Week 8: Sophocles, Antigone: being human

Who is Antigones father and brother

Oedipus

Who wrote Antigone?

Sophocles

When and where was it staged for the first time?

First staged in the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, c. 441 BCE. Set in Thebes.

What is a parados?

The song as the chorus enters

What is a stasimon?

Choral song

What is a stichomythia?

Line-for-line dialogue (sometimes distichomythia, two-line)

What is a rhesis?

Extended speech; agon: debate

What is a kommos?

lament; lyric amoibaion: sung exchange (e.g. chorus with Antigone; chorus with Kreon)

How does the play begin?

With a prologue

What happens in the prologue?

Anitgone and ismene have dialogue

What happens in the parados?

entrance of Theban elders, first choral song, ‘Beam of the sun…’ (memories of the Seven Against Thebes) [lyric]

What happens in the first episode?

Kreon and Chorus [dialogue and speech]; Guard and Kreon [dialogue and speech]

What happens in the first stasimon?

‘Ode to Man’ (‘many things are terrible/clever/fearsome, and none more terrible/clever/fearsome than man’, second choral song [lyric]

what happens in the second episode?

Kreon and Guard (with Antigone) [dialogue and speech]; Kreon and Antigone [debate and dialogue]; Ismene, Antigone and Kreon [dialogue]

What happens in the second stasimon?

‘fortunate are they whose lifetime has no taste of troubles’ [lyric]

What happens in the third episode?

Kreon, Haimon and Chorus [dialogue and debate]

What happens in the third stasimon?

‘Eros, unconquered in battle’ [lyric]

What happens in the fourth episode?

Antigone and Chorus [lament sung in exchange]; Kreon, Antigone, Chorus [dialogue]

What happened in the fourth stasimon?

‘Danae too su]ered…’ [lyric]

What happens in the fifth episode?

Teiresias and Kreon [dialogue, debate, speech]; Kreon and Chorus [dialogue]

What happens in the fifth stasimon?

‘You of many names… Bacchus’ [lyric]

What happens in the exodus?

Messenger and Chorus [dialogue and speech], with Eurydice; Chorus, Kreon and Messenger [lament]; Chorus close [anapaests as they leave]

How is everything in tragedy written?

Everything in tragedy is written in metre, its all musical which doesn’t translate very well in english

How many actors performed in ancient tragedies?

Three with a chorus

How many of the episodes in the Antiogone are debates?

Three of the episodes in the antigone are debates, Creon is none of the people in all of these debates

List the themes in the Antigone:

• Power and politics: rule, gender, communities

• Relationships (the ties that bind and divide): sisterhood, families, communities, allegiance

• Right and wrong: justice, ethics

• Death: grief, compassion, humanity

• Conflict and resolution: conviction, pride, humility

• Art, narrative, stories: education, recognition, empathy

• Passion: family, eros, erotic, anger

• Justice, law, different rights and wrongs

Give more details about the power and politics theme:

• How should a government work, should we listen to the people. Politics and gender is a very strong theme, Creon is very concerned that a woman has been shown with more power than him 

Give more detail on the theme conflict and resolution:

• is there a balance and a better situation at the end or has the conflict destroyed everything 

Where is hubris shown in the play?

It is shown through Creon not allowing the dead to be buried

What position was Athens in when this play was performed?

Play was performed around 441 BC, 5th C BCE. This is the peak of Athenian power and greek democracy, in the process of building the Parthenon, Athens feels very confident there is democracy and the Athenian empire.

What should this make us consider?

This makes us consider is Creon a bad ruler or can we look on him with a more positive light. 

What questions should we ask about this play?

• Who is Antigone for?

• What is Antigone about?

• What is Antigone? (Which Antigone?)

• How do we even answer these questions? (Who are ‘we’?)

• (What happens if we replace ‘Antigone’ in each of these questions with ‘Greek tragedy’?)

How can yo study a play?

You can study the play as the way that it is performed or you can study the play by reading the text and understanding it very closely, viewing it more so as a text than a performance. Different people will study it in different ways.

What are translations?

They are almost reimaginings of a paticular text

What tensions are shown in the Antigone and how does this impact us?

Antigone stages tensions between the particular (law of Thebes, national allegiance, gender) and the general (unwritten laws, basic humanity, the ties that bind). Might we see this same tension reflected in our own relationship with the play? To what extent is this play a ‘cultural artefact’? How far might it o]er a transcultural encounter? Should we think in terms of distance or proximity?

