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Antigone: A study in critical method

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Antigone: A study in critical method

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Content This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 69-5061 MARGON, Joseph Sherman, 1918- ANTIGQNE: A STUDY IN CRITICAL METHOD. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1968 Language and Literature, classical University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright © by Joseph Sherman Margon 1969 ANTIGONE A STUDY IN CRITICAL METHOD by Joseph Sherman Margon A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree * DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Classics) June 1968 UNIVERSITY O F SO U T H E R N CA LIFO RN IA T H E GRADUATE SC H O O L UNIVERSITY PARK LO S AN G ELES. CA LIFO RN IA 9 0 0 0 7 This dissertation, written by under the direction of Aia.~. Dissertation C om mittee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of . . J [ _ Q S ep.h. S_h e r m ari _ M a r_gon D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y T Dean Date..A . u g . u . s . t , . . . l . 9 . 6 . 8 , DISSERTATION COMMITTEE iatrman PREFACE i : When I had my first serious encounters with literature j [as a student, I was amazed and troubled at the number and I jvariety of interpretations given to each work. Years later, by the time I had become a teacher, my amazement had worn thin, but I was still troubled— in fact, even more acutely, Since with the years and a growing acquaintance with litera- | ture I had discovered an even greater variety of interpre tations. When the opportunity presented itself to make a closer study of literary criticism, I decided to investigate the reasons for variations in interpretations. As I followed this line of inquiry, the need for a jcomprehensive critical method became apparent almost from | |the very start. With this need in mind, I have devised such E a method, realizing, of course, that even if the same criti- i I !cal method should be used by everyone, some diversity m interpretation would still result, due to individual dif- i ferences in knowledge and temperament among critics. * Much critical and scholarly work has been lavished on i the Antigone. Yet the meaning and form of the play, the motivation and nature of its characters, and the signifi cance of several of its incidents and choral odes are still jmatters of dispute. In an attempt to resolve these diffi culties I have chosen to do an interpretative study of this play. At the same time a demonstration of my method through actual application will both test its soundness and reveal more clearly and fully the critical method itself and the theory behind it. The expression "literary criticism" occurs several times in this study, and I want to advise the reader that when I use this term, I am referring only to the interpre tative, and not to the evaluative, aspect of criticism. A study of a method of evaluation would require another work of equal detail and scope. In a few instances, where in terpretation depends upon evaluation, I have used some of the broadest and most basic principles of evaluation about |which there is unanimous agreement. I I want to thank my teachers, of whose attitudes many are reflected in this study; I wish, also, to acknowledge iii my debt of gratitude to the critics and scholars— even those with whom I have disagreed— whose work in criticism and on the Antigone has stimulated my own thoughts. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE ..... ii PART I. LITERARY THEORY Chapter I. VARIATIONS IN INTERPRETATION ................ 2 II. AN OUTLINE OF A COMPREHENSIVE CRITICAL M E T H O D ..................................... 19 PART II. INTERPRETATION III. THE ANTIGONE (1-581)........................ 48 Prologue (1-99) Parodos (100-161) First Episode (162-381) First Stasimon (332-375) Second Episode (376-581) IV. THE ANTIGONE (582-987).................... . 167 Second Stasimon (582-625) Third Episode (626-780) Third Stasimon (781-800) Fourth Episode (801-943) Fourth Stasimon (947-987) Chapter Page V. THE ANTIGONE (988-1352)...................... 235 Fifth Episode (988-1114) Fifth Stasimon (1115-1154) Exode (1155-1352) VI. THE PLAY AS A WHOLE.......................... 270 Themes Form BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................ 294 vi PART I LITERARY THEORY 1 CHAPTER I VARIATIONS IN INTERPRETATION The large body of critical writing devoted to almost every well-known work of literature testifies to the exist ence of many and diverse interpretations. The plays of Sophocles are no exception,^ and of the seven extant trag- 2 |edies perhaps the Antigone offers the widest variety. The | -*-0n the variety of interpretations of Sophocles' plays Robert M. Torrance writes: "How are we to read Sophocles? The question is anything but rhetorical, as the sweeping .diversity of current interpretations makes clear." "Sopho- jcles: Some Bearings," Harvard Studies in Classical Philol- |ogy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), LXIX, 269. C. M. Bowra, iSophoclean Tragedy (Oxford, 1965), p. 2, makes the same ipoint: "There is uncertainty about almost every play of jsophocles, not merely about matters of language and text but jabout the whole meaning of an episode or even of a play." i i * ! i p ^Robert F. Goheen, The Imagery of Sophocles1 Antigone (Princeton, 1951), p. 4, writes: "The 'idea' of the An tigone has been the subject of as much conflicting opinion as that of any play." H. D. F. Kitto, Form and Meaning in Drama (London, 1960), p. 138, lists five different views of the Antigone and then comments, "Not all of these views are incompatible; it may be simply a question where we should lay the chief emphasis." 2 S 3 jquestion then arises whether there is a single and correct j interpretation or whether several are valid. Since the text 3 of the play itself is for the most part fixed, the explana tion for this variety must lie in the relationship between the critics and the play. The individual critic, or for that matter any reader, brings to a literary work his total experience, both con scious and unconscious. Not all of it may have relevance to a particular piece, but it is all present and available. (The work itself selects and draws from the reader's total ! i experience what is pertinent. The constituents of this experience do not exist either separately or even as an arithmetical sum of influences but only in a relationship to each other and the totality which they compose. Never theless, for the sake of lending clarity to our analysis let i i jus grant ourselves the license of separating them for the i moment and let us consider fxrst what may be termed life- ! experience. If two hypothetical readers can be imagined who have ■^Verses 904-920 have been the chief textual dispute in the Antigone. but in his survey of Sophoclean scholarship iHolger Friis Johansen, "Sophocles 1939-1959," Lustrum (Got- jtingen, 1963), VII, 198, says that only a few still dispute the authenticity of these verses. 4 just read King Lear for the first time, perhaps one can see the effect that life-experience may have upon interpretation, Both readers are in their seventies. One is a bachelor, economically well off, surrounded by friends; his life is (full and interesting. The other, a widower, has barely the | ■means for existence; he has two daughters who have married well but who ignore him; his life is lonely. Granted the hypothesis that our two readers are identical in all other respects, the facts of the play will be the same for both. i 5Tet it seems highly unlikely that both men, possessing such vastly different life-experience, will regard these facts I jwith the same significance. Affected by this difference in I ■significance, both men, it seems probable, will arrive at i somewhat different interpretations. Who is to say which of these readers is correct? We can see that our two hypothetical readers represent i ! |an extreme example, but nevertheless life-experience for all of us, no matter how similar, is never quite the same, with i i the result that to each of us the significance of a work of art can never be identical. On the other hand, readers t [living in the same period and culture will have much in l common. To this extent, at least, similarities can be looked for in their interpretations. A reader, however, from another century and culture, bringing to art a life- experience markedly different from our own, can be expected to arrive at interpretations quite different from those of our day. Should the interpretations of this reader be labelled wrong? It will be better to leave this question unanswered until an examination has been made of the other constituents of experience that affect interpretation. ! Whether J. L. Lowes' Road to Xanadu is successful as 4 literary criticism or only as literary scholarship, his | ipremise that the extent and nature of Coleridge's reading i j 'affected the meaning of Kubla Khan and The Ancient Mariner ! ! is unquestionably sound. The previous reading of a critic I jlikewise influences the meaning he gives to any literary work. This reading experience is of two kinds, and to i | describe its nature perhaps it may be well to derive our ^John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in ^he Ways of Imagination (Boston, 1927). For a comment on the value of this work as criticism see T. S. Eliot, "The Frontiers of Criticism," On Poetry and Poets (New York, 1957), pp. 119-120. Eliot feels that Lowes' achievement is interesting as a piece of detection and has value as the in vestigation of a process, but as criticism he feels that it adds nothing to the understanding and appreciation of Cole ridge 's poetry. R. P. Blackmur, "A Critic's Job of Work, Form and Value in Modern Poetry (Garden City, 1957), p. 363, regards Lowes' work purely as scholarship and as an impor tant contribution to criticism, since Blackmur feels that all forms of literary criticism depend upon scholarship. 6 Iterms from a distinction that John Dewey draws between i science and art, statement and expression. "Science," he 5 writes, "states meanings; art expresses them." The exper ience acquired from the reading of works of art may be designated for want of a better term as aesthetic knowledge; jthat gained from the reading of works outside the realm of i i art may be termed stated knowledge. In short, the con stituents of the total experience that a reader brings to a work and by which his interpretations are influenced are the jempirical knowledge of life-experience, and the aesthetic i jand stated knowledge derived from his reading experience. Just as the life-experience of individuals cannot be identical, so the extent and kind of their stated knowledge jcannot be the same. A professional psychologist, or even an ! interested layman who is widely read in that field, will bring to a literary piece the emphasis of that study. The l i sociologist will stress his specialty, and the historian his. The philosopher, depending on whether his major in terest is ethics or aesthetics, will emphasize one approach I or the other. Of course, some continuity of stated knowl edge exists, since readers may be well versed in more than C Art as Experience (New York, 1924), p. 84. | 7 jone field and also since many of the fields of stated [knowledge ultimately touch common points of reference; but jnevertheless what stated knowledge a reader brings to a work i ! • ! |of art is not a matter of choice, for he can bring only what knowledge he has. | Each age makes new contributions to stated knowledge, at the same time altering the attitudes implicit in the older fields of knowledge. Taine's manifesto of the three criteria for classifying and analyzing a literary work— the race, surroundings, and epoch— revealed a sociological j japproach permeated with the Darwinian Zeitgeist of the nine teenth century. Later, when this approach fell under the ! I S influence of Marxist theories, it became greatly altered. jFreudian psychology changed and enriched the earlier bio- i jgraphical method of Sainte-Beuve, provided also a more exact vocabulary for describing the creative process, and came to jbe used as an explanation for the motivation of fictitious characters. Frazer's work in anthropology and later Jung's writings, particularly his theory of the collective uncon scious, have given rise to a school of critics who since the i early years of this century have been paying increasing i attention to an approach designated as archetypal criticism. It becomes clear at once that a reader from a previous ! 8 i period, isolated from the changes and additions in stated knowledge that our age has effected, will arrive at inter pretations quite different from those of our time. It seems equally probable that the readers of our day, though pos sessing individual differences in the various fields of I stated knowledge, share more in common with each other and will tend to produce similarities in interpretation. In addition to the influence that life-experience and stated knowledge exert upon interpretation, the comprehen sion of a literary work is also achieved by comparing it j y/ith other works. In this fashion the aesthetic knowledge j derived from previous reading affects interpretation. It would seem that it would only be necessary for individual critics to have read the same works for their aesthetic knowledge to be the same. The nature, however, of aesthetic knowledge precludes this possibility. Of the constituents of experience aesthetic knowledge alone cannot be isolated j 3ven for the purposes of analysis. It is directly influ enced by life-experience and stated knowledge, and since these two constituents are never identical among individual ritics, their aesthetic knowledge can never be the same. En general, however, there will be greater similarities in he aesthetic knowledge of readers who have read the same i 9 i works than among those who have not. Therefore, it is not surprising that the aesthetic knowledge of critics of pre vious ages differs from that of contemporary critics and engenders differences in interpretation. The question which was posed earlier, whether the in terpretations of critics from past centuries should be labelled wrong simply because they differ from those of our time, should be answered, it seems, not only with the ra tional acknowledgment that the interpretation of literary jworks has differed from age to age but also with a protec tive humility that embraces the probability, even the cer- i I tainty, that the interpretations of our period will be dis closed as different from those of the succeeding age. The notion that the single and absolute interpretation of a I literary piece is possible and has not been reached only jbecause of the lack heretofore of precise, intelligent, and extensive scholarship is in view of the facts untenable. Except for insufficient knowledge of the facts of a work and inconsistencies within the framework of a particular j critical method, earlier interpretations, where they differ from those of our time, are wrong only in a relative sense. In an absolute sense they should be regarded only as I 10 6 dxfferent. The foregoing thoughts have been, as the reader has probably recognized, an indirect attack on a critical atti- 7 tude and method that has come to be known as historicism, a view that gained prominence in nineteenth-century Ger- g many. One of the principal tenets of this doctrine is that, if we are to understand and appreciate a work of lit erature, we must make ourselves contemporary in thought and feeling to the audience to which that work was originally ^Cf. Eliot, p. 114: "Many years ago I pointed out that every generation must provide its own literary criticism; for, as I said, 'each generation brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art.1 When I made this statement I am sure that I had in mind a good deal more than the changes of taste and fashion: I had in mind at least the fact that each generation, looking at master pieces of the past in a different perspective, is affected in its attitudes by a greater number of influences than Ithose which bore upon the generation previous." ^For a discussion of historicism see Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature. 3rd ed. (New York, 1962), pp. 40-45. ^Perhaps the most prominent spokesman for this view among classical scholars was the elder Wilamowitz. The principles of historicism are clearly and thoroughly ex pressed in his introduction to Aristophanest Lysistrate (Berlin, 1927). Even in Germany, however, in the time of Wilamowitz there was some reaction against historicism, particularly by Ernst Troltsch. See Ernst Troltsch, Per Historismus und seine Probleme (Tubingen, 1922); Per Histo- rismus und seine Dberwindung (Berlin, 1924). 11 addressed. Another is that we should try to realize in a 9 work only the intention of the author. Thus the advocates of historicism believe literary criticism to be nothing more than the historical reconstruction of the author's intention and the cultural, religious., and political milieu of his original audience. While it is understandable that critics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, under the influence of Taine's theories and in the general Darwinian atmosphere of those times, should hold such views, histori cism as an attitude and method of literary criticism appears to have little validity for our time. It is not possible for critics of today in reading a Greek tragedy to divorce themselves from their twentieth- century experience and identify with the thoughts and feel- 10 mgs of a fifth-century Athenian audience. It is true, of ^Related to these tenets, particularly to the reali zation of the author's intention, is the biographical method of criticism, that is, examining the facts of the author's life to gain an understanding of his works. For a refuta tion of the validity of this method, see Harold Cherniss, "The Biographical Fashion in Literary Criticism," Univer sity of California Publications in Classical Philology. XII (1943), 279-293. ■^In the case of the Iliad and Odyssey, since we do not know the date of their composition, it is impossible to make sven an attempt at identification with their contemporary audience. 12 course, that through the persistent efforts of scholarship the thoughts and feelings of a previous age can be recon structed, but what the historical reconstructionists fail to realize is that "there will always be a decisive difference between an act of imaginative reconstruction and actual ! 11 participation in a past point of,view." We are men of the twentieth century and in experiencing the literature of the past we cannot escape the "circumambient atmosphere" of our 12 own time. The only vantage point from which we can ex- 13 perience the past is from that of the present. ■ ’ ■-'•Wellek and Warren, p. 42. 12]^ m . Cornford, Thucydides Mythistoricus (London, 1907), p. viiii "In every age the common interpretation of the world of things is controlled by some scheme of unchal lenged and unsuspected presuppositions; and the mind of every individual, however little he may think himself in sympathy with his contemporaries, is not an insulated com partment, but more like a pool in a continuous medium— the circumambient atmosphere of his time and place." -*-^Cf. J. P. Sullivan, "Introduction," Critical Essays an Roman Literature; Elegy and Lyric, ed. J. P. Sullivan (London, 1962), p. 9; "We admit, of course, that we are, for good or ill, twentieth-century minds with twentieth- century attitudes and susceptibilities; that our taste— if it is an active, inquiring literary taste and not a philo logical interest which masquerades as a cultural interest— is ultimately formed by our own milieu and our own litera ture; that it is from these that we know what the ultimate literary questions are which we have to pose to earlier literatures." 13 As for attempting to realize the intention of the au thor, this is a misdirection. "The meaning of a work of art is not exhausted by, or even equivalent to, its intention. 14 . . . It leads an independent life." Writers frequently, r poreover, fall short of, change, or exceed their aim, even j j (when that aim has been expressly stated. Thucydides, for t example, tells us that he is writing a history intended to be useful to those who are interested in understanding the events of the past, which, he claims, will be repeated at 15 some time in the future. One can perhaps question the validity of such an intention or even whether Thucydides has successfully fulfilled his aim, but few would deny the artistic merit of his history, an achievement that goes beyond the intention he expressed. In view of our inability to participate in a past point of view or to realize the intention of the author, one might think that the work of the historical reconstructionist is without value. The first and most obvious answer to this is that scholarship needs no defense. Knowledge for its own sake is worthwhile. The second is that, without the | ■^%ellek and Warren, p. 42. Thucydides, 1. 22 . scholarship of the historical reconstructionists, criticism of the literature of the past is almost impossible. It is necessary only to glance at a Shakespearean glossary to comprehend that unless many of the words found there are understood as Shakespeare's audience understood them, much of his plays would be incomprehensible. Frequently, our comprehension of a literary work demands knowledge of his torical and cultural facts. The work of the historical re constructionist makes it possible for us to understand such jliterary facts as they were originally understood. Thus the i jaccomplishment of historical reconstruction is not really criticism at all but literary scholarship. The process of literary criticism is the way in which we view literary facts and assemble them into concepts that comprise our interpretations.^ Thus literary scholarship is the founda- 17 tion upon which literary criticism rests. ^Cf. Eliot, p. 126: "There will be details of expla nation, especially with poems written in another age than our own, matters of fact, historical allusions, the meaning of a certain word at a certain date, which can be estab lished. . . . But as for the meaning of the poem as a whole, it is not exhausted by any explanation, for the meaning is what the poem means to different sensitive readers." •^Blackmur (p. 362), writing about literary scholarship and criticism, makes this analogy: "Upon scholarship all other forms of literary criticism depend, so long as they 15 Up to this point, judging from the stress that has been j i jlaid on the factors producing differences in interpretation, one might easily be misled into believing that this study proposes that the interpretations of one generation differ so radically from those of another as to have little or no j similarity, and that this diversity is only a little less ! jgreat among contemporaries. Controlling factors exist, how- iever, which generally make the similarities in interpreta tion far exceed the differences. The very fact that a human r f |species can be denoted suggests that individuals are essen tially more alike than different. The fundamentals of life- iexperience may be variously viewed by different societies j |and different generations, but the fundamentals themselves I ! remain immutable. Birth and death, the terminals of mortal jexistence, however they may be regarded, are fundamentals 'common to all men. Marriage and parenthood, though they may l jvary in aspect from one culture to another, have always existed in some form. The need for food, protection, and companionship has been felt by all generations. To the degree that human nature itself renders life-experience are criticism, in much the same way that architecture de pends upon engineering." ! 16 J [similar, the essential immutability of these fundamentals i creates a uniform basis for similarity of interpretation, while on the other hand only their changing aspects effect differences. | We have.seen that the aesthetic knowledge of contempo- i raries cannot be identical and that this disparity appears to increase when the aesthetic knowledge of a twentieth- century critic is compared with that of a critic of a pre vious age. Nevertheless, aesthetic knowledge also acts as a controlling factor to produce similarity in interpreta- i ition; for there exists in all literature a sameness that i I tends to unite the critic of our time to his nineteenth- century counterpart and even to the critics of a more remote past. The term that has been given to this unifying factor is tradition. It is a commonly observed fact that the tradition of a literature is always changing and being augmented and that if tradition ever became static, a literature would wither and die, as though receiving no new sustenance. Tradition, however, embraces not only the concept of change but also, what is even more usually attributed to it, the concept of conformity. A literary work, even if it is genuinely new, must still conform sufficiently to works written previous 17 jto its appearancej if its newness is to be recognized and I I jappreciated. Without this conformity the new work is not jtruly new but unique, and uniqueness is difficult and often l 1 18 jimpossible either to understand or evaluate. No basis for comparison exists, and the unique work can be approached | only in terms of itself. If the Iliad, for instance, were jthe only extant work of its kind, it would be much more i ! jdifficult to comprehend? but on acquaintance with the Odys sey similarities are noticed, a genre is established, and | leach work, measured in terms of the other, helps in the jelucidation of both. Each new epic since the Odyssev has jeonformed sufficiently to be called an epic and to shed light on the older epics and, in turn, to receive illumina tion from them. It is this conformity of the new with the old that binds the critic of the present to the critic of |the past by producing similarities in aesthetic knowledge. | j In a like fashion the tradition of many of the fields of stated knowledge have persisted uninterrupted from an cient times to unite the present to the past. In addition, a fourth controlling factor exists: the proper critical ^®See T. S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Tal ent," Selected Essays (New York, 1932), pp. 4-5. 18 method. But unlike the constituents of experience, it is not accessible in a natural state. It must be derived, studied, consciously formulated, and self-imposed. Life- experience, stated knowledge, and aesthetic knowledge are the constituents of literary criticism. The method itself is the manner in which these interlocking constituents are applied to the facts of a literary work. The method, too, will be determined by the constituents, but since the dis parity in total experience is relatively less for contem poraries, a critical method, proper for our time, with a few ! jand slight individual variations, is at least possible. ! Such a method can be proper, of course, only for its own time (see p. 10, n. 6 above), since it depends on the con- I stituents of its own age, but where the constituents of one age resemble those of another, similarity in method will appear. The proper method has two advantages: it reduces the number and degree of differences in interpretation and at the same time makes those differences that do occur appear as a meaningful variety rather than as an irrelevant diversity. Literary criticism, after all, is our means of communicating about literature, and if the proper method makes communication easier and clearer, it is obviously desirable. I CHAPTER II J AN OUTLINE OF A COMPREHENSIVE CRITICAL METHOD What is the proper critical method for our time? A perusal of any anthology of modern criticism will reveal that many approaches are in vogue. Wilbur S. Scott, for instance, notes five categories of modern criticism: the i moral approach, the psychological, the sociological, the ! l formalistxc, and the archetypal. With reservations he | appends a sixth, which deals with the influence of earlier i writers upon those who follow them (p. 13). Scott prefers i j fto distinguish this technique as literary history rather j than as true criticism (p. 13). Eliot, however, insists i i [that literary history cannot be separated from aesthetic criticism, since no writer has his full meaning alone but must be understood and appreciated in terms of his relation • * -Five Approaches of Literary Criticism (New York and London, 1962), p. 11. 19 to his predecessors. Wellek and Warren in their Theory of Literature clas sify the approaches to literature as extrinsic or intrinsic (pp. 5-6). Under extrinsic they list the relationship of i I literature to biography, psychology, society, philosophical ideas, and the relationship of literature to the other arts. Under intrinsic approaches they include: euphony, rhythm, meter, style and stylistics, image, metaphor, symbol and myth, modes of narrative fiction, and literary genres. | Northrop Frye, however, considers all the components of i his critical system intrinsic and distinguishes four types of criticism: historical, ethical, archetypal, and rhe- 3 torical. By rhetorical criticism Frye means an investiga tion into "most of the features characteristic of literary I form, such as rhyme, alliteration, metre, antithetical balance," and "the use of exempla" (p. 245). Yet he also includes in rhetorical criticism a theory of genres which Eliot considers pertinent to historical as well as aesthetic criticism and which Scott feels is only literary history. Unlike Scott and Wellek-Warren, Frye does not even include 2,,Tradition, " pp. 4-5. 3The Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957), pp. ix-x. I 21 f |in his view of criticism the sociological and psychological japproaches. t f | With just a brief sampling of a few literary theorists ! I [it becomes evident that literary criticism as a study does not possess clearly defined and uniform terms, nor do the various approaches have distinctness except at their very centers. In addition, due to a work's polysemous meaning I and the discontinuity of knowledge among critics, a multi plicity of methods has arisen that precludes regarding lit erary criticism as a science and even raises some doubt that | jit can ever become a clearly defined and uniform field of study. The confusion grows even greater with the realiza tion that any, or all of these methods, if judiciously ap- i i plied, is essentially valid. Frye states the problem clear ly: Once we have admitted the principle of polysemous mean ing, we can either stop with a purely relative and I pluralistic position, or we can go on to consider the possibility that there is a finite number of valid critical methods, and that they can all be contained in a single theory. (p. 72) Frye himself makes an effort toward a comprehensive view which includes component and related critical ap proaches with archetypal criticism as the central and unify ing factor (p. 341). In his laudable endeavor to prevent the separation of form and meaning he often forces himself into a position of constricting and slighting both. To I {employ myth as a structural organizing principle (p. 341), Lhich through the integrated components of archetypal thought, character, and incident produces literary form (pp. 135-136), is surely an oversimplification and an error jas great as the separation of form from meaning. No regard | |is paid to the possibility of the novelty of meaning in new I jthought, character, or incident, nor does Frye consider that i jthe use of referential time and point of view is frequently i just as important in effecting literary structure as charac ter and incident. In his essay, "A Critic's Job of Work," R. P. Blackmur prefaces his plea for a comprehensive approach by first re- 4 vealmg the inadequacies of certain monist methods. He demonstrates forcibly that the danger inherent in monist techniques is that of making a greater contribution to some field of study other than literary criticism. The ^Blackmur, pp. 348-354, selects Santayana's essay on Lucretius in Three Philosophical Poets as an example of ethical criticism, Van Wyck Brooks' Pilgrimage of Henry James as representative of a sociological technique which {emphasizes psycho-biographical values, and Granville Hicks' The Great Tradition as an exposition of Marxist theories of economics. i 23 | ' | jachievement of the monist ethical critic will relate more i i s to philosophy than to criticism, that of the sociological critic more to cultural history and biography, and that of the Marxist critic more to economics. The common denomina tor among these methods is that each seizes upon what the critic feels is the separable content of literature, gives it the appearance of being the entirety of a work, and pre sents the illusion that the method's treatment of this con sent is the whole of literary criticism. Yet Blackmur does I t jnot assert that even such methods lack validity if properly jsubordinated to a comprehensive scheme. The two advantages i that he claims for a comprehensive method are that it read ily encompasses all other approaches and that it reduces all approaches to an engagement with nothing but literary fact (p. 365). Blackmur writes convincingly of the need for a comprehensive method, but his statement of what that method i I i should be is so sketchy and unspecific as to be inadequate (p. 365).- The need for a comprehensive method is apparent, and it is the aim of this study to present such an approach. Since genres, however, as well as possessing similarities, have differences that require corresponding differences in meth od, it is necessary to limit the scope of this study to the jpresentation of a comprehensive approach that is applicable i to a particular genre. In this instance the genre that has been selected is the drama. I The most obvious fact about literature is that it con sists of words, and it is in the nature of words that a comprehensive critical method must find its source. The unity of form and meaning in a work of literature exists on a grand scale and on the smallest scale possible. Though form and meaning and their effect upon each other grow ever i jmore complex with the increasing assemblage of words, the i jprinciple of their unity is seen as clearly in the microcosm ! 5 of the single word as in an entire work. If we take the i i word boy, we can see that it has both meaning and form and that the meaning and form are inseparable, though not iden tical.^ Prom the point of view of meaning, the word boy is I 5In writing about the nature of words Owen Thomas, Transformational Grammar and the Teacher of English (New York, 1965), p. 48, makes this statement about morphemes: "Morphemes are certainly a part of the formal— or syntactic — structure of language. Yet it is difficult to give a no- tational definition of the term. Linguists have debated a definition for nearly thirty years, and they are still a long way from agreement." For this reason it will be clear er for our purpose to use the word as the unit of literary language. _____^Cf. W- Nelson Francis, "Revolution in Grammar,”_______ 25 a denotative symbol, pointing out the male young of the human species. From the point of view of form, it is a inoun. Implicit also in the form and meaning of a word is its i !potential for assuming more complex meaning and form when placed in context with other words. If, for example, we say The boy throws the ball, the meaning of bov has grown much more complex. Boy is doing much more than merely pointing out the male young of the human species; it is denoting in effect that a particular young male of the human jspecies is performing an action on an object known as a 1 ball. Likewise, the form of boy has become more complex. i i jln isolation it had the form of a noun; in context it has j the form of a noun-subject. The relationship of form and meaning and the effect they have upon each other can be i i readily seen if we alter the form of boy and ball, inter- i i jchanging them as subject and object. The ball throws the i boy expresses a different meaning, one that would generally Applied Linguistics. ed. Harold B. Allen, 2nd ed. (New York, 1964), p. 75. Francis uses three bases for the classifica tion of a word; form, function, and meaning. By function he means the use of a word in the context of a sentence. The form of the word "horse" is a noun; its function is as subject or object. 