waged war against each other, both dying in the process. Creon comes out and asks the chorus to support his edict that Polynices (the brother who attacked the city) not be granted proper burial rites, and the chorus agrees. A sentry arrives to let Creon know that someone has buried the body; Creon tells the sentry to figure out who did it, on pain of death.

The chorus sings about the awesomeness of humans in fairly loaded terms. The sentry returns with Antigone in tow, having caught her performing burial rites a second time. Creon questions her; they argue about Creon's authority and Antigone's stubbornness. Ismene tries to confess to aiding Antigone; Antigone denies it. Creon has both of them imprisoned.

The chorus sings about the many, many problems of the House of Laius. Haemon, Creon's son and Antigone's fiance, promises his loyalty to his father, but attempts to persuade him to let Antigone go. Creon is furious and the conversation devolves into insult-slinging. Haemon storms off. The chorus sings a song attributing the whole argument to Haemon's desire for Antigone.

Antigone is brought in on her way to her execution. She sings a lament and argues with the chorus. Creon decides to execute Antigone alone by burying her alive in a cave. Antigone laments her fate further. The chorus sings of the sufferings of various mythical characters.

Tiresias, a blind prophet, arrives and tells Creon that the gods have stopped accepting Theban sacrifices. Creon accuses Tiresias of being corrupt.^[2] Tiresias predicts that Creon will lose a son for his crime against the gods and that all of Greece will hate him and Thebes, then leaves. The chorus begs Creon to reconsider; he relents. The chorus sings an ode to Dionysus, who has a particular connection to Thebes, asking for his help in sorting all this out.

A messenger enters to tell the chorus that Haemon has died by suicide. Eurydice,^[3] Creon's wife and Haemon's mother, asks what happened. The messenger tells them all that Creon buried Polynices, then went to release Antigone, but found her already dead, having hanged herself. Haemon tried to stab Creon, then successfully stabbed himself. Eurydice exits.

Creon enters with Haemon's body, blaming himself for his son's death. Another messenger arrives to tell Creon and the chorus that Eurydice has also died by suicide, blaming her husband for the deaths of both their sons. Creon condemns himself for his behavior. The chorus has the final word, saying that rashness brings punishment and punishment brings wisdom.

themes

resistance

Sophocles, as Carson^[4] says:

...is a playwright fascinated in general by people who say no, people who resist compromise, people who make stumbling blocks of themselves, like Antigone or Ajax. These characters usually express defiance in some heroic action—Antigone buries her brother, Ajax falls on his sword.^[5]

Antigone is what Electra wishes she were: a woman with not only the certainty of her convictions, but also opportunities for action.

I do, however, take some issue with one of Carson's later descriptions of Antigone as "lovable", in contrast with Electra. Honestly, Antigone has the same fundamental character as Electra: she has a cause and she devotes herself to it at the cost of everything else in her life, including her relationships with other people. She's uncompromising in her righteousness, which means that she's devoted to her brother to the point of death and she's also unkind to her sister because Ismene doesn't measure up. She's simply extreme. Her extremity makes her admirable as much as it makes her, as my mother would put it, a bit of a pill.

In a way, even though Antigone has more of an outlet for action than Electra, her resistance is just as much resistance for its own sake as Electra's. One of the scholarly questions in the play is what to make of Antigone's second burial of her brother: she'd already buried him once, which should have released his soul to Hades, and it is only at the second attempt that she's caught. Except for her second burial, none of the deaths of this play would occur. So why does she go back? There are a wide range of theories of varying utility and plausibility, but I'd suggest perhaps because that's what a Sophoclean heroine does. She's not concerned with getting off on a technicality; she wants her brother buried, and if the watchmen dig him up, she'll bury him again.

family

One of the funny things about this play is the way it plays with the lines between the family and the state. There's an easy reading of the play in which Antigone represents the family, in her devotion to Polynices, and Creon represents the state, in his devotion to law and order.

The problem, though, is that Creon is the king of Thebes, so the boundaries between family and state are not as clear-cut as they seem. When Antigone defies Creon, she's not only disobeying her king but also her uncle and the head of her household. When Creon puts Antigone to death, he's not only winning a Worst Uncle of the Year award, but proving himself a tyrant.

Also lurking is the fact of Antigone's fucked-up family. The House of Laius gives the House of Atreus a run for their money in terms of fucked-up-ed-ness:^[6] Oedipus, Antigone's father, (unknowingly) killed his own father and married his mother, making his children his half-siblings and himself a parricide. Part of the reason why Thebes was left to Eteocles and Polynices is because Oedipus went into exile when this was discovered because of the pollution it brought upon the city.

So every time Antigone emphasizes the sorority between herself and Ismene, recall that they're not only each other's sisters, but aunts and nieces as well. When Antigone tells Creon that she was born to share in love, not in hate, the circumstances of her birth loom over the line. And when Antigone talks about lying in the grave with Polynices,^[7] about substituting her marriage with her care for him, the incestuous overtones fit in with the family tradition.

duty

In the chapter I wrote on Aeschylus' Agamemnon, I quoted from Carson's^[8] introduction:

Violence in Agamemnon emanates spectacularly from one particular word: justice. Notice how often this word recurs and how many different angles it has. Almost everyone in the play claims to know what justice is and to have it on their side—Zeus, Klytaimestra, Agamemnon, Aigisthos and (according to Kassandra) Apollo. The many meanings of the word justice have shaped the history of the house of Atreus into a gigantic double bind. No one can stop the vicious cycle of vengeance that carries on from crime to crime in its name.^[9]

Just like everyone in the Agamemnon (and the Elektra) is motivated by justice, everyone in Antigone is motivated by duty. Antigone has a duty to her brother, Creon has a duty to the state, Haemon has conflicting duties to his father and his fianceé. Even Ismene, who hesistates at the beginning, is moved by her duty to her sister to try to take the fall with Antigone in the middle of the play, though Antigone refuses to let her.