What does Antiogone stage/What questions does it ask?

Antigone stages problems and possibilities of human interaction. To what extent might one person understand another’s perspective? What happens when empathy breaks down? Do emotions help or hinder? How should we respond to the play and the characters within it? (Human interaction. The play is all about relationships, and who we think we belong to. Can we feel too much compassion?)

What are the four themes that must be considered when looking at the passages we have been given?

1. Relationships, identities

2. Right and wrong (to bury or not to bury?)

3. What is art (poetry, tragedy, Antigone)? What does it do?

4. Passion, tears, humanity (for discussion)

What happens in lines 1-19?

Antigone and Ismene have a discussion

Write out this dicussion:

Antigone

My own sister Ismene, linked to myself, are you aware that Zeus . . . ah, which of the evils that come from Oedipus is he not accomplishing while we still live? No, there is nothing painful or laden with destruction or shameful or dishonouring among your sorrows and mine that I have not witnessed. And now what is this proclamation that they say the general has lately made to the whole city? Have you any knowledge? Have you heard anything? Or have you failed to notice the evils from our enemies as they come against our friends?

Ismene

To me, Antigone, no word about our friends has come, either agreeable or painful, since we two were robbed of two brothers, who perished on one day each at the other’s hand. Since the Argive army left during this night, I know nothing further, nothing that improves my fortune or brings me nearer to disaster.

Antigone

I knew it well, and I summoned you out of the gates of the courtyard because I wished you to hear this alone.

What can we say about their sisterhood in this section?

• Sisterhood of Antigone and Ismene, its something that connect them but also seems to divide them, they have very differing opinions on how to deal with what has happened in their family 

• Sisterhood hold importance in the overall three plays as all of the tragedies are related to mishappenings, mistakes and arguments within the family

Write out lines 536-47:

Ismene

I did the deed, if she agrees, and I take and bear my

share of the blame.

Antigone

Why, justice will not allow you this, since you refused

and I was not your associate!

Ismene

But in your time of trouble I am not ashamed to make

myself a fellow voyager in your su]ering.

Antigone

Hades and those below know to whom the deed

belongs! And I do not tolerate a loved one who shows

her love only in words.

Ismene

Sister, do not so dishonour me as not to let me die

with you and grant the dead man the proper rites!

Antigone

Do not try to share my death, and do not claim as your

own something you never put a hand to! My death will

be enough!

What question are we asking/considering at this point?

Question of what community they belong to because if they are siblings but so different are they really so connected? This feeds into the reception of the play and how it can be read through a feminist lense

Give information on the burial of bodies (this is context for the play)

Laws of burying the dead in ancient athens (context for the play). Even circumstances in war where normally if you won in battle you allow the losers to collect their dead to bury them, however it is allowed that if there is a traitor you can prevent them being burried but this is a pretty grey area

Write out lines 450-70 (Burying the dead: right and wrong):

Antigone

Yes, for it was not Zeus who made this proclamation, nor was it Justice 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 these 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. I knew that I would die, of course I knew, even if you had made no proclamation. But if I die before my time, I account that gain. For does not whoever lives among many troubles, as I do, gain by death? So it is in no way painful for me to meet with this death; if I had endured that the son of my own mother should die and remain unburied, that would have given me pain, but this gives me none. And if you think my actions foolish, that amounts to a charge of folly by a fool!

Write out the lines 100-23 (Burying the dead: right and wrong):

Chorus

Beam of the sun, fairer than all that have shone

before for seven-gated Thebes, finally you shone

forth, eye of golden day, coming over the

streams of Dirce, you who moved o] in headlong

flight the man with white shield that came from

Argos in his panoply, with a bridle of constraint

that pierced him sharply, him that was raised

up against our land by the contentious

quarrels of Polynices, and flew to our country,

loudly screaming like an eagle sheathed in

snow-white pinion, with many weapons and with

helmets with horsehair plumes; he paused

above our houses, ringing round the seven

gates with spears that longed for blood; but he

went, before his jaws had been glutted with

our gore and the fire-god’s pine-fed flame had

taken the walls that crown our city.

What is an edict?

an official order or proclamation issued by a person in authority

What did Boardman and Kurtz say about is Kreons edict was reasonable?

‘For the people of Attica burial in their native land was greatly prized, and perhaps for this reason denial of burial in Attica was considered one of the greatest penalties which the State could impose.’ Boardman and Kurtz 1971, 143

What did Rosivach say about if Kreons edict was reasonable?