26 jbe considered without normal sense. { I j The nature of the single word as form and meaning and jits potential for greater complexity allows for the inte- I ! | j jgration of the other elements of a literary work. Language,! ; ! jmoreover, is absolutely pervasive throughout all the ele- j ; i ! 7 jments and is the material of which they are composed. j i i jTherefore, to arrive at the fullest and most accurate in- j terpretation of a work, the study of its language must be pursued thoroughly. Yet this is not enough. The total meaning of a work consists of more than the accrual of mean ing which its language presents. Just as individual words, each with its own meaning and form, when constituted in a sentence, produce a completion of larger form and meaning, so do the integrated elements of a work of literature rep resent the same sort of completion, though on a far more I ^complex scale. Before a critical method can advance beyond the base of language to other considerations, it must take into account 7Cf. Wellek and Warren, pp. 151-153. ^This analogy, however, is not quite exact, for there is one difference: Unlike individual words that have form and meaning even when they are not placed in the context of a sentence, the elements of a literary work have no exist ence apart from language. 27 what it is criticizing. Since, however, the genre of our work is evident, we can proceed with an examination of the nature and relationship of the other elements. Character and story-incident are easily recognized as elements belong- 9 xng to a drama. Both move through time, so that time it self must be considered an element. All these elements must be presented from a particular point of view which can give either the impression that contemporary life is taking place on the stage, or the illusion that figures and events from i jthe past are being viewed, or these elements can be pre- | sented through a narrator, whose very presence admits that it is not life taking place on the stage but simply a play. Consequently, point of view should be considered an element. I Each of these elements, including language, only exists in combination with and in terms of the others. The nature of this existence is the unity of a drama. The conjunction and integration of patterns produced by language through its use of symbol, image, and metaphor, realize that "myth" is a favorite term of critics for describing narrative or story, but the word has so many meanings that relate it to religion, anthropology, folklore, and psychoanalysis that I believe it will be clearer if a purely literary term such as story or story-incident is used. I 28 I jthrough the syntactical and grammatical relation of words in i jphrases and sentences, and through the relation of words in j jaccordance with a style and a meter make, in most instances, j ithe major contributions to the effecting of the elements of ’ character and story-incident. Though all the elements are | inseparable from each other and the total work which they jcompose, even for the sake of analysis it is particularly |difficult to think of character and story-incident except in | jterms of each other. As Henry James has put it, "What is Character but the determination of incident? What is inci dent but the illustration of character?"^ It is with the elements of character and story-incident i [that the so-called extrinsic approaches have their greatest i jutility. Here a knowledge of sociology, psychology, anthro- i j pology, philosophy, and of political science and cultural I : 11 history contributes to the understanding of a work. Yet l - 8l,The Art of Fiction," Selected Fiction, ed. Leon Edel (New York, 1953), p. 597. ■^Northrop Frye makes archetypal criticism the central approach in his system, because it is possible to speak of archetypal characters, incidents, even archetypal plots, and themes; but archetypal criticism can deal only with the ele ments of a literary work where a conformity with previous works can be noted. Where newness is observed in the use of the elements, there is no conformity, and archetypal criti cism has no means to deal with newness except to note that 29 are these methods truly extrinsic, as Wellek and Warren would have us believe (see p. 20 above), or can they have validity as intrinsic techniques? If the study of a work's imagery is considered an intrinsic approach, why should methods that engage primarily the meaning of a work be con sidered extrinsic? It is true that these approaches rarely deal with form, but surely the meaning of a work is intrin sic to the work itself. Blackmur has clearly pointed out that using only one of these approaches inevitably results in an extrinsic achievement which consequently condemns the method as extrinsic (see pp. 22-23 above). To avoid this danger it seems necessary to employ all of these approaches equally, or at least several of them. Yet the discontinuity of knowledge among critics makes such an attempt seem hardly possible. A workable compromise must be adopted. If a it is new. Of course, it may be argued that the newness of a work becomes archetypal as soon as that work's place in tradition is fixed by the appearance of other works founded upon it. Consequently, the archetypal method would be able to deal with all literature except contemporary. If, how ever, contemporary literature gives us our vantage point and the attitude with which to regard the literature of the past, then archetypal criticism, because of its inability to leal with the quality of newness in contemporary literature, fails as a comprehensive approach to all literature, al though as a subordinate method in a comprehensive system it still has validity. 30 critic does not lose sight of the ideal of total knowledge and uses all of these methods to the best of his ability, being especially careful not to emphasize one method more than another, such an attitude toward these approaches will have a twofold advantage: it will prevent the critic from utilizing a literary work to make a greater contribution to an extrinsic field of knowledge than to an understanding of the work itself and at the same time it will point the need for a controlling and unifying factor for these many ap proaches. That factor will be clearly manifested as the literary facts of a work, all of which will guide and limit 12 [the critic in his use of these methods. Employed in this ! f Way, these approaches are as intrinsic as any method that engages the language or form of a piece. Though time is sometimes classified as a mode of narra- 13 tive fiction, it is important to our critical method to establish it as a constituent element. Time in fiction is of two kinds, the performing or reading time of a work, and the time to which a work refers. The two types of time are l^cf. Blackmur, p. 365. have used the word "narrative" here, as Wellek and Warren use it (p. 215), to include the novel, the epic, the tale, and the drama. 31 constantly played one against the other, the author of a novel on occasion describing the course of years in a few sentences and on other occasions devoting many pages to an (action that occurs in an instant. Likewise in a drama time can be telescoped in an inverse proportion or expanded to cover an extent that far exceeds its playing time. It will be pertinent to our attempt to establish time as a constituent element to consider for a moment the fail ure of the critics of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to distinguish between the two types of time and to allow for their separate but related coexistence. Mis interpreting the Poetics. the critics of that period de- I i jveloped the theory of the three unities of time, place, and i 14 (action. It was not, however, so much their desire to l | observe what they thought to be the dicta of Aristotle that Ithey cited him as an authority, but rather their yearning -^Aristotle insists only on the unity of action (Poet ics . 1451 8). In regard to the unity of time he formulates no theory but merely says that the length of a tragedy tends to fall within a single revolution of the sun or to extend a little more (1449^5). Of the unity of place he makes no mention. For ;a brief summary of the development of the doc trine of the three unities see Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition (Oxford, 1959), pp. 142-143. For a more detailed description see Joel Spingarn, A History of Literary Criti cism in the Renaissance. 2nd ed. (New York, 1930), pp. 99- 101. to tooIster and improve the credibility of the current drama 15 by imposing upon it strictures of realism. The success of their theory culminated in Corneille's capitulation and ad- i E jmission that "the supposed duration of a play should equal j • t jthe time it took to act."^ The unwillingness of the crit- j ics of that period to permit the unequal coexistence of two types of time within a drama made referential time extremely realistic. They could not, however, do away with it. The two types of time still coexisted, only now not playing i jagainst each other but equated. j The inability of those critics to destroy referential time suggests a sound reason for considering time a con stituent element and not a mode. "Mode," if it is to have meaning, should mean "manner," specifically in literary criticism the manner in which the constituent elements are used. If referential time, when it is equated with playing time, can be said to be realistic, then to the degree that jit is not equated with playing time it can be said to be I jnon-realistic. "Realistic" and "non-realistic" are, of ■^Highet, pp. 142-143. . L. Lucas, Tragedy; Serious Drama in Relation to Aristotle's Poetics, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), p. 147. 33 course, modal terms describing in this instance the manner in which time is used. It appears then that time, no matter in what way it is employed, realistically or non-realisti- i cally, must nevertheless be present as much as language it- j self if a drama is to exist at all. Consequently, time 17 should be considered-a constituent element. 1 7 'In the drama, Thornton Wilder's Our Town offers an excellent illustration of the importance of time in effect ing form and meaning. Approximately two and a half hours are required to perform this play. Etched against the per- jforming time is a highly involved system of referential time that achieves its complexity through the presence of a nar rator, who in the cast of characters is called the Stage Manager. Act I covers the entire day of May 7, 1901 in Grovers Corners, New Hampshire. The Stage Manager intro duces scenes, interrupts or concludes them whenever he wishes, and brings on other scenes, in this manner acceler ating or decelerating the referential time. Act II takes place three years later on July 7, 1904. It is the wedding day of the two leading characters, Emily and George. Within this act the Stage Manager shows the audience an incident that occurred on another day several years before, the day when Emily and George realized they were in love. Act III opens nine years later. It is the day of Emily's funeral. Now that she is dead, she finds that she can return to any particular day that she wishes, and she chooses her twelfth birthday. In the two and a half hours of performing time the audience has seen incidents occurring on five different days that cover a span of years from 1899 to 1913. This use of time is neither arbitrary nor for the sake of mere clev erness. It relates directly to the play's theme as well as to its form. In the last act when Emily returns to the day of her twelfth birthday, possessing the consciousness of a deceased person and of a twelve-year-old girl, she is hurt to see how unaware people are of each other. She turns to the Stage Manager and says, "... It goes too fast . . . We don't have time to look at one another . . . Oh earth, j ■ 34 j j Any comprehensive critical method must therefore con sider how time works with and affects the other elements. I !The fact that time is always present as an element of narra tive fiction does not necessarily imply that its signifi- j jcance as an affecting force is equal in all works. In many 1 jworks character and story-incident are dominant. Language, | of course, is always a dominant element. Though twentieth- i century literature is generally regarded as having given 18 time a greater•importance than it had previously, one has only to consider the Odvssev to realize that even in earlier literature time plays an important role in effecting struc- 19 ture, shape, and meaning. jyou're too wonderful for anybody to realize you . . . Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?— every, jevery minute of it" (Three Plays [New York, 1958], p. 62). This is exactly the feeling that the audience has experi enced as it has witnessed in two and a half hours almost the jentire story of many individual lives and of an entire town. p?he audience has felt the fleetness of time and has been .given warning both by the form of the play and its verbal ized theme to look to its own life and to be sure to appre ciate every living moment. -*-®See Lawrence Durrell, "Space, Time, and Poetry,1 1 A Key to Modern British Poetry (Norman, Okla., 1952). •J-^The Odyssey is obviously the prototype of those nov els that depend heavily on the element of time. In Book I with the sending of Athena to Ithaca and with the suggested departure of Hermes to Ogygia two time-lines are estab lished, those of Telemachus and Odysseus. Telemachus' time- 35 Point of view, too, like time, is often considered a 20 mode of narrative fiction rather than an element, and likewise its role in affecting the constituent elements has assumed more noticeable importance in the literature of the 21 late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though its presence can be noted in the narrative fiction of all is followed for four books, and while he is in Lacedaemon, in parallel construction to his time-line the machinations of the suitors in Ithaca are revealed. Also, in Book IV Menelaus1 narration both reveals a time antecedent to Tele machus 1 time-line and parallels the time later represented in Odysseus' narration to the Phaeacians. In Book V the time-line of Odysseus begins, paralleling that of Telemachus until Book IX where Odysseus begins his narration of events from the conclusion of the Trojan War to his arrival on Ogygia (the time parallel to Menelaus' narration). Odys seus' time-line in Books IX-XII precedes the point in time where the Odyssey opens. In Book XIII Odysseus' time-line again becomes parallel to Telemachus' and is followed through Book XIV. Book XV reverts to the time-line of Tele machus, and in Book XVI the two time-lines having joined continue as one to the conclusion of the epic. Referential time in the Odvssev is complex, having several layers. Where the time-lines of Odysseus and Telemachus are parallel the action represents thirty-seven days. Odysseus' narra tion (IX-XII) extends the referential time to cover a period of ten years. 2 ° S e e Wellek and Warren, pp. 222-225. 2lFor a detailed examination of point of view in the novel see Percy Lubbock, The Craft of Fiction (New York, 1947). This work is based on the material found in Henry James’ introductions to the 1904 edition of his complete works. See also Robert Scholes and Robert Kellogg, "Point of View in Narrative," The Nature of Narrative (New York, 1966), pp. 240-282. jperiods. The term point of view has generally been used in a purely technical sense to indicate first- or third-person 22 narration m genres other than the drama. Point of view, I however, also exists in the drama. The question whether it j lis a constituent element or a mode can be settled by deter- ! | | jmining whether it is a means of narrative fiction or only a | | jmanner. The most realistic use of point of view in the drama occurs in plays where there is no recognition of an audience by the actors. The audience is given the opportunity, so to |speak, of viewing the lives and actions of people who are [presumably unaware that they are being observed. The play is presented not as an illusion of life but as life itself. This point of view can be designated as that of the audi ence . I Within the audience's point of view there is a range of l j realism to less realism. If the characters and events of a play are historical, the audience is obviously aware that it is not viewing life taking place on the stage but that it is witnessing a representation of something that happened in PP ^The use of the second person is extremely rare, though Ring Lardner has used it to some extent in his short story Haircut. i 37 |the past. This is certainly true of Greek tragedy where the characters are legendary, mythical, or historical. In such plays the audience's point of view is considerably less realistic than in plays such as Picnic or A Streetcar Named 'Desire which deal with contemporary situations and charac- The least realistic use of point of view in the drama occurs in plays where there is the recognition of the audi ence by the actors. This recognition can assume several jaspects. Sometimes there is a narrator outside the action i 24 pf the drama who stands between the play and the audience. j In Wilder’s Our Town and Williams' The Glass Menagerie such narrators are employed at the very beginning of each work. i ! jln the Wilder play the narrator, or Stage Manager as he is I Jcalled, begins the drama by saying, "This play is called Our Town" (p. 5). Tom, the narrator in the Williams play, | p O B # i CJIt is interesting to note that the point of view m phekhov's plays has grown less realistic with the passage of [time. His characters and situations are contemporary with his own day, but that era has passed, and his characters and situations are now historical., ^Sometimes a narrator appears within a play as one of the characters, but this does not affect the realism of the point of view. Such a narrator is often seen in Greek tragedy in the character of a messenger. says in his opening remarks that he is going to present 25 "truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." The narra tors in both plays recognize that there is an audience in ! the theater and inform that audience that it is about to see a play. There is no pretense that the events on the stage j are life. This point of view can be designated as that of the actor. Sometimes this recognition of the audience takes the form of a remark addressed indirectly to the audience by a j ^character from within the play. In the opening of The Froas of Aristophanes we have such an example where Xanthias, the slave, asks his master Dionysus if he should tell any of those old jokes that always make the audience laugh. Solil- i joquies, too, imply the presence of an audience in the thea- i |ter. Music and dancing in a play, unless performed solely i jfor the benefit of an on-stage audience, are also a form of i jaudience recognition. i As in our consideration of time, we have used in our examination of point of view modal terms that measure real- ! ism. In a like manner character, story-incident, and lan guage can be spoken of as being realistic or less realistic, ^Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (New York, 1945). p. 4. ____________ I ___________________ since none of the constituent elements exists in a free state apart from modal usage. If point of view shares with these elements a capacity for different modal uses, it, too, must be considered an element. These, then, are the con- i jstituent elements of narrative fiction: language, charac- I ter, story-incident, time, and point of view. Mode is the manner in which these elements are used. The subject of modes has been touched upon in reference to the elements, but now it should be scrutinized more jclosely in its own right. Mode functions through its ef fect on the constituent elements to produce the reality of a work of art. It is a commonplace that the first requisite of any work of art is that it have reality, without which jnothing else is possible. How often has one heard a reader i say, "I couldn't finish that novel. It just didn't seem real." Or the playgoer condemn the play with, "It just wasn't real. I didn't believe it." The reality of a work is, however, not its truth but its credibility. Hardly anyone today would regard the gods in the Iliad as true, but their appearances and actions are made to seem credible. A fairy tale is not true, but it can be accepted as real or credible. In this sense a distinction between "real" and "realistic" should be scrupulously observed. "Real" simply imeans "credible"; "realistic" means "lifelike," is a modal [term, and refers to the verisimilitude to life with which i jthe constituent elements are presented. i ! | | Essentially, there are only two modes, realism and non-j ; i realism. Realism, though it is the more lifelike mode, can never be as lifelike as life itself. Aristotle per- i ceives this clearly when he insists that a work of art is an 27 imitation of life. Eliot has phrased the same thought for our times; "The difference between art and the event is i 28 [always absolute." Nor can non-realism be entirely devoid [of the lifelike quality of realism. Therefore, non-realism is not an adequate term, since it implies the total absence of realism, and at this point it seems wise to abandon it for a more suitable word. Since non-realistic works of art depend less for their reality upon a verisimilitude of life 2^Frye, pp. 33-34, derives his theory of modes from the 'Poetics (1448a2). He limits the use of mode to character jand story-incident, designating five different modes; (1) the character superior in kind both to other men and their environment? (2) the character superior, in degree to other men and his environment; (3) the character superior to other men but not to his environment; (4) the character neither superior to other men nor to his environment but like one of us; (5) the character inferior to other men. 27Poetics- 1447a2; 1449b6. 28"Tradition," p. 9. [than realistic works, the word "artificial" will be adequate | jfor our purpose, though perhaps other words could be found that would serve just as well. Again, since "artificial" is i a substitute for "non-realistic" and since there is a degree | jof realism in all works, artificiality must not be thought of as the opposite of realism. Rather like the terms of temperature, artificiality and realism should be regarded as degrees of difference on the same scale. These two modes, presenting the constituent elements to varying degrees of realism or artificiality, form a frame of reference which in itself tends toward artificiality or realism and establishes the reality or credibility of a j work. The use of the constituent elements throughout a work must be in accord with the artificiality or realism of this ! frame. It is not necessary, however, for all the elements i jin a work to be realistic or artificial to the same degree i | for the frame to be preserved, provided that the degree of difference is not too great. Yet if one or several of the elements, employed within an artificial frame, should sud denly shift to an extreme of realism, the frame would be ruptured and the reality of a work collapse. The same re sult would occur if the elements within a realistic frame should make an extreme shift to artificiality. For example, if in the middle of a play, set in the realistic mode where there has been no recognition of an audience in the theater, E ; / an actor should suddenly address the audience directly, the 29 frame of reference would be broken and credibility lost. | The effect of mode upon the constituent elements, the jinteraction of the elements themselves, and their integra- ! jtion combine to produce in an inseparable unity the total i jform and the total meaning of a work. In a narrative fic- i 30 |tion the term "plot" may be used to designate form. Just I Sas the over-a11 form of a work contains smaller forms within i p Q j ^Aristotle1s dxcta that the incidents of the plot should follow the laws of probability and necessity (1451^9- 1452a10) and that character portrayal should heed the same laws (1454a15) are strictures of modal use. For example, Oedipus Rex could be concluded with a tile accidentally falling from the roof of the palace and killing Oedipus. jThis sort of event could happen in actual life. Certainly, jit has the possibility of truth and would seem quite realis tic, but for it to happen in a play where everything up to [that moment has been the result of probability or necessity jwould be to break the frame of reference, thereby destroying the play's reality. On the other hand, nothing in Ionesco's play The Bald Soprano develops from probability or neces sity, either incidents or characters. Furthermore, the frame of reference is extremely realistic from the stand point of language, point of view, and time. If any incident were developed or any character appeared motivated by proba bility or necessity, the frame of reference would be broken, and the play would lose its credibility. ^°Wellek and Warren write, p. 216: "The narrative structure of a play, tale, or novel has traditionally been called the plot." 43 jit, so we can say that a work has a major plot and sub-plots jas well. i Story and plot are terms which are either frequently confused or used interchangeably as synonyms for what is regarded as identical. Yet a substantial distinction ex ists. Story, or story-incident, is only one of the con stituent elements, while plot is a product of those ele- f i ments. Probably the origin of this confusion derives from t i the Poetics. though Aristotle is not entirely culpable. It j is true that he distinguishes plot as one of six elements i 3 1 and makes no place for story-incident as an element, but he does say that he means by plot "the arrangement of the incidents" (1450a6). Since story-incident had no place as an element in his classification, it became easy for readers Jto identify plot with incidents, forgetting the stress that 1 !he gives to his definition of plot as the arrangement of the .incidents. ^ The term "themes" may be used to designate the total meaning of a work. They consist of specific issues, ques- 33-Aristotle. Poetics . 1450a6. 32cf. E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New York, 1927), p. 130, for his differentiation between story and plot. 44 I tions, or problems of an ethical, religious, philosophical, psychological, or political nature which a work explicates either by finally resolving or indicating the impossibility 33 of any resolution. Motifs are sometimes called themes. But in reality motifs belong to the elements of story- incident and characterization as a term that classifies and groups together certain incidents and attitudes of a similar nature that recur in a particular narrative fiction or even in an entire genre. This confusion in terms is due to the failure to distinguish between story, characterization, and jtheme. Though story and characterization, as two of the 1 jelements that produce the totality of a work, make heavy contributions to a work's meaning or themes, nevertheless j jstory and characterization encompass and refer only to what i ! jhappens in a narrative fiction and to whom it happens. | 34 jThemes represent what the work is about. | Implicit in any critical method are certain attitudes ! ! with which that method should be applied: (1) One attitude jhas already been mentioned (see p. 14 above): that though jeach age has its own literary criticism (see n. 6, p. 10 j ^^Scholes and Kellogg^ p. 27. ■^Cf. Scholes and Kellogg, pp. 26-28. 45 jabove), nevertheless we must understand the literary facts !of a work as they were understood by the audience to which the work was originally addressed. The language of a work ! and the cultural, religious, and political attitudes and knowledge which a work assumes and shares in common with its audience are its literary facts. (2) Because in this study we are dealing with a play that was written for performance on a stage, our method must recognize that an interpretation based on the text alone is j hot enough. What takes place on the stage during a per- : formance must also be considered: the effect of exits and | {entrances, of the presence of characters on stage even when ! they are silent, and of the moments of music and dancing. [ (3) Occasionally, a critic who has full knowledge of a i {work's outcome, interprets a scene or a character in the I Slight of his omniscience of what will happen instead of |viewing the work as it unfolds and develops. Sometimes this i i approach, which may be described as the synoptic view, al lows the critic to find irony which otherwise he would not notice. At other times, however, the critic, prevented by the synoptic view from experiencing a work as it unfolds, misinterprets characters and scenes as they move through time by viewing them from the vantage point of the work's conclusion (see p. 63, n. 27 and p. 65, n. 33 below). Since the interpretation of a work of art and the consequent appreciation based upon that interpretation demand the ex periencing of the work rather than mere knowledge of it, it seems advisable to avoid the synoptic view except in those instances where irony would otherwise be overlooked (cf. pp. 248-250 below). It is obvious that the comprehensive critical approach that has been presented is only an outline. Our interest, however, is twofold, concerned as much with the result of the application of this approach to a particular work as it is with the derivation of the proper critical method. It is hoped that the method will assume as clear and as full pro portions, when its application is viewed, as a longer and more detailed exposition would reveal. PART II INTERPRETATION 47 CHAPTER III THE ANTIGONE (1-581) Prologue (1-99) I | | Too often, as the word suggests, the prologue of a i Greek tragedy is thought of as a preamble to the play proper rather than as an integral scene. The term is obviously too I broad, since several kinds of prologues can be found in | jGreek tragedy. First, there is the pure preamble-type in I which only the exposition of the situation is set forth and in which there is no development of story-incident and of 1 characters who are seen within the play. The second kind is a composite of the preamble-type and of a first scene: there is advancement of story-incident, and, while there is -*-Apollo and Death are the only characters in the pro logue to the Alcestis. They reveal and debate the situa tion. Some hint is given at the conclusion of the prologue as to the outcome of the play, but no action develops, nor do Apollo and Death appear again after the prologue. 48 I 49 i i development of a major character, other characters appear 2 who are never seen again. Sometimes in this type there is 3 advancement of story-incident but not of character. The third kind advances incident, develops character, is as in- | trinsic to a play as any interior scene, and consequently is not a true prologue at all but actually an initial scene. |The Antigone. like the other extant plays of Sophocles with i jthe exception of the Ajax, has such a prologue. If the form | land meaning of a play work organically, it is reasonable to jassume that one would find in a prologue of this type the seeds of almost everything that is to follow. i i | Antigone's opening speech (1-10) establishes her i I | i i j o j cIn the prologue to The Troian Women after the solilo- jquy of Poseidon and his ensuing dialogue with Athena both jgods disappear from the play. Hecuba, the leading charac ter, delivers a lament which helps develop her characteriza tion and gives an emotional and personal tone to the situa tion that the gods have outlined. The prologue to Prome theus Bound is quite similar: Hephaestus and his helpers never reappear after the prologue, and Prometheus begins bpeaking after their departure. In the Hippolytus. Aphro- jdite after her opening soliloquy appears no more, but before [the Chorus enters a scene develops in which the character of Hippolytus is delineated. | prologue to the Agamemnon seems like an opening Iscene, but it, too, belongs to the composite type: the story-incident develops with the sighting of the beacon, but there is no development of a major character, and the Watch man is not seen again. 50 jintense devotion to her family, the basic motivation to i 4 which all her other motives are related. Her language is i I . 5 highly emotional. Beginning with an intense expression of jsisterly kinship, Ta> hoiv6v a{»T(5c6eXcpov ’icriirjvriQ napa (1), | she uses such words as tcov cxtc* OibCitou Hocwffiv (2), ocXYei»v6v (4), aTTjQ (4), aLaxpov (5), octliiov (5), amv (6),Mcqj.u5v (6), Kawffiv (6). With-these words she recalls the troubles that have befallen her family, alluding to the patricidal act of Oedipus, the incest of her mother and father, and the mutual fratricide of her brothers. At the same time her i } words relate her sister and herself to these misfortunes, and there is a hint that some new evil is about to descend upon them, the last survivors of the family (2-3). In lan- i iguage that is cold and formal in contrast to the intensity and warmth of the preceding lines she refers to this new I ^H. D. F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy. 3rd ed. (London, 1961), jp. 125, writes of Antigone: "Her fate is decided in the 'first few verses, and she can but go to meet it." ^Goheen, p. 76, writes: ". .-. Antigone draws heavily upon direct terms of emotion . . . Antigone is, in fact, narked by a strong tendency to think emotionally and feel tier judgments as likes and dislikes, love and hate, pleasure and displeasure." ^All words and passages cited from the Antigone are taken from Sophocle: Les Trachiniennes— Antigone, text by Alphonse Dain, trans. Paul Mazon, Bude, I (Paris, 1955) j 51 i ! ! disaster as an edict of the State, using such words as * r * 7 rnxvSruiu) rcoXei (7), HTjpuyiia. 0eivou r6v aTpaTriyov (8). In the final line of her opening speech with the words TTpfcg t o \) q (pCXouQ o t e Cx o v t o c tcov sxQpffiv wand (10), Antigone resorts again to highly emotional language to express the ! I !injustice of the State toward her family. o&CXouq, of 7 The use of aTpaTT[y6v instead of Tijpavvov can be •easily and reasonably explained. It is a time of war. A ,bfreat battle has just been fought and won in which Antigo ne's brother Eteocles, the former general, has perished. Thinking of the immediate past, she uses OTpaT'nyov in ref erence to Creon who has now assumed the office formerly held by her brother. Cf. Fridericus Ellendt, Lexicon Sophocleum (Hildesheim, 1965), p. 696. Victor Ehrenberg, Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford, 1954), pp. 105-112, 173-179, makes an at tempt with the word arparriyov to identify Creon with Peri- jcles. In fact, his entire book is devoted to this attempt. Whether he is successful or not is beside the point. While he does make many incidental and interesting comments on the play, the real issue is whether his ultimate contribution is to history or literary criticism. If the Antiaone is such a topical play that it can. be understood only in terms of an identification of Creon with Pericles, then Ehrenberg, granted that he is successful, has uncovered literary facts jand has made a valuable contribution to criticism. The jplay, however, is understandable on a general and abstract jlevel. Its treatment, for instance, of the theme of tyranny ! does not rely for its meaning on specific references to his torical figures but is entirely abstract and universal. See H. Lloyd-Jones1 perceptive review of Ehrenberg's book in iTournal of Hellenic Studies. LXXVI (1956), 112-113. Cf. kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 177, for his comments on the en- Jdeavors of ancient historians to find judgments on contem porary Athenian politics in this play. 52 i 1 8 course, means "friends,” but it also means "relatives." The language of poetry being connotative as well as denota tive, cpiXoug in the context has both meanings: it refers jto Antigone and Ismene as friends of the State rather than i i its enemies; and it alludes to Polyneices as a relative, 9 since he can hardly be considered a friend of the State. To the reader the meaning of the word as "relatives" in cludes not only Antigone, Ismene, and Polyneices, but also preon. With the inclusion of Creon the reader sees some- f f [thing that Antigone from her standpoint had not meant by the prord. He sees the suggestion of an ironic sense, intimated |ever so slightly, that Creon has perhaps created by his proclamation a conflict between his position as ruler and his familial duty as an uncle.