STUDY GUIDE
Sophocles'
Antigone
Ed Madden
Digital Theatre+ Study Guides are specially commissioned from leading
theatre academics and practitioners, with expert knowledge of the texts
that they explore. The guides examine plays from literary and
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contemporary.
CONTENTS
• About our writer
2
• Introduction to the story
3
• Characters
5
• Relationship map
20
• Plot summary
23
• Themes
27
• Language
34
• Context
37
• Playwright
44
• Glossary
47
ABOUT OUR WRITER
This extensive insight into Sophocles' epic tragedy has been created
for Digital Theatre+ by Ed Madden.
Ed Madden is a freelance theatre director who has worked with the
National Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, Royal Court and Welsh National
Opera. He is also co-founder of new writing company Walrus, a reader
for the Bruntwood Prize and Bristol Old Vic, and recipient of a
Leverhulme Arts Scholarship.
Read more of Ed's work in our guide to Sam Shepard's Family Trilogy
and our The Crucible Study Guide.
2
INTRODUCTION TO THE STORY
Polyneices and Eteocles, brothers and leaders of opposing sides in the
Theban Civil War, are both dead, each at the other’s hand. Their uncle,
Creon, is now the king and has decreed that Eteocles will be celebrated as
a hero, but that Polyneices’ burial is forbidden, and punishable by death.
Antigone and Ismene, sisters of the dead brothers, discuss the decree.
Antigone is furious and intends to defy her uncle and bury Polyneices;
Ismene will not help as she is afraid.
We meet the Chorus of old men, who tell of the battle which has just been
fought. They are on Eteocles’ side, and welcome Creon as their new
leader. Creon makes his decree, asking the Chorus to have no sympathy
for lawbreakers. A guard arrives and reveals that Polyneices has been
scattered with earth by an unknown perpetrator; Creon threatens the
guard with death if he cannot find who committed the crime.
Shortly after, the guard returns with Antigone, who has been caught
attempting to bury the body a second time, because the guards had swept
away the earth she scattered on him the first time. Antigone confesses that
this is true and argues with Creon as to whether she was right to bury her
brother. She claims the law of the gods to be on her side, while Creon
argues that his word is the law of the state. Antigone is sentenced to death.
Ismene enters and attempts to convince Creon that she is also guilty, but
Antigone will not let her sacrifice herself. Ismene argues that for Creon to
kill Antigone would be to rob his son, Haemon, of a wife, as he and
Antigone are engaged, but it is no use, and the two sisters are led away.
Haemon arrives and tells Creon that his father’s guidance means more to
him than marriage, but the two men end up arguing when Haemon
suggests that there is some public sympathy with Antigone, and that Creon
might be wise not to be so stubborn. The argument escalates, and Haemon
leaves, vowing never to see his father again.
Creon tells the Chorus how he will kill Antigone: by sealing her up in a tomb
with food and water, so that he is not directly responsible for her death.
Antigone is led back on with a guarded escort, and Creon orders her death,
before she makes a final speech declaring that she will die because
she“honoured what should be honoured”.
3
The blind prophet, Teiresias, enters, and warns Creon that he has made a
mistake by ordering Antigone’s death, but Creon angrily dismisses all
prophets as greedy frauds. Teiresias foretells that Creon’s own child will
die as a result of his actions, and then leaves. Creon is afraid and allows
the Chorus to convince him that he must change his course of action and
free Antigone from the tomb.
After Creon leaves, a messenger enters to tell the Chorus that Haemon is
dead. Creon’s wife Eurydice arrives, and the messenger relays that her son
went to Antigone’s tomb and found that she had hanged herself; seeing
this, Haemon had slain himself, too. After listening to this story, Eurydice
leaves again without a word, and the messenger follows her, concerned.
Creon returns bearing the dead body of his son, only for the messenger to
reappear with word that Eurydice, too, has taken her own life out of grief.
As the play ends, Creon is left distraught, as the Chorus deliver their final
message: that the proud are brought low by the gods, and that true
happiness must derive from good sense.
4
CHARACTERS
ANTIGONE
I honoured what should be honoured, and yet stand convicted of
dishonor.
Thousands of years after Sophocles first wrote her, Antigone remains a
symbol of feminine revolt and political rebellion. When she decides to bury
the body of her dead brother, she is defying not only Creon’s edict in
favour of what she believes to be a moral and religious duty, but also
society’s expectation of women. Antigone does not wait for a man to
act on her behalf but seizes the opportunity to take action herself.
Her righteousness comes at the expense of her relationships with other
characters in the play. She seems to have little patience for her sister,
Ismene, and obviously spends most of the play arguing with her uncle,
Creon. Although we know that Antigone is engaged to Haemon, we do not
see the two of them together, and by the time she is being led to her death
he seems to occupy little space in her mind, as she describes herself as
being engaged to her tragic fate:
O tomb, my bridal chamber, home beneath the earth, where I go to
join my own.
This line speaks to Antigone’s seeming preoccupation with her own death
and its inevitability. When the Chorus brings up the members of the house
of Oedipus who have died before her, she says they have “touched a
wound”, and goes on to claim that her fate was sealed from the moment of
Polyneices’ death – Sophocles writes her as a character who is very much
aware of her place within a grand narrative of prophesied tragedy.
When the play was first performed, around 430 BC, Antigone’s loyalty to
the gods would probably have been perceived as the main motivating
factor behind her decision to defy Creon. Although many people are still
5
religious today, religion, certainly in the west, is not as central to public life
as it was in ancient Greece, and so Antigone’s decision is more likely to be
read as a moral one founded in loyalty to her family and her own
conscience, rather than higher powers. It is worth considering whether and
how this changes our reading of the character, and of the play.
QUESTIONS:
• “Antigone is a religious fundamentalist, not a hero.” Discuss.
• How does Antigone’s relationship with her sister inform our
understanding of her character?
• What is the significance of Antigone hanging herself rather than
dying due to lack of food and water?
• As a result of Antigone’s decision to bury her brother, three people
(including Antigone herself) are dead by the end of the play. Is she
selfish?
• Can we view Antigone as a tragic hero? Is “hero” the right word?
6
CREON
Our salvation is the ship of state and only those who keep her on the
right course can be called her friends and benefactors.
Probably the most important thing to bear in mind about Creon is that he
is not a pantomime villain acting to further his own evil ends; he believes
that what he is doing is right, and the best way to ensure the security and
prosperity of Thebes. His choice not to allow Polyneices to be buried is
condemned by the gods because they interpret his decision as placing
human law over religious duty, but when Creon issues the edict, he clearly
believes that the gods are on his side: “Do you see the gods honouring
traitors? Impossible!”
If you follow this line of logic, it might be possible to almost pity Creon for
being punished with the deaths of his son and wife even though he
thought he was following the right course. Our sympathy is mitigated,
however, by the fact that he is not particularly likeable. It is one thing that
Creon makes a poor decision, but quite another that he violently rejects
advice from those who believe that he has made a mistake which ought to
be rectified, for his own good and that of the city.
The irony of Creon and his situation is that so many of the qualities which
contribute to his downfall are not ones that immediately present
themselves as flaws. In the wake of the anarchy of civil war, it seems
entirely sensible that Creon’s focus ought to be on strictly maintaining law
and order, to return Thebes to peace and normality. What kind of hope
might he give to rebel forces if he granted their leader proper burial rites?
Having made the decree, what kind of message would it send out not to
follow through on his threat of death, simply because the criminal is his
own niece?