‘In the first place Creon as king of Thebes is under no obligation to bury Polyneices since Polyneices had died in battle as a foreign invader (on this cf. especially the parodos). Normal procedures of anairesis [i.e. recovery of the dead under truce by losing side] would require the surviving Argives to bury Polyneices since he had been part of their army, and Creon’s only obligation in terms of anairesis would be to allow the Argives to recover their dead, including Polyneices, once they had conceded defeat.’Rosivach 1983, 207

What is a Anavyssos kouros?

A marble funerary statue, c. 530 BCE

Give a summarised version of what Garland said about politics of burial and mourning in 5th C Athens:

Garland (1989) argues that in early Greek democracy, laws regulating funerals were a key tool for controlling political expression and reducing aristocratic influence. Private funerals and grave monuments were restricted, while public burials for those who died for the state were promoted, reflecting the political importance of funerals in the earlier aristocratic period.

Give a summarised version of what Loraux said about women, families, private individuals minding:

Loraux (2002) argues that Greek tragedy appealed to its audience not as political citizens, but as members of a universal, mortal human race. The constant presence of death in tragedy reminded spectators of their shared human vulnerability, temporarily dissolving the strict boundaries between individual and communal identity in Greek society.

what can we look at to understand burying the dead and mourning in greek culture?

Material culture

How did women mourn?

Long history of women mourning has a ritual, striking the body, ripping your hair out ripping your cheeks with your nails. A ritual lament.

what does this vase show?

Women mourning on the vase and men on horses likely playing funeral games. This shows how you would be expected to behave as a mourner.

What does this vase show:

Depicts people visiting the graves with gifts at the bottom, we have no remaining grave markers but we see images of them on the vases.

How would mourning ressonate with the audience who watched Antigone?

The Antigone could act as an inspiration or a way for them to reflect on the situation of how they may not have been able to bury their dead in the same way that Antigone couldn’t bury her brother due to laws that they had 

Backdrop of people feeling like they are being kept from their loved ones, which was then shown on stage.

What do we know about mourning at the time and how laws were impacting it?

Evidence of laws that were brought in about how people were allowed to mourn due to how people were bringing attention to their families, this is due to creation of democracy. The dead in the war int he 5th C BCE, their bodies would not come home but their ashes would and their ashes would be blended into ten tribes where they would all have one state funeral and be buried with a singular grave marker- absence for the opportunity of the typical process of mourning and grave marking if they dies at war.

What does Walsh say about parallels between the play and Covid-19 pandemic

‘To grieve, in CliAord and Orr’s intervention, means to share its weight socially and culturally via its narration, ritual enactment, and material demarcation. According to Orr, “many had to die alone”, and many were “consigned to the grave without their stories being told”. Unable to visit one another, to bear witness to grief, according to CliAord, “we have still to complete the business of grieving […] To tell the stories that could not be told. To bear witness to the grief that could not be spoken. To find the words that could not be said”.’

Write about the connection between the play and covid, how theatre brings people together:

Connection to a performance that was done during covid over zoom, parallel of how theatre acts as a communal space for people to come together to process emotions of grief through theatre (during covid how people were kept from going to funerals of theire family and friends who had passed)

What are questions we have to ask?

Who is right? What is at stake here? What is more important (divine law, law, custom, ‘higher law’ – human rights…)?

• How homogenous was ‘an ancient Greek audience’?

• Might answers be di]erent today? Can you think of a similar conflict we might face today?

• Can we understand this play without an awareness of its cultural, legal, social context?

Write out lines 817-38

Antigone

I have heard that the Phrygian stranger, Tantalus’

daughter, died the saddest death, near lofty

Sipylus; her did the growth of the rock, like

clinging ivy, subdue, and as she melts away rain,

as men say, and snow never leave her, and with

her ever-weeping eyes she soaks the mountain

ridges; very like her am I, as the god sends me to

sleep.

Chorus

But she was a goddess and the child of gods,

and we are mortal and the children of mortals;

yet it is a great thing for the departed to have the

credit of a fate like that of those equal to gods,

both in life and later in death.

Write out the second translation of this piece of text:

Write out the third translation of this text:

Antigone:

Actually, I heard she died, utterly desolate,

the stranger from Phrygia,

daughter of Tantalus, on the slopes of towering

Sipylus;

like intractable ivy

a growth of rock overpowered her,

and, as she dissolves in tears, rain,

they say,

and snow never leave her,

and she pours water over the ridges

from brows that always weep: just like her am I,

as the god lulls me to sleep.