^ At Ismene's profession of ignorance of the edict I ^Bernard Knox, The Heroic Temper (Berkeley, 1964), p. 80, writes, regarding cptkog; "By Sophocles’ time the word bould mean either 'close relative' or 'friend,' depending on the context." ^Knox, p. 81, though he feels that 9CA.0UQ refers only to Polyneices, believes that in reference to him the word must mean "relative" and not "friend." Cf. J. H. Kells, "Problems of Interpretation in the Antigone." Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. X (1963), 49. -*-®Cf. Knox, p. 80, for the ambiguous use of the word tptkoQ in the speeches of Antigone and Creon. ! 53 I Antigone informs her that no one is to bury Polyneices or i mourn him (28) and whoever disobeys will suffer death by jstoning (36). With the indignant and parenthetical words, jXeyco yap K&p.e (32), Antigone reveals for the first time the attitude which the emotionalism expressed in her opening i jspeech impels her to take: others may be willing to obey i | Creon, but she will not. The opportunity Antigone offers Ismene to prove her nobility with the words, h< xI &et£st,Q 12 Ta, xp/ git’ euysvf)Q itscpuHaq six’ saSXcov naxf) (38-39), is obviously Antigone's as well, and her indignation has indi- i J jcated that she is not going to miss such an opportunity. At ! this point we have two motivations for the course of Antigo ne ' s action: a deep devotion to her family and her desire. ■*-^Cf. Richard Jebb, Sophocles: The Plays and Frag ments . "Antigone," Part III, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam, 1962), p. 15, n. ad, 31. i i M. Kirkwood, A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca, 1958), pp. 177-178, makes this point about the word EuyevfiQ: "Originally, o Euyevf|Q is the 'gentleman,' the man wellborn; it is a matter of inherited rank and need have no more personal significance than 'nobleman' need have in English usage. But as Sophocles1 tragic heroes use the word it means not only 'of noble birth' but also and always 'of noble nature.' In Antigone the heroine can declare that Ismene will show by her attitude toward the burial of Poly- peices: eit* E^YEvfiQ TEEcpiwaq eu t* eoOXoov Hanp 30. To be EuyevriQ, then, is not only a matter of birth, since Ismene may be base in spite of her parentage, but of one's own nature (TCECpuxaq). " jto prove her own nobility, that she may be worthy of this i | Inoble family. Though Ismene is completely sympathetic with her sis ter's resolve, her timidity and reluctance to transgress the 1 jState's decree moves Antigone to say: o u t* av KsXeuaaLp.’ , !out’ av, ei GeXolq eti/ TipdaaEiv, em, ou y’ t|6eci) q Spirit; | p.ETa (69-70) . This remark seems, at first glance, to re- I I 2.3 iveal mere petulance and harshness, but it also represents i I i . in regard to Antigone's motive an incipient shift from a i ! i subjective emotionalism to a belief that is more objective. In effect, she is saying that to bury Polyneices is a noble ! deed and that the doer of the deed must be equally noble and ! i believe sincerely that the nobility of the deed transcends jobedience to the State. j j This suggestion of a belief, more objective than her emotionalism is substantiated a moment later and clarified i i jsomewhat when she says: crot 6* si 6omei/ xa Qetov evtip,’ axLp.&aaa* £Xe (76-77). This statement, negative in refer- snce to Ismene, suggests a positive assertion of Antigone's belief, not so fully expressed or developed as it Will be when she confronts Creon.(450-457), but nevertheless we do ! i - * - 3Cf. Kirkwood, p. 120. 55 get a glimpse of it.'*'"1 Its objectivity lies in the fact that, stated completely, it assumes the nature of a creed or a faith which is not personal to Antigone but exists and has existed for others even prior to the present situation, jsince there is stress in the prologue on Antigone's devotion to her family and her desire to prove her nobility, and these emotions are revealed before the slight expression of her faith, it can be reasonably assumed that she grasps at this belief to support her emotions. Nevertheless, she genuinely believes the laws of the gods to be a higher obli gation, and her emotions reciprocally strengthen this be lief. i In the lines just before this brief suggestion of her faith Antigone makes an attempt to rationalize a motivation for the burial: . . . kcxAov j a o u t o u t o Tioiouaq 0avetv. < p C A .T i. fiex’ o c ' l i t o u H e la o |ia i, cpCXou iiera , | o c u a T c a v o u p y r i a a Q ’ . s t t e i tuX e Ccov x p o v o t ; | ov 5el i j l * apeaweiv tolq xatoo tcov sv0a6s. j ewet yap asl netoo\iai . . . (72-76) In comparison with the strength of her emotionalism and the 14Cf. Kirkwood, p. 26 7. ; 56 I | jvalidity of her faith this rationalization seems feeble. [Based upon a motive of profit rather than upon any ethical i l jvalue, it implies that if the dead wanted her to do anything ! j ‘ evil in the world of the living, she would consent. Here,j ' j in Antigone's failure to use reason well, can be seen the j i |foreshadowing of a later passage (904-920) where she demon- I ! I i 16 jstrates again an inability to rationalize her motivation. When Ismene, unable to dissuade her sister, advises her {to act in secrecy and says that she herself will remain si- I jlent (84-85), Antigone replies: oiijlol HaTau&oc’ ttoAA6v :sX0tcov earji oiy&a’, eav n-T] tool wtipu^Q rade (86-87). ■This rather strange and startling response gives a further ! i c j ■ L3Ivan M. Linforth, "Antigone and Creon,1 1 University of California Publications in Classical Philology. XV, No. 5 1(1961), 186, makes this comment on Antigone's reasoning in ;vv. 72-76: "The overwhelming sense of her present duty has pushed her to an irrational but lofty defense of it." j ^R. E. Wycherley, "Sophocles' Antigone 904-920," CP. jXLII (1947), 51-52, comments on the similarity of these two [passages. Cf. Charles S. Levy, "Antigone's Motives: A Sug gested Interpretation," TAPA. LXIV (1963), 140-141. •^Antigone' s use of the word XTlpu£T)Q (87) parallels her description of Creon's edict as a Kfjpuyjia (8). He has proclaimed one thing, and she in open opposition wants Is- mene to proclaim another. Goheen, p. 20, notes the paral lelism between Hr)pv%riQ and nripuyiia, but he feels that iAntigone in using xr|pu^r)Q in reference to Ismene is only disassociating herself from her sister and placing Ismene in the ranks of Creon. I (indication, though brief and unclarified at this point, of | jthe course Antigone will pursue: not only will she bury her ] brother, but she will have it known that she has buried him, for if she effected the burial and remained anonymous, she [would satisfy only her deep devotion to her family and her [religious belief; her desire to prove her nobility would, i ! 'however, be frustrated, for apparently proof of nobility | [depends upon the recognition of others. Such an attitude \ jtoward nobility would seem egotistical and selfish, if in i [Antigone's mind the performance of the burial reflected [glory only on herself. But the burial will also bring glory to her family. She has mentioned in her opening speech the 19 evils deriving from Oedipus (2); Ismene has enumerated these evils in somewhat greater detail (49-57): their ! [father was guilty of parricide and incest, their mother of incest, and their brothers of fratricide. Antigone and i is j J. Cowser, "The Shaping of the Antigone," Proceedings of the Classical Association. XXXVI (1939), 39, agrees that ivv. 86-87 express Antigone's open rebellion against the [state. Kirkwood, p. 120, interprets these verses only as an expression of Antigone's hostility and bitterness toward Ismene. Linforth, p. 187, believes that these verses reveal only the zealous fanaticism of Antigone, that "she scorns to hide her deed and escape the consequences." l^See Jebb, p. 9, n. a& 2. 58 Ismene are the only members of their family who have not i [committed acts of sacrilege and sin. Given the opportunity | jto perform a noble deed, Antigone in winning glory for her- I ! jself will ameliorate the reputation of her family, but only on condition that she is recognized as responsible for the burial. Related in this way to each other, her incentive to iprove her nobility and her desire for glory likewise origi- ! i jnate in her devotion to her family. ! i | To recapitulate briefly, the prologue has revealed four motives for Antigone's contemplated action: (1) her devo tion to her family; (2) her desire to prove her nobility; i i i j(3) her desire for glory, a motive that is corollary to the I I t . . . 20 |second motive; (4) and her religious faith. Her reasoning i that she owes more to the dead than to the living, because jshe will abide with the dead for a much longer time (72-76), j ;is just a poor and unsuccessful attempt to rationalize what j she has already been motivated to do. The prologue has disclosed through Antigone1s motives two of the major themes of the play: (1) the opposition to ? n wKnox, p. 28, writes of Antigone's motives: "Antigone justifies her defiance of public opinion and the polis in terms of euyevsua (38), the claims of noble birth, of hXeoq (502), her desire for glory, of euoe|3si(x (924, 943) her religious feelings." 59 I the State of the individual and the family; (2) the opposi- i jtion of the "unwritten laws" of religious custom to the [edicts of the State. Both of these themes have been set in | | jmotion by Antigone's opposition not to Creon but to Creon1s j [edict. The posing of Antigone herself against Creon has not; ! • i i i jas yet produced a theme or even the suggestion of one. By | [the conclusion of the prologue we know a great deal about Antigone but almost nothing about Creon, except that he has issued a proclamation forbidding the burial of Polyneices. i [Until his motives are known, it should not even be assumed that he has placed the laws of the State above the laws of j f [the gods. There is the suggestion, however, as was noted (p. 52 above), that since he is Polyneices1 uncle, he has jissued an edict that may conflict with his obligation as a i relative. \ In regard to the use of time in the prologue, from | Ismene' s phrase ev vuhti Trj vuv (15) it is made known that the action of the prologue transpires at night. Jebb, how- 21 ever, insists that the prologue begins at daybreak, giving 22 to Ismene's words the meaning of "last night." A. T. von 2;1-Jebb, p. 8, n. a& 1-99. 22Jebb, p. 11, n. 15ff. Knox, p. 180, n. 43, points IS. Bradshaw, on the other hand, while admitting that vuv has | Ibeen used by some authors to indicate the recent past, Istates that there are almost fifty examples in which Sopho cles uses vuv with the definite article and a noun, "and in 23 all of them vuv refers to the present." Bradshaw goes on to add (p. 203): "It is then highly probable . . . that the jphrase e v v u h t i ttj v u v is intended to indicate that this is a night scene," and it is not difficult to explain how some of the earlier critics failed to recognize that the action of the Antiaone begins in darkness. They were deluded by the old misinterpretation of Aristotle into attempting to force every tragedy into the fetters of the "Unity of Time" . . . (p. 203) The Antigone. moreover, is not the only Greek tragedy whose action begins at night. Clearly, the action of the pro logues to the Agamemnon. to Euripides‘ Rhesus. Iohigenia in 24 Aulis. and Electra also take place at night. The performing time of the prologue is equivalent to out that "Jebb's 'last night1 is supported by parallels like v u k t o q Tfjo&s, v u x t l -nJj&E, etc. which do not contain the precise vuv. ev ^(j-epot would mean 'this present day,' cf. OT 351-352, Aj.. 801-802." 23"The Watchman Scenes in the Antigone," Classical Quarterly. XII, No. 2 (November 1962), 203. 24see Knox, pp. 180-181, n. 43. the time to which the action refers. In this sense time is used quite realistically. Since, however, the action takes place at night and is witnessed by the audience in daylight I i ! i i * f I — a good instance of the magical make-believe of the theatre! | — in this respect time, used referentially and consequently i jquite artificially, lessens the realism. The characters, too, as personages of legend rather than of life, tend away from the realistic. For this rea son, while the point of view is that of the audience and Represents a most realistic use of this element, it loses i the full effect of realism'. The language as well, since it is verse, is quite removed from realism. The prologue has jestablished a frame of reference that leans heavily toward [ I jthe artificial. i i Parodos (100-161) j | The frame of reference grows more artificial with the ! [entrance song of the Chorus, song and dance implying an in- j [direct recognition of an audience. Such a recognition has the effect of designating that the play is not a representa tion of life but an illusion, the foundation for which has already been laid in the prologue. The opening verses of the parodos (100-104) indicate that there has been a change 62 25 m time from night to dawn. With this advance in time the tone of the play changes from the darkness to which Antigone's plotting seems most appropriate to the daylight in which the Chorus' exaltation in the recent victory seems equally fitting. The joy of the Theban Elders affords a further contrast to the despair and anger of Antigone. The consistency of the frame of reference serves both to empha size these contrasts and yet at the same time to bind the 26 parodos to the prologue. The victory hymn of the Chorus acts as another unifying factor, sustaining the intensity and excitement generated by Antigone's emotionalism. The Elders, summoned by Creon, introduce in their song a theme of hybris, declaiming that Zeus, who hates the boasts of proud tongues, has put down the Argive enemy (127- 133). From the view of the Chorus this statement is rele- Ivant only to the Argive host, but to the reader, aware of i i .what has taken place in the prologue, it suggests more. As it has been pointed out above, no theme was directly ^Bradshaw, p. 203, writes: "If it is realized that the prologue takes place at night, the parodos appears in its true light— the light of dawn. Clearly this ode begins as a hymn to the sun which has only just risen." Cf. Knox, p. 180, n. 43. ^®Cf. Kirkwood, pp. 202-203. jestablished in the prologue from the counterposing of the i j jcharacters of Antigone and Creon, but with the Chorus' in troduction of this theme the reader is made to wonder for a moment if Creon or Antigone is going to be guilty of hybris j i [ I 27 or if either of them is already guilty. The Chorus has I ]not established this theme in the parodos with reference to ! ! Creon and Antigone, but it has prepared the way for it. | First Episode (162-331) First part (162-222) . | Creon's opening speech (162-210) has been likened to an i 28 jinaugural address, the first part stating in generalities ithe principles with which he intends to rule, the second f 1(191-210) announcing specifically his edict against ; 27g. m . Adams, Sophocles the Playwright (Toronto, |l957), p. 45, states that we already know that Creon is a man of hybris and therefore this theme in the parodos is ^relevant only to him. I feel, however, that at this point jthis theme may be relevant either to Antigone or Creon. We do not know so early in the play what Creon's motives are, so as to be able to attribute hybris to him. In fact, from what we have seen of Ismene's view of Antigone, it is more likely that at this point Antigone may be the one who is guilty of hybris. Adams' interpretation is probably due to jhis only viewing the play synoptically instead of also ex periencing it as it unfolds. ^Linforth, p. 188; Knox, p. 84. i 64 t i jPolyneices and his reasons for it. His first remark (162- I ! |163) attributes the salvation of the city to the gods, a (platitudinous sentiment, no doubt, but nevertheless pious. Next, he explains to the Chorus that he has summoned them [ jabove all others, because they have, always .been loyal to the 1 ruling family of Thebes, and now, since the deaths of the sons of Oedipus, he as next of kin is the ruler (164-174). After this introduction Creon states his principles: to pursue the best interests of the city (178-179); to consider ho cpt^ov (183) more important than his own country (182- 183); not to be silent, if he sees ruin approaching (ctteC- XOUOav 186) the citizens instead of safety (185-186); to consider no man who is hostile to the State a qnAov to him- i i !self (187-188), knowing that such friendships cannot be true 29 friendships if they endanger the State (188-190). Creon’s speech is a statement of patriotism and prin ciple that would reassure any body of citizens, especially one that had recently experienced a rebellion that had al most wrecked the State. It seems reasonable and logical 29jebb, p. 45, n. ad 189f., gives this explanation of t o u q cpCXouq tto touixeSa: "We make the friends (whom we really make): since friends made at the cost of endangering or wrecking the ship of State cannot properly be considered friends at all." i 65 j Ithat the first concern of a ruler should be the welfare of ! i I Ithe State and its citizens. In fact, Demosthenes, in the j Icentury after the Antigone was written, quotes vv. 175-190 I 30 in his attack on Aeschines. A thought quite similar to j n&* e o t I v r) aw C o u c a , x a l tooOttjq eni/ tuX eovteq opQfjq t o u q pCX.ovQ 7toLOUne0a (189-190) is attributed to Pericles by 31 Thucydides. The parallel is so close that one might think that Thucydides (or Pericles) had Creon's lines in mind, but as Jebb points out, the similarity is probably coincidental and "what is really common to poet and histor- 32 ian is the general sentiment of Periclean Athens." There jseems to be nothing in the first part of Creon1s speech to I 33 jwhich the Chorus could take exception. I 30Demosthenes, 19. 247. See Ehrenberg, p. 59, n. 1, jfor his view of the manner in which Demosthenes uses this quotation. Cf. Knox, p. 181, n. 52. 31Thucydides, 2. 60. syo) yapjf)yoOiiatj ixoX-Ly tjXeCo) ^ujiitaaav op0oujievr)v u)cpeA.£LV t o u q CSucotoq r j Ka0’ EwaaTov t S v •jioA-Ctwv Euirpaybuaav a0poav 6e c^aAAonevnv. KaXwQ |j , £ v y&p cpspoixEvog dvfip t o Ha0’ sauTOv 6La90ELpo(i£vri^ xffq TtaTpC&OQ ou6ev ?)OOov ^uvauo^XuTai, ncmoxvx&v 5e ev eutuxouo^ ttoXXo) p.aXkov 6Laauj£ETai. 32Jebb, pp. 45-46, n. agL 189f. 33Bowra, pp. 68-69, reveals an inconsistency in his attitude toward the first part of Creon1s speech. Of Creon's principles he writes: "They are the legitimate commonplaces of a patriot and would be accepted as such. This part of Creon's speech, however, is more than just an inaugural address and has a twofold significance of which i jonly the reader is completely aware. To the Chorus, having | [no knowledge of the edict or of what has transpired in the prologue, his speech is simply a statement of general prin ciples; to the reader, aware of his edict and of what has They help to create a good impression of him at his first appearance. . . . The maxims flow too easily to carry much weight. Creon advances them with such glibness that we soon suspect him of trying to make a good impression or wonder if he does not deceive himself." Adams, p. 46, has this to say of Creon's principles: "In themselves his precepts are sound, but they have no relevance to an act automatically condemned as hybristic ..." Again, Adams makes the mis take of viewing Creon at this point in the play with the synoptic view that only knowledge of the entire play can give (see n. 27 above). Of course, Creon has been proven wrong by the end of the play and guilty of hybris, but to consider him hybristic in his opening speech is to view the characters in black and white, to make Creon a villain and the play a melodrama instead of a tragedy. Cf. Moses Hadas, Introduction to Classical Drama (New York, 1966), p. 47. Karl Reinhardt, Soohokles. 3rd ed. (Frankfurt, 1947), p. 78, |says of Creon1s speech: "Nicht ein Prinzip, Moral oder !Idee, redet durch seinen Mund, er ist ein Mensch in seinen Kreis gebannt und sein Grenzen bis zur Blindheit unterwor- fen." It is difficult to reconcile Reinhardt's view that Creon's speech contains neither a single principle, moral, nor idea with the fact that Demosthenes uses verses 175-190 as a rebuke to Aeschines (see n. 30, p. 65 above) and that Thucydides attributed a similar sentiment to Pericles (see n. 31, p. 65 above). D. W. Lucas, The Greek Tragic Poets, 2nd ed. (New York, 1964), p. 141, agrees with my interpreta tion of the first part of Creon's speech: "The manifesto which is the prelude to his decree that the traitor shall not be buried would be acceptable to the wisest and most benevolent of kings." taken place in the prologue, his speech is also an attempt 34 to justify the edict. j Creon's attribution of the salvation of the city to the r r [gods, which appears to be just a pious platitude to the Chorus, suggests to the reader that the new ruler has not set the welfare of the State above the laws of the gods. In his statement that he will consider no cpCA.ov above his country (182-183) the Chorus understands the word as "friend," but the reader takes it to mean "relative" as well, reminded of Antigone's use of cptXouQ (10). Creon's i j remark that he would not be silent if he saw ruin approach ing (aTsCxo^aav 185) the citizens instead of safety recalls to the reader Antigone's words, that the evils belonging to enemies are marching (OTeCxov^a) against friends (10). Finally, with the repetition of tpCXov (187) and again of jcptXouQ (190) the reader is once more reminded of the spe- ! icific problem that was only intimated in the prologue, that ! | jCreon's role of ruler might conflict with his obligation as 'Polyneices' uncle. Within eight lines Creon has used a form of the word cpCXog three times, indicating that he has fully recognized what was barely suggested in the prologue as a ^^Cf. Linforth, p. 189? cf. also Knox, p. 87. 68 ! I (possible difficulty for him, though, of course, to the ! jchorus his words have been simply an avowal of general prin- ciples. Only after he has announced his edict to the Chorus ! can they look back upon his general principles as specific ! i (justifications. i i It might be well at this point to consider, before examining the rest of Creon1s speech, how far he has suc ceeded, at least from the reader's view, in justifying his 1 (edict. The answer, such as it is, is not a matter of liter ary criticism but of literary scholarship, and lies in the [ (knowledge common to the contemporary Athenian audience. It is a literary fact that must be understood as the audience of that time understood it. The answer involves knowledge 35 of the Athenian law concerning the burial of traitors. The Athenian custom in regard to the burial of enemy idead is quite clear. After the battle of Marathon, the Athenians, as Pausanias tells us, buried the Persian dead, i i (believing it to be necessary in accordance with religious 36 observance that a corpse be hidden in the ground. This religious observance is defended several times in The •^Cf. Linforth, pp. 190-191. 36pausanias, 1. 32. 5. ! 69 i ! ' 37 Suppliants of Euripides. But Polyneices was not just one of the enemy dead. He was also a traitor, and we must look i to the Athenian law concerning the burial of traitors, if we are to learn the attitude that the Athenian audience had i toward Creon’s edict. Thucydides tells us that after the death of Themistocles "it is said that his bones were brought home by his relatives and buried in Attica but with- ! out the knowledge- of the Athenians, because it was not per mitted that he be buried in Attic soil since he had been ! i jexiled for treason" (1. 138). Xenophon quotes the following i ^Athenian law: "If anyone betrays the city or steals sacred property, if, after he has been tried in court, he is con demned, he shall be refused burial in Attica, and his prop- 38 erty shall be confiscated by the State." | Ivan Linforth questions the validity and purpose of jcreon’s decree and wonders "how he will benefit the State by jdenying burial to Polyneices" (p. 189). He conjectures that i jperhaps the edict might serve as a warning to others who jmight follow Polyneices1 example and take up his cause, but he admits that there is no evidence for this, and reasons 37Euripides, Suppliants. 19; 311; 378; 526; 528, 38xenophon, Hellenics. 1. 7. 22. 70 that in all probability such a decree would only incense the adherents of Polyneices and "provoke them to an uprising instead of averting danger" (pp. 189-190). He concludes that Creon by his decree has "acted in a moment of bitter anger" and in his speech to the Chorus "now seeks to give his actions a color of justice" (p. 190). There is, how ever , absolutely no evidence in the text that Creon pro claimed his edict "in a moment of bitter anger." The con jecture that the edict might serve as a warning to others, jthough Linforth himself places no credence in it, is never- i theless correct. The evidence for it lies outside the play in the audience1s knowledge of the Athenian law pertaining to the burial of traitors. If we want to know the purpose jof Creon1s edict, then we must ask what is the purpose of i this law. Obviously, such a law is designed not only to punish traitors but also by this punishment to deter others from becoming traitors, just as our laws that administer capital punishment are framed with the intention of punish ing and deterring. Whether others were prevented by the edict from becoming traitors we shall never know, for while Antigone is seen as the sole transgressor, she is not the political traitor that the decree was designed to deter. The reader, however, need trouble himself only about the i 71 i ■edict's purpose, not about its validity or effectiveness, 1 ■since the play itself is concerned not with the edict's I 39 effectiveness, but only with its justice. It is clear that Creon according to Athenian law is i i [entirely within his rights as ruler of the State to forbid burial to Polyneices. The question still remains whether Polyneices' uncle is right not to bury his nephew. In a 40 sense this is a problem play, much like the nature of a Roman controversia. and could be phrased in this way: the [law declares that the ruler of a State should forbid burial | 39Ehrenberg, pp. 58-59, has a rather inconsistent view •that is difficult to understand. He writes of Creon's de cree: "If his decree were only the result of tyrannical ar bitrariness, it would not mean very much, and Antigone would not be the great tragedy it is. . . . There is room enough to doubt whether it was in any way in the interest of the State to leave Polyneices unburied." If there is room for [this doubt, then there is also room to think, contrary to what Ehrenberg has already said, that Creon's edict was the result of tyrannical arbitrariness, and if not that, then simply the result of unintelligence. If Creon is unintelli gent, the greatness which Ehrenberg attributes to the Antig one would be destroyed just as much as by his being tyran nically arbitrary. Bradshaw, p. 209, concurs with my view of the decree: "He [Creon] has inherited a tottering throne and is desperately anxious to establish it firmly and to suppress OTacriQ. He makes his fatal decree in order to iemonstrate that traitors, no matter how noble, will be mer cilessly punished and loyal men honoured. This is to be his principle for securing stable government." 40cf. Linforth, p. 191. | 72 jto traitors; another law— -an unwritten law— insists that i i Relatives are obligated to bury their kinsmen? if the de- i ceased relative of the ruler of a State has been a traitor, should the ruler bury him or not? Of course, this specific i jsituation in itself has little significance for us and could i hardly have been of vital importance even to the Athenian audience, since such a problem could scarcely occur with any frequency. Still, the question that arises from this situa tion, whether the State has the right to supersede the in dividual, family, and religious obligations, has universal i j jsignif icance. Creon's answer to his dilemma is to be found i |in the second part of his speech. With the phrase nal vtjv a&eXcpa T a j v d s (191) Creon links jhis decree to the principles that he has just set forth, I j declaring that Eteocles should be given every honor of bur- iial (194-197), but that Polyneices should be neither buried I with honors nor mourned, and his body should be left to be eaten by birds and dogs (203-216). He gives four reasons to 41 justify his edict (199-202): (1) Polyneices wished to burn the city of his fathers; (2) to burn the shrines of his ^•^•See Jebb, p. 47, n. ad. 199ff., for his interpretation of yrjv TiaTpqxxv nai 0souq touq eyyevEiQ . . . TtpijaaL. I 73 I j jancestral gods; (3) to taste of kindred blood; (4) to lead ! I jothers off into slavery. All of Creon1s reasons portray Polyneices as the worst kind of traitor. When he says in jconclusion that the wicked and the just will never be hon- ! ! i ored alike by him, one recognizes the intent of punishment | I and deterrence of the Athenian law regarding the burial of J traitor,.42 i In his second reason, that Polyneices wished to burn the shrines of his ancestral gods, the reader gets an ink ling of how Creon solves his dilemma, the problem that was 'suggested in the prologue by Antigone's use of the word I ^ PIA.OUQ and by Creon's repetition of the same word m the first part of his speech. He implies that the gods would not honor a man who had intended to destroy their shrines, a rationalization that he expresses later in greater detail, jwhen he addresses the Chorus in the presence of the Guard | (282-289). His rationalization appears equitable, but it remains to be seen whether it is sound. Thus Creon justi fies his edict on two counts: the State's advantage, which is supported by the authority of Athenian law, and his 4^Cf. Jebb, p. 48, n. a^. 208, for his discussion of rcpoe^oua’. ; 74 I rationalization that the will of the gods has exonerated him 43 from familial obligations. In contrast to Antigone's emotionalism, Creon1s motive i i as the ruler of the State is based solely on reason. Unlikej I 44 ! Antigone's religious belief, his faith is also reasoned. j ^Kirkwood, p. 267, concurs that Creon thinks he is acting in accordance with divine sanction. Ehrenberg, how ever, p. 54, disagrees: "Creon's maxims, if taken at their face value, are morally sound but reveal the complete lack bf any divine sanction. He lives in a world in which the igods have no say, a world of purely human and political Standards." It is impossible to agree with Ehrenberg in view of the fact that Creon with his very first words at tributes the salvation of the city to the gods (162-163), infers that the gods would not honor Polyneices with burial 1(199-201), and later makes the same inference at greater llength (282-289). | 44^alter Jens, "Antigone— Interpretationen," Satura: Fruchte aus der antiken Welt (1952), p. 45, recognizes that Oreon's speech is a foil to what has happened in the pro logue, but he fails to see the validity of Creon's motives. His sympathies are already entirely with Antigone, due, no 'doubt, to his viewing the play from its conclusion rather jthan as it unfolds. He writes: "Auf der Folie des Vorge- 'schehens— Antigone auf dem Weg um den Bruder zu bestatten— jstreifen Kreons Worte das Grausig-Lacherliche. Das Licht Ivon vorn macht aus der in sich gultigen Rede eine Farce." [Jens, it seems-, has completely ignored the fact of the jAthenian burial law concerning'traitors. Gilbert Norwood, Greek Tragedy (New York, n.d.), p. 137, on the other hand, admits both the validity of Creon's motives and the neces sity that they appear to be valid: "The principle upheld by Antigone, and that upheld by Creon, are prima facie of equal validity. The poet may, possibly, agree with Antigone rath er than with the king, but the . . . belief, that the prin cess is splendidly right and her oppressor ignobly wrong, stultifies the play; it would become not tragedy but crude | 75 | The establishment of Creon's motives and their sharp con trast with those of Antigone have given rise to another major theme, produced not like the others through Antigone's j I ppposition to the edict but through the counterposing of the characters of the two principals: the opposition of emotion and reason. The theme of the individual and the family.ver sus the State remains unchanged, but that of. the opposition J of religion has been altered somewhat and can be seen at jthis point in the play only from Antigone's view. Prom i Creon's standpoint his difference with Antigone is not based ! ! on an assumption that the laws of the State are more binding j than the laws of the gods, but it is founded upon a different. | j interpretation of religious creed. The theme of hybris, I i introduced by the Chorus in the parodos, has not been clari- | ified or augmented. It is still a question whether Antigone or Creon or both will be guilty. In the short exchange between the Chorus and Creon at the conclusion of his speech (211-222), another theme is initiated, though not developed— that of tyranny. The Chorus meekly concedes that Creon has the right to ordain both for the living and the dead (213-214). But does he melodrama." Cf. Lucas, pp. 140-141. ' 45 ;really have this right? We are confronted here not only |with the literary fact of the Athenian attitude toward one- 1 i ban rule but also with our own democratic feelings. It is not that Creon is an evil or unjust man but that tyranny I itself as a form of one-man rule has an inherent weakness. jit remains for this theme to be developed through the rest j | jof the play. I I | The closing lines of the first part of the first epi sode form a bridge to the second part. Creon enjoins the I | Chorus not to side with those who may violate his orders i ;(219), a remark that suggests a degree of insecurity on his jpart. When the Chorus assures him that no man is so foolish •as to love death (220), Creon admits to the Chorus for the jfirst time what is already known to the reader through the S prologue (35-36), that death indeed will be the penalty |(221). He adds that the hope of gain, however, has often lied men to destruction (221-222). In this remark, too, ! jthere is a further intimation of the insecurity of a tyrant, i ^Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 151, writes of this re sponse of the Chorus: "Ordinary Greek sentiment would cer tainly reject this as a political theory; it was indeed the reason why tyranny was hated, that the tyrant claimed to impose what law he willed ..." Cf. Linforth, p. 190. I 77 j jthat some may resent one-man rule or that someone may wish j jto seize the tyranny for himself. At this moment the Guard l I lappears and announces that Polyneices has been buried. | Second part (223-331) | With the entrance of the Guard one of the major diffi culties in the play begins, the question of the double bur ial. G. M. Kirkwood tends to minimize the importance of the problem and writes: j Events before, as in Oedipus Tyrannus. and even events | after, as in Philoctetes (the fulfillment of Philocte- | tes' destiny, which we are told will come about) and in | Oedinus at Colonus (Oedipus' future gift of protection to Athens), may be within the drama; events contemporary j with the action may be outside. (p. 70) | jit is not our concern in the Antigone to discuss whether j events before the action of the play or after it are within i [the drama or not, but it seems of the greatest pertinence [that events contemporary to the action should be considered within the drama. Otherwise, where can one draw the line [between what is within the drama and what is outside it? If we could consider the two burials as outside the drama, as Kirkwood would have us, what is to prevent us from regarding the deaths of Antigone and Haemon as also outside the drama? Kirkwood, after broaching this point, admits, however, 78 iwith an inconsistency unusual for him, at least this much: j"On the first [burial] depends Creon's initial interview with the guard, an incident of great value for our under- j i I 'standing of Creon" (p. 70). The significance of the two jburials is even greater than this. As we shall try to show, j I |the proper interpretation of the burials is important to our | understanding of both the meaning of the play and the moti- jvations of Creon and Antigone. | | It will be clearer perhaps if the burials are consid ered one at a time in the order in which they occur, though it will be necessary to substantiate some of the points of i the first burial with certain particulars from the second. |The problem of the first burial is whether Antigone or the ! 