Ultimately, then, Creon’s issue is his lack of flexibility; he rules Thebes with
an iron fist and is so feared by his people that they dare not speak against
him. The importance he places on rationality has made him irrational and
blind to the human and emotional aspects of leadership, and he refuses to
believe that anybody, but he could possibly be right. What makes Creon
such a complex character is that he cannot simply be pigeonholed as a
7
villain, and most of his decisions cannot be easily categorised as “right” or
“wrong”. Sophocles is interested in the grey area in between, and the
moral questions that emerge therefrom.
QUESTIONS:
• Try to rewrite the timeline of the play so that Creon makes the
“correct” decisions along the way. Is it easy? What other problems
might he have come up against if things had gone a different way?
• “Creon’s biggest issue isn’t with lawbreakers, but with women.”
Discuss.
• An actor playing Creon probably has the largest emotional journey
of any in the play; unlike Antigone he is very different at the end of
the play from how he is at the beginning. What directorial instruction
would you give an actor playing the role?
• Might it be possible to view Creon as a tragic hero?
8
ISMENE
That’s not what I want. I just can’t break the laws of the city.
The biggest difference between the sisters in this play is that while they
both disagree with Creon’s edict and believe that the law of the gods
dictates that Polyneices should be buried in the same manner as Eteocles,
Ismene simply cannot bring herself to accompany Antigone in undertaking
the task itself.
One interpretation of Ismene, then, is that she is emblematic of a “wellbehaved” woman; when she disagrees with something she keeps her
opposition to herself and trusts that if she prays, the gods will sort things
out. On this basis she has often been criticised as a character, for passively
allowing the king to enact his injustice. She even suggests that there is a
biological aspect to her refusal to act against Creon:
“WE ARE HELPLESS WOMEN, ANTIGONE, NOT MADE TO FIGHT
AGAINST MEN.”
There is another side to the argument though: that we cannot blame
Ismene for having been raised in a society which teaches a very specific
view of femininity and what it means to be a woman. The fault for Ismene’s
nervousness about the idea of standing up to her uncle lies with a
patriarchal system, which has taught her that disagreeing with men is a
bad, dangerous idea.
Finally, it is easy to forget just how much Ismene has already been through
before the play begins. Her parents and both of her warring brothers are
dead, and now Antigone is suggesting breaking a law that is punishable
by death; with this in mind it is perhaps easier to forgive her for not wanting
to “add to that cycle of horrors”.
QUESTIONS:
• Why does Ismene lie to Creon and say that she helped Antigone bury
the body of Polyneices?
9
• Think of three different ways an actor could choose to play the role
of Ismene in the first scene. How would each of these interpretations
affect the audience’s opinion of the character?
• “The greatest tragedy of the play is the tragedy of Ismene.” Discuss.
10
HAEMON
I am pleading for you too, for me, and for the gods below.
Although what we are likely to remember about Haemon is that he takes
his own life at the end of the play, his big scene is a dialogue with Creon.
In this scene, Haemon subtly attempts to convince his father that his
sentencing of Antigone may have been too harsh; he tells him that, though
he is royal, he is able to walk about the city unrecognised, and has begun
to hear that public opinion may not be favour of Creon’s edict.
Haemon’s own position is complicated, as he is engaged to Antigone.
When we meet him, we could be forgiven for thinking that his future wife
doesn’t mean an awful lot to him – he tells his father that:
no marriage means more to [him] than [Creon’s] wise guidance.
It becomes clear that this is a son who understands his father’s
predisposition to stubbornness and rage and is attempting to win him over
with as little conflict as possible.
Creon will not listen to Haemon’s advice because he says that he’s too
immature; ironic given that, on the evidence of the play, Haemon might
have grown up to be a great king. He understands that stubbornness is an
unhelpful quality in a ruler: “a wise man can always learn”. It makes sense
that others fear voicing any opposition to Creon, when he will not even
take advice from his own son.
Baited by his father’s obstinacy, Haemon angrily threatens that if Antigone
dies she will “take someone else with her”, thus we are introduced to the
more impulsive, fatalistic side of Haemon’s personality. When he discovers
Antigone dead in the cave, he first attempts to attack his father, and then
turns the blade on himself to die alongside his fiancée. The messenger
who relays the news of his death doesn’t give us his reasoning, but we can
conclude Haemon to be a rational, reasonable character, driven to extreme
11
lengths by love. He bears out the Chorus’ assertion that “all who are
passion’s slaves are mad ”.
QUESTIONS:
“There is nothing I want more, father, than your wellbeing.” Do we
believe Haemon when he says this, or is it simply a persuasive tactic?
• Why do you think Haemon kills himself? Why do you think when his
attempt to attack his father fails, that he doesn’t try again?
•
12
TEIRESIAS
[Teiresias] has made terrible prophecies. I know that in all my years,
he has never lied to this city.
Teiresias is the blind prophet who arrives towards the end of the play to
warn Creon that his decisions not to bury Polyneices and, subsequently, to
condemn Antigone to death, have not gone down well with the gods. The
argument between the prophet and the king echoes that which Creon has
already had with Antigone; a conflict between the laws of man and the
rule of the gods.
It’s notable that Creon’s dismissal of Teiresias as a fraud may well have,
decades later, rung in the ears of Sophocles’ Ancient Greek audience. In
Oedipus the King (a narrative predecessor to Antigone, despite being
penned years afterwards) both Jocasta and Oedipus are sceptical of his
predictions and even accuse him of conspiring with Creon. For audiences
in Ancient Greece, then, Creon’s initial ignorance of Teiresias’ advice
would have registered as history repeating itself – Sophocles is actively
interested in the idea that people make the same mistakes again and
again, down through generations.
Eventually, of course, when Teiresias reveals that the punishment for
Creon’s actions will be the death of his family, Creon gives pause and
ultimately relents. By this point, however, Teiresias has already left; he
doesn’t need to know how the story ends because though he is blind, he
sees more than anyone.
13
GUARD
Here I am, unwilling and unwanted… Don’t think I don’t know: nobody
loves the messenger who brings bad news.
This is a play full of noble characters. Most of the characters belong to the
Theban royal family, Teiresias is able to communicate with the gods, and
we can even assume that the messenger is of reasonably high status given
that he accompanies the king to bury Polyneices. In the character of the
guard, though, Sophocles gives us a taste of the Theban citizenry; a regular
man of the people.
His language is more colloquial and informal than that of other characters:
he refers to himself as “the poor bastard who drew the short straw”. Later,
he mixes the heightened dialect requisite for addressing royalty with his
more casual phrasing:
Will your lordship allow me to put in a word, or am I to clear off just
like that?
The guard provides a kind of comic relief, in that his informality is a kind of
respite from the enormous intensity of most of the play. But it also seems
that Sophocles is attempting to wring some comedy from the guard’s fear
of Creon’s anger – he rambles in order to delay giving him the news, and
ironically moans about having “won the privilege of bringing the good
news”. In case we are in any doubt about how he feels, he makes it very
clear on his first exit that he never intends to return.
Although, in actual fact, he does re-enter having caught Antigone. That the
guard (and thus, we can surmise, many lay Greeks) is scared of Creon lends
support to Antigone’s argument that the people are too fearful to let Creon
know what they really think:
They agree with me, Creon, but they have to be careful what they
say to you.
14
Like other minor characters such as the messenger and Eurydice, the
guard may not appear on stage for long. Nevertheless, it is worth
considering why Sophocles chose to include him, his contribution to the
action of the play, and what his presence may tell us about other characters
and the larger themes of the play.
