Adria

Ancient languages

Greek

Sophocles: “Antigone”

Plot and comment

 

Before the beginning of the play's action,  Eteocles and Polyneices, two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, died fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, has declared that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices disgraced. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites, and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures, the harshest punishment at the time. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead brothers. In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the city gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict. Ismene refuses to help her, fearing the death penalty, but she is unable to dissuade Antigone from going to bury her brother herself. Creon enters, along with the Chorus of Theban Elders. He seeks their support in the days to come, and in particular wants them to back his edict regarding the disposal of Polyneices' body. The Chorus of Elders pledges their support. A Sentry enters, fearfully reporting that the body has been buried. A furious Creon orders the Sentry to find the culprit or face death himself. The Sentry leaves, but after a short absence he returns, bringing Antigone with him. Creon questions her, and she does not deny what she has done. She argues unflinchingly with Creon about the morality of the edict and the morality of her actions. Creon becomes livid, and, thinking Ismene must have helped her, summons the girl. Ismene tries to confess falsely to the crime, wishing to die alongside her sister, but Antigone would not have it. Creon orders that the two women be temporarily locked up. Haemon, Creon's son and Antigone's fiancé, enters to pledge allegiance to his father. He initially seems willing to join Creon, but when Haemon gently tries to persuade his father to spare Antigone, the discussion deteriorates and the two men are soon bitterly insulting each other. Haemon leaves, vowing never to see Creon again.

Creon decides to spare Ismene and to bury Antigone alive in a cave. She is brought out of the house, and she bewails her fate and defends her actions one last time. She is taken away to her living tomb, with the Chorus expressing great sorrow for what is going to happen to her.

Teiresias, the blind prophet, enters. He warns Creon that the gods side with Antigone. Creon accuses Teiresias of being corrupt. Teiresias responds that because of Creon's mistakes, he will lose five children for the crimes of leaving Polyneices unburied and putting Antigone into the earth. All of Greece will despise him, and the sacrificial offerings of Thebes will not be accepted by the gods. The Chorus, terrified, asks Creon to take their advice. He assents, and they tell him that he should free Antigone and bury Polyneices. Creon, shaken, agrees to do it. He leaves with a retinue of men to help him right his previous mistakes. The Chorus delivers a choral ode to the god Dionysus, and then a Messenger enters to tell them that Haemon has killed himself. Eurydice, Creon's wife and Haemon's mother, enters and asks the Messenger to tell her everything. The Messenger reports that Haemon and Antigone have both taken their own lives. Eurydice disappears into the palace.

Creon enters, carrying Haemon's body. He understands that his own actions have caused these events. A Second Messenger arrives to tell Creon and the Chorus that Eurydice has killed herself. With her last breath, she cursed her husband. Creon blames himself for everything that has happened, and, a broken man, he asks his servants to help him inside. The order he valued so much has been protected, and he is still the king, but he has acted against the gods and lost his child and his wife as a result. The Chorus closes by saying that although the gods punish the proud, punishment brings wisdom.

 

 

The central message of the tragedy lies in the fight between two wills and two ideas of the world: one by Antigone, a young girl who is physically weak but morally strong and wants to obey the unwritten natural laws (phusis); the other by Creonte, who wants to impose the power from the State and the Laws (nomos).

“I didn’t even think (Antigone tells Creonte) that your rules could be so strong as to subdue the laws from our gods, which are unwritten and enduring.They have been living since the origins of the world.” On his behalf Creonte brings forward his idea of positive right and law as a reason for his behaviour, and he replies to his son, who would like to help Antigone, with the following words: “Obey, obey, in great and minor matters, be it right or not, always and forever, to the man who is the chief of your State. Anarchy is the worst of all evils: it destroys our cities and ruins our homes, scares and tears our armies into pieces. Whereas obedience to our chief is the unique source of safety and victory. People have to obey their own written rules”. From that point of view, Creonte has a right to be worried.

Creonte and Antigone try to bring gods by their opposite sides. Each one gives his principles a value that prevails over the facts which have originated their fight: the right to ghenos for Antigone who wants to bury her own brother to provide a family bond to her relations with the gods;the right to polis for Creonte who wants all the decisions taken by politics to be obeyed in order to get civical cohesion.

As usual (according to what we have learnt from ancient Greek tragedies) tragedies do not break up when reason is ascribed to one side or another; on the contrary, they break up when all the contestants are right, both subjectively and objectively and, as happens in this case, a law cannot allow two lawful moral categories.

As regards the structure of Antigone, it is a concise and condensed play with restricted ranges of action. The dialogues are short and have high tragical peaks (agon), most of them take place between opposite contestants:  Ismene-Antigone, Antigone-Creonte, Creonte-Emone, Tiresia-Creonte. The chorus (stasimon) intervenes in between.

In this play by the best of the playwrights, Sophocles, no word is needless. The study of human behaviour, both public and private, rethorical virtues, aesthetical sensitiveness, thoughtful wisdom implied in highly evocative  and poetical sentences still meaningful today, coexist and intermingle in “Antigone”. Every  word  from Sophocles’s heroes still moves our soul.

 

 

 

This play has influenced Western culture a lot; a great deal of plays have been inspired by it, among them the following are worth quoting:

 

Tebaide by Jean Racine

Antigone  by Jean Anouilh

Antigone  by Vittorio Alfieri

The Italian film I Cannibali (Cannibals) (1968), by the film director Liliana Cavani sets the story by Sophocles in the years of student protest

 

 

 ←