46 jgods buried Polyneices. Three sources in the play give 46w. h . D. Rouse, "The Two Burials in Antigone." CR, XXV (1911), 40-42, claims that Ismene effected the first burial. He bases his theory on the assumption that Antigone has no motive to return for the second burial. Consequent ly, what in the play is the second burial is for Antigone the first. Unknown to her, Ismene has buried Polyneices, ^nd Antigone has gone to the corpse to effect what has al ready been accomplished. This theory claims few advocates today. Nevertheless, it will be considered in connection with the second burial, since it involves Antigone1s motive for returning to the body. J. E. Harry, "Studies in Sopho cles," Univ. of Cincinnati Studies, ser. 2, VII (1911), 20- 25, also advocates this theory. Kirkwood, p. 71, writes of this interpretation: "It is almost unbelievable that two reputable critics, independently and almost simultaneously, 79 rise to the theory that the gods effected the first burial: (1) the translation of Ismene's phrase ev vuhtI tt) vuv (16) as "in the night past" results in the belief that the action ! 47 |of the prologue takes place at dawn; (2) the Guard's re port strangely lacks evidence of how the burial could have been accomplished through human agency: there was no sign i j jof a pickaxe, no earth thrown up; the earth was hard and jdry, unbroken and unmarked by the wheels of a cart; there I ' 48 jwas no trace of the performer of the deed (249-258); (3) j the Chorus sees in the Guard's story the workings of a di vine agency: ava^, efiot xoi pf| xi Hal SerjXocTov/ Toupyov |to6’ t ) ^uvvota (3ouA.euei TiaXai (278-279). ! {proposed this fantastic interpretation, acceptable neither jas literary criticism nor as criminal investigation." Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 140-141. 4^See Jebb, p. 8, n. ad 1-99; p. 11, n. ad I5ff. 48Vv. 249-258: ouk oi6*. ehsi yap oCJte tou ysvijjSog rjv. 7tXfiy|j.' , ou 6LKeX.XT}Q £K(3oA/r). OTU<pXog yfj nal x£ptf°C» ^p pu ^ , ouS ' E T rr}|j,a?;E U H .E V T i T p oyotaL v, aXX* aaT}|iog otipyaTT)g T ig rjv O U (O g &’ 6 T tpffiT O Q T |p,L V fuiEpO CTH O TtO g & £iH Vuat, Ttacn 0aup.a SuaxepsQ n;apf)v‘ 6 iiev yap r|cpaviOTO, TU|i|3rjp'ng | aev ou, A.E7CTT) &’ ayog cpsuyovTog tog Eitfjv novig. arniEia 5' outs Qripog o(5 te tou huvcov EX0ovTog, ou aiuaaavTog, E^EcpaCvEto. | 80 ! S. M. Adams uses the first point to prove that Antigone could not have accomplished the burial: The burial took place in the night. . . . But the pro logue presents a scene when there was at least some light. Antigone therefore cannot have performed the burial before the watchman has light enough to see what is going on. (p. 47, n. 6) The second point, the Guard's report of the burial, indi- i f I jcates to Adams that "neither Antigone nor any other human j being could accomplish such a burial" (p. 47). The third I point, the remark of the Chorus, Adams claims is the veri fication of the inference that the audience and reader have t jalready drawn, that the gods had effected the burial (pp. j47-48). The manner in which the gods perform this, Adams 'derives from the dust storm that occurs when Antigone re- ! . turns for the second burial (417-431). He suggests in re gard to the first burial that "little effort is needed to I ! jinfer that that extraordinary burial was the result of just i ! 49 ’ such a dust storm." Before attempting to ascertain the correctness of this 49Adams, p. 49. Cf. John Sheppard, The Wisdom of Sophocles (London, 1947), p. 51: "Is it not possible that heaven has really intervened, sending a dust storm in the bight . . . to cover up the body, to avoid pollution and to warn the king? theory, let us see how it affects the meaning of the play and our understanding of Creon1s character. To the Chorus’ surmise that this seems to be the work of the gods, Creon replies: raxuaou, Tupiv opyrjc; wat jxe {AsaTtocrai \tya)v, p L r j cpeupeOrjQ avouc; te hoc! yeprnv 041a. Xeyei'Q yap oiw &vsht<x, 6aC|iovaQ Xeyoov Tipovoiav "axei-v tou5e tou vswpou nepi (280-283) If the Chorus' assumption is correct, Creon's reply reveals j 1 jhim in one of two lights: either he is an unintelligent ! jruler not to have recognized what the Chorus has been clever I 50 jenough to see, or, if he has perceived it, then he is a tyrannical and impious villain who has set his own precepts 51 above the will of the gods. (a) If Creon is either j ^^Adams, p. 48, interprets Creon as a blind fool: "He jrejects the leader's suggestion. Naturally; for he knows Ithe explanation: it is sedition, working through bribery. | . . .He thinks the man has been bribed to conceal the iden tity of the guilty ..." c 1 Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 156, takes the line of villainy; "The Leader's comment makes Creon furious: 'What? Do you imagine that the gods have any care for a traitor like Polyneices?' The clear answer is Yes; they have shown their hand in working with Antigone, and Creon is revealed as one who is setting himself in opposition to them." Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 154, also says in regard to Creon: "Nor shall we agree with Bowra, when he says 82 i | unintelligent or impious, he makes a poor antagonist for | ■Antigone. The risking of her life and her ultimate sacri fice lose their point, for one might well argue that a more virtuous or more intelligent ruler would see the truth in the Chorus' comment and agree to the burial. Using Profes- j sor Adams' interpretation, we are obliged to find Antigone's devotion to her family, her piety toward the gods, and her desire to prove her nobility opposed by unintelligence or jimpiety. This may often be the human condition, but in a iplay it smacks more of melodrama than of tragedy. (b) If polyneices deserves burial, as the gods, according to the Chorus, have indicated, and Creon is proven wrong so early ! 'in the play, the following episode in which the two princi- ipals confront each other for the first time loses its sus- i i pense and tension; the scene with Haemon suffers in the same way; and the scene with Tiresias lacks its sudden and FSophoclean Tragedy, p. 78]: 'Creon begins by seeming to be an ordinary, decent man, and is slowly revealed to be a ty rant'; for on the contrary he is suddenly revealed to be [trying to do something that the gods will not put up with." Kitto, however, unlike Adams, does not believe that the gods ialone effected the burial but that divine agency assisting Antigone is shown in the fact that a thin layer of dirt pro jects the corpse from animals (255-258). His theory will ibe considered when Adams' interpretation has been dealt jwith. | 83 i (dramatic effectiveness. (c) The prologue, of course, has informed the reader of Antigone's intention to bury Poly- | neices. If it turns out as Professor Adams sees it, that the gods have accomplished the burial, then it must be ad mitted that the prologue has been misleading. Let us look again at the three sources in the text for this theory and see if we can credit Antigone with the bur ial and thereby rid the play of these apparent weaknesses. (1) In our examination of the use of time in the prologue it j was shown that Ismene's phrase ev vimt t xfj vuv (16) should be translated "in the present night," and that accordingly the action of the prologue takes place at night. The dark ness serves as a cover to enable Antigone to reach the body junobserved, just as the dust storm, when she goes to the : 52 body a second time, conceals her approach (415-421). | Still, one might ask how Antigone even under the cover | jof night could approach the body undetected, if the guards I 53 were on duty. In the following episode when the Guard 5^Jebb, n. ad. 415-421, writes: "The incident of the storm was a dramatic necessity, to account for Antigone reaching the corpse, unobserved." Cf. Bradshaw, p. 202. 33Linforth, p. 194, while he admits that Antigone came to the corpse at night, believes that she "acted . . . in the brief interval after Creon and the troops had left the 84 ireturns, having captured Antigone, he describes how they watched the body (411-414): they sat on the hilltop, a 54 little distance from the corpse, to the windward, to avoid the stench; moreover, they kept each other awake with i threats. This suggests that if, even after Creon1s severe i i t 1 rebuke and threat to the Guard, they sat at any distance from the corpse, and if they kept each other awake with threats, that probably during the first burial they were field and before the guards took up their duty." He at tempts to substantiate this belief by arguing that "the men jwho made this discovery were the first to go on duty. Oth erwise they would have accused not themselves but their predecessors at the post." This reasoning is faulty. It is |certainly true that if the guards who discovered the burial had not been the first to go on duty, they would have ac cused those who had preceded them; but it is equally certain that if the guards who were the first to go on duty had dis covered that the body had already been buried before their jarrival, they would not have accused each other at all (259- 267). Without a feeling of blame or of dereliction of duty they would simply have gone to Creon and have reported the event. Bradshaw, p. 201, agrees that the guards were on Jduty when Antigone approached the body: "As it is clearly ;absurd to imagine the night-watch (to which the cpuAaEj be longs) mounting guard over the corpse after Antigone has covered it with earth, it follows that she must be under stood to have performed the burial while the night watchmen were on duty." To this Bradshaw, p. 203, adds: "For the watchmen to accuse each other of being concerned in the bur ial would be utterly unreasonable if they had simply arrived too late to prevent it; it makes excellent sense if they jknow that the thing has been done during their watch." ^See Jebb, pp. 82-83, n. ad 411. sitting at a greater distance from the body and were cer- 55 tainly not so vigilant. It has been shown that it was possible for Antigone during the night to approach the body of her brother withoutj being seen, even though the guards were on duty at the time.| jit still remains to be proven from the Guard's description j i |of the burial that it was possible for Antigone to bury the i jcorpse. (2) It is obvious that the facts of the burial, as j reported by the Guard, make the accomplishment of such an i Extraordinary burial by Antigone seem impossible, if his 1 56 words are taken at their face value. The only resort left 55Cf. Bradshaw, pp. 202-203. ^Tycho von Wilamowitz, Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin, 1917), p. 30, raises even another ques tion from the description that the Guard gives: "Auch, wo ;sie den Sand her hatte, kann man fragen, da an der Stelle, iwo die Leiche lag, so wie sie geschildert wird, lockere Erde junmoglich zu finden sein konnte." Edward J. Messemer, "The iDouble Burial of Polyneices," £J, XXXVII (1942), 525f., |solves this difficulty with specious ease, referring to a jline in Aeschylus' Septem (1044) that reveals Antigone's in dention to carry the dirt for the burial in the folds of her robe. The genuineness of this passage in Aeschylus has been {questioned. (See Lucas, p. 79, and Kitto, Greek Tragedy, p. 54, n. 1, for arguments against the genuineness of this pas sage. H. Lloyd-Jones, "The End of the Seven against Thebes.1 1 CO, IX [May 1959], 80-114, feels that the arguments jagainst genuineness are not conclusive.) The genuineness, however, of this passage in relationship to the Anticrone is beside the point. Messemer, p. 521, n. 36, even admits this ^hen he writes: "My argument supposes that the Antigone is to establish this possibility is to examine closely the character of the Guard who gives this description. Many scholars have commented on the comic aspect of his charac- 57 terization. In this respect two questions should be Jasked: why is the Guard portrayed in this manner, and why would not the colorless character of the typical messenger jhave served as well, for example, the sort of messenger who near the conclusion of the play reports to Eurydice the i | e j 0 deaths of Antigone and Haemon. jto be dated later than the Seven against Thebes. It is true that certain scholars (Bergk, Christ, Wecklein, et al.) date jfche conclusion of the Seven later than the Antigone. For jthe present argument the relative dates are of no impor tance, since in either hypothesis the Seven may serve to in terpret the Antigone. If the conclusion of the Seven were yritten after the Antigone. it can scarcely be denied that lit was greatly influenced by Sophocles' drama, so it may |tfell be used to interpret it." By this statement, however, Messemer also tacitly admits that he fails to see the real issue, whether it is a sound practice to borrow the nature of an incident from one play to verify the nature of the jsame incident in another work. If this were a sound prac tice, what is prevent anyone from assuming, for example, in iSophocles' Electra. that after Orestes has committed the pecond murder, the Furies will pursue him just as in the Oresteia and just as it is suggested in the conclusion of Euripides' Electra? ^^Kirkwood, pp. 122-123? Hadas, p. 49; Kitto, Form and Meaning. pp. 152-153; cf. Linforth, p. 194. ^8Jens, p. 46, makes this comment on the individuality of the Guard: "Der Wachter in der Antigone ist nicht mehr der Typ des gcyYeXoq , dessen Funktion sich in dem, was er an 87 It is difficult to deny that the Guard is a comic fig ure. The picture of his vacillation and reluctance in com ing to Creon describes with fine humor the perplexity and confusion of a man who has not carried out his orders and now wishes he had (223-236). The stichomythia between him and the King (317-319) in which the Guard with his silly question, ev Totaiv aiaiv rj 'til 6ocKvg, sets up the naive response from Creon, tC 6e {5u0(jlC^ei*q tt)v £|j.t|v A,U7 tr)V ottou, and then drives home the punch-line, 6 6pu5v a’ avicjc tocq 9psvaQ, ra 6’ aix* eycb, reminds one of the playful logic with which a comedian triumphs over his straight man. To think, however, that the Guard serves as comic relief like 59 the Porter in Macbeth is to misunderstand both plays. In the Shakespearean drama, a third of the play has transpired i and a murder has been committed before the Porter makes his j j appearance. Comic relief is needed here and works well. But in the Anticrone scarcely one-sixth of the play has un folded when the Guard makes his entrance. Not enough ser- i i ious action has taken place to require or justify comic re lief. Neuem zu bringen hat, erschopft," 5^Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 152-153. I Still.,, one might reason that the comic quality of the jGuard enhances by contrast the solemnity and seriousness of i i jthe following scene between Creon and Antigone. Unquestion- j i ably this is true, but humor in a characterization must do t more than just affect the tone of a scene that follows. It must either serve as comic relief to what has preceded it and to what is already known to the reader or it must be meaningful in the scene in which that character, actually appears, since the reader at this point cannot be aware of yhat follows. Otherwise, the characterization will seem t I arbitrary, and the scene itself will lack the organic unity produced by the integration of character and incident and as a consequence will appear faulty. G. M. Kirkwood (p. 123) has suggested that the Guard perves as a foil to reveal the character of Creon, but the I humorous aspect of his characterization is evident only in the words he speaks before and after his lengthy report of the burial. His account of the burial itself (249-267) is quite impersonal and could have been delivered by the usual and colorless messenger. Accordingly, one wonders to what extent the humor in the characterization serves to reveal Creon. The Guard's ludicrous description of his reluctance to come to the king (223-236) prompts Creon to ask, 6' ectlv avB’ o5 TriS* exEi'C &0up.Cocv (237), a question that has a somewhat sympathetic ring. The Guard's wish to talk about jhimself before he relates his news (238-240) elicits from I y , , Jcreon, £U y£ atoxa£et wcxTiocpp&yvuaau xvnXu)/ to 7upayp,a* StiXoiq 6* Sq ti armocvajv veov (241-242), a rather perceptive; i observation of the man with whom he has to deal. When the | jGuard seems about to delay longer (243), Creon grows impa tient: o u h o u v epsLQ h o t * , s l t ’ &7i;aA.Xax0£tc anei (244), a i ! perfectly natural reaction if one considers the lengthy in- i . Itroduction to what the Guard purports to be vital news. His flat statement that someone has buried the body and departed (245-247) produces in Creon not so much anger as astonish ment: tl cpric; tCq av&ptov rjv 6 to\h.t)Ocxq xd&e (248). Creon's irritation (320) with him after his account of the burial seems understandable and only too human in view of jthe Guard's deviousness and long-windedness. Equally under- | Standable is Creon's threat of punishment (324-326), based i ! jas it is on his belief that the Guard has been bribed, and !if not bribed, at least derelict in his duty. I ! | The Guard's character, though it does serve as a foil to Creon's character, seems to reveal nothing important or (extraordinary about the king. Actually, it is the Chorus' inference from the Guard's account of the burial, that the 90 gods may have done this (278-279), that evokes from Creon his longest speech since his opening remarks. The Chorus is the foil that reveals Creon's important motivations and ; " | jthoughts. The Guard has served to disclose only insignifi- j [cant detaild of the king's character. j Albin Lesky writes of the Guard: "Sophocles has given ja delightful sketch of a sly, garrulous old man of low birth Lnd mean intelligence."00 Walter Jens has written: "Dieser jsophokleische Bote ist ein Mensch, dessen Worte kein anderes i Ziel verfolgen als sich selbst zu retten" (p. 46). Unfortu- i ! hately, neither Lesky nor Jens has chosen to explore further along these lines. If one can forget for a moment the ob vious humor of the characterization and concentrate on the idea that the Guard is sly by nature and is concerned only with saving himself, perhaps the humor can be understood as ancillary to these other qualities. It is difficult, if not impossible, to portray slyness 'by itself without adumbrating evil. If the Guard were shown merely as sly, he would appear evil as well. If he were avil, there would be the need to develop his character 60Greek Tragedy, trans. H. A. Frankfort (New York, L965), p. 104. 91 further in relationship to the incidents of the play and give it a larger and more complex meaning beyond the two scenes in which he appears. Presenting his slyness with humor removes the stigma of evil and limits him to these two i scenes without raising any further questions about him in j the mind of the reader. One might ask why is-he portrayed | as sly. This brings up the other question: why would not the colorless and conventional messenger have served as well? | If the Guard were the usual and featureless messenger, jthen there would be no question that his report should be i jaccepted at its face value, that the Chorus' inference about i the gods is correct, that Creon is either impious to set his bwn precepts above the will of the gods or is less intelli- ] | jgent than the Chorus not to have perceived that will, that 'Professor Adams 1 theory— that the gods accomplished the i i jburial— is sound, and that the weaknesses in the play, en gendered by this theory, are not just apparent but real. But the very fact that the Guard is so finely delineated and personalized as a sly man, motivated only by a desire to save his skin, indicates that the reader is not intended to accept his words with implicit belief but is meant to under stand his report as a composite of truths, half-truths, and 92 I • Exaggerations that border perhaps on downright lies. Other- l i wise, there is no reason that the Guard should be character ized at all except to enhance the solemnity and seriousness of the following episode, and this reason has been shown to be insufficient. The Guard's statements that there was no sign of a blow from a mattock or of earth scraped up with a hoe or of earth broken and marked by the wheels of a wagon can reasonably be assumed to be true. The sound of a cart approaching would unquestionably have been detected; the sound of a mattock might also have been heard, but even more conclusive is the Eact that the body would have been completely buried rather than merely covered with a layer of dust (255-256), if a i mattock had been used; even the use of a hoe (biH&AATj) | 61 would have effected a more complete burial. These state- | ments, if they were not true, would indicate either compli- i city on the part of the guards or absolute dereliction of duty.^ The Guard's assertion that the ground was hard and ^See Jebb, p. 56, n. a j U , 248ff., for his description of •;he SiHeWri. ^Bradshaw, p. 202, writes: "It is perfectly plain uhat the Watchman is doing precisely what his previous be havior should lead us to expect him to do: he is primarily j:oncerned to avoid blame, and he therefore begins his story 93 dry intimates not only the reason for there being no trace 6 3 of footprints, and consequently no sign of the doer of the deed (252), but also a lack of loose dirt with which to cover the corpse. This statement, if it contained veracity, taken with his previous remarks concerning the burial, would I i [truly make the act seem the miraculous work of the gods. But this is just the sort of exaggeration or falsehood that i 64 ia sly man, desperate to save his life, would utter. He is I \ [attempting to exonerate himself from blame by attributing i i [such cleverness to the performer of the burial that it was humanly impossible to detect the person involved. j (3) When the Chorus credulously remarks that this seems to be the work of the gods, the success the Guard achieves goes far beyond his intention. Nowhere has the Guard him self suggested that he believes the gods accomplished the burial. In fact, he says, o jiev y<*P typaviaTO, Tup,|3f)pr)Q P-sv 0Vj/ XenxT^ 6* ayoQ cpeuyovToq £7 tf)v novtq (255-256). Only a human being need avoid the curse of an unburied corpse, by stressing that this was no ordinary burial involving tools and a cart and the breaking of ground, which no guards could have honestly failed to detect." 63See Jebb, pp. 56-57, n. a£ 248ff. 64Cf. Bradshaw, p. 202. 94 not a god. Nor do the other guards give the slightest sug gestion, when they discover the burial, that the gods may have buried Polyneices. Instead, they accuse each other (259-267). The Chorus has been fooled but not Creon. He jhas perceived the character of the Guard (241-242) almost ; t i from the beginning of their encounter. The Chorus' remark simply acts as the pivotal point in the scene to provoke from Creon the speech in which he reveals more fully his beliefs. Clearly, if the characterization of the Guard is to ■ have any meaning, then Professor Adams1 theory, that the ! 65 gods buried Polyneices, is incorrect. While Professor | Kitto agrees that the burial took place at night and that i . 66 Antigone performed it, he sees m the remark of the Guard, OT](ieia 6’ oute 0t)p6q oute tou huvwv/ e\0ovtoq, ou otoxocxvtoc E^Etpoctveto (257-258), and in the comment of the Chorus, ava£, IjioC toi p , f j tl >tai 0eri\cxTov/ Toupyov to6,j t \ £uvvoia poiAsuet naXcxi (278-279), divine agency working with An- 6 7 tigone. A. B. Drachmann was the first to raise the point 65Cf. Kirkwood, p. 71, n. 34. 66Form and Meaning, pp. 152-155. ^^Form and Meaning, pp. 139, 155-156. that a light covering of dirt could not keep animals from a 68 dead body. Professor Kitto agrees with him in this but sees in the illogicality the hand of the gods, for only they could make a thin layer of dirt serve as protection against 69 anxmals. As long as there is some evidence of divine agency in the burial, whether the gods accomplished it or Antigone with the aid of the gods, the effect on Creon's characterization and the play is the same. If Professor jKitto's interpretation is sound, the Chorus' inference is at least partially correct, and Creon, either because of his i impiety or lack of intelligence, must still be viewed as failing to heed what the Chorus has observed. The weak nesses, moreover, that such a characterization contributes jto the play persist, unmitigated. The Guard's veracity cannot be questioned in that part of his report where he says that there was no sign that any beast or dog had come close to the corpse and torn it (257- 258). It is not the sort of thing he could exaggerate or lie about. He could be proven false too easily. A. T. von 6 8 "The Composition of Sophocles' Antigone." trans. H. A. Siepmann, CR, XXIII (1909), 212-216; appeared first in Hermes. XLIII (1908). P i Q Form and Meaning, p. 156. j 96 jS. Bradshaw, however, offers several natural explanations to dissipate the miraculous nature of the layer of dirt: Even a light covering of dust is enough to keep off carrion birds, which identify their food by sight (they do not in any case operate at night), and curs scaven- i ging on a battlefield littered with dead bodies (1080- 3) will certainly leave to the last the one which is covered with dust and lying in the neighborhood of watchmen. (p. 204) While these reasons are plausible, they are not decisive. They seem to demand from both the fifth-century Athenian and the reader of today too intimate a knowledge of biology. jThe validity of Professor Kitto's theory and of Bradshaw's jexplanations seems equally weighted. With little preference jone could choose either, though the choice would greatly jaffect the play. The deciding factor against Professor ! Kitto's theory is again the characterization of the Guard. I Since Professor Kitto's theory, though differing in jdetail from Professor Adams', imputes the same qualities to Creon and the same weaknesses to the play, the effect of the Guard's characterization as a sly man, desperate to save himself, would be completely nullified; the characterization itself would have no purpose, and the typical messenger would have served as well. It is this factor that adds conclusiveness to Bradshaw's plausible, if esoteric, [explanations . f i | The view of the first burial, offered in this study, agrees essentially with the details of Bradshaw's interpre tation: namely, that the burial took place at night, that ^Brief mention should be made of several other inter pretations of the first burial. I. Errandea, "La Doble Vi- 'sita de Antigona al Cadaver de su Hermano Polinices," Estu- dios Clasioos- III (1955), 111-120, mistakenly believes that jthe action of the prologue takes place at dawn. Consequent ly, he feels that Antigone when she speaks to Ismene has al ready accomplished the burial, but since it was incomplete, [she asks Ismene for assistance to accomplish a more satis- ifactory one. When Ismene refuses, Antigone goes to the body land is apprehended by the Guard. There is nothing in the [prologue to substantiate this interpretation. It seems that jErrandea has simply forced this theory to account for both the time of the prologue and Antigone's motive for returning to the body. A. 0. Hulton, "The Double Burial of the Antig one. " Mnemosvne. XVI (1963), 284, believes that vv. 434-435 {give adequate proof that Antigone accomplished the first burial. Here, during his second appearance, after he has {captured Antigone, the Guard says: KCXL T&Q ts TUpocrSev t&q rue vuv riXeyxo^Ev/ "reposelq * anxxpvoQ 5* ou6evoq KaSComuo. This is hardly substantial proof, for the Greek does not necessarily mean that she remained silent and denied noth ing, disdaining to say anything to her captors. Cf. Adams, p. 49. Cf. Jebb, pp. 86-87, n. ad. 434f. K. A. Rockwell, "Antiaone: the Double Burial Again," Mnemosvne. XVII (1964), 156-157, suggests that there was no second burial and that the guard caught Antigone during the first burial. Seeing that his captive was the royal princess, he experienced both pity and dismay and let her go. However, when his own life was threatened, he arrested her, covering up his previous dereliction of duty by inventing a second burial. This fan tastic interpretation needs no comment. In fact, Rockwell himself admits that he does not believe in it, asserting that it smacks more of the Arabian Mights than of Greek tragedy. He offers it only as a possibility. ithe guards were on duty at the time, and that Antigone alone I jperformed the burial. Bradshaw, however, having failed to i i < jgive consideration to the purpose and manner of the Guard's j jcharacterization, has not refuted the interpretations of | i [Professors Adams and Kitto but has offered only a plausible i jalternative. This study, on the other hand, through a de tailed examination of the function of the Guard's charac terization has clarified and supported Bradshaw's interpre tation and has finally put to rest those theories that claim that the gods alone, or Antigone with the aid of the gods, performed the first burial. | Now that Antigone alone has been shown to have accom- i plished the burial, and the play has been rid of some appar- I jent weaknesses, it still remains to examine Creon's speech i |(280-314) which the Chorus has provoked with their false ^inference from the Guard's description. The fact that their j remark immediately arouses Creon to the point of anger indi cates that they have struck at the very heart of his justi fication for the edict. In his previous speech he had given as one justification the fact that Polyneices had wished to i burn the shrines of his ancestral gods (199-200). He had Reasoned from this an interpretation of the will of the gods [that had freed him from his familial obligation. For him 99 to admit now that the Chorus 1 remark contained truth would be to realize that he had misinterpreted that will and that once more he was faced with the dilemma of a ruler who, though he had issued in the interests of the State an edict against the burial of a traitor, was obligated to bury that traitor because of kinship. Now for the first time he re veals fully the reasoning behind his religious interpreta tion: | XeyeLQ yap oux a v sx T a , &aCp.ovocc; Xeyoov i | x p o v o ia v Zo%eiv t o u &e t o u vsxp ou Tiepl . I I XOTepOV foiepTl^ajVTEQ £U£pyeTT]V expuittov auTov, o c t t i q djj.cpi,xCovaQ vaotQ T cvpcbaoov t|\0 e xdva0f)(j.aTa x a i yfjv sxsCvcov x a i v 6(i o u q &iaax£&a)v; IT ) TOUQ XaX O U Q T (.JAWVTOCQ ELCJOpqCQ 0EOUQ ; OUX EOT iv . (282-289) | Creon had said before that the hope of gain had often led men to destruction (221-222), barely hinting that there were some in the city who opposed him. Now he states defi nitely and at greater length that there is opposition to him (289-294); he expounds on the corruption of bribery and the evils produced by money (294-301). In regard to the burial, that it was performed through human agency and not by the gods. Creon1s reasoning has____ I 100 proved him correct. Concerning the motive and person in volved he has been mistaken, though, it must be admitted, jhis mistake is perfectly natural, if one considers that he ! ] jis the ruler of a state that has been shaken by a recent I jcrisis and is still tottering. By the end of the First Epi-| I ! 1 !sode Creon's motives are clear and fully developed. The j prologue revealed all of Antigone's motives, though it treated expansively only her devotion to her family; the jother motives will receive further development when she jfaces Creon. Only the position of the Chorus remains to be clarified before the two antagonists confront each other. | First Stasimon (332-375) : The admiration among scholars for the beauty and | jsplendor of this stasimon, that has often been called an "ode to man," is almost universal, but the disagreement about its meaning and relevance to the play is considerable. A. J. A. Waldock, for example, feels that the ode is simply used to fill in the necessary interval of time between the first episode and the second: The guard has left on his quest for the culprit; in a few moments of dramatic time he will return with Antig one; there is an interval, therefore, to be managed. The obvious way is to charm the audience which is what Sophocles proceeds to do. The two chief facts about the ode are these: in itself it is extremely beautiful I 101 71 and its relevance to the play is nil. If what Waldock says is true, then we must admit that during the time which this ode consumes, the dramatic significance of the play has been interrupted and for the time being the ! play's organic unity of form and meaning has lapsed. What iwe are faced with, then, in this ode— according to Waldock's interpretation— is merely a piece of decoration embellishing 72 the play. j While Albin Lesky does not go so far as Waldock in his i estimate of this stasimon, he attributes to it a signifi cance and relevance that are only tangential to the play: Scholars have often tried to connect this ode with some. I particular part of the action. This is in fact one of ! the passages in which the Attic tragedian speaks from the stage of the Dionysiac theatre to the Athens of his day. . . . At the time when the Antigone was performed ] the movement to destroy the very roots of the respect | for law in all spheres of life was already articulate. (pp. 104-105) From what Lesky goes on to say, it is clear that he sees this ode as a sort of tragic parabasis, a direct statement from Sophocles to the Athenian audience regarding the dan gers inherent in the contemporary Sophistic movement, a kind i I 71 Sophocles the Dramatist (Cambridge, 1951), p. 112. j 72Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, 1456a. ________________ ! 102 j of warning against submitting everything to the standard of reason (p. 104). i ; Without even considering for the moment the validity of i jLesky's view of the meaning of this ode we must admit that jthe play's frame of reference will hardly sustain such a i I jdirect manner of communication from author to audience. It is true that the frame leans toward the artificial, but there has been no direct recognition of the audience up to this point, nor has the groundwork for such a recognition been prepared. Consequently, the frame of reference is not bo artificial as to allow such a direct communication, and | j i f we admit that there is such a communication, then we must | also admit that the frame of reference-has been broken, the | play has been interrupted, and the unity of its form and meaning has been suspended by what has often been termed "preaching." G. M. Kirkwood views this ode as paralleling the mood of the preceding episode. Just as the episode, opening with Creon1s speech, progresses from calm and orderliness to knger and disturbance at its conclusion, so does the ode: Its [the ode's] relevance to the context lies precisely in its repetition of the emotional development of the episode. The end of the ode is meant to reintroduce and to amplify this spirit of disquiet and confusion. Just who is the disturber of order and right, who it______ 103 is that has been led to "evil ways"— Creon or the burier of the body— is deliberately left in doubt. The most j important dramatic contribution of the ode is its intro- | duction of serious and unresolved doubts. (p. 207) J While Kirkwood succeeds in lending direct relevance to jthe first stasimon, his success is based on a distortion and i simplification both of the material that precedes the ode and of the ode itself. The link between the first episode and the first stasimon is, as one might reasonably expect, the first lines of the ode: izoKka m 6siva hou5ev av0pdmou iSeivoTepov tteXel (332-333). It is precisely Kirkwood's jfailure to recognize the importance of the manner and agency of the first burial (see pp. 77-78 above) that causes him to overlook the basic meaning of 6elvov in the context of the ode. While he readily admits that most of the ode deals with "the orderly and clever accomplishments of civiliza tion" (p. 206), he chooses to translate 6elvov as "wonder- 73 ful" rather than as "clever." It is quite correct that # 74 &£ivov means "wonderful," "strange," and "terrible," but ^ K i r k w o o d , p. 206. 