QUESTIONS:
•
Compare the guard’s speech relaying the news of Polyneices’ burial
to a speech of Antigone or Creon’s. How does the language differ?
What effect does this have?
15
MESSENGER
Why should I try to soothe you with kind words which will later make
me a liar?
If the guard has the misfortune of having to deliver the news of Antigone’s
crime, the messenger has got an even worse pair of burdens to bear: he
announces the death of Haemon to the Chorus and Eurydice, and then
the death of Eurydice to Creon.
His presence is largely functional. The conventions of Greek drama meant
that deaths were never seen onstage, and so playwrights had to find a way
to have them described. You may recognise this trait if you have read other
plays of the time, such as Euripides’ tragedy, Medea.
Although this is undeniably the character’s main purpose, the speech he
gives when he first arrives, before relaying the story of Haemon’s death, is
deeply significant. It is in this speech that Sophocles comes closest to
delivering some kind of moral message, when he says that men may:
Rejoice in great wealth all you like and live in a palace, but if there is
no happiness in your life then all is worthless smoke and shadow.
16
EURYDICE
Our queen has left without a word. What does this mean?
Eurydice is the queen of Thebes by virtue of her marriage to Creon and is
Haemon’s mother. She only appears in the play very briefly; entering to
ask for details of the bad news, and then leaving in silence upon hearing
of her son’s death. The messenger later informs Creon that Eurydice has
committed suicide by stabbing herself in the heart, in order that she could
feel the same pain as Haemon did; with her dying breaths, she blames both
her own and her son’s deaths on Creon.
It is interesting that in one of her few lines, Eurydice states that she is “not
unused to hearing bad news”. From this brief comment, Sophocles gives
us a sense of the relentlessness of death and despair in the sequence of
Theban plays, of which Antigone is chronologically the last, Eurydice may
take her own life in response to the death of her son, but by this point she
has also withstood the deaths of her two brothers-in-law, her sister-in-law,
two nephews and a niece.
Though there is little dialogue of Eurydice’s to analyse, it is important not
to forget her; she clearly understands better than anybody that actions can
often speak louder than words.
QUESTIONS:
• What effect does Eurydice’s silence have? How would her role in the
play be different if she had, for example, a long monologue blaming
Creon for her son’s death?
• Imagine you are a director. How would you ask the actor playing
Eurydice to perform the role?
17
CHORUS
I know how loyal you were to Laius’ government and afterwards,
when Oedipus ran the city, you were loyal to him, and when he died
your loyalty carried through to his sons.
(Creon)
In Antigone, the Chorus is comprised of the elders of Thebes; wellrespected men who have lived in the city at least since Laius was king,
meaning that they have been witness to all the tragedies of the house of
Oedipus. Coincidentally, the age of the men draws attention to the fact that
many young men in the city have recently died in the civil war fought
between the forces of Polyneices and Eteocles; also, they provide a fitting
onstage image for the male-dominated, patriarchal society to which
Antigone positions herself in such aggressive opposition.
Notably, in Jean Anouilh’s famed adaptation of Antigone’s story, he
reduces the choral presence to a single figure, who nevertheless retains
his collective function.
Sophocles uses the choral odes to provide the audience with back-story,
to flesh out the themes of the play, and at times to guide the narrative. It is
difficult to know whether or not we are able to trust the Chorus as a moral
compass, given that early in the play Creon commands it to have “no
sympathy for lawbreakers”. The Chorus, then, does not exist above the
action of the play; although it has a unique relationship with the audience,
it is still subject to the king.
The Chorus’ interactions with Creon, then, are particularly important. While
at first it is as loyal to him as it claims to have been to previous rulers, it
plays a crucial role in dissuading Creon from killing Ismene as well as
Antigone, and later basically orders him to reverse his edict after hearing
Teiresias’ prophecy. Sophocles’ use of the Chorus, then, is a complex one:
it acts as narrator, and sometimes as a kind of moral compass, but is not
without bias.
18
QUESTIONS:
“The choral odes are what turn Antigone from a good play into a
great play.” Discuss.
• What is the Chorus’ relationship to each of the other characters in
the play?
• How does the Chorus’ attitude towards each character affect the
audience?
•
19
RELATIONSHIP MAP
20
ANTIGONE
• Niece of Creon
• Sister of Ismene
• Fiancée and cousin of
Haemon
• Captured by the Guard
• Niece of Eurydice
• Daughter and half-sister of
Oedipus
• Daughter of Jocasta
• Sister of Polyneices
• Sister of Eteocles
HAEMON
• Fiancé and cousin
Antigone
• Son of Creon
• Cousin of Ismene
• Son of Eurydice
• Cousin and nephew
Oedipus
• Nephew of Jocasta
• Cousin of Polyneices
• Cousin of Eteocles
of
of
EURYDICE
• Aunt of Antigone
• Wife of Creon
• Aunt of Ismene
• Mother of Haemon
• Sister-in-law and aunt of
Oedipus
• Sister-in-law of Jocasta
• Aunt of Polyneices
• Aunt of Eteocles
CREON
• Uncle of Antigone
• Uncle of Ismene
• Father of Haemon
• Husband of Eurydice
• Brother-in-law and uncle of
Oedipus
• Brother of Jocasta
• Uncle of Polyneices
• Uncle of Eteocles
OEDIPUS
• Father and half-brother of
Antigone
• Brother-in-law of Creon
• Father and half-brother of
Ismene
• Uncle of Haemon
• Husband and son of Jocasta
• Father and half-brother of
Polyneices
• Father and half-brother of
Oedipus
ISMENE
• Sister of Antigone
• Niece of Creon
• Cousin of Haemon
• Niece of Eurydice
• Daughter and half-sister of
Oedipus
• Daughter of Jocasta
• Sister of Polyneices
• Sister of Eteocles
21
JOCASTA
• Mother of Antigone
• Sister of Creon
• Mother of Ismene
• Uncle of Haemon
• Mother and wife of Oedipus
• Mother of Polyneices
• Mother of Eteocles
• Son of Oedipus
• Son of Jocasta
• Brother of Polyneices
TEIRESIAS
• Prophet to Creon
• Prophet to Oedipus
• Prophet to Jocasta
GUARD
• Captures Antigone
• Serves Creon
POLYNEICES
• Brother of Antigone
• Nephew of Creon
• Brother of Ismene
• Cousin of Haemon
• Son of Oedipus
• Son of Jocasta
• Brother of Eteocles
MESSENGER
• Goes to bury Polyneices
with Creon
• Buries Polyneices
• Conveys news of Haemon’s
death to Eurydice
ETEOCLES
• Brother of Antigone
• Nephew of Creon
• Brother of Ismene
• Cousin of Haemon
CHORUS
• Old men of Thebes who
serve Creon
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PLOT SUMMARY
Polyneices and Eteocles, brothers and leaders of opposing sides in the
Theban Civil War, are both dead, each at the other’s hand. In the wake of
their deaths their uncle Creon has taken the throne, and decreed that,
while Eteocles has been granted customary burial rites, Polyneices is to be
left unburied as food for the birds. Moreover, he has announced that
anyone who defies this proclamation will be stoned to death.
The play begins as Antigone and Ismene, sisters of the dead brothers,
discuss Creon’s decree outside the city gates. Antigone is furious and
informs her sister that she has decided to defy her uncle and king by
burying Polyneices. She asks for her sister’s help, but Ismene is afraid, and
refuses to break the laws of the city. Ismene attempts to convince Antigone
to change her mind by reminding her of their family history. They are the
daughters of Oedipus, who fulfilled a prophecy made at his birth that led
to him unwittingly killing his father and marrying his own mother. Upon
learning this, Oedipus blinded himself and died in exile, and Jocasta, his
wife and mother, hanged herself. Ismene does not want her and Antigone
to become part of this cycle of violence, but Antigone is resolute.
