NAME:
PERIOD:
ANTIGONE QUOTE HUNT #1
This quote sheet is to help you prepare for the test. For each quote you will need to find the place in the text
where it is spoken and correctly cite it, identify the speaker, and answer the question about the quotation.
Points will be awarded as follows: 1 point for the correct citation, 1 point for identifying the speaker, and 2 points
for correctly answer the question.
PROLOGUE – PARADOS
1. “You would think that we had already suffered enough / for the curse on Oedipus. / I cannot imagine any
grief/ that you and I have not gone through…” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why has the speaker suffered because of Oedipus?
2. “And now you can prove what you are: / A true sister or a traitor to your family” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why does the speaker use these loaded words? What is their intended effect?
).
3. “Creon is not strong enough to stand in my way” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does this quote reveal about the speaker’s personality?
4.
“We are only women,/ We cannot fight with men” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) How does the speaker believe she is suppose to behave?
5. “You may do are you like, / Since apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing to you” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What tone does the speaker use AND what is the tone’s intended effect?
).
6. “You have made your choice, you can be what you want/ to be. / But I will bury him; and if I must die, / I say
that this crime is holy” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What is the speaker’s motivation in making this decision?
7. “Oh tell it! Tell everyone! / Think how they’ll hate you when it all comes out / If they learn that you knew about
it all the time!” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why does the speaker encourage her to tell everyone?
8. “For God hates utterly / the bray of bragging tongues” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What is the message of this quote?
).
SCENE 1 – ODE 1
9. “Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform you that our Ship of State, which recent storms have threatened to
destroy, has come safely to harbor at last...” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What literary term is being used in this quote AND what are the ship and storms literally?
10. “Eteocles, who died as a man should die fighting for his country, is to be buried with full military honors, with
all the ceremony that is usual when the greatest heroes die” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) How does the speaker convey that Eteocles’ actions were justified?
11. “but his brother Polyneices, who broke his exile to come back with fire and sword against his native city and
the shrines of his fathers’ gods, whose one idea was to spill the blood of his blood and sell his own people
into slavery – Polyneices, I say, is to have no burial” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) How does the speaker convey that Polyneices’ actions were not justified?
12. “No, from the very beginning / There have been those who have whispered together, / stiff-necked anarchists,
putting their heads together, / scheming against me in alleys…” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does quote reveal about the speaker?
13. “Look: / the body, just mounded over with light dust: you see? Not buried really, but as if they’d covered it /
Just enough for the ghost’s peace” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does the speaker think might be the motivation for the body’s partial burial?
14. “I have been wondering, King: can it be that the gods have done this?” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why does the speaker suggest that the gods may have done this?
).
15. “I swear by God and by the throne of God, / The man who has done this thing shall pay for it! / Find that
man, bring him to me...” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What is ironic about the words of this quote?
16. “Are you sure that it is my voice, and not your/ conscience?” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What is the speaker suggesting is Creon’s real reason for being upset?
17. “How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does the speaker mean by this statement?
).
18. “…from every wind / He has made himself secure – from all but one: / In the late wind of death he cannot
stand (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) According to the speaker, what is the one thing that man cannot control or escape?
SCENE 2 – ODE 2
19. “We ran and took her at once. She was not afraid, / Not even when we charged her with what she had done./
She denied nothing” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does the speaker reveal about Antigone’s behavior when caught?
20. “Your edict, King, was strong, / but all your strength is weakness itself against the immortal unrecorded laws
of God” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why does the speaker feel that Creon’s law is weak?
21. “This death of mine / is of no importance; but if I had left my brother / Lying in death unburied, I should have
suffered” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What does this quote reveal about the speaker’s motivation?
22. “Who is the man here, / She or I, if this crime goes unpunished” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why is the speaker concerned with proving he is the man in this situation?
23. “Snake in my ordered house, sucking my blood / stealthily – and all the time I never knew / That these two
sisters were aiming at my throne!” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What connotation (suggestion) is made by the speaker in comparing the sisters to snakes?
24. “You shall not lessen my death by sharing it” (
).
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) Why does the speaker feel her death will be lessened if shared?
25. “No pride on earth is free of the curse of heaven” (
(a) Who is speaking?:
(b) What is the message of this quote?
).