'Drachmann, p. 212, emphasizes the notion of inventiveness in 6eivov. E. Schlesinger, "Dei- notes," Philolocrus. XCI (1936), 59-66, maintains that the ode is permeated by the idea of man's cleverness, an ability that is essentially amoral. 74p. Friedlander, "Polla ta Deina." Hermes. LXIX (1934), 56-63, interprets Ssivov to mean "gewaltiq." but he 104 in view of the fact that the burier of the body has accom plished the burial while the guards were on duty, that the guards themselves were so amazed that they accused each other, and that the Chorus, marvelling at the burial, i wrongly suspected divine agency, surely the central meaning o f &e i . vi6 v i n t h i s c o n t e x t m u s t b e " c l e v e r " a n d m u s t a l l u d e to the person who effected this extraordinary burial; and j u s t a s s u r e l y t h e o t h e r m e a n i n g s o f 6 e l v o v m u s t b e c o n - 75 sidered subsidiary. I Kirkwood tries to give further substantiation to his 'interpretation by his view of the final antistrophe; lis hard pressed to explain the theme of man's cleverness [that he sees running through the ode. ^Linforth, p. 196, translates the first three words of the ode, "Many are the causes for alarm." Of the entire ode he writes, p. 198; "The language of the chorus is general from beginning to end. In the account of man's achievements we can safely say that there is no overt reference to anyone in particular. No one in the play has shown any inventive ness or ingenuity such as are there described." Linforth fails to perceive the cleverness of the burier of the body, because he makes the mistake of thinking that the burial was accomplished before the guards took up their post (see n. 53, p. 83 above). As a result, Linforth, p. 199, gives only a general meaning and tangential relevance to the ode: "After their [the Chorus'] momentary satisfaction over the restored safety of the city, they are led to think of the danger which constantly threatens human society from man's evil propensities." 105 v6(jlouq yspoupoov x^o^cx; 0eSv t* evopnov &Cxav d(|)L7CoA.i,Q aitoXLQ oto) to ( j l t ) hcxX ov ^UVSCTTl TC\|iaQ X^P<'V* uriT* ejaol TtapeaTuoQ ye- VOLTO |i-f|T’ LCfOV CppOVUJV OQ t&6’ epSoi, (368-375).76 yirkwood asks (p. 206): | Who in the play is the evildoer? Is it the burier of | the body? Since the chorus have already expressed a | measure of disapproval of Creon's edict and have sug- i gested that the gods had a hand in the burial, it seems impossible that they are now, only a little later, con demning the act. . . . Such inconsistency in choral attitude would contradict the procedure that we have seen Sophocles following regularly, and I do not think that this chorus need to be taken to be an exception. Contrary to what Kirkwood has said, the Chorus up to this point in the play has expressed no disapproval of 77 jcreon's edict. Their response to the edict is simply a ^Jebb's reading, yspatpcov (368), seems preferable from the context to Traps Cpcov, the reading chosen by Dain, the editor of our text. For Jebb's defense of his reading see Jebb, pp. 76-77, n. a& 368. 7 7 in reference to the Chorus' reaction to Creon's edict Kirkwood writes, p. 126: "From the beginning they have qualms about Creon's edict." Also, Kirkwood, p. 189: "In Antigone there is a distinct, if slight, dramatic value in the chorus's lukewarm reception of Creon's edict (211- 214) . . 106 jstatement of the accepted conditions under which people live i 78 in a tyranny. It should be most carefully distinguished that the disapproval of one-man rule implicit in their words is not in the mind of the Chorus but in that of the present- | day reader and fifth-century Athenian audience (see pp. 75- 76 above). Is the Chorus, moreover, inconsistent in its attitude, as Kirkwood suggests, and to what extent is it inconsistent in condemning the burier of the body as an evildoer, when a little before they intimated that the burial seemed to be j jthe work of the gods? Their intimation that the gods ef- j jfected the burial is not, however, uttered as a firm belief i | but as a suggested possibility to explain the extraordinary, i [a suggestion which the reader with a proper understanding of l | the burial knows to be wrong and which Creon is right to reject. Kirkwood regards their utterance concerning the burial as a positive statement of belief rather than as a suggested possibility, simply because he fails to perceive how the characterization of the Guard in conjunction with 78Vv. 211-214: Sou tqcOt* &peonei, Tiau Msvouhscoq, <jkx0suv>, t 6 v Trjfis Suavouv w al t o v su|asvfj TtoA.su* vo|aa) 6 s Y* I v e o t i aou HOCU T C O V 0avOVTO)V X&TCOCFOl £{0| 1£V TUSpU. / i 107 jhis report is used to elicit from the Chorus a suggestion I which, in turn, is utilized to provoke Creon to a speech that fully reveals his religious belief. In addition, if this choral ode does not adhere to the procedure that Sophocles normally follows (unless Kirkwood's interpretation is accepted), then we should admit that it is an exception rather than force upon it a meaning that is more consistent with the other plays of the writer than with l the play, in which it appears; for it is preferable as a method— if it is necessary to choose— to interpret any part of a play in its own context rather than in accordance with a theory of probability that is inferred from the writer's other plays, particularly when that theory is based upon 79 such a small fraction of the writer's total output. "Sophocles," as Kitto remarks, "did not write to formulas n 80 ■ ■ • Victor Ehrenberg's view of this ode represents a com bination of the interpretations of Kirkwood and Lesky (pp. 61-66). Seeing in the ode, as Kirkwood does, a statement of 7Q '■'See Kells, p. 47, for his arguments against proving by parallels instead of by context. 8QGreek Tragedy, p. 159-. 108 jserious and unresolved doubts, Ehrenberg writes: j ! The chorus is not taking sides but combatting any daring | deed (ToX^aQ x&Pl-v* 374), the unknown's breach of Cre- | on's decree as well as the decree itself. If this is ; right, we have to accept the song primarily as the utter ance of a bewildered and pious chorus. (p. 63) j j jusing the same substance of thought as Lesky, but referring i j ithe meaning of the ode to Creon rather than looking upon it | |as a direct communication from author to audience, Ehrenberg i jadds: | t | Creon is involved. He is one of those, only especially | important because of his position and power, who put | their own reason and their own moral standards above the law. Thus he makes the State absolute, putting State law above divine law, and then identifies the State with its ruler.... Human reason which the Sophists helped to install on the throne of the realm of the mind is also the means by which the State was identified with its ruler. Thus the absolutism of State and ruler is established by the predominance of rational principles. (pp. 65-66) i I ! iEhrenberg, however, has failed to note that the Chorus is not singing about man's reason but about his cleverness. This oversight invalidates his interpretation of the ode. It also invalidates -Lesky's view of the substance of thought in the ode, even if his interpretation had not been previ ously rejected for the violence it does to the play's frame I of reference (see p. 102 above). It was observed in the parodos that the Chorus had 109 i introduced a theme of hybris in reference to the Argive host and that the reader, aware of what had taken place in the prologue j , had seen in this incipient theme an undetermined relevance to either Creon or Antigone {see pp. 62-63 above).1 I |Now in the opening line of the first stasimon with the I : j i Chorus' allusion to the cleverness of the burier of the I ! ; body (332),, who as yet is unknown to the Chorus, the reader, cognizant of who has performed the burial, sees in the allu sion relevance to Antigone. Using this allusion to the un iknown burier of the body as a point of departure for their song, the Chorus then sings of man's wonderful and clever achievements (334-361): his ability to sail the sea, to tame the earth with his ploughs and make it serve him; his cunning in hunting and fishing and domesticating wild ani mals; his skill in teaching himself speech, thought, and the ways of civilized life; and his cleverness in combating the 81 rigors of harsh weather. With the words "Ai&oc jiovov/ cpeu^LV oiw etzolZ. exixi ®^-This exalted statement of man's achievements is reminiscent of the myth of Protagoras (see Plato, Protagor as. 320D-322E), but, as Ehrenberg, p. 61, points out, there is a difference in the fact that in the myth man's accom plishments are due to the help of Prometheus, while in Sophocles' ode man alone is responsible for his achieve ments . (361), the Chorus descends from pure generalizations to a generalization that may be taken more specifically as an allusion to the unknown burier of the body. In effect, they are saying that, though the performer of the burial has been jextremely clever, man cannot surmount death which, both the j Chorus and the reader have learned, is the penalty for transgressing Creon's edict (220-221). As the ode draws to a close, this combination of generalizations and specific I allusions to the performer of the burial continues. After Icommenting that man's cleverness sometimes brings him to i igood and sometimes to evil (366-367), the Chorus, growing i i increasingly more specific in its allusions to the burier of j the body, concludes its song with this thought: "He who ; f honors the laws of the land and the sworn justice of the gods stands high in his city. He who rashly participates in sin has no city. May he never share my hearth and thoughts whoever does this" (368-375). With this statement the Chorus takes its stand with Creon, approving his edict and voicing disapproval of its transgressor, whom the reader knows to be Antigone. On the other hand, if one believes, as Professor Kitto j does, that the gods had a hand in the first burial and that Creon, acting impiously, has set his own will above the precepts of the gods, one can see in this ode an ironic significance in the difference between what the Chorus ex presses and the reader knows: while the Chorus unwittingly alludes to Antigone as the evildoer, the reader who, like Professor Kitto, thinks Creon has set his will above the will. 82 of the gods understands Creon as the evildoer. Since, however, we have demonstrated that the gods played no part in the burial and that Creon, rejecting the Chorus' false jinference that the burial seemed to be the work of the gods, I has not set his will above divine will, the ironic op ^Form and Meaning, p. 157: "The chorus can reflect on the act of disobedience without knowing whose it is; and the fact that we ourselves do know enables Sophocles to invest the ode with a grave and revealing irony. . . . The obvious implication is that these two— the law of the land and the pike of the gods— are, if not identical, then at least in harmony; wg. know that in the present case they are not. The jchorus has in mind the unknown lawbreaker who has buried the body; wg. know that the words fit Creon, and no one else in the play." Cf. Adams, pp. 48-49. Jens, p. 48, also sees an ironic significance in the ode: "Kreon hat ins Leere ge- troffen und bedroht durch seine Blindheit die Ordnung der Polis. Ihn meint das Chorlied, wenn es den cctcoX i q ver- flucht. In noch extremeren Masse als Kreon spricht der Chor Vordergriindiges und Hintergrundiges zugleich aus. Vorder- griindig, auf die Situation bezogen, meint er mit dem octtoA. i q , jden er verflucht, den Freuler, der das konigliche Gebot jiibertrat. Hintergrundig aber meint Kreon, den Freuler, der das Gebot der Gotter mifiachtete." | 112 i ! 83 jsignificance that Professor Kitto sees is lacking. | Nevertheless, there is irony in this ode of another i ! jkind that does lie in the difference between what the Chorus expresses and the reader knows. The Chorus in alluding to jthe burier of the body as an evildoer (368-375) has in mind the sort of culprit that Creon has outlined: someone who has been bribed by those who oppose Creon and aim to shake the stability of the State (289-301). The reader knows the culprit is Antigone, who has acted only out of devotion to her family, a desire to prove her nobility, and a religious faith. This ironic significance is promptly substantiated after the conclusion of the ode in the words that the Chorus uses (376-383) to introduce the next episode. In interpret ing the first stasimon too little attention has been paid to ! 84 jthese verses. The chorus, having just taken their stand O O JBowra, p. 86, agrees with my interpretation of this ode: "The Chorus refer to the yet unidentified person who, despite a legal order, has buried Polyneices. They take their stand with Creon and, as they believe,.with law and order . . . In effect they condemn Antigone, though they do not know that she is the culprit." Goheen, p. 54, also takes this line: "In the main, the Chorus' role and atti tudes are those of a loyal supporter of Creon's authority. It has accepted his leadership previously, and the conclud ing lines of the ode appear to repudiate again the unknown breaker of Creon's edict (372-375)." 84Vv. 376-383: 113 with Creon, having just denigrated the evildoer, believing him to be the sort of culprit that Creon has described, is amazed and shocked to see the Guard returning with Antigone 85 jas his prisoner. Now the Chorus perceives what the reader has known all along, and the ironic significance implicit in the choral ode because of the difference between the Chorus * and the reader's knowledge is underlined by the shock and amazement with which the Chorus at last shares common knowl edge with the reader. It was noted at the conclusion of the first episode that the moment for the confrontation of Antigone and Creon |was prepared and ripe, except for the fact that it still I remained for the Chorus' attitude toward the performance of the burial to be clarified. The first stasimon has clari fied that attitude and has shown it to be identical to that 6aip,6vt,ov Tepag aiaquvofi) To6e xuq e L&wq avTiAoyrjaa) tt) v&* oux elvai iratS* ’Avtiyovtiv; Q 6u< jtt] voq Hat &uc?Tf|vov T O X T p o g O L h n t o & a , t C h o t* 5 ov 6fj thou 6s y* aTTLOTOucfav tolq PaaiAsCoL0<iv> ayouai vojioiq nat sv acppoauvr} Ha0s\6vTSQ; ®5In Aristotelian terms this moment is a fine example of a simultaneous "recognition" and "reversal." The Chorus' recognition of Antigone as the burier of the body completely refutes their previous conception of the unknown evildoer. jof Creon. In addition, though the ode consumes only a few minutes of playing or reading time, it must represent sever al hours of referential time, enough, at least, to allow the Guard to return to the corpse, to watch for a fairly ex tended period, so that it was necessary for the guards to keep each other awake with threats (413-414), to apprehend i jAntigone, and to return with her. Since, moreover, the ! jreader was ready for the confrontation between the two main characters by the conclusion of the first episode, the choral lyric by postponing their meeting has served to heighten the tension and suspense in the reader's anticipa tion of their encounter. Second Episode (376-581) First part (376-440) The problem of the second burial is a question of mo- i jtive. When the Guard returns with Antigone as. his prisoner, j the reader, if he considers the first burial symbolic, has good cause to wonder why Antigone revisited the body after she had already accomplished her purpose. Because of this apparent lack of motivation for the second burial, both W. H. D. Rouse and J. E. Harry have subscribed to the theory that Ismene effected the first burial and that Antigone, 115 unaware of what her sister has done, goes to the body, thinking to bury it for the first time.^ The only positive evidence within the play that can be used to support this theory is Ismene's statement: Sl&paxa Toftpyov, SLTtep f)&' 6uOppO0eL,/ HaV ^U|i.£TLdXU> Hal cpepa) tfjQ cxCtCcxq (536-537). The evidence against accepting these verses as proof of her action is weighty. (1) The prologue has informed the reader of Antigone's intention to bury her brother and has revealed Ismene to be too timorous even to assist her, let alone do it by herself. If Ismene is to be given credit for the first burial, then we must admit that 1 i the prologue has been extremely misleading. (2) The Guard in his report of the capture of Antigone describes her in this fashion: I s ! 7E0UQ OpOCTOCL KaVOCHGOKUE L TTlHpOCQ 8p01voq o£i)v cpQoyyov, coq otov KEvfjc; i | euvf}Q veoaa&v opcpavov ( 3\lcp^ Kexoc,' i ! outo) 6e xa^'rT)» t|H^ov u>q 6pqc vemuv, Yoololv e£<£[j.u)£ev, Ik 6* apat; Ktxxac; •flpaxo xouau ToOpyov I^Etpyaa^EVOuQ (423-428) The strong simile of a bird seeing its nest bereft of its 8^Rouse, pp. 40-43; Harry, pp. 20-25. | 116 nestlings seems to indicate that Antigone had been robbed of something she already possessed: the accomplishment of the jburial. To believe that these words merely show Antigone's I {anguish on viewing the corpse for the first time and her i outrage at being denied the right to bury it would deprive the simile of its meaning and force. One might argue, how- i jever, even granting the meaning and force of the simile, I [that the Guard is interpreting Antigone's feelings, and these might not be her true feelings at all. Still, there i |is no reason to distrust the words of the Guard as in his report of the first burial. Returning with Antigone as his i {prisoner, he has absolved himself from all blame; his life i t ’ jis free from any threat. In fact, he feels himself lucky to i ! be entrusted with this mission (397). It is interesting to I i note, moreover, that the Guard in his report of the capture of Antigone (407-440)— in contrast to his first scene with Creon— has the featureless and colorless impersonality of 87 the usual messenger. It seems there is no reason not to accept the Guard's words as a valid description of Antigo ne's feelings. (3) When Ismene declares that she has buried the body, 87Cf. Kirkwood, p. 123, n. 23. | 117 * 88 jwhy does she add the words eiTtep ^6* 6^oppo0EL (536)? If 'she actually performed the burial, why does she feel it 89 necessary to appeal for Antigone's sanction? (4) If Ismene had performed the first burial, and An tigone only the second, then a confusing situation would arise in the culmination of the play: one sister would go free, and the other would be punished, though both had com mitted the same act. The reader would have the right to expect some significance in this fact in addition to a more complex development of Ismene's character and a greater use 1 I i iof her role in the play. Instead, she disappears from the drama at verse 581 and is only mentioned again in verses 769-771.90 It is apparent that the arguments against accepting the theory of Ismene as the first person to bury Polyneices are 91 too numerous and strong to be denied. Decisive and abso lute refutation, however, whether the burial is considered ^®See Kirkwood, p. 71, n. 36, for the proper meaning of einep. ®^Cf. Kirkwood, p. 71. 90Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 142. 91cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 140-142; cf. also 'tfaldock, pp. 125-127. symbolic or actual, rests upon finding a suitable reason for Antigone's return to the body, the apparent lack of which initially caused Professors Rouse and Harry to evolve their theory, J. L. Rose is among those scholars who believe the 92 burial to be symbolic. He follows the line first proposed by Tycho von Wilamowitz who, though he could see no reason for Antigone's revisiting the corpse (p. 31), claimed that |the second burial produced an exciting and theatrical effect f i t that benefited the play as a whole (pp. 33-34). If we ac- | jcept the validity of Wilamowitz's interpretation, then we must admit that the second burial represents a glaring in stance of faulty dramaturgy, for generally we use his argu- j ment to condemn plays rather than to praise them. For a j i playwright to create an unmotivated scene simply for its exciting effect would be to destroy the organic unity that i ! the play demands. If characterization and story-incident do not work reciprocally on each other, the credibility of a work is lost and our understanding of the work is 9^"The Problem of the Second Burial in Sophocles' An tigone. " CJ. XLVII (March 1952), 219-221; others who claim that the burial is symbolic are: Lesky, p. 104; Hulton, pp. 284-285; Tycho von Wilamowitz, p. 31; Jebb, p. 86, n. a<l 429; Cowser, p. 39. 119 confused. To Wilamowitz1s argument, J. L. Rose adds his own (p. | 221) : i The thought that she [Antigone ] has already done her duty does not . . . cross her mind . . . She rushes forth to add a little more to her first feeble efforts to speed the soul of Polyneices to its last resting place in the House of Hades. The reason for the sec ond burial lies in the intensity of Antigone's nature, in her intense love, loyalty, and tenderness for a member of her family, in her intense and uncompromis ing sense of her duty to bury her dead brother. granted that the preceding quotation describes Antigone's ! ^character well, Professor Rose has still not explained why she returned to the body. He has merely reiterated her motivation for burying Polyneices the first time. If we look upon the burial as symbolic, as he does, and if we accept her initial motivation for burying Polyneices as her reason for returning to the body, then we must regard her as confused and somewhat demented; for in Rose's view she has 94 returned to perform what she has already accomplished. It seems unlikely from the tone of his article that Professor Rose wishes us to view Antigone in this light. Consequently, 9^Cf. Bradshaw, p. 206. ^Rose, pp. 219-220, rejects Jebb's view that Antigone returned to pour the Xoai - • See Jebb, p. 86, n. .a& 429. 120 all that is left of his interpretation of the second burial is his adherence to Wilamowitz1s argument, which has been |shown to be unacceptable. The first scholar to raise the question regarding the motivation for the second burial and to suggest an answer was Richard Jebb: A difficulty presents itself. The essence of the sym bolic rite was the sprinkling of dust. She had done that (245). Was it not, then, done once for all? In Horace (C. I. 28. 35) the passer-by is free when the dirt has been thrown; he can go his way. I have never seen this question put or answered. The only answer ] which I can suggest is that, at her first visit, she j had not brought the X00^ . . i j Jebb offers his solution with no degree of certainty, as one can see from the tenor of his statement. The reason for his diffidence is plain: the x°a^ are not missing from the first burial. The Guard in his report of that burial de clares: H a l 5r) X syco* t o v v e n p o v T i g a p T i w g Qacjxxg (3 e (3 t }h e H a iti x p ^ 't i &i<|>£av h o v i v i t a X u v a g H a c p a v ia T e u a c o g ct XP1 ^ (245-247)96 95Jebb, p. 86, n. a& 429. 9oW. Schmid in Schmid-Stahlin, Geschichte der crrie- chischen Literatur (Munich, 1959), I. ii, p. 349, n. 3, maintains that 5i(|)Ca h o vug means that no libations were 121 The words, MdcpayiOTeucraQ Sc XP1 ^ ) (247), seem to indicate that the xoat were poured. Still, Jebb tries to explain these w o r d s b y s a y i n g t h a t p r o b a b l y o f f e r i n g s o f f l o w e r s a n d w o o l 97 a r e m e a n t . I t i s l i k e l y , h o w e v e r , t h a t t h e G u a r d i n h i s d e t a i l e d d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e c o n d i t i o n o f t h e e a r t h (249-256) w o u l d h a v e m e n t i o n e d t h e o b v i o u s p r e s e n c e o f f l o w e r s a n d w o o l , s i n c e s u c h d e t a i l s w o u l d o n l y a d d t o t h e e x t r a o r d i n a r y e f f e c t h e w i s h e d t o p r o d u c e a n d w o u l d c e r t a i n l y h a v e b e e n m o r e i n e v i d e n c e t h a n l i b a t i o n s t h a t h a d b e e n a b s o r b e d b y t h e &L<|)tcx h o v i q . M o r e v e r , w h e n t h e G u a r d r e t u r n s t o h i s p o s t a n d t h e d u s t i s r e m o v e d f r o m t h e b o d y (407-410), t h e r e i s n o m e n t i o n o f t h e r e m o v a l o f f l o w e r s a n d w o o l , w h i c h s u r e l y w o u l d h a v e b e e n r e m o v e d i f t h e y h a d b e e n p r e s e n t . j U n q u e s t i o n a b l y , t h e n , t h e p h r a s e H a c p a y L a T E U G o c Q a XP^) m u s t 98 jmean that the libations were poured at the first burial, jand Jebb's suggested explanation of Antigone's reason for i I r e t u r n i n g t o t h e c o r p s e m u s t b e r e j e c t e d . poured. We see the same phrase, however, in the Guard's description of the second burial (429), and on this occasion it is absolutely certain that the Xoa^ were poured (430- 431). Therefore, it is possible to consider the words &i(|)Ca h o v i q an ornamental epithet. Cf. Bradshaw, p. 208. 97Jebb, p. 46, n. M 245ff. 9®Cf. Bradshaw, p. 208; also cf. Messemer, pp. 516-517. ! 122 i j J. Cowser, another advocate of the symbolic nature of the burial, attributes Antigone's second visit to her open defiance of Creon, which she has proclaimed to Ismene in the prologue (86-87) (pp. 39-40). It seems highly improbable, as it is in good characterizations, that Antigone, having fulfilled her motive of devotion to her family with the first burial, self-consciously sets herself on course to fulfill another of her motives, as if mechanically counting her motives and checking them off as they are realized. If, moreover, the only reason for her return is her wish to be i jcaptured, then why does she not simply give herself up in stead of carrying libations to the grave and repeating the burial? Cowser himself is hesitant to push his interpreta tion too far: I . j We cannot say that the double burial was introduced in order to convince us that Antigone was a defiant rebel; it seems rather that the rebellious aspects of her deed are brought to light to justify the double burial, which Sophocles must have found it necessary to introduce for other reasons.99 What these other reasons were Cowser fails to say, and we are still left without a satisfactory explanation of ^^Cowser, p. 40. Cf. Messemer, pp. 515-516 for his comments on Cowser's article. 123 Antigone's return to the body, A. 0. Hulton, following Jebb's line, writes (pp. 284- 285): "Why the libation was not poured the first time re mains unexplained, but is by no means inexplicable. Antigo ne may well have been prudent enough to consider two short visits safer than one. This explanation, with all due re spect to Hulton, is patently untenable. If Antigone had had that much concern for her safety, she would certainly have chosen to go to the body at night, as she had before, rather than in broad daylight. But this is beside the point, for it has already been pointed out that the libations were poured the first time (see p. 121 above). For scholars who consider the burial symbolic, the lifficulties of arriving at a plausible explanation for Antigone's second visit are apparent. Perhaps proof that i j jthe burial should be regarded as actual rather than symbolic | may allow for the disclosure of the explanation we are seek ing. Let us try to establish this proof with three facts: (1) the lack of historical and cultural evidence regarding a symbolic rite of burial in fifth-century Greece; (2) the lack of such evidence in the text of the p l a y ; (3) the - ^-°^Cf. Messemer, pp. 518-520. Many of the points presence of evidence in the text of the actuality of the burial. (1) Jebb, as we have seen (p. 120 above), uses Horace's Carmen (I. 28. 35) as supporting evidence that the burial of Polyneices is symbolic. It seems odd, otit of place, and certainly inconclusive to refer to a Latin poet of the Au gustan Age as authority for a Greek burial custom of the Fifth Century. Nor does there appear to be any earlier au thority than Horace other than the play with which we are 101 dealing. The Horatian ode is too distant in time and iculture to be used as authority for a symbolic burial in the Antigone; and the burial in the Antigone. where its very nature is questioned, can hardly be used as authority for itself. The lack of historical and-cultural evidence makes the argument for a symbolic burial seem extremely weak. (2) Though there is absolutely no mention of three handfuls of dust in the text of the play, nevertheless some Horatian commentators have not been reluctant to refer to expressed above on the lack of evidence for a symbolic burial are to be found in Messemer's article. lOlSee Messemer, p. 519. 125 102 the Antigone to explain Horace s phrase: the words that they quote are xoa^cfu xpLcniov&o 101 tov vexuv oxecpei (431). But it is one thing to scatter three handfuls of dust on a corpse and quite another to crown it with thrice-poured 103 lihations. In addition, the Guard, on his discovery of the first burial, uses the word r)(pavi,0TO (255) to tell how 104 the dust covered the body. Herodotus employs this same word to depict how a band of Persians vanished in a sand storm (III. 26). If the corpse of Polyneices is hidden from sight, even though, as the Guard says, the covering is X.E7ixf| (256), the body must assuredly be covered with more than three handfuls of dust. One could argue, of course, that the language the Guard uses to describe the first burial cannot be trusted impli citly, since he tends to exaggerate to absolve himself of blame (see p. 93 above); and also that later, when he -^^E. C. Wickham, Horace (New York, 1912), n. on Carm. I. 28. 36: 1 1 ter: The sacred and complete number; cp. Soph, of Antigone pouring the dust sic on Polyneices' body, Tpi,cm:6v&oi,cri tov vewov axetpei. Ant. 430" (431 in Bude text). Also cf. Page, Palmer, and Wilkins, 0. Horati Flacci Opera (London, 1910), n. on Carm. I. 28. 36. 103Qf> Messemer, p. 520. 104Messemer, p. 520, particularly stresses this point. 126 returns with Antigone as his prisoner, declaring that the guards had swept away all the dust that covered the body (409-410), he speaks these words merely to substantiate his 105 first exaggeration. In the first place, however, if the burial is symbolic and the accomplishment of it with three handfuls of dust is sufficient to thwart and enrage Creon, the Guard would have no need or reason to exaggerate by using the word T|(pdcvicjto . Second, as supporting evidence that T)cp&viaT0 should be taken at its face value, the fact that the Guard on his return with Antigone has completed his mission with total success makes it seem highly doubtful that he would take the pains at this moment to fabricate that the guards had bared the hidden body, simply because he wished to make good a previous exaggeration. Third, as has been mentioned above (see p. 116 above), the Guard's rhesis describing the second burial reveals him not as the highly characterized individual whom we saw in his first scene with Creon but as the conventional and colorless messenger whose words are to be trusted. It is apparent, then, that the text lacks evidence to support the theory that the burial is 105jiessemer, who does not interpret the first burial from the characterization of the Guard, does not argue this point, 127 symbolic. It would be idle to conclude, however, from the lack of historical, cultural, and textual evidence of a symbolic burial that the burial should be regarded as actual; for, unless positive evidence to that effect can be found, the choice would still be open to scholars to view the burial in whichever light they wished, symbolic or actual. Fortunate ly, here the text is helpful. (3) Numerous references to the burial are followed im mediately in each instance by the mention of defilement by birds and beasts. Antigone is the first to speak of de filement: o l c o v o u q yXvKbv/ 0T)craup6v etaopwai TipOQ x & P i ' V ( 3opag (29-30). Next Creon mentions it: eav 6* ocQaTCTOv, xai Tupog otcovfiov S e i i o c q / naX itpog nuvaiv e & e0t o v aCH^a0e:v'u, l6euv (205-206). Then the Guard speaks of it: ar||j.sta 5’ o u t s 0T|PO Q O U T E TO U HUVGOV/ E X 0 O V T O Q , OU 07Ua0(XVTOQ E ^ E C p a C v E T O (257-258). Haemon, purporting to be the voice of the popu lace of Thebes, says that the city approves of Antigone's act (692-695), that she did not allow her brother's body to be defiled by birds and dogs: 106Antia. 29f.; 205-206; 257-258; 696-698; 1015-1018. 128 rjT L Q t o v oa>Tf)Q a v T a 6 e A .< p o v e v c p o v a i Q iteT C T u h :' a S a T t T o v ijlt)6 * WM-TjOTcSv h u v c o v e u a a * 6 \ e a 0 o u v x r|0 ' u n ; ’ o i & dv&v t u v o q (696-698) Finally, Teiresias, expressing the ultimate horror that has brought sickness upon the State, speaks of the defilement of Polyneices1 body: Kal raura ttJq afjQ'eK q>pevoQ voaei te6A.lq* fkonol yap t ) [ j , l v ko%apat ts tkxvteXe lc; 7UA.f)pSLQ OICDV&V T E M a i KDVffiv (3 o p a Q t o u 5uc|i6pou TusTiTcoTcxQ O C S C t c o u yovou (1015-1018) The fact that not just Antigone or Creon speaks of de filement but that most of the characters of the play mention it gives undeniable significance to this evidence. The thought of defilement is prominent in their minds. From this evidence it is clear that Creon1s edict is meant to dishonor Polyneices not only by depriving him of burial in his native soil but also by leaving his corpse to be eaten 107 by birds and dogs, an eventuality which no symbolic 107Creon1s aim to defile Polyneices1 body is reminis cent of Achilles1 desire to desecrate the corpse of Hector. Linforth, p. 192, observes this similarity and points out that in the Iliad "the practice of mutilation and defilement is completely discredited." Linforth, p. 193, also notes the similarity of the situation in the Aiax: "Aiax. like 129 burial could prevent. This question, too, should be asked: why, after the first burial, do the guards bother to remove the covering of' dust from the corpse? J. Cowser points out that the removal' of the dust cannot invalidate a symbolic burial (p. 39). t The answer is obvious: the first burial had been complete and effective; up to the time that the dust was removed no i animal had violated the corpse; the guards remove the dust I i simply to ensure that the body will be devoured by animals. Why does Antigone cry out as if robbed when she sees that the body has been bared (423-425)? Why does she call down j ! curses on those who did the deed (427—428)? -It is plain j j that she is shocked to see her work undone. Immediately, , she proceeds to repeat the burial (429-431). Yet everyone who holds the theory of a symbolic burial agrees that once the burial has been performed there is no need to repeat Polyneices, was a traitor to his friends. He had tried to murder the Achaean chiefs, and they refuse him burial, de claring that ’his body shall be thrown out on the yellow ;sands to be the food of sea-birds.' But in the end they yield to the noble mediation of Odysseus: 'Do not, in the name of the gods, make bold to cast this man out unburied thus ruthlessly . . . You would destroy, not him, but the ;laws of the gods. It is not right to do injury to a man when he is dead, even though you hate him'" [Ajax- 1332ff.]. 