We meet the Chorus, a group of elderly Theban men, who tell of the battle
that has just been fought, with a clear bias in favour of Eteocles. They are
delighted that Thebes has fought off Polyneices’ invading force, and vow
to dance in victory, before welcoming their new leader, Creon.
Creon makes a speech laying out his claim to the throne and explaining
that he has gathered the Chorus of old men together as they were loyal to
previous kings. He describes his approach to leadership as firm, placing a
great deal of importance on loyalty, before he makes his decree about
Polyneices and Eteocles, requesting that the Chorus display no sympathy
for lawbreakers.
A guard arrives with a message that he is reluctant to convey. Creon
becomes impatient, and the guard reveals that somebody has scattered
earth over Polyneices’ body, and performed burial rites, without the guards
noticing. The Chorus wonder whether it might be the doing of the gods,
and Creon explodes with rage, claiming that it is impossible that the gods
would honour a traitor, and insisting that the guards must have taken a
23
bribe to allow someone past them. Creon threatens the guard with death
if he does not uncover the perpetrator of the crime, and they both leave.
The second chorus is the ‘Ode to Man’, which lists the various
accomplishments of humankind, particularly in terms of the way in which
humanity has asserted its will over nature: taming the seas, tilling the soil,
capturing the animals. The Chorus ends by praising the laws of the city and
cursing any man who “consorts with evil for the sake of greed and
ambition”. It then notices the guard returning with Antigone in tow, as
Creon also re-enters.
The guard tells Creon that he and the other guards caught Antigone
burying the body, and Creon is disbelieving. The guard tells of how he and
his colleagues swept the earth away from the body after it had been buried
the first time, only to hear a shriek, after which they found Antigone
covering the body with earth again and pouring a sacred offering of milk,
honey and water. Antigone confesses that the guard’s story is true, and
she and Creon proceed to argue over whether or not she was right to defy
him and give Polyneices proper burial rites.
Antigone advances the idea that no kingly edict can override the unwritten
rule of the gods, by which she believes Polyneices deserves the same
treatment in death as Eteocles. Creon does not believe that traitors and
heroes have the same rights and, moreover, resents being contradicted so
aggressively by a woman. Ismene enters and attempts to convince Creon
that she was also involved in the burial of Polyneices, but Antigone will not
let her sister sacrifice herself, and tells Creon that it was she alone who
committed the crime. Ismene pleads for Antigone’s life by asking Creon
whether he will really kill his son’s future bride, as Antigone engaged to
her cousin, Haemon. Creon replies that it is better that his son not be
married at all than to a traitor, and sentences Antigone to death, at which
point she and Ismene are led away.
The third chorus notes how sorrow is passed down through generations; a
reference to the fact that Antigone’s impending death is just the latest in
the long chain of unhappy events that have befallen the House of Oedipus.
They say that this is because mortals lack the power that the gods have,
and so their happiness is only ever fragile and easily broken. As the chorus
ends, Haemon arrives and pledges his allegiance to his father, even
24
though Creon has sentenced his son’s fiancée to death. Creon sermonises
on the importance of taking a good wife and explains that if he is to be a
good ruler he must be as harsh on his own family as he would be on a
common citizen.
Haemon warns his father that there is some public sympathy for Antigone,
and proverbially advises him that while stubbornness can lead to downfall,
it is the bending tree that can weather even the gravest storm. Creon
assumes that his son is patronising him and becomes angrily convinced
that Haemon’s mind has been poisoned by Antigone, failing to see that he
is merely trying to help him. Eventually, Haemon leaves, saying that he will
never see his father again.
The Chorus asks Creon how he intends to kill Antigone, and he says that
he will seal her up in a tomb with a small amount of food and drink, away
from Thebes, so that the city is not polluted with her death. Creon then
leaves, and the fourth chorus comments on the power of love and passion,
noting that it makes men mad and claiming that in battle, passion always
wins. As the chorus ends, Antigone is led back on with a guarded escort
as she walks to her death. As she laments her passing, the Chorus tells her
that she has added to the crimes of the house of Oedipus, for while they
respect her reverence for her brother, she made a conscious choice to
defy Creon’s legitimate edict.
Creon re-enters and orders that Antigone be taken away to her tomb.
Antigone makes a final speech in which she restates her case for burying
Polyneices one last time, concluding that she “honoured what should be
honoured ”, before being led away. The fifth chorus then lists other Greek
figures such as Danae and the son of Dryas, who were also imprisoned in
much the same way as Antigone is to be, elevating Antigone to an almost
mythic status.
At this point, the blind prophet, Teiresias, enters, saying that he has come
to offer advice which must be obeyed. Creon agrees, as Teiresias’ advice
has always served him well before, but his mood changes when it becomes
apparent that the prophet has come to warn him that his decision not to
allow Polyneices’ burial was a mistake. Teiresias says that egotistical
stubbornness is a mistake, but Creon will not listen and claims that all
prophets are merely driven by greed. In response, the prophet warns that
25
Creon’s sentencing of Antigone will be avenged with the death of one of
his own children, as the king has upset the gods. Before Creon can give a
response, the old man leaves.
A fearful Creon turns to the Chorus for advice about what to do, and they
tell him to release Antigone and build a proper tomb for the body of
Polyneices. He departs to do so, and the fifth chorus – as was customary
– offers a paean to Bacchus, god of theatre, dance and wine.
A messenger enters and tells the Chorus that, though Creon may have
once been a man of enviable happiness and position, he is now reduced
to nothing, as his son Haemon has killed himself. Creon’s wife, Eurydice,
enters, and the messenger tells her that as he and Creon were burying the
body, they heard a cry from the direction of Antigone’s tomb, and found
Haemon there with the corpse of his fiancée, who had hanged herself
inside the tomb. The messenger goes on to describe how, after Haemon
first attempted to stab his father, he then turned his sword on himself and
died.
Upon hearing this news, Eurydice leaves without saying a word, and the
messenger follows her, concerned. Creon then returns bearing the corpse
of his son, before the messenger re-enters to inform Creon and the Chorus
that Eurydice, too, has killed herself, having accused Creon of being
responsible for both her own and Haemon’s deaths in the moments before
she stabbed herself; an identical suicide to her son’s.
Creon accepts responsibility and despairs in his grief, as the Chorus
delivers its final message: that true happiness must come from good sense,
and that pride such as that which Creon exhibited is always punished by
the gods.
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THEMES
INDIVIDUAL VS. STATE / CONSCIENCE VS. LAW
I didn’t think that any edict issued by you had the power to override
the unwritten and unfailing law of the gods.
(Antigone)
In 2013, former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaked classified
information from the United States National Security Agency to three
journalists. The information concerned a series of highly secret global
surveillance programmes being run by the US government, who
responded to Snowden’s leaks by issuing a warrant for his arrest on
charges of theft and espionage. Snowden fled the country and is now living
in Russia.
In the years since the leak, Snowden has been hailed as a hero and a
traitor; praised for acting with his conscience and damned for betraying his
government. Ring any bells?
It seems fair to suggest that one of the reasons Antigone has survived more
than two and a half thousand years is surely that the question Sophocles
was asking Ancient Greek audiences is one that is still staggeringly
relevant today: is it ever right to break the law? This is the question at the
heart of the play that fuels the central conflict between Creon and
Antigone. The great virtue of Sophocles’ approach to this question is to
not give us a simple answer; he gives both sides valid arguments.