What piece of art relates to this text?

Attic red-figure column krater (mixing bowl), c. 450 BCE, 23.8cm high, found in Sicily, Museo Civico Archeologico, Caltanissetta S2555

What does this vase look like?

Write out lines 88-97 from the Antigone (passion, tears, humanity- dangerous passions?)

Ismene

Your heart is fiery in a matter that is chilling.

Antigone

Why, I know that I am giving pleasure to those I

must please most!

Ismene

If you have the strength! But you are in love with the

impossible.

Antigone

Then when my strength fails I shall be at rest.

Ismene

But to begin with it is wrong to hunt for what is

impossible.

Antigone

If you say that, you will be hated by me, and you will

justly incur the hatred of the dead man. Let me and

my rashness su]er this awful thing! I shall su]er

nothing so dire that my death will not be one of

honour.

Write out lines 97-116 from the Iliad book 18 (passion, tears, humanity, dangerous passions?)

Then deeply disturbed Achilleus of the swift

feet answered her: ‘Let me die now! Since I

was not to stand by my companion when he

was killed. And now, far away from the land

of his fathers, he has perished and lacked

my fighting strength to defend him. Now,

since I am not going back to the beloved

land of my fathers, since I was no light of

safety to Patroklos, nor to my other

companions, who in their numbers went

down before glorious Hektor, but sit here

beside my ships, a useless weight on the

good land, I, who am such as no other of the

bronze-armoured Achaians in battle, though

there are others also better in council – why,

I wish that strife would vanish away from

gods and mortals, and gall, which makes a

man grow angry for all his great mind, that

gall of anger that swarms like smoke

inside a man’s heart and becomes a thing

sweeter to him by far than the dripping of

honey. So it was here that the lord of men

Agamemnon angered me…’

Write lines 522-27 from the Antigone (passion, tears, humanity, dangerous passions?)

Creon

An enemy is never a friend, even when he is dead.

Antigone

I have no enemies by birth, but I have friends by birth.

Creon

Then go below and love those friends, if you must love

them! But while I live a woman shall not rule!

Chorus

See, here before the gates is Ismene, dropping tears

of love for her sister

Write lines 781-801 from the Antigone (passion, tears, humanity, dangerous passions?)

Chorus

Love invincible in battle, Love who falls upon

men’s property, you who spend the night upon

the soft cheeks of a girl, and travel over the sea

and through the huts of dwellers in the wild!

None among the immortals can escape

you, nor any among mortal men, and he who has

you is mad.

You wrench just men’s minds aside from justice,

doing them violence; it is you who have stirred

up this quarrel between men of the same blood.

Victory goes to the visible desire that comes

from the eyes of the beautiful bride, a desire that

has its throne beside those of the mighty laws;

for irresistible in her sporting is the goddess

Aphrodite.

Write out lines 1-16 from Sappho fragment 31 (passion, tears, humanity, dangerous passions?)

What are questions we should ask about these passages?

Why compare these passages?

• How do these works invite us to think about the emotions?

• How might this reflect back on our own relationship with Greek tragedy?

Write out lines 801-5 in Antigones (the power of tears)

Chorus:

But now I myself am carried beyond the laws at

this sight, and I can no longer restrain the stream

of tears, when I see Antigone here passing to the

bridal chamber where all come to rest.

Write out lines 521-31 in book 8 of the Odyssey:

This song the famous minstrel sang. But the heart of Odysseus was melted and tears wet his cheeks beneath his eyelids. And as a woman wails and throws herself upon her dear husband, who has fallen in front of his city and his people, seeking to ward o] from his city and his children the pitiless day; and as she beholds him dying and gasping for breath, she clings to him and shrieks aloud, while the foe behind her beat her back and shoulders with their spears, and lead her away to captivity to bear toil and woe, while with most pitiful grief her cheeks are wasted—so did Odysseus let fall pitiful tears from beneath his brows.

What questions should we ask about these passages?

• Why compare these passages? You might also compare the earlier passages on ‘dangerous passions’.

• What is the value of tears?

• How might this reflect back on our own relationship with Greek tragedy?

Write out lines 471-6 from the Antigone

Chorus

It is clear! The nature of the girl is savage, like her

father’s, and she does not know how to bend

before her troubles.