130 X08 it. The fact that she covers the body with dust again, just as she had on the first occasion, offers plausible testimony that she herself believes the burials to be ac- 109 tual. Even if one regards the evidence for an actual i i burial as not absolutely conclusive, still it is overwhelm ing by contrast with the complete lack of evidence for a symbolic burial and indicates that the burial should be con sidered actual. Now that this point has been established, we can resume our pursuit of a reason for Antigone's return to the corpse. From the nature of the burial her reason appears apparent: just as Creon is determined to dishonor the body by denying j it burial and leaving it to be defiled by birds and dogs, so Antigone is moved to honor her brother with burial and to protect his corpse from defilement. While this reason is certainly basic to the play and in complete accord with the -*-^®Jebb, p. 86, n. .asL 429, attempting to support his belief in a symbolic burial, writes: "... perhaps the rite was considered complete only if the xoa^ were poured while the dust still covered the corpse." This statement, as Jebb implies, is just a conjecture and rests upon no authority. ■*-®9Why Antigone came prepared with libations will be considered in the discussion of her reason for visiting the corpse of her brother a second time. 131 motives we have ascribed to her— devotion to her family, , desire to prove her nobility, desire for glory, and piety toward the gods— we must not use these motives alone as an explanation of her reason for revisiting her brother's body. We must recognize that this explanation is incomplete and that the second burial is still not soundly motivated until we can show why Antigone chose to revisit the corpse in broad daylight (415) when she had accomplished her purpose so successfully the first time at night. In other words, why did she not wait until night to return to the body? This question, to our knowledge, has never been asked. The answer to it will complete our understanding of Antigone's reason for revisiting the body of her brother. Max Pohlenz makes an interesting and extremely instruc tive mistake when in reference to Antigone's first covering of the body he speaks of "Kreons Befehl, sie wieder zu ent- i fernen." At no point in the play does Creon say this. Instead, his command to the Guard is to find the criminal (306-307). Nevertheless, Creon's inteption is so obvious to the guards that before they take up their watch again they sweep off the dust that covers the body (409-410) without 1 10 195 Pie griechische Tragodie (Leipzig and Berlin, 1930), 132 ever being told to do so. If the guards understand Creon's intention so well, even when he has not mentioned it, then surely Antigone, too, must be aware that when the guards A reconstruction of the second burial that takes cogni zance of the facts (1) that the burial is actual, (2) that iAntigone wishes to protect her brother's body from defile ment, (3) and that she knows that the guards will uncover reason she revisits her brother1s corpse in daylight rather |than at night. Antigone's awareness of what the guards will i i ^do causes her a twofold anxiety: how long will the body, unprotected by a covering of dust, escape the depredations of animals; and how soon can she safely return to the corpse to restore the protective covering? She knows that the burial must be repeated, even before she makes her second 1 11 ^-^Antigone, of course, cannot know that the guards did not immediately sweep away the dust on their discovery of the burial but waited until the Guard had made his report to Creon. Still, she is correct in her surmise that the cover ing of dust cannot remain on the body for any extended length of time after the discovery of the burial. A plaus ible explanation of why the guards did not immediately re move the dust is that they wished to preserve the evidence in-F H-he burial to substantiate the Guard's report which Creon jhave discovered the burial, they will remove the dust. the body soon after she has buried it 111 will disclose the have wanted to verify. 133 visit to the corpse. That is her reason for coining pre pared with libations, as she had on the first occasion. She also knows that she must act soon. The urgency for speed is proven when Teiresias, later in the day, declares that birds and dogs have defiled the body of Polyneices (1016-1018). Still later in the day, the Messenger says that Creon and his followers buried what remained of the body, which had been torn by dogs (1196-1202). The Guard in his second report to Creon describes how a dust storm which hid everything from sight arose at noon and lasted a long while (415-422). The prolonged length of the dust storm offers Antigone her first opportunity to reach the body, undetected, since her performance of the burial at night. She must realize, of course, that even if the second burial is successful and she is not apprehended, the guards will uncover the body and she will have to repeat the bur ial. In fact, she will have to continue to repeat the bur- 112 ial as often as the guards remove the dust. In this lip • ‘ ■ ■ ‘ ■^Norwood, p. 140, is quite correct when he writes: "If Creon is resolved, she cannot 'bury' Polyneices." Nor wood, however, is wrong when he adds: "... this gruesome contest could continue indefinitely." Inevitably, since guards are on duty near the corpse, Antigone will be cap tured, if not the second time, then the third or the fourth. sense, though the burial is actual, it is ultimately in effectual and represents a hastily conceived and executed token burial. But as Antigone told her sister, when Ismene accused her of desiring to accomplish the impossible (90), she would do everything within the limits of her power (91). Unfortunately for Antigone, though the dust storm has allowed her to approach the corpse unobserved, the moment she reaches the body the storm passes as suddenly as it had begun, and the guards perceive her (422-423). Her cry as if robbed, when she beholds the bared body (423-427), cannot be one of surprise, since she had expected to find the corpse in this state. Rather it is a cry of shock and anguish which it is characteristic of human nature on encountering a disaster to feel with full impact, even when that event has been anticipated. The curses she calls down upon the guards (427-428) exemplify the natural reaction she has toward those who have been responsible for evoking her feel ing of shock and anguish. It is apparent, moreover, that Antigone knows that she has been observed. Before repeating the burial and the libations she laments aloud over the body (hccvcxhu) xue u , 423; also, yooolv e^ujjico^EV 427), whereas she had performed the first burial in silence to ensure its success and to avoid ! 135 i ■ 1 113 jdetegtion. Now that she knows she has been seen there is no longer any need for silence. Thus she performs the three principal funeral offices of lament, burial, and liba- 114 tions. The change in Antigone from intensely expressive emotion and distress to complete lack of dismay when the guards seize her is easily explained. Knowing that she must repeat the burial as many times as the guards remove the dust, she realizes that eventually she must be captured, and consequently she is not surprised. The shock which one would normally feel on being captured, even though appre hension had been expected, is dissolved by two stronger emo tional factors: her feeling of satisfaction that she has Brads haw, p. 208, points out that Antigone's failure to perform a hgohutoq during the first burial is in no way inconsistent with her attitude that she wants all to know her as the doer of the deed (86-87): "Antigone had to re main silent, if she was to avoid detection by the watchmen. She had to avoid detection to carry out her chief task— the actual burial." Struck, "Der zweimalige Gang der Antigone zur Leiche des Polyneices," Gymnasium. LX (1953), 330-331, dem onstrates that Creon's edict is not merely a denial of bur ial: in vv. 26-30 burial and lamentation are forbidden; the words cxv toutwv tl 6pa (35) imply the same prohibition. Struck further maintains that tdccpu) HTepC^Eiv (204) means more than mcp(») HaAi3(Jxxi (28), implying the offerings of liba tions. "Also jede Totengabe und Totenklage wird mit m<pu). p.f)TE MtepC^ELV |af)Te Hwnvoai Tiva ausdrucklich verboten neben dem Begrabnis." 136 done everything possible to fulfill her deeply-felt devo tion to her family, and her realization that now, known as the doer of the deed, she has proved her nobility and will attain a glory which will both grace her and ameliorate the reputation of her family (see pp. 57-58 above). This reconstruction, based on what evidence the text affords, offers convincing proof of Antigone's reasons for performing the second burial: knowing that the body has been uncovered, she returns to rebury it and protect it from the defilement of animals; realizing that the uncovered body will not escape the depredations of animals unless she acts quickly, she returns at the earliest opportunity, in the daytime rather than at night, under the cover of a dust 115 storm. 11 ^ Brief mention should be made of the conclusions of several other scholars regarding the second burial. Brad shaw, pp. 208-209, disagreeing with Jebb and admitting that XoaC were poured at the first burial, claims that Antigone returns to the body simply to offer repeated libations: "The purpose of £7CiTiJn|3ioi xoa^ such that even if An tigone had already offered them once, an Athenian audience would still find it perfectly natural for her to offer them again. Burial is normally a single act of piety, whereas libation is the repeated offering of nourishment to the spirit of the departed for a considerable time after death." If we accept Bradshaw's interpretation, then we must still find an answer to the question of why Antigone goes to the body in broad daylight when she could have repeated the li bations at night with a greater likelihood of personal 137 As was pointed out (see pp. 114-115 above), the safety. Bradshaw offers no answer to this question. It is surprising that Bradshaw, believing that the covering of dust in the first burial protects the body from animals, ;does not realize that Antigone understands that she must Irepeat the burial if the body is to be protected. Struck, p. 333, believes that the libations were not poured at the first burial. Consequently, he gives as Antigone's reason to return to the body the completion of the burial with the offering of libations and lamentation. His view is very much like Jebb's except in the respect that he claims that the words xctcpctyloxevcac, a XP^| (245-247) pertain only to covering the body with dust and not the flowers and wool that Jebb suggests (see p. 121 above). Struck's interpreta tion, like Bradshaw's, leaves unanswered the question of why Antigone did not wait until dark if she was concerned only to pour libations and to lament. For this reason and for his inadequate interpretation of the words nacpayLOTeucrac; ot XP^I ? his view cannot be accepted. Linforth, pp. 200-201, makes no attempt to determine whether the burial is symbolic jor actual, nor does he try to solve the question of the sec ond burial. He merely assumes that she failed to pour the libations the first time and has returned in order to per form this rite. He looks only to the effect of the two bur ials as a revelation of her motive rather than trying to see jthe burials as also a result of her motivation: "That she jgoes twice to visit the body throws the strongest light on her fearlessness and the relentlessness of her purpose." Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 156-157, ignores the details of the second burial and considers only the advantages that two burials give to the play. He does agree, however, pp. 148- 149, that Antigone1s motive is to protect the body from physical defilement: "What Sophocles emphasizes, time after time, is the mangling of Polyneices' body . . . This is a dramatic fact, and I suggest that it is an important one . . . What Sophocles relies on again and again is the sheer physical horror, the sense of indecent outrage, that we all feel, . . . at the idea that a human body, the body of some one we have known and loved, should be treated like this." r essemer, p. 524, agrees that Antigone's reason for return- ng to the body is to protect it from the defilement of ani- als. He fails, however, to explain several points: why apparent lack of Antigone's motivation for attempting a second burial caused Professors Rouse and Harry to evolve the theory that Ismene performed the first burial and that Antigone's visit to the body was not really her second visit but her first. The proof we have given of Antigone's moti vation for the second burial represents, added to the other arguments against that theory (see pp. 115-117 above), a final and decisive refutation. j Now that the second burial has been shown to be soundly ! I motivated, we can consider the advantages that two burials i g-ive to the play as a whole, without believing that the two burials serve merely to produce unmotivated but exciting and theatrical effects (see p. 118 above). The advantages are many. (1) If Antigone, after declaring in the prologue her intention to bury Polyneices, had been brought back by the Suard, captured during the first burial, this telescoping of the dramaturgy of the play would in all likelihood produce Antigone returns in the daylight rather than at night and how the dust storm affects her motivation. Messemer, more over, after he has taken great pains to show that the burial is not symbolic but actual, concludes, to the understandable confusion of his reader, that the burial is both actual and symbolic, and once the burial has been performed, the soul af Polyneices can cross the Styx, an act which Creon can no longer undo by uncovering the body. 139 an extremely confusing effect: it would be almost insur mountably difficult to reveal clearly, fully, and dramati cally in one scene Creon1s motives for denying the burial, the Chorus' attitude toward his edict and any transgressor i of it, the further development of Antigone's motivation, and Creon's and the Chorus' reaction to her capture. The inter val of time offered by a second burial removes these disad vantages and allows for dramatic clarity. (2) On the posi tive side, a second burial discloses the intensity of An tigone's determination as a single burial could never have done. (3) It also permits Creon to dominate the first epi sode, since Antigone is not present. Without his domination of a whole episode early in the play, his part would be too foreshortened to support the significance of his role in the final third of the play when Antigone is gone from the stage. Lacking a proper foundation for Creon's importance in the conclusion of the drama, the play would lose its bal ance and fall into two distinct parts which would disrupt its unity of form. This particular advantage, afforded by a second burial, is one which we cannot appreciate at this moment in the play, of course, but only when we have exper ienced the entire play. (4) A second burial permits a grad ual and suspenseful buildup of the situation. After the 140 first episode the reader knows what Creon and the Chorus cannot even guess: Antigone is the transgressor of the edict. This difference in knowledge leads the reader to look forward with anticipation both to the surprise that jCreon and the Chorus will receive and to the confrontation i 'of the two main characters. A second burial allows for the interval of the first stasimon which further heightens the suspense for the reader. Without this gradual and suspense ful buildup of the situation the confrontation between Creon X16 and Antigone would not be climactic. Second part (441-581) The suspense that has been created by the interval of the first stasimon is sustained a bit longer, as Antigone stands in silence before Creon and the Chorus, while the King interrogates the Guard. Before allowing the Guard to withdraw, he asks Antigone whether she admits or denies the deed (441-442). At her avowal of the deed (443), he dis misses the Guard (444-445). Creon continues his questioning in a low key, using a legalistic, mild, and just manner, first asking if she knew of the edict forbidding the burial ■^■^Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 156-158; Wilamo- jvitz, pp. 33-34? Linforth, p. 201. 141 (447), and then, when she admits to this knowledge (448), asking a question that both concludes she has violated his laws and demands to know her reasons (449), The ground has quickly been cleared for the central issue between them: Antigone's motives for the burial and Creon's motives for opposing it. The prologue had revealed all of Antigone's motives (see p, 58 above), of which those motives related to her devotion to her family were shown to be personal and emo tional (see p. 53 above). Her religious belief, while it supports her emotional motives and is, in turn, supported by them, was considered more impersonal, since she shares it with others (see pp. 54-55 above). This religious belief, which was never fully expressed or developed in the pro logue, Antigone now uses— quite sensibly, since it is more impersonal— to begin the defense of her actions. Here her 117 religious belief receives its full expression. ^-•^Kirkwood, p. 239, points out that it is Creon's use of the word V0[i 0UQ in his last question (449) to Antigone that allows her to begin her defense with a statement of her religious creed: "The very word voixouq is like a cue for which Antigone has been waiting, and she proceeds to give her famous speech on 'law.' Echoing Creon1s words (toioug&e . . . v6[iouq, 452), she then declares her allegiance to the aypocTTTa K cxocpaTvrj Begov v6| j . i , [ i . a (454-455)." 142 Antigone's defense of herself on religious grounds takes the form of four statements. (1) Zeus never published a decree that forbade the burial of Polyneices (450), (2) Nor did Justice who dwells with the gods of the underworld ordain such laws (451-452). (3) Nor do the decrees of Cre on, since he is a mortal, have the authority to override the statutes of the gods (452-455). From the implication in this last statement of a positive assertion that the laws of the gods prevail over the edicts of man, (4) she concludes jthat she could never transgress the laws of the gods for fear of the decrees of men (458-460). Antigone's presenta tion of her religious belief as a motive for burying Poly- neices is logical and consistent. The question, however, whether religious custom and creed ought to have precedence over the decrees of the State is still, of course, unre- 118 solved. lift Bowra writes, p. 101: "Antigone's defence to Creon establishes her rightness for most who hear it. If the Chorus and Creon fail to accept it, that is their fault." Bowra, I believe, has confused the. sympathy that one feels for Antigone with an intellectual awareness that she is morally right. Creon, as we have seen (p. 73 above), has reasoned a religious creed that answers Antigone's religious beliefs, even if it does not conclusively prove them un sound. Whose religious creed is right can be proven only by divine intervention. Gennaro Perotta, Sofocle (Messina- YLilano, 1934), p. 88, remarks on the verses which contain 143 At this moment one might expect that Antigone, having presented her case well and reasonably, might plead for mercy based on an understanding, at least, of her religious belief, if not on agreement with it. Instead, she offers next a rationalization that has an air of defiance. Using a profit motive, she rationalizes her performance of the bur ial: everyone has to die, and if she has to die before her time, she counts it a gain to be free from the evils that at present surround her? whereas, if she had allowed her |brother's body to go unburied, she would consider it a jgreater grief than the prospect of imminent death (461- , 119 468). In the prologue we saw another instance where Antigone, using a profit motive, attempted to rationalize a Ireason for burying Polyneices and reasoned poorly (see pp. Antigone’s first three arguments of religious belief (450- ■457) that it is difficult to decide whether we are more stirred by the ideas expressed in these verses or by the un- jquenchable ardor of Antigone. Linforth writes of these same verses, p. 204: "If Antigone were not an artistic creation, a poetical individual, among the greatest created by Sopho cles, our moral enthusiasm over the eight verses would be much less." •^^Goheen comments on Antigone's profit motive, p. 16: "When Antigone has been caught and is confronted with the threat of death, she can speak of the 'profit' of death, jsince she has done that to which family allegiance and her jsense of right directed her." 144 56-57 above) when she said that the dead had a greater claim on her than the living, since she must spend a longer time with them (72-76). Here in the second episode her reasoning is sound, but one should be careful to discern that she is not trying to rationalize a motive for the performance of the burial, but only rationalizing after the fact of the burial her willingness to endure the punishment of death. This rationalization has the implied defiance of a shrug of the shoulders, as if to say that she did the deed, that it needed doing, and that now she is prepared to suffer the consequences. Immediately after, what was only the suggestion of an air of defiance becomes outright and assertive when she adds that if her deeds now seem foolish, it is perhaps because i her judge is foolish (469-470). If Antigone were looking to Oreon for mercy, surely it is unwise of her to antagonize her judge by insulting him. Clearly, her attitude is one of complete self-righteousness and defiance. The proof of this attitude is further established, before Creon even makes his reply. At the conclusion of her speech the Chorus remarks: St)A.ol Tb yewtu!* o ) | o . 6v d)|iou toxtpoq/ ttjq toxi&oq* eihelv 6* OUH E7tC0Tcxmi XCXHOIQ (471-472). If Creon had been the first to remark on her defiance, one might have thought that 145 her attitude existed only as a subjective reality to him because of a personal antagonism toward her; but the fact that the Chorus is the first to comment on her attitude is convincing evidence that her.defiance is apparent to all. At first glance it must seem strange that after Antig one has advanced religious motives for burying Polyneices, Creon does not reply to her on the same level. He has a religious motive of his own for forbidding the burial, as we have seen (pp. 73 and 99 above): Polyneices had come to burn the shrines of his ancestral gods (199-201), and the gods would not honor such a man with burial (282-289). It is noteworthy that Creon does not indulge in a dialectical debate with Antigone on religious matters. It is her defi ance that at this moment threatens his authority, and it is to her attitude, not her words or her thoughts, that Creon 120 makes his response. Creon1s defense of the authority granted one man under i Pn 4 - 1 Goheen makes this comment on Antigone's defiance and Creon's position as ruler, pp. 87-88: "It is in his power, it [the Chorus] says, to use any sort of nomoi that please him (211-214). By the second episode, nomos is to Creon specifically his own edict (444-449), and when Antigone counters that only Zeus and the goddess Dike can define homoi in such matters, both he and the Chorus see her as one Who has simply inherited an excessively stubborn mode of thought.1 1 146 a tyranny to be the sole ruler, legislator, and judge amounts to a long tirade against Antigone's insolent defi- 121 ance and to threats of dire doom (473-495). The theme of tyranny was initiated in the first episode when the Chorus, deferring to Creon's authority, stated the conditions under which men live in a tyranny (211-214). This theme was de- veloped no further at that point, but now it becomes domi nant and is brought clearly into focus. Though Creon has the power of a tyrant, he finds he can do little with Antigone, who, having resigned herself to the i | punishment of death, has nothing to fear from his threats. She scores easily on him when she asks if he wishes to do anything more to her than seize and kill her (497). At Creon's admission that her death is all that he seeks (498), Antigone defiantly taunts him further, asking why he delays, since his words are neither pleasing to her nor hers to him (499-501). The thought of what she has done causes her to think of other than religious arguments to defend her ac tion. She turns to her more personal motives: her desire to prove her nobility and to attain glory. She speaks of IP 1 Creon's mention of Ismene (489-490) and his summon ing of her (491-494) will be considered when Ismene joins the scene (526). 147 the fulfillment that the performance of the burial has brought to these desires (502-504). So sure is she that she has proved her nobility in the sight, of others and gained glory by her deed that she concludes that all present would express pleasure in her action, if fear did not bind their tongues (504-505). With extreme bitterness she adds that royalty— meaning Creon— has the power to do and say what it 122 wishes, implying that he has-no one to fear (506-507). Antigone's conclusion, however, that all present would express pleasure in her deed, if they dared, is incorrect. With Creon off stage, the Chorus of Theban Elders in the first stasimon condemned the unknown burier of Polyneices; with Creon still absent from the stage, the Chorus, after their first expression of shock and surprise at seeing An tigone brought in as a prisoner, chided her for her dis obedience to the King's law and for her folly (381-383); in the presence of Creon, it is they, moreover, who are the first to comment on her defiance (471-472), when, if they wished, they could have said nothing. The Chorus has shown 122 See Jebb, p: 99, n. 510f., for his remarks on the genuineness of these verses. 148 123 neither sympathy for Antigone nor approval of her deed. When Creon replies to Antigone that the Thebans present take a view of her deed that differs from hers (508), she i can only reiterate that the Elders share her opinion, thoughj fear of Creon keeps them silent (509). Creon, ignoring this! response, asks if she is not ashamed to think differently 124 from the others (510). This question returns the 1 P * 3 JWaldock, p. 110, claims that the moral feeling of the State is against Creon. We know from Creon1s own state ment (289-292) that some oppose him. How many these are we have no way of knowing. My interpretation of the Chorus' attitude in the second episode shows that they, at least, favor Creon. Haemon1s statement (690-695), moreover, that the citizenry oppose Creon cannot be accepted as conclusive proof, since he is speaking from self-interest. This very inability to know the moral feeling of a citizenry living in a tyranny is a strong argument against this form of gov ernment (see.pp. 182-183 below). 124jebb's note, p. 100, SfiL 510f., is extremely puzz ling: "Si) 6,o{m eTrai&Ei; And art thou not ashamed of it !(cp. emxicxuvo^ai ), if thou thinkest otherwise than they do?— thinkest, namely, that thou art free to act on thy own views, regardless of thy king. For the sake of argument, he concedes their possible sympathy with her, but insists on their loyal behavior.1 1 Here, however, Creon is not main taining that Antigone ought to be ashamed to act on her own views, regardless of her king's wishes, when the Chorus would never act in this way. From the context (504-509) it is evident that Creon and Antigone are arguing at this mo ment whether the Chorus regards her deed as glorious. Up to this point in the play the Chorus has expressed no sym pathy for Antigone. Far from conceding their sympathy for Antigone, Creon is simply saying that she is alone in'view ing her deed as glorious. 149 argument to the central issue: whether Antigone was right to have buried Polyneices, or Creon right to have forbidden the burial. In the stichomythia that follows (511-525), Antigone defends her action on the grounds of devotion to her family (511, 513, 523) and, for the second time in this scene, on the observances that religious piety demands (519, 521). Her devotion includes love, and her piety recognizes the obligation of a relative to bury his kin. Creon counters her arguments with the precept that the good and the evil should not be honored alike (512, 514, 516, 518, 520). This precept underlies the. intention of punishment and deterrence in his decree (see pp. 68-70 above), an intention that the reader knows has the support of an Athenian law. Creon1s point that the good and the evil should not be honored alike attacks Antigone's devotion i ito her family and maintains that she should make a distinc tion between the devotion owed Eteocles and that which is due Polyneices. Antigone cannot answer this attack and finally, after reasserting several times her belief in an impartial devotion (513, 515, 517), she falls back upon the religious requirement for the burial: o\ uaq, y’ "Ai6t)q touq v6ixoi>q TOUTOUQ ito6ei (519). Creon chooses not to argue this point of religion but clings to his principle that the 150 good should be distinguished from the evil (520), to which Antigone responds with an unanswerable question of religious significance: t l q o l 5 e v eI h & tc o0 e v e^ayf] Ta6s (521).125 Again, it is obvious and perhaps surprising that in this stichomythia when Antigone resorts to a religious mo tive to defend the burial, Creon once more, just as he had in his first attack on Antigone (473-495), fails to express his own reasoned religious principle, that the gods would not honor a man who had wished to burn their temples (199- 201; 282-289). Here, it cannot be argued as before (p. 145 above) that he is responding only to her defiant attitude, i |as he had earlier, for he has deigned to try to reason with her, offering as an argument against her devotion to her family his precept that the good should be distinguished from the evil. The fact that he has twice failed to ex press his religious motive is, as we shall see later, ■^25;Kirkwood, p. 125, is not quite correct when he writes: "In the stichomythia that follows [508-525], the ideas about reverence, good and evil, friend and foe, are shown to be in different realms of thought." When Creon uses the intention of his decree as an attack on Antigone's devotion to her family, the argument is in the same realm of thought. Only when Antigone toward the conclusion of the stichomythia (519, 521) switches to her religious motive, and Creon, failing to answer this, continues to advocate the intention of the State's decree, can their ideas be said to be in "different realms of thought." 151 significant. Such an argument as theirs, in which for the most part only conflicting basic premises are employed, can have no resolution. In anger Creon terminates their profitless quarrel, saying: E|iou 6s ^covtoq ovn ap^Ei yuvfi (525). The thought of being bested by a woman has occurred to Creon before. In his first speech of denunciation (473-496) he has said to Antigone: r j vuv sytb |aev ouh avf[p, auTrj 6* &VT)p,/ EL TOUT’ <XVOC.Tl TT)6e KSLaST(Xl KpdTT) (484-485). In the prologue Ismene had declared to Antigone that they should remember that women ought not to contend with men but, being ruled by the stronger, should obey them (61- 64).^^ It is this concept that Creon defends. He resents Antigone's transgression of it and considers her defiance more offensive than if a man had opposed him. Reminded by the fact that she is a woman, when he says that she is the man if she prevails over him (484-485), his mind naturally and easily advances to the thought that this woman is re lated to him and has a sister (486-490). ^^Goheen, p. 87, makes this comment on Ismene's atti tude: "Thus Ismene's initial suggestion is that law (nomos) is what the ruler sets and that obedience to it is the role of human nature, especially of feminine nature." 152 Creon has shown an acute awareness of the obligation of a relative to bury his kin, a religious precept from which through his reasoned belief he has exempted himself. He realizes now quite logically that if Antigone felt duty- bound to bury her brother, it is possible that Ismene has felt the same obligation. Since he has recently seen Ismene within the palace behaving in a distraught manner (491-492), jand since he does not know that her distress is due to her jknowledge of Antigone's deed, he concludes that she has been i 127 an accomplice (493-494) and has her summoned (491). 1P7 Linforth, p. 205, agrees essentially with my inter pretation of Creon's summoning of Ismene: "He [Creon] sud- idenly remembers that Ismene stands in the same relationship to himself and to Polyneices as Antigone. If Antigone's motive in burying Polyneices was that he was her brother (and he reveals now for the first time that he understands this) Ismene must have been bound by the same motive and deserves the same fate. That she was actually guilty of participation in the plot he infers from her wild and dis tracted behavior which he has just observed indoors. On this slight evidence he orders Ismene to be brought before !him." Adams, p. 50, fails to see Creon's logic in summoning [ismene: "The completely unfounded charge of complicity that he brings against Ismene shows how far he has now travelled on the road to ate." Adams has viewed Creon as a villain as far back in the play as the parodos (cf. p. 63, n. 27 above) and seems to look for every chance to compound his villainy. The incorrectness of Adams' view is due to the fact that he bases his interpretation on his knowledge of the entire play rather than on his experience with it as it unfolds. Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 158. .153 Later in the scene, at the very moment that Creon uses the word Yuvrj (525) in reference to Antigone, Ismene makes her entrance, a coincidence, by no means fortuitous, that offers a fine illustration of the order and unity of form and mean ing that language by itself can sometimes achieve. i Ismene, wishing to share Antigone's troubles (540-541), and unwilling to live without her (544-545, 548), admits under Creon's questioning (530-535) her participation in the deed, if Antigone will allow it (536). Many scholars have commented on the harshness of Antigone's rejection of her 128 sister (538-539, 542-543, 549). This attitude on Antigo ne's part, however, has such complexity that to some her harshness seems purposely assumed and to others genuine. Among those who take the first view C. M. H. Millar and A. W. Simpson have put forward the interpretation that An tigone has assumed her harsh attitude of rejection only to prove to Creon that Ismene had nothing to do with the burial 129 and, therefore, her life should be spared. ^ 8Knox, p. 65; Linforth, pp. 207-208; Bowra, pp. 80- 81; Adams, p. 51; Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 143, 159; □ebb, xxix; Waldock, p. 133, n. 3; Levy, p. 142; Sheppard, jp. 54. ^ 9A. W. Simpson and C. M. H. Millar, "A Note on Sopho cles' Antigone. Lines 531-81," Greece and Rome. XVII (June 154 Bowra, on the other hand, believes Antigone's harshness to be genuine. He attributes it both to her desire to. Keep all the glory for herself and to her anger at Ismene's fail ure to do her duty: She (Antigone] gives no sign of sisterly love or grati tude. Seeing that Ismene is her only close relative in the world, Antigone is remarkably cold to her . . . The original conception of burying Polyneices was hers, and hers its execution . . . Antigone is concerned with a strict duty; Ismene has shirked this and deserves nei ther the glory nor the suffering that belong to it. Antigone is harsh to her simply because she has shirked. -*-30 These two conflicting views of Antigone's harsh atti tude are not necessarily irreconcilable. Her wish to save Ismene's life and her desire to keep all the glory for her self are not reasons that are mutually exclusive. Nor are these reasons inconsistent with her motives of desire for glory and devotion to her family. She wants all the glory for herself and resents Ismene1s claim of participation in the deed; but at the same time Antigone has shown such devo tion to her family that, surely, no one can doubt that she would bestow equal devotion on an attempt to save Ismene's 1948), 78-81. I30sowra, p. 81;-Levy, p. 142, and Waldock, p. 133, n. 1, agree essentially with Bowra's view. life. Thus Antigone's harshness is not feigned but is the natural outcome and combination of her desire for glory and 131 devotion to her family, in this instance, to Ismene. This strange conversation in which Ismene begs to die jrather than to live astonishes Creon and causes him to com ment: TO) 7 E 0 a & £ <pT)ll L TU)&£ TT)V p.£V dpt LO)q/ OCVOUV 7t£(p&V0ai , Tr)V 6* deep* 0§ xa TcpcoT* Ecpu (561-562). After Ismene replies to him that inborn prudence does not abide with those who suffer misfortunes (563-564), the dialogue in stichomythia shifts from the two sisters to Creon and Ismene. With the realization that Antigone will not allow her to die with her, Ismene, dreading to live without her, pleads with Creon to spare her sister's life on the grounds that Antigone is 132 betrothed to his son Haemon (568, 570, 572). It is 131 Knox, p. 65, takes the same view of Antigone's harshness. ^■^^All the manuscripts and scholia except the Aldine text ascribe :v. .572, d) cpCA/raO* "A(,|iov, &Q a’ dTi|a&£sI TOXTT)p, to Ismene. Francis J. H. Letters, The Life and Works of Sophocles (London, 1953), pp. 166-167, points out that the regular alternation of speakers which is common to stichomythia would be spoiled if the verse were given to Antigone. He argues further that only a romantic bias and the wish to see a strong statement from Antigone of her love for Haemon have caused editors to ascribe the line to her. In addition, Letters points out that there is really no need for a strong expression of love from Antigone? Ismene1s words oux oSq Y* shsCvo) xfj&£ t * rjv ^pnoap.eva (570) tell us 156 notable and completely consistent with Antigone's that the love of Haemon and Antigone is mutual and intense. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 162-163* argues for the attri bution of v. 572 to Antigone. He claims that the argument based on the regular alternation of speakers in stichomythia is not valid, simply because stichomythia should be regarded as "the servant, not the master, of the poet." He adds that the word cpCXmTe (572) "would sound not quite natural com ing from Ismene." Finally, Kitto puts forward as an argu ment against Letters' attribution of the verse the fact that "Creon is assailed by protests, direct or veiled, by everyone present: Ismene, Antigone [572], and the Chorus [574]." Linforth, p. 209, arguing for the verse to be ascribed to Ismene, states that cpCXTotTe "is frequently used by persons whose feelings have been deeply stirred in ad dressing persons with whom they have no bond of intimate affection." As evidence of this he cites: Trach. 232; EX. 1228, 1398; Phil. 242; O.C. 607. "Ismene," he feels, "who jhas urged the particularly close tie between Antigone and Haemon, thinks of what the loss of his betrothed will mean to Haemon and speaks out of her affection for both." Lin forth also points out that Creon' s words ayav ye A.UTt£ig (573) in response to v. 572 are "an impossibly mild exclama tion for Creon to use if he were addressing Antigone, as we can see, if we consider how deeply he has been offended by her conduct and how harshly he has spoken to her from the beginning." Kitto's point regarding the stichomythia easily answers Letters' argument. Linforth's explanation of cpuX- tocts removes Kitto's objection that the word is unnatural coming from Ismene. Kitto's statement that everyone on stage, including the Chorus, is protesting against Creon can be answered if we look at the Chorus' words: f ) yap aieprj— oeiq Tf)o6e tov aauTOV yovov (574). This is not necessarily a protest but a question that merely emphasizes the tragic complexity of the- situation, for there has been no evidence up to this point that the Chorus does not agree with Creon (see p. 160 below). What we are left with, then, are only arguments for attributing v. 572 to Ismene: (1) Letters' point that Ismene in v. 570 has already told us of the in tensity and reciprocity of Haemon's and Antigone's love, so that there is no need to ascribe v. 572 to Antigone; (2) Linforth's point that Creon's response (573) to v. 572 is 157 unrelenting defiance throughout this episode that it is Is- mene who makes this plea for Antigone's life. The brusqueness of Creon's responses to Ismene's pleas are emphasized by their brevity: do not speak of Antigone, for she is already dead (567); there are other fields for his son to plough (569); he does not want an evil wife for his son (571). The remaining lines of the stichomythia (574-576) shift to Creon and the Chorus, which has been silent now through forty-four verses. They are brought into the dialogue again with their question if Creon will deprive 133 jhis son of this woman (574). The episode concludes with i Creon threatening death and ordering the women into the much too mild to be addressed to Antigone. To these may be jadded an even more conclusive argument.for assigning the verse to Ismene: from the context it would be most incon sistent with Antigone's unbending defiance throughout this episode for her to utter the name of Haemon even as an emo tional exclamation, lest the mention of his name by her should be interpreted by Creon as a plea for mercy. Jens, p. 55, also accepts v. 572 as Ismene's. A. Bonnard, La Tragedie et 1'homme (Neuchatel, 1951), pp. 85-86, argues for the ascription to Ismene. Jebb gives the verse to Antigone; Dain, the editor of our text, gives it to Ismene. ^33Jebb, p# no, n. ad, 574, views this question of the Chorus as a mild remonstrance. It is not, however, a re monstrance, even a mild one, for the Chorus has shown no sympathy with Antigone. The way their question is worded shows that their concern is for Haemon, not Antigone. They are appalled by the tragic implications for Creon's son. See Linforth, p. 210. 158 palace as prisoners (577-581). 134 What is the purpose of this scene with Ismene? What does it do for the play? The scene functions in four ways, each by itself not a sufficient reason for the existence of the scene, but taken together, they more than account for its inclusion. (1) The contrast that Ismene1s character affords that of Antigone's has been drawn in the prologue. While it is true that it is unnecessary to repeat what has already been revealed, nevertheless the repetition makes the difference between the two women more emphatic, elevating Antigone far above her more commonplace sister. (2) More ■^^Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 158-163, raises the same question. He sees three functions in the scene. (1) Ismene acts as a foil to reveal Creon's character: "In the full tide of his blind rage Creon suddenly condemns Ismene, unheard . . . This wanton condemnation of Ismene is still worse than his whole bearing toward the Watchman. It shows even more clearly the manner of man we are dealing with . . ." (Kitto, of course, with his view of the first burial [see pp. 94-95 above], that the gods had a hand in it and that Creon had set his will above that of the gods, has with great consistency regarded Creon from that moment as a vil lain.) (2) Ismene acts as a foil to reveal by contrast An tigone's nobility and greatness of spirit. (3) Ismene also serves to introduce the expository fact that Antigone and Haemon are engaged (568), because she "is the most suitable character to announce it." 'The introduction of this fact is of extreme importance to the play, since the father-son re lationship of Creon and Haemon is exactly "the means whereby Creon's original decree recoils upon him to crush him." Cf. Linforth, p. 247. 159 important than this function is the employment of Ismene's character as a foil to Creon's. Since Creon in his dialogue with Antigone has failed to mention his reasoned religious principle for forbidding.the burial, there is a great danger of this motive slipping from the play. When, however, Creon [thinks of summoning Ismene, this very thought plus her ac- i jtual appearance reminds the reader that Creon is still con- i [scious of his religious motive, since he believes that Is mene, like Antigone, has acted in response to the religious I [obligation of burying her brother. Thus the scene strength- ! ens the reader's awareness of this motive and prevents its drifting from the play. (3) Ismene is needed to introduce the subject and name of Haemon, who will loom so large in 135 the personal tragedy of Creon. This introduction cannot ■*-^Waldock, p. 124, views the relationship of Haemon and Creon as a flaw in the structure of the play: "Haemon's love . . . is a structural link: only through some such linkage could the punishment of Creon become personal . . . His retribution, accordingly, has a quality in it of acci dent. If Creon had not had a son Haemon, and if Haemon had not loved Antigone, he might conceivably have gone scot- free. The linkage is artificially forged. The play is not damned because of it, but it remains true that the structure is not of the tightest." This is the most erroneous kind of criticism. If one accepted Waldock's notion as a valid criticism, the same fault could be attributed to innumerable plays. For instance, if Juliet had not happened to be a Capulet and Romeo a Montague, there would have been nothing to stand in the way of their marriage; if Hamlet, moreover, 160 be Antigone's. For her to make any mention of, or even allusion to Haemon might be construed as a plea for mercy which would be inconsistent with the defiant attitude she has maintained throughout the entire episode (cf. p. 155, n. 132 above). Nor is the Chorus suitable to introduce Haemon. They have shown no sympathy for Antigone. Their question to 3reon, r j yap OTEpf|£JElq Tf)cr&£ tov aauTou yovov (574), re peats Ismene1s question (568), but the wording, unlike her question, emphasizes their concern for Haemon. This con cern, moreover, comes only as an after-thought and might never have been uttered unless Ismene had first made her plea for Antigone on the grounds of her betrothal. Ismene, who loves her sister, sympathizes with her, and does not wish to live without her, is the only logical and proper character to introduce Haemon. (4) The second episode is central to the play, falling easily into three easily dis cernible scenes: the Guard's report to Creon; the quarrel between Antigone and Creon; and the Ismene scene. Within the episode the scene that contains the quarrel of Antigone nad not been the son of the murdered king, Gertrude and Claudius would have had nothing to fear from him. Aristotle, Poetics.. 1453k, recognized quite correctly that incidents should occur between friends or relatives. 161 and Creon is a climax of great intensity. It is difficult for a play to sustain such a climax for long or advance beyond it for any great length, unless the climax is sof tened. The scene with Ismene turns the interest and empha sis away from the issues that Creon and Antigone represent, which are basic to the play, to the issue between Antigone and Ismene, which is less basic. Next, the interest and emphasis shift to the betrothal of Haemon and Antigone which as yet has not achieved the importance in the play that it will attain later. In this way the scene with Ismene, deal ing with related issues that are not so basic, softens the climax a bit and serves the form of the play. A question still remains that may puzzle the reader. Antigone has told Ismene that the punishment for disobeying Creon1s edict is death by stoning (35-36); Creon has in formed the Chorus that the punishment is death (221), After the apprehension of Antigone, why does he not put her to ieath immediately instead of sending her along with Ismene into the palace? S. M. Adams believes that Creon avoids the prompt execution of the death penalty because "he still niopes it may not be necessary; imprisonment plus the threat of death may bring these women to their senses" (p. 51). There is no evidence in the text, however, that Creon has 162 any intention of mitigating the penalty. When Antigone taunts him with his delay and asks if he wishes to do more to her than seize and slay her (497), he replies that her seizure and death are enough (498). Later, he enjoins An tigone to go to the world of the dead and love them if she must love (525-526). Finally, when he orders the women into the palace, the reason he gives is that he does not wish them to run away and escape death when it approaches (577- 581).136 The fact that Antigone is his niece has created a prob lem for Creon. He has rationalized a religious belief that he feels has freed him from the responsibility of burying Polyneices; but it is one thing to deny burial to a relative who has been a traitor and quite another to kill a relative, ks yet Creon has not had time to formulate the means by which he may kill a relative without committing an act of 137 great impiety. He needs to pause to consider this I36cf. Antigone. 658; 773-780. 137Cedric Whitman, Sophocles; A Study of Heroic Human ism (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), p. 92, writes; "The king had originally assigned death by stoning as the penalty for burying Polyneices, and the commutation of the sentence is, of course, due to Creon's desire to avoid the formal pollu tion involved in actually killing one of his own kin." Cf. Bowra, p. 92; p. 102. See Antigone. 773-776. 163 problem and therefore imprisons the women instead of immed iately executing them by public stoning. To summarize briefly, the second episode has disclosed all Antigone's motives, giving for the first time to her religious belief a fullness and development (450-46 0, 511, 519) that were lacking in the prologue. These motives, per sonal, emotional, and religious, support and are supported by each other (see p. 55 above). They form an emotional whole and have a unity that is inseparable except for the purposes of critical analysis. Creon1s motives, on the other hand, are based solely on reason: the rationale of his edict is the prevention of treason by punishment and dishonor; the rationale of his religious belief is that the jgods would not honor such a man as Polyneices with burial. The fact that Creon can separate his motives, express one and not the other, when the opportunity is granted him to use both as arguments, is evidence that his motives do not have for him the wholeness and unity that Antigone's have for her. Furthermore, the fact that Creon urges only the intention of his decree indicates that this motive has far greater weight with him. His religious belief, though he genuinely believes in it (we have been given no reason to think otherwise), begins to appear to be merely a rational!- 164 zation that serves to allow him freedom of action as ruler. His rationalization, however, may be correct, for up to now, except for Antigone's own belief, the play has offered no evidence to contradict it. I I ■ ! All Antigone's motives tend to personify her as emo tion; Creon's motives, both the expressed and unexpressed, personify him as reason. Through this contrast in their characters the theme of the opposition of emotion and rea son, which was initially observed in the first episode (p. |75 above), has acquired increased prominence in the second i i episode. The theme of the opposition of the individual and the family to the State remains unaltered, but it stands out more strongly through repetition and emphasis. In the first episode the opposition of religion and of the aypocTum v6( j , t | i c c to the State could be seen only from Antigone’s view, since Creon had expressed a belief in a consonance between the laws of the gods and those of the State (see p. 75 above). Now, since Creon has advanced only the intention of his decree in his argument with Antigone, this theme of religion versus the State has become simplified, more sharply de fined, and can be identified with both characters. Never theless, though Creon has failed to voice his religious be- Lief to Antigone, the implication of his awareness of it is 165 jpresent in his summoning of Ismene and in his scene with her. We can see in his religious belief, since the play- still retains it, a question that has splintered off, so to |speak, from the theme of religion and the State: does Creon1s rationalized religious belief have greater validity than Antigone1s pure faith? This question takes its place among the motives that support the theme of reason and emo- i tion. The theme of tyranny, which was introduced by the Chorus in the first episode but not developed (see pp. 75- 76 above), has received a great deal of attention in this episode, particularly through Creon's threatening tirade against Antigone (473-496). The theme of hybris, briefly suggested in the parodos (see pp. 62-63 above), has also received attention, but whether Antigone or Creon is guilty of this fault is still questionable. Antigone because of her insolent and defiant attitude, when she could have pleaded for mercy, seems extremely hybristic, but there are Loo many questions unresolved for Creon to be considered blameless. The tension and suspense in the reader's anticipation of the confrontation of the two characters are gone. The unanswered questions of what will happen to Antigone, now that she has been captured, and how Haemon will react to 166 his betrothed's condemnation, have given rise to new sus pense. The reader's sympathies are by this time entirely with Antigone. She has risked her life for her beliefs. Creon, to all appearances, is risking nothing. The tension that now holds the reader lies in the fact that his sympa thies may be at odds with what is morally right, since the stand that Antigone has taken has not as yet been proven valid. CHAPTER IV THE ANTIGONE (582-987) S-econd Stasimon (582-625) This ode serves a twofold purpose. The artificiality of music and dance, as compared with the spoken word, helps further to take the edge off the preceding climax by dis tracting the reader and audience from the basic issues at stake between Creon and Antigone; but at the same time the substance of thought in the song keeps the Chorus1 attitude toward Antigone in the foreground of attention. Each half of the ode, consisting of a strophe and antistrophe, con tains1 a triad of thoughts. The first thought in the series appears in the strophe, the two remaining thoughts in the antistrophe. (1) The first strophe, with an allusion to !3eus (0eo0ev, 584), begins with a generalized statement of theological morality, that a family's sins, committed against the gods, continue to strike back at the family down through the generations like waves that unceasingly batter 167 168 a headland (583-593).^" (2) The antistrophe, descending from this generalization, now particularizes, with reference to the House of Labdacus, that from generation to generation there has been no surcease of woes, the doom incurred by the! dead falling upon the living (594-598). (3) This thought leads the Chorus to particularize still further, referring to Antigone but not mentioning her name, that she, the last of her line, has been cut down by the blood-stained dust due 2 the gods of the underworld, by the folly of her speech, and •^Bowra, p. 87, remarks on the moralizing tone of the ode: "The song is an exposition in the Aeschylean manner of the hereditary evils of the House of Labdacus." ^See Jebb, pp. 114-115, n. ad 601f., for his arguments for the reading of x o v i q instead of h o t t c l q . H. Lloyd- Jones, "Notes on Sophocles' Antigone." CQ, VII (1957), 12- 27, prefers h o t x t l q because of the difficulty in the phrase M a x ’ a u . . . < x [ j , a x o v l q (601-602). H a m j i o t implies a metaphor of cutting down, which to Lloyd-Jones seems hardly jsuitable with h o v i q . Linforth, however, p. 213, resolves jthe difficulty, seeing in h o v u q a double-entendre that gives to the word the meaning of dust storm and the dust of burial: "In the present play, mention has been made of the sudden whirlwind that raised a dust storm, filled the plain, spoiled the trees and shrubs, and blinded the guards . . . As the growing plant is cut down by the dust storm, so An tigone must die in her youth and her whole house must be brought to destruction. At the same time, besides the pre vailing metaphor, a double-entendre is suggested by the word 'dust.' When the spectator hears this word . . . he would also be reminded of the bloody dust which Antigone had scattered over the body ... and which had caused her ruin." 169 the passionate frenzy of her heart (599-603). With this utterance the Chorus has defined the instrument of her de struction as the act of burial, the cause of her destruction as her defiant words and self-righteous attitude. Having reached the limit of particularization in An tigone, the Chorus in the second half of the ode repeats the same pattern of moving from generalization to increasing particularization, each thought paralleling the correspond ing thought in the first half of the ode. The substance of thought, however, in the first half of the ode, as well as moving from generalization to particularization, proceeded from allusion in the strophe to direct references in the antistrophe. In the second half of the ode this order of allusion and references is reversed, reference appearing in the strophe and allusions in the antistrophe. Thus the similarity of the thought-pattern in both halves of the ode is provided with contrast and variety. (1) In the second strophe the Chorus generalizes, with specific reference to Zeus, about the weakness of man and the jealousy and omnipotence of the supreme god (604-610); the law, fixed for eternity, is that nothing great comes to man without arousing divine envy and consequent destruction (611-614). (2) In the antistrophe, with a rather loose 170 allusion to the House of Labdacus (especially Oedipus), the Chorus particularizes hope as the means by which the god destroys men. To men, possessed of foolish desires, hope is] i a delusion that leads them on until it is too late to avert j I ; disaster (615-619). (3) In the conclusion of the antistro- j phe the Chorus particularizes another means of destruction \ with specific allusion to Antigone, asserting that the god confuses the thoughts of the man he would destroy by making evil seem good to him (622-624). This last utterance de fines exactly their attitude and that of Creon toward An tigone 's state of mind: what she believes to be good, Creon and the Chorus think is evil. The god, the Chorus feels, has deluded Antigone. Linforth takes a different view of this ode. He be lieves that, beginning with the second strophe, the ode re fers mainly to Creon: After the address to Zeus at the beginning of the sec ond strophe Antigone is lost sight, of . . . She has done nothing to transgress human limitations. She has not been deluded by hope. The general observations concern ing the operation of divine punishment have no reference to her . . . Through the second half of the poem the cap fits Creon so neatly that we are tempted to believe that the chorus has made it for him . . .If we remember that Creon was actually present in the orchestra and could hear the words, it may not be too fanciful to suggest that they are addressed to him directly as a solemn warning. (pp. 214-215) 171 Linforth does not see the parallelism of thoughts in each half of this ode: (1) the respective allusion and reference to Zeus in each strophe; (2) the respective reference and allusion to the House of Labdacus in the first half of each antistrophe; (3) the respective reference and allusion to Antigone in the second half of each antistrophe. Linforth is quite right when he states that "she has done nothing to transgress human limitations [613-614]" and that "she. has not been deluded by hope [615-619]"; for the transgression and delusion mentioned in these verses do not pertain to Antigone at all but to the omnipotence and jealousy of Zeus and to the delusion of the House of Labdacus. He is in correct, however, when he states that "the general observa tions concerning the operation of divine punishment [622- 524] have no reference to her1 1 i for Linforth himself admits that the words, Xoyou x1 cx v o lo c, H a l cppsvcov ’Epivtiq (603), at the close of the first antistrophe refer to Antigone (p. 213); yet when the Chorus in the conclusion of the second antistrophe declares, TO KOCKOV 60HSIV TCOT* ioQXoV TtoS’ ennev, &t< j> cppevocq 0ebg ayet TtpOQ atav (622-624), Linforth does not see these words as paralleling the 172 thought at the close of the first antistrophe and as perti nent to Antigone. In the view of the Chorus, since they believe Antigone has shown folly of speech and frenzy of i i thought, surely they mean that she is the one who has con sidered evil to be good. As a further refutation of Lin- forth's interpretation, since the Chorus at no point in the play has approved of Antigone1s deed or has disagreed with Creon, it seems inconsistent and highly improbable that they 3 are now condemning Creon. G. M. Kirkwood sees the two halves of this ode as sep arate lyrical systems that have only a tenuous connection with each other (pp. 207-208, 268-269). His view of the form of this stasimon, if true, would unintentionally con demn the poem for its lack of unity and cohesiveness. While he does agree that the first lyrical system (582-6 03) in cludes mention of divinity, the Labdacids, and Antigone JBowra, p. 89, and Waldock, p. 115, though they do not consider the formal structure of the second stasimon, agree that this ode represents a condemnation of Antigone. Adams, p. 51, thinks that while the Chorus intends to condemn An tigone, unconsciously their words pertain to Creon, since he is the one who, Adams believes, is guilty of hybris. Adams, having taken a synoptic view of the play, has seen Creon as hybristic from the very beginning of the drama. Therefore, he sees an ironic relevance to Creon in this ode (cf. p. 6 3, n. 27 above). 173 (p. 268), he interprets the substance of thought in the second system (604-625) as ambiguous; "Sophocles does not care to have his chorus, at this stage, openly condemn Creon or charge him or anyone else in the play with evil behavior" (p. 269). In view of the corresponding patterns of thought that have been shown to exist in both halves of this ode, Kirkwood's interpretation seems untenable. In the parodos the Chorus raised briefly the theme of hybris (see pp. 62-63 above), which had for the reader, jthough not for the unwitting Chorus, an undetermined' rele- i j vance to either Creon or Antigone, since the reader had knowledge of the edict and of what had transpired in the prologue. In the first stasimon the Chorus had condemned the unknown burier of the body whom the reader knew to be Antigone. Now that the Chorus’ knowledge of events coin cides with that of the reader, they have proceeded in the 4 second stasimon to condemn Antigone. At the close of the second episode Creon remained on ^The Chorus had asked Creon in the preceding episode if he would deprive his son of this woman (574). If any doubt remains in the reader1s mind whether this question was a mild remonstrance against Creon for his attitude toward An tigone or a show of concern for Haemon (see p. 158, n. 134 and p. 160 above), their condemnation of Antigone in this ode should definitely settle this doubt. 174 stage. His presence during the second stasimon has sig nificance both for the structure and meaning of the play. We have seen that one of the advantages of the two burials was to prevent Creon's role from appearing foreshortened, once Antigone disappears from the stage (see p. 139 above). It was an advantage, moreover, as was noted, that could not be appreciated at that moment but only later, when the en tire structure of the play had been experienced (see p. 139 above). Structurally, his presence on stage during this ode serves the same purpose and advantage, but this advantage, 5 too, cannot be appreciated at this moment. Combined with this advantage and purpose, Creon's presence on the stage keeps the meaning of the play from shifting entirely to Antigone when the Chorus is singing about her. His presence is a constant reminder to the read er and especially the audience, since he is seen but not heard, that the problems in the action of the play are now wholly his. Antigone's problems are over? she has only to endure the reality of death. Creon, on the other hand, must still find the means to kill a relative without risking ^In fact, this advantage is one of the reasons Creon remains on stage until the close of the fifth episode. Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 146-147. 175 pollution and impiety (see pp. 152-163 above). He must also face his son Haemon who is betrothed to the condemned.^ Third Episode (626-780) The dialogue in this episode falls into a clearly marked pattern: (1) the introduction of Haemon by the ^Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 165, sees only an ironic ^significance in Creon1 s. presence on stage during this ode: "The chorus, throughout, is thinking of Antigone; but we jean divine, as in the second ode, that it is not Antigone but Creon whom the words really fit— and somewhere behind jthe dance we can see Creon, 'the man whom god will ruin,' standing motionless. The irony is to be seen as well as felt." We have shown that the irony that Kitto sees in the second ode is entirely lacking (see pp. 110-112 above). But bven if one had accepted his view of the irony in that ode, one might wonder now why Creon had not remained on stage at jthat time, since the only reason for his presence in the third ode, according to Kitto, is to reveal the same sort of irony. Only because of Kitto's interpretation of the first burial, where he claims the gods assisted in it— a potion which the Chorus suggests and Creon rejects— can Kitto look upon Creon as villainous and impious and, conse quently, see in both these odes an ironic significance. Since we have shown that the gods did not aid in the first burial (see pp. 97-100 above) and that Creon was right to reject the Chorus' suggestion, we cannot view him as trans gressing the will of the gods. Though our sympathies by the second stasimon are completely with Antigone (see p. 166 above), nevertheless Creon has not yet been proven wrong. Accordingly, the words which the Chorus sings in this ode, jwhich, as Kitto agrees, express their thoughts regarding An- jtigone, should be understood to mean Antigone without having for the reader and audience any ironic relevance to Creon. From a synoptic view of ..the play there might be an intima tion of irony in this ode (cf. p. 172, n. 3 above), but professor Kitto never views the play synoptically. jChorus (626-630); (2) a short interchange between Creon and ( i jHaemon (631-638); (3) a long speech by Creon (639-680), 'punctuated by a short comment from the Chorus (681-682); I 1(4') Haemon’s speech (683-723) which balances almost exactly J the length of Creon1s, followed by another brief comment from the Chorus (724-725); (5) an intense argument between father and son (726-765) in which most of the dialogue is in stichomythia (730-757); (6) a concluding interchange between the Chorus and Creon (766-780), closing with Creon’s words | s (773-780). (1) There is an air of warning for restraint and pity on Creon’s part in the Chorus' introduction of Haemon as the youngest and last of his sons (iraC6( j o v t<ov afiov/ veaTOv yev- vrjp/ , (626-627). Their question if he comes grieving for the fate of his intended bride and the ruin of his marriage (627-630) echoes the concern that they had expressed for him in the previous episode when they had asked if Creon would deprive his son of his bride (574). At the same time their present question implies that Haemon’s love for Antigone is his reason for coming to plead with his father. (2) Creon, too, suspecting the reason for Haemon's appearance, asks bluntly if he has come to rage against his father or if he approves of his parents' acts, no matter I 177 I j what he has done (631-634). The implication in this ques tion of a demand for blind obedience may strike the reader at first glance as ironic, for it seems that Creon's insis tence on filial obedience, regardless of what the parent has j done, is similar to the. undiscriminating obligation that Antigone feels she owes her brother. We shall see a little later in this episode, however, that Creon's notion of obedience is based on the social value that it has for the family and the State, whereas from the very beginning An tigone's devotion to her family has been personal and re- jligious . ^ In response to his father's question Haemon is most diplomatic. With the words Tt&Tep aog £L|XL (635) and his assertion that he values his father's wisdom and guidance above all else (635-638) he disarms Creon for the moment. Haemon, in fact, throughout the episode never uses his love of Antigone as a plea for mercy. With the certain knowledge that his father knows of his love and has notwithstanding ^Knox writes on Antigone's attitude, p. 114: "It is an attitude that ignores the polis completely. The fact that she is right about what is best for Thebes is merely acci dental; it is all too clear that if the exposure of the corpse had been expedient for the polis. she would have buried him just the same." 178 condemned Antigone, Haemon realizes his plea must take g another direction. (3) Reassured by his son's protestations of obedience and respect, Creon almost joyfully expounds on his concept of the ideal family: sons who obey their fathers in every thing, who repay their father's enemies with evil, and who honor his friends (639-644). Not satisfied with this and perhaps still suspecting his son's motive for coming to him, Creon, having laid down the principle of filial obedience, now tells Haemon how he should regard Antigone: his reason should not be swayed by the pleasure a woman affords, for it i I I I i I g Kurt von Fritz, "Haimons Liebe zu Antigone," Philolo- gus. LXXXIX (1934), 19-34, maintains that the issues between Haemon and Creon would become confused if Haemon pleaded his [love for Antigone. Fritz is quite right in this. Not only would the issues in this episode become confused, but the issues in the entire play itself would become vitiated by stressing the love-story of Haemon. and Antigone. Fritz, however, seems incorrect when, taking Haemon's arguments only at their face value, he writes: "Aus den Motiven Hai mons jedenfalls ist eine personliche Leidenschaft von Anfang bis zu Ende fernzuhalten." The Chorus' question (627-630) reveals that they know the reason for his coming: his love for Antigone. Creon suspects the same reason (632-634). It is even questionable if Haemon would have come to Creon, if he had not loved Antigone. What Fritz fails to see is that the play has been so constructed and the character of Creon drawn in such a manner that it would have been pointless, as Haemon realizes, to plead for Antigone on the grounds of his love for her. We have already seen how inefffectual such a plea was when Ismene made it. 179 will soon grow cold if the woman is evil (648-651); he should despise her, as if she were an enemy, and let her marry someone in Hades (653-654). Continuing with his cas tigation of Antigone, Creon says that she alone of the en tire populace acted in disobedience (655-656); that even if she appealed to him for mercy on the grounds of kinship, he would not acquit her, for if he gave such dispensation to his own family, he would also have to grant it to others (657-660). His next words, ev totq y&P oixeCoicriv cSotlq eot’ avf|p/ xP'Otf'tOQ, qxxtvJEmi, wav noXsi dinaiOQ o 6v (661-662), serve as a transition in thought from the family to the State. Having outlined for Haemon the obedience that a son owes his father, he now describes the obedience that a citizen owes his ruler: never to transgress the laws, or to give orders to the ruler, but to obey him in everything, whether he is right or wrong (672-676); order must be pre served (627). He concludes his speech, with reference to Antigone, remarking that disobedience in a woman is even more heinous than in a man (678-680; cf. p. 151 above). The Chorus, which during the course of the play has been in complete agreement with Creon, concurs once more with this statement of principles (681-682). | 180 Just as Creon in his "inaugural address" proclaimed to the Chorus the aims and duties of the ruler in relationship to the State (see pp. 63-67 above), here to Haemon he has given his view of the relationship of the citizen to the ruler. At last, with this speech the reader has gained the total picture of Creon's concept of government. It is a concept that exemplifies the traditional view of tyranny. To Creon the family represents the microcosm and the State 9 the macrocosm. In his mind the two are completely analo gous. As a ruler, whether he has acted rightly or wrongly, he expects from the citizen the same blind obedience that he I I demands as a father from his son. (4) Haemon, too clever to make a direct assault on Creon1s arguments, assumes a devious approach, as if taking his father's part. He begins his plea, eulogizing briefly the faculty of reason (683-684), the very means by which Creon justifies all of his own actions. While Haemon depre cates his own skill in reasoning and consequently feels it is not in his power to say whether Creon is right or wrong, he admits that another man might have a good thought (685- 687). Next, showing himself to be in accord with the ^Cf. Knox, p. 111. 