Crucially, given the religious context in which Antigone would have first
been performed, both Antigone and Creon believe that the gods would
support their courses of action. Antigone’s argument is that she must place
her loyalty to the gods above her loyalty to her uncle, and so she is
compelled to bury Polyneices in the same manner as Eteocles, because,
as she puts it: “The gods require the same laws of burial be observed for
both.”
27
Meanwhile, Creon argues that the question of what to do with Polyneices’
corpse is a human matter entirely divorced from any kind of religious duty:
It is blasphemy to suggest that the gods have any interest in this
corpse.
It is clear from early on that the harshness of Creon’s edict is a political
decision. He is a new king who has only found himself leader because of
war and turmoil, and he is seeking to stamp his authority on the Theban
people. When Creon makes his speech to the Chorus, he is laying out his
intentions for a style of leadership that relies on absolute loyalty to
authority:
“I know our salvation is the ship of state and only those who keep
her on the right course can be called her friends and benefactors.”
But who or what is the “ship of state” in Thebes? In the case of Edward
Snowden, his leaks did not just affect the President of the United States,
but the thousands of people who work in the federal government, as well
as the National Security Agency and the CIA. The “state”, in his case is a
vast organisation made up of a great many people working across a vast
range of component parts.
Not so in Ancient Thebes. Although we talk of the “individual vs. state”
argument as though Antigone is a lone figure outnumbered by a large and
powerful government, the state is really just another individual, albeit a
powerful one. As Ismene puts it: “Creon is the law.”
This throws up some interesting questions: what, other than circumstance,
gives Creon the right to decide how Polyneices should be treated in death?
If he alone is the state, who holds him accountable for his actions and
decisions? Are autocracies (systems of government with one absolute
power) automatically tyrannical and cruel?
Both Antigone and Haemon suggest that the public are in greater
disagreement with Creon than he thinks, because they are too scared to
28
raise their concerns. Indeed, think about how scared the Guard is to tell his
ruler about the burial of Polyneices – Creon is clearly someone to be afraid
of.
If Antigone is a battle between the individual and the state, then it is hard
to say who wins: Antigone dies because of her actions, but Creon suffers
the loss of his wife and son, and Teiresias suggests that the gods are
unhappy with him. Perhaps this means that Antigone was right all along;
but if Creon had not taken a firm stance against Polyneices and his faction
in the civil war, who knows what anarchy might have broken out anyway?
In the end, Sophocles is less interested in who is right and who is wrong
than he is by the idea of what is right and what is wrong; a debate which
can never truly be resolved.
QUESTIONS:
Do you agree with Antigone or with Creon? Go with your gut instinct.
Now write an essay arguing why the character you didn’t choose is
right. Understanding all sides of the argument is important.
• How is language used to constitute authority in Antigone?
• “In Greek tragedies, questions of right and wrong are always
answered by the Chorus.” Discuss in relation to Sophocles’ play.
•
29
GENDER AND FEMININITY
As long as I’m alive, no woman will tell me what to do.
(Creon)
It seems fair to suggest that the outrage at Antigone’s act of rebellion is
intensified by the fact that she is a woman, at a time when military matters
would have been the sole concern of men. At the moment Antigone
decides that she is going to bury Polyneices, she knows that she will likely
die as a result. In doing so, she not only sacrifices her life, but makes a
conscious decision not to follow the path that is set out for her: marriage
to Haemon, and therefore a future as the queen of Thebes.
When Haemon hears of what is to become of Antigone and goes to speak
to Creon, his father makes very clear his views on women, and the
relationship men ought to have with them:
We need to preserve discipline and must never let ourselves be
defeated by a woman. If you must be beaten, be beaten by a man;
don’t ever let yourself be called a woman’s plaything, my son.
On the basis of this statement, one might argue that Creon’s sentencing of
Antigone is less an act of justice than of misogyny. Even if we believe that
Creon really does believe that he is acting in the best interest of the state
when he condemns Antigone to death, it seems fair to say that his anger is
certainly intensified by the fact that the burial of Polyneices has been
undertaken by a woman who he will not allow to “defeat” him. These are
the patriarchal rules that Antigone refuses to obey.
By way of contrast, Sophocles gives us Ismene. Although she agrees with
Antigone in many respects, she does not see any way in which she can act
on her grievances. Rejecting her sister’s invitation to help her in the burial
of their brother, she attempts to convince Antigone that they must conform
to society’s expectations of women even if they do not agree with them:
30
We are helpless women, Antigone… I shall obey those who stand in
authority, but I shall beg those under the earth to understand I’m
being forced to do this against my will.
Finally, we have Eurydice, who is so shocked by Haemon’s death that she
is struck dumb. Her subsequent suicide is a direct consequence of male
brutality: her husband’s in condemning Antigone to death, and her son’s in
killing himself. She is not a martyr like Antigone, nor does she silently
struggle on like Ismene. Instead she is so consumed with grief that she
would rather die than carry on.
In these three women – one who is killed, one who kills herself, and one
who lives to continue a life of oppression – Sophocles gives us a scathing
critique of the treatment of women in Ancient Greek society. The irony of
course is that in its original context, the play would have been performed
entirely by men, to an audience comprised solely of men; Sophocles was
attacking the system from within an institution similarly tainted by
inequality.
While it would not necessarily be accurate to describe the play as
“feminist” so far as the term refers to a set of theoretical and ideological
beliefs that emerged in the 20th century, we can certainly think of it as a
“proto-feminist” work in that it anticipates and foreshadows those later
concerns.
QUESTIONS:
How differently are women treated today from how they were
treated in Ancient Greece? In what ways might Sophocles’ critique of
the treatment of women resonate with contemporary audiences?
How might the answers to these questions differ across modern
societies?
• “Ismene is no better than Creon; if we are to criticise his actions then
we must criticise her inaction.” Discuss.
• How does the Chorus speak about women, and femininity? What
might this tell us?
•
31
FATE AND FREE WILL
Once their house falls from grace / They are cursed, generation after
generation.
(Chorus)
Antigone is punished for a single, wilfully rebellious action; at first glance
her decision to bury Polyneices seems like a decision entirely of free will,
flying in the face of the advice of Ismene or the rule of law as set out by
Creon. Later in the play, however, there is an implication that, far from
being unpredictable, Antigone’s decision, and the death sentence she
receives for it, makes sense within the context of her ancestral legacy:
Your crime adds to the crimes of the house of Oedipus.
It seems to be the Chorus’ suggestion that Antigone was fated for tragedy;
that she has inherited the curse placed on her father. With this in mind, it is
difficult to know whether to read Antigone as a wilful individual acting in
accordance with her own principles and being punished because of them,
or as simply a piece in a much larger jigsaw being pieced together by the
gods. If you were to watch the Theban Plays in order, perhaps you would
interpret the story of Antigone differently from how you’d interpret it with
no knowledge of the fate suffered by Oedipus and Jocasta.
Although there are several mentions of the power of the gods over
humans, culminating in the Chorus’ final warning that we should “never
show disrespect to the gods”, it is also important to consider the second
choral ode, in which the Chorus pays tribute to human achievement:
There are many wonders in the world / But nothing more amazing
than man!
