Creon - There is no way of getting to know a man's spirit and thought and judgement, until he has been seen to be versed in government and in the laws. Yes, to me anyone who while guiding the whole city fails to set his hand to the best counsels, but keeps his mouth shut by reason of some fear seems now and has always seemed the worst of men; and him who rates a dear one higher than his native land, him I put nowhere. I would never be silent, may Zeus who sees all things for ever know it, when I saw ruin coming upon the citizens instead of safety, nor would I make a friend of the enemy of my country, knowing that this is the ship that preserves us, and that this is the ship on which we sail and only while she prospers can we make our friends. (175-190)
Messenger - King, I will not say that I come breathless with running, having plied a nimble foot! I had many worries that held me up, turning this way and that in my jourmey as I thought of going back. Yes, my mind spoke many words to me: "Wretch, why are you going to a place where you will pay the penalty? Poor fellow, are you staying behind, then? And if Creon learns this from another man, how shall you escape affliction?" (223-230)
Chorus - King, my anxious thought has long been advising me that this action [burrying Polyneices] may have been prompted by the gods. (278-9)
Creon - ...long since men in the city who find it hard to bear me have been murmering against me, unwilling to keep their necks beneath the yoke, as justice demands, so as to put up with me. I know well that these people have been bribed by those men to do this thing. (289-294)
Creon - If you do not find the author of this burial and reveal him to my eyes, a single Hades shall not suffice for you, before all have been strung up alive to expose this insolence. (306-9)
‘Ode to Man’
Chorus - Many things are formidable [deinos], none more formidable than man! He crosses the gray sea beneath the winter wind, passing beneath the surges that surround him; and he wears away the highest of the gods, Earth [Gaia], immortal and unwearying, as his ploughs go back and forth from year to year, turning the soil with the aid of the breed of horses.
And he captures the tribe of thoughtless birds and the races of wild beasts and the watery brood of the sea, catching them in the woven coils of nets, man the skilful. And he contrives to overcome the beast that roams the mountain, and tames the shaggy-maned horse and the untiring mountain bull, putting a yoke about their necks.
And he has learned speech and wind-swift thought and the temper that rules cities, and how to escape the exposure of the inhospitable hills and the sharp arrows of the rain, all resourceful; he meets nothing in the future without resource; only from Hades shall he apply no means of flight; and he has contrived escape from desperate maladies.
Skilful [sophon] beyond hope is the contrivance of his art, and he advances sometimes to evil, at other times to good. When he applies the laws [nomous] of the earth [kthonos] and the justice [dikan] the gods [theon] have sworn to uphold he is high in the city [polis]; outcast from the city is he with whom the ignoble consorts for the sake of gain. May he who does such things never sit by my hearth or share my thoughts! (332-375)
Creon - whether she is my sister's child or closer in affinity than our while family linked by Zeus of the hearth, she and her sister shall not escape a dreadful death! (486-9)
Antigone - ...it was not Zeus who made this proclamation, nor was it Justice [Dike] who lives with the gods below that established such laws among men, nor did I think your proclamations strong enough to have power to overrule, mortal as they were, the unwritten and unfailing ordinances of the gods. For theses have life, not simply today and yesterday, but for ever, and no one knows how long ago they were revealed. For this I did not intend to pay the penalty among the gods for fear of any man's pride. (450-460)
Antigone - O tomb, O bridal chamber, O deep-dug hom, to be guarded for ever, where I go to join those who are my own, of whom Prtsephassa [Persephone] has already received a great number, dead, among the shades! Of these I am the last and my descent will be the saddest of all, before the term of my life has come. But when I come there, I am confident that I shall come dear to my father, dear to you, my mother, and dear to you, my own brother; since when you died it was I that with my own hands washed you and adorned you and poured libations on your graves; and now, Polyneices, for burying your body I get this reward!...If my husband had died, I could have had another, and a child by another man, if I had lost the first, but with my mother and my father in Hades below, I could never have another brother. (891-903 & 909-912)
Teiresias - And it is your will that has put this plague upon the city; for our altars and our braziers, one and all, are filled with carrion brought by birds and dogs from the unhappy son of Oedipus who fell. And the gods are no longer accepting the prayers that accompany sacrifice or the flame that consumes the thigh bones, and the cries screamed out by the birds no longer give me signs...for they have eaten fat compounded with a dead man's blood.
