Antigone

Before you read

Thebes, the day after the war

Antigone was actually written before the other two Theban plays, around 441 BCE, and it is perhaps the most performed Greek tragedy in the world today. After the deaths of the two brothers, Creon becomes king and forbids anyone to bury Polynices, who had led a foreign army against Thebes: a traitor must not be honoured. Antigone asks her sister Ismene to help her bury him; Ismene, frightened, refuses. Antigone goes alone and scatters earth over her brother’s body, performing the funeral rites. She is caught, and she does not deny it: the unwritten laws of the gods, she says, are older and greater than any king’s decree.

Creon condemns her to be shut up alive in a cave. His son Haemon, who is engaged to Antigone, argues that the whole city secretly admires her, and that a good ruler should listen; Creon refuses. The blind prophet Tiresias warns that the gods are angry. At last Creon changes his mind and hurries to free Antigone, but he is too late: she has taken her own life, Haemon dies beside her, and when the news reaches the palace, Creon’s wife Eurydice also dies. Creon is left alone, a broken man, having learned wisdom too late.

Two views. Many readers see Antigone as a heroine of conscience against tyranny; the play has inspired resistance movements, and in 1944, in occupied Paris, Jean Anouilh staged a version of it under the noses of the Nazi censors. But the philosopher Hegel argued that both are partly right: Creon defends the law and order of the state, which every community needs, and Antigone defends the duties of family and religion, which every person feels; the tragedy is that each refuses to see the other’s truth. Sophocles lets both of them speak with force.

Law and conscience both have claims on us; wisdom is knowing when to bend.

The story

Retold for this lesson from Sophocles, Antigone (about 441 BCE).

The war was over. The seven armies that had attacked Thebes had been driven back, and the two sons of Oedipus, Eteocles defending the city and Polynices attacking it, had met in single combat at the seventh gate and killed each other. In the grey dawn, their uncle Creon, now king, gave his first order. “Eteocles died defending his city: he will be buried with every honour. Polynices brought foreign spears against his own people: his body will lie where it fell, for the dogs and the birds. Whoever tries to bury him will be stoned to death.”

Before sunrise, Antigone found her sister Ismene. “Will you help me bury our brother?” she asked. Ismene was terrified. “We are women, and the king has forbidden it. We cannot fight the whole city.” “Then I will do it alone,” said Antigone. And that day she crept out to the plain, scattered dust over her brother’s body, and poured the offerings for the dead. When the guards uncovered him, she came back and did it again, and this time they caught her.

Creon could hardly believe it. “Did you know my order?” he asked. “I knew it,” said Antigone. “Everyone knew it. But it was not Zeus who made that order, nor Justice who lives with the gods below. I did not think that your decrees, made by a mortal man, could overrule the unwritten and unfailing laws of the gods. They are not of today or yesterday; they live for ever.” Creon was furious. Because she was his own niece, he would not stone her, but he ordered her to be shut up alive in a cave in the rocks, with a little food, so that her death would not be on his hands.

His son Haemon, who loved Antigone, begged him to change his mind. “The whole city is whispering that she deserves praise, not death,” he said. “Don’t think that only your opinion is right. Even trees that bend in a flood survive, while the ones that stand stiff are torn up by the roots.” But Creon would not bend. Only when the blind prophet Tiresias warned him that the gods were angry, and that he would pay with the life of his own child, did Creon finally give way. He buried Polynices himself, and hurried to the cave to free Antigone. He was too late. Antigone had already taken her own life, and Haemon, finding her, died beside her. When the news reached the palace, Creon’s wife Eurydice died too. Creon was left alone, the king of a city, with no one left to rule over in his own house.

Talk and write

Discussion and writing

The trial of Antigone. Hold a formal debate: “Antigone was right to break the law.” One team speaks for Antigone, one for Creon. Each speaker must concede one point before making their own, using formal hypotheticals and the language of obligation.

Discuss. 1. Is it ever right to break the law? When? 2. Was Creon a tyrant, or a ruler trying to protect his city? 3. Can you think of people in history who disobeyed the law for reasons of conscience? Were they all right?

Write (240–280 words, C2-style essay). “When the law and conscience conflict, conscience must win.” Discuss, presenting both sides fairly before giving your own view.