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Here, and in the ode which follows, the Chorus seem to be suggesting that
mankind is more than capable of being the masters of their own lives and,
by extension, of their own miseries. Sophocles refuses to write a play
categorically stating either that all human actions are the will of the gods,
or that the gods do not exert any influence over our lives. Instead, the play
operates as a kind of puzzle: who can we blame for what? Can we trust
Teiresias when he tells Creon that the gods are unhappy, or is his
prediction of the death of Haemon coincidental? This is a play where
nothing is simple, because Sophocles wants us to grapple with these
questions.
QUESTIONS:
How does the changing role of religion in our society change the
way we might interpret Sophocles’ play?
• Imagine you are directing a production of Antigone. What choices
would you make if you have decided that the events of the play occur
at the will of the gods? How would these be different if you decide
that it is the characters’ choices that influence what happens to
them?
• In Anoulih’s Antigone, the chorus proclaims at the opening: “in short,
when your name is Antigone, there is only one part you can play, and
she must play hers through to the end.”
• “Every character in Antigone fulfils their fate. The play is over from
the beginning.” Discuss.
•
33
LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE AND AUTHORITY
Much of the action of Antigone revolves around conversations in which
characters are battling for authority; they attempt to persuade one another,
to convince one another that they are in the right, and to suggest that they
have moral or political authority. It is interesting to analyse the ways in
which different characters do this, and to think about what this tells us
about them.
Creon, for example, starts the play with the advantage of having the most
actual power, in that he is the king. He doesn’t exactly wear this authority
lightly:
Now that they are dead, I hold all the power since I am their closest
relative.
I decree that he shall have no funeral and no mourning… Such is my
decision.
People in the city who find me difficult have been muttering privately
against me, reluctant to keep their necks under the yoke, as they
should if they felt any loyalty to me.
You will notice that Creon does not tend to precede his sentences with “I
think” – he speaks in statements of fact. Even to his own son, his advice
about how to lead and how to deal with women is a series of instructions
more than it is a conversation. He constitutes his power with certainty,
stubbornness, and a blatant conviction that others ought to serve him.
By contrast, take a look at the scene in which Teiresias speaks to the king.
The prophet’s language is rich with poetry and descriptive language; he
wears his authority more lightly as it is heaven-sent. One gets the feeling
that Creon would never expend this many words on describing a sacrificial
ritual:
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A stinking slime from the thigh bones dripped down on the ashes
and it smoked and sputtered, and gall from the livers spurted up into
the air; the dripping thigh bones lay bare their covering of fat.
Sophocles is clearly conscious of the irony that Teiresias is a blind prophet
and underscores this irony by giving him highly visual language. As a result,
it is easier to be convinced that he truly does have the power of prophecy
– which is of course the subject of his argument with Creon. Authority in
this play is not simply about power, but about being right, and what “right”
really means.
Every character in the play uses language to state their case in a different
way and identifying why each of them speaks in the way they do is a great
way of understanding how Sophocles’ mind works as a writer.
QUESTIONS:
• How does Sophocles use religious language and imagery in the
play? What effect does this have?
• “Sophocles is not just a master of the language of the powerful, but
also the language of the oppressed.” Discuss.
THE CHORAL ODES
You will notice that the moments in Antigone that employ the most
heightened language are the choral odes as delivered by the Chorus;
tonally they strike a very different chord from the dialogue between
characters elsewhere in the play. The language works in the same way as
song lyrics, which often do not sound like everyday speech – in Ancient
Greece these odes would have been sung and accompanied by dancing.
While some contemporary productions of Greek tragedies retain the
singing of choral odes, many do not, but still mark them as moments of
poetry more akin to speeches in Shakespeare. By making the language
heightened, Sophocles is able to explore grand themes which might not
be done justice by the prosaic language of standard speech. Consider for
example, this extract from the famous ‘Ode to Man’:
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There are many wonders in the world,
But nothing more amazing than man!
He crosses the white-capped sea in winter’s storms,
Cuts through the surge as it booms about him;
He harasses the almighty immortal unwearying Earth,
Turning his plough back and forth year after year,
Turning up the soil with the help of mules.
It would be difficult to evoke the sense of wonderment which Sophocles is
aiming for here if the passage simply said that man “crosses the sea, cuts
through waves and ploughs the earth”.
The other choral odes consider similarly grand themes: the power of
passion, the horrors of the house of Oedipus, the other mythological
figures to whom Antigone is connected. Sophocles uses the Chorus as his
way of writing the events of the play into a larger overarching narrative;
they elevate the action of the play from the everyday to the timeless by
connecting them to age-old themes.
QUESTIONS:
In each choral ode, identify some of the linguistic and poetic devices
that Sophocles has used, and consider why this might be.
• Think about where the choral odes come in the play. What is the
significance of their position in the structure of the play? How might
the change in linguistic tone at these moments affect the audience?
• Split into pairs. Both write a paragraph in standard English about how
much you love something: your favourite TV show, a sports team you
support, your family. Now swap paragraphs and turn one another’s
work into an “ode” in the style of the Chorus in Antigone. What feels
different? How is the sentiment of the writing changed by the
different language styles?
•
36
CONTEXT
GREEK THEATRE
Hail lord of the dance of the fire-breathing stars / Priest of night
voices, son of Zeus.
(Chorus)
It is useful, when thinking about Antigone, to consider the audience
Sophocles was writing for, and the role of theatre in Ancient Greek society.
The relationship we have with the theatre today is very different from the
relationship audiences would have had with theatre when the play was first
performed in either 433 or 431BC.
Firstly, all theatre in Ancient Greece was performed in the context of a
religious festival. Today we go to the theatre for entertainment, or
intellectual stimulation, but Greek audiences watching Antigone would
have been doing so as an act of worship to the god, Dionysus. Dionysus is
the god of theatre, music, dance, wine and madness, and the annual
Athenian theatrical festival at which playwrights competed against one
another was named for him: the Dionysia.
You will recognise the name, Dionysus, from Antigone, and from many
other Greek plays, including most famously The Bacchae, in which he
appears as a character under his other name, Bacchus. The frequency with
which these plays reference and pay tribute to Dionysus is a testament to
the importance of religion in the Ancient Greek way of life, and to the
theatrical customs of the time.
As central as religion was to theatre, theatre was to society: every adult
male citizen went. The audience for just one performance probably
contained as many as 15,000 people. Today, there are regular arguments
in the press about whether or not theatre is too expensive for everybody
to afford to go; when Antigone was first performed, attending would have
been a religious duty.
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Although we do not have any dramatic texts from the sixth century BC, it
seems likely that the Dionysia was first held in or around 508BC. At first,
only tragedies would have been performed, until comedy emerged as a
genre in 490BC. The two genres were kept rigidly distinct, and any works
dealing with the mythological subject matter of tragedies in a comedic
manner were known as satyr plays. Typically, a day at the Dionysia would
be made up of a trilogy of tragedies and a satyr play, all by the same
playwright, followed by a comedy from a different writer.
The theatre also differed in terms of the manner of its presentation. All
actors would have been male and masked, performing multiple roles, both
male and female. Evidence suggests that Sophocles increased the number
of actors on stage (other than the Chorus) from two to three, allowing the
plot to be advanced by the characters rather than by choral interjections.
Meanwhile, the Chorus would have been made up of 15 men, who would
remain ever-present after their first entrance, and dance as they sang their
choruses.
38
Consider this image of an Ancient Greek theatre, thinking about the ways
in which – thousands of years before complicated technical aspects were
introduced to the theatre – a performance was mounted. Both in terms of
purpose and practicalities, the Greek theatre at the time Sophocles was
writing would have been a very different place.