Think upon this, my son! All men are liable to make mistakes [hamarté]; and when a man does this, he who after getting into trouble tries to repair the damage and does not remain immovable is not foolish or miserable. (1015-1027)
Messenger - ...his son glared at him with furious eyes, spat in his face, and returning no answer drew his two-edged sword. As his father darted back to escape him, he missed him; the the unhappy man, furious with himself, just as he was, pressed himself against the sword and drove it, half its length, into his side. Still living, he clasped the maiden in the bend of his feeble arm, and pouring forth a sharp jet of blood, he stained her white cheek. He lay, a corpse holding a corpse, having achieved his marriage rites, poor fellow, in the house of Hades, having shown by how much the worst evil among mortals is bad counsel. (1231-1243)
Select Bibliography
Benardete, Seth. Sacred Transgressions: a Reading of Sophocles’ Antigone. (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine's Press, 1999).
Bennett, Larry J. & Wm. Blake Tyrrell, ‘Sophocles' Antigone and Funeral Oratory,’ The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 441-456.
Bennett, Larry J. & Wm. Blake Tyrrell, ‘Sophocles' Antigone and Funeral Oratory,’ The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 111, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), pp. 441-456.
Butler, Judith. Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life & Death. (NY, Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2000).
Daniels, Charles B., and Sam Scully. What Really Goes on in Sophocles' Theban Plays. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996).
Detienne, Marcel, ‘Being Born Impure in the City of Cadmus and Oedipus,’ Arion, Third Series, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Winter, 2003), pp. 35-47.
Daniels, Charles B., and Sam Scully. What Really Goes on in Sophocles' Theban Plays. (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996).
Detienne, Marcel, ‘Being Born Impure in the City of Cadmus and Oedipus,’ Arion, Third Series, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Winter, 2003), pp. 35-47.
Else, Gerald Frank. The Madness of Antigone. (Heidelberg : C. Winter, 1976).
Goheen, Robert F. The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone: A Study of Poetic Language and Structure. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951).
Porter, David H. Only Connect: Three Studies in Greek Tragedy. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987).
Segal, Charles. “Sophocles’ Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone” in Interpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986).
Tyrrell, Wm. Blake & Larry J. Bennett. Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone. (Lanham, Md.; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c1998).
Calder III, W.M., “The Protagonist of Sophocles’ Antigone,” Arethusa 4.1 (1971) 49ff.
Jost, L.J., “Antigone’s Engagement: A Theme Delayed,” Liverpool Classical Monthly (1983) 8-9.
Segal, Charles, “Antigone: Death and Love, Hades and Dionysus,” in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy, ed. by E. Segal (Oxford: OUP, 1983) 167-176.
Sorum, C.E., “The Family in Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra,” Classical World 75 (1982) 201-211.
Wiersma, S., “Women in Sophocles,” Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 25-55.
Wiltshire, S..F., “Antigone’s Disobedience,” Arethusa 9 (1976) 29-36.
Goheen, Robert F. The Imagery of Sophocles' Antigone: A Study of Poetic Language and Structure. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951).
Porter, David H. Only Connect: Three Studies in Greek Tragedy. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987).
Segal, Charles. “Sophocles’ Praise of Man and the Conflicts of the Antigone” in Interpreting Greek Tragedy: Myth, Poetry, Text. (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986).
Tyrrell, Wm. Blake & Larry J. Bennett. Recapturing Sophocles’ Antigone. (Lanham, Md.; Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, c1998).
Calder III, W.M., “The Protagonist of Sophocles’ Antigone,” Arethusa 4.1 (1971) 49ff.
Jost, L.J., “Antigone’s Engagement: A Theme Delayed,” Liverpool Classical Monthly (1983) 8-9.
Segal, Charles, “Antigone: Death and Love, Hades and Dionysus,” in Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy, ed. by E. Segal (Oxford: OUP, 1983) 167-176.
Sorum, C.E., “The Family in Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra,” Classical World 75 (1982) 201-211.
Wiersma, S., “Women in Sophocles,” Mnemosyne 37 (1984) 25-55.
Wiltshire, S..F., “Antigone’s Disobedience,” Arethusa 9 (1976) 29-36.
*Zeitlin, Froma, 'Thebes: Theatre of Self and Society in Athenian Drama,' in J. Peter Euben, ed. Greek Tragedy and Political Theory (California & London: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 101-141.*
*This last piece is the chapter that we discussed at the end of class on Thursday in which Zeitlin outlines the idea that Thebes serves as a sort of 'anti-Athens'*