Creon

Why, know that over-stubborn wills are the most

apt to fall and the toughest iron, baked in the fire

till it is hard, is most often, you will see, cracked

and shattered!

Write out lines 705-18 from the Antigone:

Haimon

Do not wear the garment of one mood only, thinking that your opinion and no other must be right! For whoever think that they themselves alone have sense, or have a power of speech or an intelligence that no other has, these people when they are laid open are found to be empty. It is not shameful for a man, even if he is wise, often to learn things and not to resist too much. You see how when rivers are swollen in winter those trees that yield to the flood retain their branches, but those that o]er resistance perish, trunk and all. Just so whoever in command of a ship keeps the sheet taut, and never slackens it, is overturned and thereafter sails with his oarsmen’s benches upside down.

Who said the last verse of the play?

The Chorus

What was said in these lines?

Chorus

Good sense is by far the chief part of happiness;

and we must not be impious towards the gods.

The great words of boasters are always punished

with great blows, and as they grow old teach

them wisdom.

Who is Antigone?

The play's tragic heroine. In the first moments of the play, Antigone is opposed to her radiant sister Ismene. Unlike her beautiful and docile sister, Antigone is sallow, withdrawn, and recalcitrant

Who is Creon?

Antigone's uncle. Creon is powerfully built, but a weary and wrinkled man suffering the burdens of rule. A practical man, he firmly distances himself from the tragic aspirations of Oedipus and his line. As he tells Antigone, his only interest is in political and social order. Creon is bound to ideas of good sense, simplicity, and the banal happiness of everyday life.

Who is Ismene?

Blonde, full-figured, and radiantly beautiful, the laughing, talkative Ismene is the good girl of the family. She is reasonable and understands her place, bowing to Creon's edict and attempting to dissuade Antigone from her act of rebellion. As in Sophocles' play, she is Antigone's foil. Ultimately she will recant and beg Antigone to allow her to join her in death. Though Antigone refuses, Ismene's conversion indicates how her resistance is contagious.

Who is Haemon?

Antigone's young fiancé and son to Creon. Haemon appears twice in the play. In the first, he is rejected by Antigone; in the second, he begs his father for Antigone's life. Creon's refusal ruins his exalted view of his father. He too refuses the happiness that Creon offers him and follows Antigone to a tragic demise.

Who is the nurse?

A traditional figure in Greek drama, the Nurse is an addition to the Antigone legend. She introduces an everyday, maternal element into the play that heightens the strangeness of the tragic world. Fussy, affectionate, and reassuring, she suffers no drama or tragedy but exists in the day-to-day tasks of caring for the two sisters. Her comforting presence returns Antigone to her girlhood. In her arms, Antigone superstitiously invests the Nurse with the power to ward off evil and keep her safe.

Who is the chorus?

Anouilh reduces the Chorus, who appears as narrator and commentator. The Chorus frames the play with a prologue and epilogue, introducing the action and characters under the sign of fatality. In presenting the tragedy, the Chorus instructs the audience on proper spectatorship, reappearing at the tragedy's pivotal moments to comment on the action or the nature of tragedy itself. Along with playing narrator, the Chorus also attempts to intercede throughout the play, whether on the behalf of the Theban people or the horrified spectators

Who is Jonas?

The three Guardsmen are interpolations into the Antigone legend, doubles for the rank-and-file fascist collaborators or collabos of Anouilh's day. The card-playing trio, made all the more mindless and indistinguishable in being grouped in three, emerges from a long stage tradition of the dull-witted police officer. They are eternally indifferent, innocent, and ready to serve

Who is the second guard?

Largely indistinguishable from his cohorts, the Second Guard jeeringly compares Antigone to an exhibitionist upon her arrest.

Who is the third guard?

The last of the indifferent Guardsmen, he is also largely indistinguishable from his cohorts.

Who is the messenger?

Another typical figure of Greek drama who also appears in Sophocles' Antigone, the Messenger is a pale and solitary boy who bears the news of death. In the prologue, he casts a menacing shadow: as the Chorus notes, he remains apart from the others in his premonition of Haemon's death.

Who is the Page?

Creon's attendant. The Page is a figure of young innocence. He sees all, understands nothing, and is no help to anyone but one day may become either a Creon or an Antigone in his own right

Who is Eurydice?

Creon's kind, knitting wife whose only function, as the Chorus declares, is to knit in her room until it is her time to die. Her suicide is Creon's last punishment, leaving him entirely alone