QUESTIONS:
Find three references in the play either to Dionysus, or other Greek
gods. How does the meaning of these references change now that
you know the cultural context in which the play was written?
• “Antigone is a play about all of society, and for all of society.” Discuss.
• If you had to choose a play for everyone in the country today to go
and see, which play would you choose? Why?
• Antigone would have first been performed with three actors. Can you
work out how the roles would have been divided based on which
characters appear onstage together? How might actors playing
multiple roles have informed audiences’ experience of the play?
•
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THE THEBAN PLAYS
O Theban city, land of my ancestors / Gods of my forefathers…
(Antigone)
Antigone contains many references to Oedipus and his family. Sophocles
was clearly interested in these characters, as over the course of his career
he wrote three plays, now known as the Theban Plays, which concern the
fate of the city during and after the reign of King Oedipus.
It is worth noting that these three plays – Oedipus the King, Oedipus at
Colonus and Antigone – were not originally presented at the Dionysia as a
trilogy and were probably not intended to be thought of as a series. It is
interesting, however, that of the 120 or so plays written by Sophocles, three
of the seven that remain essentially tell one long, generational story.
Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus were actually written after
Antigone, but as they precede the play chronologically, it is useful to be
familiar with what happens in them.
Oedipus the King concerns Oedipus while he is king of Thebes, as he
discovers the details of his past to disastrous effect. It transpires that when
he was a child, his parents, Laius and Jocasta, plotted to kill him in order to
thwart a prophecy that claimed he would grow up to kill his father and
marry his mother. They ordered a servant to kill Oedipus, but instead the
servant entrusted the baby to a childless couple who adopted him without
knowing that he was the son of the king and queen.
As a young man, Oedipus learns of the prophecy, though he does not
know he was adopted. In a fight at a crossroads, he kills an old man who is
in fact his father, Laius, though he does not know this at the time. From
here he goes to Thebes, where he becomes king after solving the riddle
of the Sphinx, and marrying the widowed queen, who is, of course, actually
his mother, Jocasta.
When the truth comes out in the play, Jocasta commits suicide, and
Oedipus plunges pins into his eyes and blinds himself, before exiling
40
himself from Thebes. He asks Creon to become king, and to look after his
children, who will always carry the shame of their father’s actions.
The events of Oedipus at Colonus are less important. The play concerns
Oedipus’ death in the town of Colonus, and the beginning of the conflict
between Polyneices and Eteocles which leads to both of their deaths, and
therefore provides the impetus for the events of Antigone to unfold.
QUESTIONS:
Greek audiences would have known the story of Oedipus before
seeing Antigone. What effect might this knowledge have had on their
experience of the play?
• Find some of the references the Chorus make to Oedipus. What is
their purpose?
• Are they effective?
•
41
ANTIGONE THROUGH TIME
“For me, this play is totally contemporary because it is beyond time.”
– Juliette Binoche, 2015
At the centre of Antigone is a story about a rebel who refuses to act in
accordance with the law of the state because that law contradicts what she
knows in her heart to be right. It is no surprise, then, that the performance
history of Sophocles’ play is also in many ways a history of revolution and
of protest – of theatre providing a space to challenge oppression when
other forms of media and culture are being censored. It is worth, then,
briefly examining some of the contexts in which productions of Antigone
have resonated, in order to think about whether and how the play
continues to be relevant today.
In 1941, while much of France was under occupation by the Nazis, a young
man called Paul Collette attempted to assassinate politician Pierre Laval.
Laval was attending a meeting of a military organisation called the Legion
of French Volunteers against Bolshevism, a group operating in
collaboration with the Nazi regime. Collette himself did not belong to any
organised political group or resistance movement – he acted alone, and
surely knowing that he would be captured and executed.
It was an act that inspired the French playwright Jean Anouilh to write an
adaptation of Antigone, dealing, as it does, with a similar act of hopeless if
inspirational resistance. When the play was completed in 1942, it was
censored by the Nazis, who could see that it was a thinly veiled attack on
their occupation of France. Eventually, the play premiered in Paris in 1942,
a few months before the liberation of Paris. Anouilh’s adaptation is now
considered a classic work of modern French theatre.
Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona’s 1973 play, The Island, uses
the story of Antigone to draw parallels with the situation of black political
prisoners in apartheid-era South Africa. In the play we see two prisoners,
John and Winston, in a prison clearly based on Robben Island, the
infamous institution where Nelson Mandela was held captive for 18 years.
The play follows the two inmates as they rehearse a condensed, two-man
42
version of Antigone which focuses on the argument between Antigone and
Creon.
In the final scene of the play, the pair performs the scene as part of a
concert put on by prisoners. After Creon (played by John) sentences
Antigone (played by Winston) to be trapped in a cave and left to die,
Winston tears off the wig he has been wearing and shouts:
“Gods of our Father! My Land! My Home! Time waits no longer. I go
now to my living death, because I honoured those things to which
honour belongs.”
There have been countless other uses of Antigone by writers and directors
in response to political situations that resonate with those in the play.
Perhaps this is why it is so often spoken of as a “timeless” work of art.
QUESTIONS:
• Imagine you are staging a production of Antigone now. How might it
respond to current events?
• Where and how would you stage the play to emphasise this?
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PLAYWRIGHT
Given that Sophocles was born over two and a half thousand years ago,
we cannot hope to know many details about his life; even those we do
have are partial and imperfect. But scholars have been able to piece
together some information from two key sources: a tenth-century Greek
dictionary, and a manuscript found in the 13th century, entitled Sophocles:
His Life and Works.
Although the exact year is unclear, it seems likely that Sophocles was born
in either 497 or 496BC, in the small rural community of Hippeois Colonus.
This village was in the ancient Greek region of Atticus, which encompassed
the city of Athens and the surrounding area; it would go on to become a
location in one of Sophocles’ final plays, Oedipus at Colonus.
Sophocles’ father, Sophilus, was an armour manufacturer. The family were
wealthy, and Sophocles was highly educated. At the time, an education of
this standard would be intended to prepare pupils for a life of wide-ranging
civic duty encompassing politics, culture and the military. This meant
rigorous physical training alongside schooling subjects such as natural
sciences and rhetoric, as well as cultural instruction in music, poetry and
dance.
We know that Sophocles began his life of public service young. While still
a teenager, he was chosen to lead a choral chant to the gods (known as a
paean) in celebration of the Greek naval victory at the Battle of Salamis in
480BC, where the Persian fleet were defeated. Ten years later, he
presented his first production as a dramatist. Unfortunately, that first play,
like so many other works of Greek drama, is now lost.
In 468BC, Sophocles had his first real dramatic success, winning first prize
for Tragedy at the Dionysia; a cultural festival in ancient Athens at which
writers of both comic and tragic plays presented their work in annual
competition. Sophocles probably won with a lost play called Triptolemus,
and in doing so knocked the legendary tragedian, Aeschylus – very
possibly one of Sophocles’ tutors – into second place. Over the course of
his exceptionally long career, Sophocles would go on to win first prize a
further 17 times; more than either Aeschylus or the other great tragedian,
Euripides.
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Alongside his career as a dramatist, Sophocles also served in political and
military positions, as a diplomat, general and priest. In 443BC, he acted as
Hellenotamias – a treasurer – in the league formed after peace was made
with Persia. The role would have involved collecting taxes from states
under Athenian control, and so served both a pragmatic and symbolic
function; his was the face associated with the power of Athens, and the
taxes he collected were used to make his city still more powerful.