Everyone is moved by duty to something or someone, and all those duties collide terribly. It's a trainwreck of best intentions.

notable passages

first stasimon

There are many formidable things,
but none more formidable than
are human beings.
They sail over ocean's grey wastes
with southerly storm-winds between
towering waves.
And the god most primeval of all—
undying, unwearying Earth—
by turning the soil
they repeatedly rake her and tear,
as horses pull ploughs back and forth,
year after year.

— Ant. 332–41

This is maybe the most famous choral ode in Greek tragedy, and it's usually called something like "The Ode to Man". Despite that framing, there's some ambivalence about humanity's accomplishments. This starts from the very top:

Πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀν-
θρώπου δεινότερον πέλει...

—Ant. 331–32

Δεινός (what Taplin renders as "formidable") is a pretty loaded term in ancient Greek. It can mean "awesome" or "marvelous" (and in this context probably does), but it can also mean "terrible".^[10] So we're starting out on ambiguous footing.

The chorus isn't fully on board with the rest of man's^[11] achievements, either. There's a sort of hesitance to it: describing agriculture as repeatedly raking and tearing at a primordial goddess is certainly less laudatory than it could be.

Ruby Blondell^[12] draws out one thread in this ambivalence really well in their analysis essay at the end of their translation of Antigone:

Imagery of plowing, taming and yoking is frequently used for the subordination of women to men, specifically by means of sex and marriage (cf. 569, 827-8, 946-7, with notes). The verb "lead," used in the song for the taming of animals (346), suggests a man taking a woman in marriage (below, p. 94-5), and may also be used for taking prisoners, like Antigone herself (e.g. 381, 395)...There are therefore implicit questions here about the right way for men to treat women as well as the rest of the "natural" world...^[13]

So it's not quite a celebration, but to some degree a question: what are men supposed to do in their supposedly rightful place as masters of the natural world and of women, and beneath the gods? The chorus isn't fully sure, but they are pretty sure that they don't want to share their city with lawbreakers:

Those who honour the country's law,
revering the gods, raise their city secure:
yet there's no city for someone veering
off into ways of error through daring.
May one committing things like those
not join in my thoughts, nor visit my house.

—Ant. 368–73

Creon and Antigone's argument

CREON: The good should not get equal treatment with the bad.

ANTIGONE: Who is to say what's seen as rightful in the world below?

CREON: An enemy can never be a friend, not even after death.

ANTIGONE: I'm bound by birth to join in love, not join in enmity.

CREON: Then go below and love those there, if love you must.

—Ant. 520–25

This is the scene in which Creon and Antigone are on the most equal footing, and where they each lay out their arguments most clearly. Both of them give long speeches (both of which are terribly interesting, to be honest), but I've pulled a bit from the stichomythia^[14] to give them each a bit of air time.

I also wanted to discuss Antigone's famous line here:

Οὔτοι συνέχθειν, ἀλλὰ συμφιλεῖν ἔφυν.

I'm bound by birth to join in love, not join in enmity.

This line can come off as kind of hippie-ish, but remember the circumstances of Antigone's birth. She's not really suggesting some sort of generic love-the-world attitude, but rather something more specific: that she is naturally (implication: by dint of her incestuous birth) created to love her brother. Both verbs that Sophocles uses here (συνέχθειν and συμφιλεῖν) appear to be his own constructions, so the line could also read something like:

I was born to co-love, not co-hate.

The point is, Antigone doesn't seem to be trying very hard to convince Creon. If she wanted to win the argument, surely "I did this because my parents are themselves mother and son" is not the best strategy. She's trying to get her point across, and if he's convinced, great, and if not, that's his problem.

Creon, meanwhile, does want to win, but he's more interested in his own raging. He's honestly just mean. He compares Antigone to a horse that needs to be broken^[15] and to iron that's hardened to the point of brittleness. He's only incidentally trying to convince anyone of anything but his own power.

There isn't really a point in this argument where you don't understand that having these two people in a room together is simply destined to end poorly.

Antigone's lament

ANTIGONE: My tomb, my bridal chamber
and my deep-dug dwelling, my for-ever cell,
I go to you to join with my own people—
with so many of them down among the dead
admitted by Persephone.
And last of all of them I go, my ending far the worst,
before I've reached my proper share of life.

—Ant. 891–96

Antigone's last lament is notable for a handful of reasons. The ones I'm most interested in are:

Wedding as funeral, funeral as wedding: This is the title of one of the topic notes that lives on my computer, accumulating quotes and references until I have enough for some sort of project. There is shocking overlap between these categories in the ancient world: in Erinna, in Ovid, in Tacitus, even in vase paintings. Antigone's example, though, is among the more famous, and she calls upon the most famous buried bride of them all, Persephone, whose marriage binds her to the underworld for at least half the year.
Incest again: Again, Antigone does not shy away from her family's history of incest but rather leans into it. Here, she walks right up to the line by emphasizing the fact that her love for her brother has taken the place of her marriage and her care for him replaces the husband and children she might have had. She laments her death, but does not quite regret her choice, and certainly does not concede Creon's point that she was morally wrong to show the devotion she did to her brother.