There are some specific instances in Sophocles’ public life which historians
and cultural commentators have suggested may have directly informed his
writing. In 441BC, for example, Sophocles served as a general in the siege
of Samos, where the Samian people were revolting against Athenian
control. Some suggest that Antigone was written before the revolt, and that
the play’s portrayal of Creon as the sober voice of the state may have
earned Sophocles his place in the conflict. Others argue that the play was
written afterwards, as an expression of disgust and disagreement with the
treatment of enemies’ corpses. Thousands of years later, it is doubtful that
we will ever be able to set arguments such as these straight – what they
do tell us is that Sophocles’ was a life where his civic and dramatic
endeavours almost certainly informed one another.
The details of his later life are particularly sketchy. The poet Phyrnicus
wrote a eulogy which claimed that:
“Sophocles lived to a ripe old age, and he was happy and clever…
after writing many excellent tragedies, he died well without suffering
from any serious misfortune.”
Other accounts, however, suggest that in his final years he was taken to
court by his sons on a claim of incompetence; a claim which it is said he
refuted by reciting from one of his own plays. The reports around his death
in either 406 or 405BC vary wildly. The most famous apocryphal story is
that he died attempting to recite a long sentence from Antigone without
drawing breath; another suggests that he died of sheer happiness upon
claiming his final victory at the Dionysia.
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It is a matter of great sadness and frustration that we have so little to
remember the great writer by. Over the course of his 90 years, he wrote
around 120 plays, but although we know the names of many of them and
the dating of several, only seven have survived in their entirety: Ajax,
Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes
and Oedipus at Colonus. Small as this remaining body of work is, the
impact it has had on the development of western drama over the past two
and a half thousand years is incalculable. His works are still performed
regularly today.
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GLOSSARY
GREEK PEOPLE, PLACES AND THINGS
ACHERON
Greek river supposed to lead to the Underworld (also known as Styx,
Phlegethon and Lethe). The dead cross the river with its ferryman, Charon,
in order to reach Hades.
ACRISIUS
Father of Danae, whom he locks in a tower upon hearing a prophecy that
her son would kill him. After she is impregnated while imprisoned (see
Danae) he finds her and the child in the tower and casts them to sea in a
chest, but Zeus saves them. He is later, as the prophecy had warned,
accidentally killed by his grandson, Perseus.
AIAI
An expression of lamentation; similar to oimoi.
AMPHION
An early Theban king, and the husband of Niobe.
APHRODITE
Goddess of love and beauty; daughter of Zeus.
ARES
God of war and son of Zeus. Often associated with Thrace and the warlike
Thracian people.
ARGOS
A region in the northeastern Peloponnesus; birthplace of the hero Perseus.
BACCHANT
Worshippers of Bacchus. Wild creatures, possessed by the god and
roaming the mountains of Greece.
BACCHUS/DIONYSUS
God of wine, theatre, dance, fertility, music and madness. Son of Zeus and
Semele.
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BOREAS
God of the north wind, who lived in Thrace.
BOSPORUS
A body of water connecting the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea.
CADMUS
The first great Greek warrior, and the founder of Thebes. Slew a dragon
and planted the creature’s teeth in the ground, from whence sprung the
fierce Theban people.
CASTALIAN SPRING
A stream near Delphi where worshippers travelling to the temple of Apollo
would purify themselves.
CORYCIAN CAVE
A cave on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, above Delphi, where Dionysus
and Apollo are both worshipped.
DANAE
Daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos. She is told that she would bear a child
who would kill her father, so he locks her in a tower. Zeus comes to the
tower as a shower of gold and has sex with her, and she gives birth to
Perseus.
DEMETER
Goddess of the earth, and of fertility. She is worshipped at Eleusis.
DIRCE
A river near Thebes, named for the wife of Lycus, King of Thebes.
ERECHTHEUS
A mythical king of Athens, who has one of his daughters, Orithyia, stolen
by Boreas.
HADES
The name both of the god of the Underworld, and of the Underworld itself.
HEPHAESTUS
God of fire and carpenter of the gods, married to Aphrodite.
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IACCHUS
Nickname for the young Dionysus.
LABDACIDS
Descendants of Labdacus, a king of Thebes who was the grandson of
Thebes’ founder, Cadmus, and father to Laius. Therefore, used to refer to
Labdacus’ grandson Oedipus, and great-grandchildren, Antigone and her
siblings.
LAIUS
Former king of Thebes. First husband of Jocasta, and brother-in-law of
Creon. Father of Oedipus, and therefore grandfather of Antigone and her
siblings.
LYCURGUS
Son of Dryas and king of the Edonians, in Thrace. He opposed Bacchic
rites and was punished; some suggest that he was torn apart, others that
he was blinded, forced to kill his son, or, as Sophocles posits in Antigone,
simply imprisoned.
NIOBE
Wife of an early king of Thebes. Boastfully compared her 14 children to the
children of Leda; Apollo, god of archery and music, and Artemis, goddess
of the hunt. To punish her, Apollo and Artemis killed all of her children, and
the gods then turned Niobe into a cliff-face. She still grieves, and streams
flow endlessly from the cliff.
NYSA
A mountainous region where the god Dionysus was raised as an infant by
rain nymphs.
OEDIPUS
Father of Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles and Polyneices. Son of Laius and
Jocasta. Later also husband of Jocasta.
OIMOI
An expression of lamentation; similar to aiai.
OLYMPUS
The highest mountain in Greece, and legendary home of the gods.
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PARNASSUS
A mountain, west of Thebes; the site of Apollo’s sanctuary at Delphi. Also
associated with the worship of Dionysus.
PHINEUS
King of Salmydessus. He is blinded as a punishment (sources offer various
descriptions of the nature of his wrongdoing) and tormented by harpies.
He is central to various legends, but none survive to explain why it is that
the Chorus invoke his memory when comparing Antigone’s imprisonment
to other Greek figures.
SEMELE
Daughter of Cadmus, who was killed when she asked Zeus to appear to
her in divine form and he did so in the form of a thunderbolt. Mother of
Bacchus.
SIPYLUS
The mountain in Phyrgia where Niobe was turned into a stone cliff-face.
THEBES
City in ancient Greece, famed for its enormous, seven-gated walls.
THRACIAN
Of or relating to Thrace, a northern territory which occupied land now
comprised of northern Greece, as well as parts of Turkey and Bulgaria.
THYIADS
Female worshippers of Dionysus, infamous for their wild, ecstatic dances.
ZEUS
King of all gods and men, and the god of thunder and lightning.
OTHER PHRASES
ANARCHY
A state of disorder brought about by the absence, or ignorance of, forms
of authority.
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BLASPHEMY
The action or offence of talking disrespectfully/irreligiously about God or
sacred things.
CONTRIVANCE
The artificial creation of something by means of skill and tactics.
DECREE
An official order that has the force of law; also known as a “proclamation”
or “edict”.
EGOTISTICAL
Excessively conceited and self-absorbed.
FILIAL PIETY
Respect for one’s parents and ancestors. From “filial”, meaning “of or
concerning the relation of a child to a parent”, and “piety”, meaning “the
quality of being reverent and respectful”.
FURROW
A long, narrow trench made in the ground by a plough, for irrigation, or
planting seeds.
PATRIOT
A person who loves and supports their country and is prepared to defend
it.
PREROGATIVE
A right or privilege exclusive to a certain individual, group or social class.
TRANSGRESSION
An act or offence that goes against a law, rule or code of conduct.
YOKE
Used in Antigone to refer to the wooden contraption which attaches two
animals to one another, and to the cart or plough which they are to pull.
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