181 respect and honor that Creon requires in a son, Haemon ex plains that he is concerned for his father's fair name (688- 689), He declares that, since he himself is not the ruler, he has access to opinions which the people would never utter in public for fear of offending their king (690-693): these thoughts, spoken in the dark, express the city's grief that Antigone should die so shamefully for glorious deeds when she has deserved only honor (693-700). Haemon reaffirms his personal concern for Creon's fair name when he avers that to children nothing is a more honorable possession than a fa ther's fame, and to a father nothing more honorable than the reputation of his children (701-704). Concluding his speech as he began, Haemon reverts to the topic of reason and claims that since men are not all-knowing, Creon, in this instance, may be wrong and another man right (705-723). The gist of Haemon's speech resolves itself into two thoughts: the people of Thebes disapprove of Creon's condemnation of Antigone; Creon himself, regardless of what the people think, may be wrong and therefore should make himself ac cessible to the opinions of others. Haemon's thoughts com prise the essence of democratic government. Many scholars maintain that Haemon represents the voice 182 of the people.” ^ The text, however, except for Haemon1s own words, offers no testimony to support this belief. The reader, as well as Creon and the Chorus, all suspect that Haemon has come to make his appeal because of his love for Antigone. It is a reasonable suspicion that is converted into certain knowledge by later events: , Haemon's anger at the conclusion of this scene and his consequent suicide. Because of his self-interest can Haemon's words be trusted as an objective statement of the feelings of the populace? We know, of course, as Creon has told the Chorus (289-294), that some are opposed to him. How many, we have no idea. i We know also, however, that the Chorus is loyal to him. In the first stasimon they condemned the unknown burier of the body; in the second, they condemned Antigone. One might i argue perhaps, as Haemon has in his speech, that since Creon is on stage during the second stasimon, the Chorus does not reveal its true sentiments for fear of offending the king's ear. But this argument quickly disappears when one realizes that the Chorus, if they had disagreed in thought and feel ing with Creon, could have voiced neutral sentiments or have 10Knox, p. 108; Kirkwood, p. 123; Bowra, p. 102; Kitto, Form and Meaning, , p. 165; Linforth, p. 220. 183 sung about something else, when, in fact, they chose to con demn Antigone. Furthermore, if we take Haemon to be the voice of the people, we must also assume that Creon, having heard that j voice, has defied the will of the city by not yielding to his son. This interpretation weakens considerably the play’s arguments against tyranny, for it offers the reader the choice of one of two alternatives: either all tyrants ignore the will of the people, or some pay heed to it. If the reader chose the second alternative, it would indicate that some tyrants are good and others wicked, but that tyr anny in itself is not evil. The play, however, does not offer us this choice, for we have no way of knowing whether Haemon represents the voice of the people, nor does Creon. The very uncertainty that Haemon represents the opinion of the populace implies an inherent flaw in tyranny itself, that under such a form of government the will of the people cannot even be known, much less heeded. In addition to this all-important implication, which makes tyranny itself evil, 2reon is not interested in ascertaining the veracity of Haemon's report. Whether one or a hundred oppose him makes no difference. In view of the fact that Creon and Haemon have 184 presented antithetical concepts, the Chorus' exhortation (724-725) at the conclusion of Haemon's speech for son and father to profit from each other's words is incomprehensible on the level of logical sense; father and son are at logger heads. If the Chorus' plea is to make sense at all, it must be understood on an emotional level as an expression of jtheir confusion. Beginning with the close of the second jepisode, they showed concern for Haemon. They reiterated this same emotion at the opening of this episode. This solicitude is repeated once more in their exhortation to father and son. Their anxiety for Haemon is acting like a wedge and slowly beginning to separate their feelings from 3reon, though they still agree with the principles that have motivated his actions. (5) We have seen that the opinion of others is not an issue to Creon. He has stated the precept of blind obedi ence that the citizen owes his ruler: aXk’ tc6A.uq oxf\- oeue, T o u & e xp^l m X t j e i v / nai aninpa m l d t H o u a hoci mvavtCa (666-667). This attitude, so diametrically opposed to the iemocratic concept of Haemon, quickly embroils the two men Ln open conflict. Creon argues that Thebes shall not tell lim how to rule (734); that the land shall be ruled by his judgment rather than another's (736); that the city belongs 185 to the ruler (738). Haemon counters that no city belongs to one man (737) and that Creon, if he thinks this, would rule well by himself in a desert (739). This altercation can have no resolution on this level. Creon, seeing in his son Antigone's ally, recognizes the filial disobedience against which he has preached so vehemently just a few moments before (639-647). Now he directs the argument to the level of father and son. He upbraids Haemon for opposing the justice of his father (742), to which Haemon replies that he is not opposing justice but | his father's unjust acts (743). When Creon asks how he him self can be doing wrong by honoring his own principles (744), Haemon answers that his principles are not honorable, since he is treading on the honors due the gods (745). Again, as in the second episode in his quarrel with Antigone (cf. p. 150 above), Creon does not mention his own interpre tation of the will of the gods when Haemon accuses him of treading upon their due honors. This continued omission begins to have an increasing significance until one is led to believe more and more that Creon's religious principle is but a rationalized excuse, utilized to support his prin ciples of government which are of paramount importance to him (cf. pp. 163-164 above). Instead of advancing his religious motive as an argu- ment, Creon continues to harp on Haemon's filial disobedi ence , seeing in it a direct rejection of the advice he had previously offered regarding Antigone (648-654). He accuses him of being led by a woman (746); he charges him with the fact that all his words are in behalf of Antigone (748); he ordains in his role of father and ruler that Haemon shall | never marry her while she lives (750). To this Haemon ans wers that when she dies, she will destroy another (751). His "another" (tivcc, 751) is ambiguous. As later events i jprove, he means himself, but Creon takes his words to be a threat against the life of his father and king.^ Creon has reached such a pitch of rage that he orders Antigone to be 12 brought forth to die before Haemon's eyes (760-761). Not wishing to behold this, Haemon departs, saying that Creon will never look upon his face again (762-763). (6) With the departure of Haemon, Creon now turns his mind to the execution of Antigone and Ismene (769). When ■^Cf. Linforth, p. 218. 12it is doubtful, however, that Creon with sheer bru tality actually intends to kill Antigone in Haemon's pres ence. His carefully calculated manner of her execution, which is disclosed just a few verses later (773-776) argues against this. He merely intends to set in motion her exe- 187 the Chorus asks if he intends to slay both, he replies: ou ye ( i t i ©Lyoucrocv* eu yap ouv keyeiq (771). Both Bowra and Kirkwood attribute Creon1s pardoning of Ismene to the almost unconscious effect Haemon’s words have had upon him and they believe that his acquittal of her represents the 13 first sign of a weakening in his obstinacy. There are many reasons that argue against this view. (a) In the previous episode Ismene pleaded to be associated with the burial and thereby to die with Antigone. Next, she pleaded for Antigone's life on the grounds of her betrothal to Haemon. The motive behind both pleas was that she did not wish to live without Antigone. Why would she have changed from an attempt to die with Antigone to an attempt to save her sister's life unless she had sensed in her own mind her failure to convince anyone of her guilt? Ismene's ■^Kirkwood, p. 124: "Acting on a hint by the chorus, he [Creon] will spare Ismene [770-771]. This is the first slight withdrawal from his own will; he withdraws graceless- ly, and without any acknowledgement of having been touched consciously by Haemon1s logic." Bowra, p. 103: "Yet though Creon does not admit it and hardly knows it himself, he has to some extent been touched by Haemon . . . Though he has previously decided to punish Ismene as well as Antigone, now, at the mere suggestion of the Chorus, he agrees that she is innocent and says that he will do nothing to her (771). In this his obstinacy begins to weaken." Cf. Knox, p. 72. 188 acquittal was, of course, not final in the previous episode, for Creon imprisoned both women. But this senseless act can be attributed to his rage at that moment and does not neces sarily indicate his belief in Ismene1s guilt. (b) If Is mene 1 s acquittal is not due to the success which Antigone's harsh attitude toward achieves, then this scene in the pre vious episode loses considerable effectiveness. (c) Nowhere in the third episode does Haemon mention or allude to Ismene. All his references and allusions are to Antigone. If Ismene had still been considered guilty after the close of the second episode, it is highly probable that Haemon's plea would have included both sisters. (d) No where in his quarrel with Haemon does Creon show any with drawal from his will or relaxing of his obstinacy. Is it likely, then, that when Haemon, the source of his anger, has departed, that at that very moment Creon weakens and relents a little? (e) When the Chorus asks if he will kill both women (770), Creon replies, "Not the one who did not do it" (771), and adds, eu yap o$v XeyeiQ (771). Surely, £§ yap ouv XeyetQ means here, "You do well to remind me."^ If -*-^Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 142, offers this transla tion of v. 771: "Not her who had no part in it.— I thank you." In Ten Greek Plays, ed. L. R. Lind (Boston, 1957), p. 189 Creon has been reminded of something by the Chorus, then he must be reminded of something of which he has already thought: namely, that Ismene is innocent. (f) If Creon is shown relenting at all in this episode, the reader has the right to expect a further weakening of his will in the next episode. This does not occur. In fact, there is no evi dence in the play of a gradual and progressive weakening of breon's will. His will is broken, and broken suddenly, by Teiresias in the fifth episode. Consequently, if Kirkwood's and Bowra*s view is correct, there would be an apparent in consistency between the third, fourth, and fifth episodes. Each of these arguments by itself does not offer a conclu sive refutation of Kirkwood's and Bowra's interpretation, but taken together, their very number and consistency argue strongly against what is only a surmise of an unexpressed knd unconscious motive. Clearly, it is more probable that Ismene's acquittal should be ascribed to the success that Antigone's harshness toward her achieves in disassociating her from the burial. After Ismene has been pardoned, the Chorus asks what 98, Shaemas O'Sheel renders this verse: "Not the one whose jhands are clean of the crime— you do well to remind me of [that." 190 doom Creon intends for Antigone (772). Creon1s edict had prescribed the punishment of death by public stoning (35). We have seen at the close of the second episode that Creon instead of immediately putting this punishment into effect imprisoned the women in the palace. We adduced as the rea son for this delay Creon1s realization that such a form of death would bring pollution upon the city, since Antigone is his relative (see p. 162, n. 137 above). Now Creon reveals jthe manner of death that he has devised which will enable him to execute a relative without bringing pollution on the State: he will imprison her in a rocky cave with as much food as piety demands, so that the city will not suffer 15 pollution (774-776). Here Creon has shown the same con cern for religious piety that he had expressed earlier in the play when he had reasoned that the gods would not honor such a man as Polyneices with burial (282-289). Professor Kitto sees a different explanation for the - * - 5Jebb, p. 144, n. 775, writes: "Creon's edict had announced that the transgressor would be publicly stoned to death (36). It is to this that the anxious question of the Chorus alludes (772). Creon had already said that Antigo ne's doom was to be mocxucjtoq (489). But now, at least, he feels that he cannot inflict such a death on the maiden, his kinswomen. . . . If a little food was given, the death was nature's work, not man's." change in the manner of Antigone1s death: Public stoning was reserved for public enemies— the only form of execution in which the whole community could actually take part . . . We are at liberty to reflect, after what Haemon has told us, that the people would refuse to stone one whom they thought worthy of a crown.^ | If we accept this interpretation, then we must ask the same question Antigone asked (499): why does Creon delay carry ing out the punishment of death? Why, at the close of the second episode, does he postpone the execution? At that time he had no knowledge that the populace was against him and would refuse to stone Antigone. Nor, of course, does he have this knowledge later, since we have shown that Haemon's report of the populace's opinion could not possibly have been accepted by Creon as a substantiated verity, even if he had been willing to heed it. Professor Kitto's interpreta tion, moreover, does not even take account of Creon's own explanation for the manner of Antigone's death: Hpucjxo UETpcoSei ^cocav ev xaTrujpux1 > <p0p(3?)Q T O O O U T O V U )Q ocyoQ llOVOV iupo0£ C q otuwq laCaap-oc xaa* iJTCEXcpuyri icokLQ (774-776) ^ Form and Meaning, p. 166 . 192 It is obvious that the reason for the postponement of the penalty and for the change in the manner of Antigone1s death is the same: Creon's concern to avoid bringing pollution 17 on the State by slaying a relative. The theme of tyranny dominates the third episode. No where else in the play is Creon's concept of the relation ship of the individual to the ruler so clearly and fully revealed. The expression of this concept discloses a coalescing relationship between the themes of tyranny and the opposition of the individual and the family to the State. The repetition of Creon1s failure to tell Haemon his reasoned religious principle that has freed him from the obligation of burying a relative begins to confirm in the / reader's mind that the welfare of the State is Creon's sole interest, and his religious precept, though he believes in it, has been rationalized only to support that interest (cf. pp. 163-164 above). This conviction is further strengthened by the manner of Antigone's death which Creon has carefully 1 7 'Linforth, p. 220, takes the same line as Kitto: "Stoning, he now sees, would be impossible in the disaffect ed city." Kirkwood, p. 237, agrees that the alteration in the manner of the-death offers another instance of Creon's concern for piety. Cf. Knox, p. 72, who agrees with Kitto and Linforth. ! 193 i contrived to avert pollution from the city. His concern for a piety permeated with reason marks the retention in the play of the theme of a rationalized religious belief as opposed to a religion of faith. The Chorus' continued solicitude for Haemon betrays a confusion in fheir feelings and marks a slight and incipient rift between them and Creon. No longer are they completely in accord with him, though they agree with his principles. As yet they have shown no sympathy for Antigone, nor have they condoned her deed. But in their feelings, at least, they are no longer entirely Creon1s minions. Creon's concept of the family, his brutal rejection of his son, and his concept of State government have completely destroyed whatever vestige of sympathy the reader still might have held for him. Antigone, however, has committed a crime against the State, even though that State is a tyr anny. In this sense she has committed an offense against order and society. The reader's hope is that she may be ] proven morally, if not legally, right and that she may be saved. Third Stasimon (781-800) In the strophe (781-790) of their song the Chorus 194 sings in general terms of the invincible power of love (781- 782), which is everywhere (785); neither god nor man can escape it (786-790), and he whom it possesses becomes mad (790). In the antistrophe (791-800) they particularize the powers of love with allusion to both Antigone and Haemon. Their words Eu Hal StHaCoov &5 lhouq/ cppevaQ TtapacracxQ eiru ^.d)Pa (791-792) remind us of the thought in the second stasi- mon which they expressed to explain how Antigone had been ! brought to ruin (see p. 170 above): to Hanov 6oke1v tcot’ Ea0A.ov Tips’ en(i£V ot(j) 9pevaQ 0eoq ayei TtpOQ octov (622-624) While their words in the third stasimon suggest that love, especially Antigone's love for her family, has twisted her mind to unjust thoughts, thus effecting her ruin (791- 18 792), this sentiment, far from contradicting the thought •^Linforth, p. 222, thinks that verses 791-792 "may imply a judgment upon Haemon in particular . . . They [the Chorus ] may be rebuking him for unseemly behavior toward his father." In the first place, however, the similarity of thought and expression in verses 791-792 and 622-624, where the Chorus feels the god has deluded Antigone, argues well for taking verses 791-792 as pertinent to Antigone. Second, since the cognative relation to Haemon's name is apparent in the word ^uvatpov (794) and definitely stamps verses 793- 195 expressed in the second stasimon, actually specifies more exactly what has deluded Antigone into thinking evil is good. At the same time, influenced by their concern for Haemon and having seen that his love for Antigone has led him to plead for her, the Chorus has come to recognize that the very same force of love has moved Antigone to the unjust deed of burying Polyneices. Unselfish love is an emotion that people generally approve, and the Chorus is no excep tion. Their recognition of this emotion in Antigone serves as a prelude and transition to the pity they express when they see her at the opening of the following episode (801- 805).19 With the words cru nal to6s vsuhoq avSpaiv/ ^uvainov SXEI'Q Tapa^ac; (793-794) the Chorus declares that Haemon1 s love for Antigone has caused strife between father and son. 794 as relevant to him, Linforth's view would make of verses 793-794 a rather needless and pointless repetition of verses 791-792. Cf. Kirkwood, p. 208. •^S. m . Adams, p. 53, is quite correct when he writes: "For the central stasimon of this play the theme of eros is more than appropriate: it is artistically essential." It is essential, simply because without it we have no way of explaining the Chorus' expression of pity for Antigone at the opening of the next episode, for up to and including the third episode their attitude toward her has been pitiless. 196 They end their song with the thought that love takes its place as a law among the great laws (Tffiv (isyaXoov . . . 0 S C p .W V , 7 9 6 - 7 9 9 ) o f o b e d i e n c e t o a p a r e n t a n d l o y a l t y t o a 20 ruler, and m this position of equality invincible Aphro dite works her will (799-800). Their concluding thought in dicates the degree of confusion that the Chorus' increasing sympathy for Haemon has produced in them: they blame him for transgressing the laws of filial obedience and loyalty, 20tcov |j,£YaA.a)v . . . 0s0p.(Sv (796-799) cannot mean here the aypaitTa . . . 0 e G)v v o n i ( a a (454-455) of Antigone but must refer to the ordinances of obedience that a son owes his father and a subject his ruler, since the whole preced ing episode has disclosed that it is Haemon1s love for An tigone that has turned him against the ordinances of filial obedience and citizen-loyalty. The Chorus' expression at |the sicjht of Antigone, just two verses later, vuv 6* q&r) j’ycb HauT&Q 0ea(ia5v/ e£a> cp£pop,ai m 6’ opffiv (801-802), surely must mean that just as Haemon has been carried beyond the ordinances of obedience and loyalty by his love, so they, too, filled now with pity for Antigone, are carried beyond consideration of these same ordinances. Jebb, p. 147, n. lad 797f., and p. 148, n. a^ 801f., takes the same view. Goheen, however, pp. 135-136, n. 32, argues otherwise: "Our knowledge of exact and varied significations of the word thesmos (generally: law) is inadequate. But from the form of expression there appears to be some element of contrast between the thesmoi alone in these lines and hoi meaaloi thesmoi (the great laws) two lines above. Otherwise the repetition must seem confusing or simply pointless." Quite to the contrary, however, it would be confusing and point less if, when the Chorus is moved to pity for Antigone and says two verses later that they, too. are carried beyond 'consideration of the ordinances, they should be referring to different ordinances from those which Haemon transgressed under the power of love. Cf. Linforth, p. 222. 197 I but at the same time they mitigate this blame, realizing that he is acting in obedience to another law, just as high, 21 that of love. In the first stasimon the Chorus condemned the unknown burier of the body, and their censure assumed the form of social criticism; in the second stasimon they condemned Antigone, and their censure took the form of theological criticism. Both society and theology are the spheres in which Creon's thoughts move. In the short third stasimon the Chorus, influenced by their increasing concern for Hae mon, abandons these spheres of thought and, commenting on love, turns to the realm of pure and natural feeling. The rift between them and Creon has begun to widen. They have not, of course, condemned Creon1s actions or his princi ples, but their sympathy has been for Haemon. In recogniz ing his love for Antigone they have seen in her devotion to her family the same force of natural love, with the result that they have been brought close to the point of pitying her. By moving into the realm of feeling they have begun to approach the attitude of the reader, whose sympathies are with Antigone, though he does not know whether she is 21Cf. Linforth, p. 222. 22 morally right (see p. 166 above). 198 pp ^Waldock, p. 115, views this ode as apposite to the play but claims that it "is hardly more than a lyrical in terlude." He does not say in what way it is apposite, but if it is apposite in the way we have interpreted it, it can hardly be considered just an interlude but must be regarded as dramatically significant. Kirkwood, pp. 208-209, taking the same view of this ode as he has of the first two stasima (see pp. 102-103 and 172-173 above), perceives in it a pur poseful ambiguity. He fails to see the shifting pattern of jcondemnation of the unknown burier in the first stasimon on social grounds, the condemnation of Antigone in the second pn theological grounds, and, finally, in this ode the con fusion in the Chorus' feelings as manifested by their approv al of Creon, their sympathy for Haemon, and their incipient pity for Antigone. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 167, does pot consider the relationship of this ode to the previous Stasima: "What the Chorus may itself be thinking is one matter ? what its words convey to the audience is another. We cannot fail to suspect that it is Creon who has set him self in opposition to this god [Eros], and the sequel will ^onfirm this suspicion." After the quarrel between Haemon and Creon in the third episode it can scarcely be a suspi cion in the reader's mind that Creon has set himself against jthe god of love. It is a confirmed fact of which both the reader and the Chorus are well aware. Adams, p. 53, real izes the dramatic importance of this ode but takes a some what exaggerated view of it: "The old men [the Chorus] re late it [the ode] to the scene they have just witnessed: it was eros that caused this bitter strife of kinsmen. They are right, of course? although the quarrel between Creon and Haemon developed along political lines, the real cause of the breach was assuredly the love of Haemon for Antigone. But to us the ode has a far wider relevance. Eros was also fcsmene's motive in seeking to share Antigone's fate? above ^11, it was the whole motive of Antigone." Adams' claim phat this ode has a wider relevance for the reader than the thorus intends seems improbable, at least in the way that he means it. At this point in the play, now that Ismene has been acquitted, it seems highly doubtful that the reader is thinking of her. In addition, while it is true that the Chorus in singing of Eros alludes to Antigone's devotion to 199 The fact that Creon is present on stage, standing in silence while the Chorus sings, serves, as it has before (see pp. 173-174 above), to keep his role from being fore- 23 shortened m the play. In addition, the very fact of his physical presence emphasizes both the hold that he still has on the Chorus' approval of his principles and the Chorus1 increasing divergence from him in their feelings. her family (791-792), Adams overstates the case when he says that it is her whole motive. We must not forget the relig ious motive she has expressed (76-77, 450-457). The only ^vider relevance that this ode has for the reader is that he begins to see the Chorus' feelings in regard to Antigone beginning to approach his own sympathies. Linforth, p. 221, jdoes not view this ode as advancing the play but sees it only as a comment on the previous episode. ^ L i n f o r t h , 220, believes Creon is not on stage dur ing this stasimon: "Creon has departed at the conclusion of the second episode, presumably to give orders for the exe cution of the sentence. He has been present continuously since Antigone was brought before him, and he has had no opportunity to take the necessary measures. We must under stand that he does this during the singing'of the following stasimon." Linforth fails to notice that at v. 760 Creon orders Antigone to be brought forth, an action which the supernumeraries on stage could easily perform without Cre on 1s having to enter the palace. His instructions for the execution, moreover, are given in vv. 773-776. Jebb, p. 145, also does not believe that Creon is on stage during this ode. He has Creon exit at the conclusion of the third episode and then fails to indicate his re-entrance in the fourth episode. Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 146-147, be lieves that Creon remains continuously on stage from the second episode through the close of the fifth episode. | 200 i Fourth Episode (801-943) | This episode offers one of the most crucial and diffi cult problems of the play in verses 904-920 of Antigone's final speech. The apparent inconsistency with Antigone's character that this passage reveals has led many scholars to 24 reject these verses as spurious. Opinions on the artistic merit of the passage vary widely: one scholar calls it "the 25 finest borrowing in literature"; another considers it "a 26 stupid device." The best and perhaps the only way to settle this question of the passage's genuineness and its consistency with the rest of the play is to consider it at the point in the drama where it occurs and to examine it in relationship to what has preceded it in the play and, es pecially, in the fourth episode as it unfolds. The third stasimon leads directly into a kommos between Antigone and the Chorus which constitutes the beginning of a ^Jebb, p. 164, n. a& 904-920; Linforth, p. 229; Denys L. Page, Actors1 Interpolations in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1934), pp. 86-89; Whitman, pp. 92-93; Waldock, p. 142, be lieves that this passage is either an actor's interpolation, or that Sophocles later interpolated it, or that Sophocles in writing these verses lost "his grip" for the moment. ^Kitto, Greek Tragedy, p. 128. ^^Linforth, p. 227. 201 long musical movement which continues, unbroken except for the speeches of Creon and Antigone (883-928), to the opening of the fifth episode. At the sight of Antigone, as she enters, the Chorus utters their first expression of pity for iher and cannot hold back their tears, seeing her about to enter the bridal chamber of death (801-805). We have ob served in the preceding ode that the Chorus through their feeling for Haemon had been brought to the verge of pitying Antigone, having recognized in her devotion to her family the same force of love that had moved Haemon to plead for jher (see p. 195 above). Now the sight of her finally re- 27 luces them to pity. If the appearance of Antigone at last moves the Chorus to pity, we can imagine that her bearing is no longer that Df the self-righteous and defiant rebel whom they saw in the ^The Chorus' words are: Nuv 6* T}&T)* hocutoq OeciJ-wv e£a) cpepO|juxi t&&* 6pcov, toxetv 6* oumeti TrnvaQ &uva|j,oci Sanputov (801-803) In the light of these verses it is difficult to understand Knox's view, p. 66: "The Chorus shows no sympathy ..." Goheen, p. 37, points out with reference to these verses that the Chorus is sympathetic. Adams, pp. 53-54, writes of the Chorus’ sympathy: "There is a change in the chorus al so. They are now carried beyond their 0ea|ioC— the law of loyalty to the throne— and weep and, filled with pity, try to comfort her." Cf. Linforth, p. 222. 202 second episode. As we shall see, the motives which orig- j jinally led her to the performance of the burial can no 2 8 longer sustain her against the reality of imminent death. The instinct of self-preservation, which her personal and religious motives had previously overcome, now asserts it- i 29 self with irresistible force. Antigone begins her lament, referring to the fact that she is not to be put to death but to be walled off from the sunlight, so that she will be led by Hades, while still j jalive, to the underworld to become the bride of Acheron ^Georges Meautis, "La psychologie de 1'Antigone de Sophocle," Rivista de filologia. LXVI (1940), 25-27, attrib utes Antigone1s changed attitude in this episode to the psychological difference between imagination and reality. Linforth writes, p* 222: "The tension under which she has ^cted has been resolved. In its place comes an inevitable 'sense of helplessness before the horror of death." ^Many scholars have claimed that Antigone acts only from instinct: Norwood, p. 139; Kitto, Form__and Meaning, p. 149; Adams, p. 44; Kirkwood, p. 165; Levy, pp. 138-139. Antigone's motives, however, both personal and religious, are emotional rather than instinctual. This extremely loose use by scholars of the word "instinct" would not matter, if true instinct did not assume importance in the characteriza tion of Antigone. In the fourth episode we see a conflict between her most basic instinct, self-preservation, and her emotions and religious belief. Unless the term "instinct" is used with accuracy, the differentiation of the conflict ing aspects of Antigone's character, at this point in the play, may be lost. 203 (806-816). The Chorus replies: ouhoOv hXeivti wal emxivov exovo* eq to&’ anspxsi heu0oq vshuguv, oute cp0uvaaiv nXriYEiaa vocroiq otjte ^Lcpscov knixEipcL A.axoOa* , aKk* oa>T6vop.og, ££oaa | j . 6vt| 5r) 0VT)T5jv ’A l&t) v Mam3f|aEL (817-822) With these words the Chorus, both recalling the claim that Antigone had made before Creon that she had won noble glory by burying her brother (502-504) and thinking of Haemon1s report that the people praise her (692-699), tries to con- 3 sole her with the thought that she has won glory and fame. 30jebb makes no comment on ouhouv mXeivti mcxl ETcaivov EXOta’ (817), but Knox, pp. 176-177, n. 8, sees a problem in this verse: "The Chorus can scarcely be referring either Jto the praise which Haemon claims the citizens gave to An- jtigone's action, for all too clearly they do not share that opinion— they reproach her sharply for her 'rashness' (853) and uphold the claim of the state's power (Mpdtoq, 873)." Knox, not having considered the third stasimon in his book, fails to see that the Chorus' sympathy and their sense of moral right are not in accord. He suggests oumouv as the proper reading instead of oumouv. This reading would hardly be compatible with the sympathy and tears that the Chorus has just expressed (801-805). Georges Meautis, Soohocle, Essai sur le heros traaique. (Paris, 1957), p. 211, suggests that the Chorus' remark is a bitter sarcasm, but this view, too, can hardly be reconciled with the sympathy expressed in verses 801-805 and would make the Chorus' tears seem "crocodile tears." Dain-Mazon, p. 63, offer a differ ent solution: "II probable, d'autre part, que les 204 The proof of her nobility and the attainment of glory, however, motives that had impelled her to bury Polyneices, no longer satisfy her or alleviate the threat of death. She responds more to the Chorus' last words, that, unwasted by illness, struck by no sword, she alone of mortals will de- 31 scend to Hades while still living (819-822). This thought vieillards du choeur ne promettraient pas louange et gloire ja Antigone mourante (817) si Sophocle avait ete le premier ja imaginer le personnage et son conflit avec Creon. II jserait meme surprenant s'ils se fussent exprimes ainsi s'il js'etait agi d'une simple legende locale peu familiere au public athenien." To address to Antigone and the audience buch an allusion to her fame on the Attic stage is inadmis sible. It would rupture the play's frame of reference and distract from the dramatic seriousness of the moment. Lin forth, p. 222, thinks of the future fame that Antigone will receive in story: "Thus strangely to pass alive to the hiding place of the dead will win her fame and praise, the ichorus responds, thinking of the story that will be told of her self-chosen death." This view seems improbable, since, ■as Knox points out, p. 177, "sxoua* refers to Antigone now, jas she goes to her death." Jebb's silence on verse 817 beems justified. The Chorus' words are uttered as consola- jtion for Antigone, expressing the thought that, though she goes to her death, she has gained the glory and praise that she desired. 33-Jebb, p. 151, n. a& 821f., sees auTOVO(j.OQ (821) as referring to Antigone's defiance of Creon's edict: "No one constrained her to do the act. She'knew that death would be the consequence, and she chose it." It seems highly doubt ful, however, that the Chorus in attempting to console An tigone would, in the same breath, choose this moment to chide her, especially so soon after their sympathetic out burst of tears. M. A. Bayfield, The Antigone of Sophocles (New York, 1935), n. a^ 821, gives a more appropriate in terpretation of auTOVO|j,OQ: "Such a victim enters the tomb, 205 reminds her of a demigod who had suffered a similar fate, and she tries to strengthen and increase in herself the sense of her own glory by comparing herself to the fabled Niobe who had been imprisoned in a rock (823-833). The Chorus, which has never condoned her presumption to defy Creon1s edict, will not allow her, even at this moment, the presumption of likening herself to a demigod. They reply: xk\& 0e6q tol xou 0eoyevvnQ./ rjtiEiQ be 3potoV hou 0vt)To- 32 yevELQ (834-835). Still wishing, however, to console her, they soften this reproach and add that, nevertheless, she has won great renown to have shared in life and death the fate of a demigod (836-838) . Antigone cannot endure the slightest diminution of her glory. She exclaims: otfiO L ye\ciiM-cxi,. T l (ie* TupOQ 0e£5v 7raTpa>- w v , ovh ouA.oiievotv ^ P p C ^ e l q aAA’ ETt.CcpavTov (839-841)? independent, 'mistress of herself.' She can take as much or as little of the food as she will: she can die when and how she chooses." 32jebb, ,p. 153, n. a& 834-838, sees no reproach in these words: "The Chorus desire to console Antigone. There; is no element of reproof in their words here." Knox, p. 66, disagrees: "The chorus reproves her for her presumption." He adds, however: "Then they sympathetically excuse her exaggeration." Cf. Linforth, p. 223._____________ | 206 jit is obvious that the fulfillment of her desire for glory has no power to comfort her in the presence of death. It is even questionable, if the Chorus had allowed her this com parison with Niobe, that it would have been enough to sus tain her. Driven to the extremity of despair, she apostro phizes the city, the wealthy men of Thebes, the spring of Dirce, and the ground of Thebes itself to bear witness that she goes to her rocky tomb, unwept by friends and condemned by unjust laws (842-849). In view of the fact that the Chorus has shed tears at the sight of Antigone, as she came i jon stage, her use of the word 6ch?uxutoq (847) is surely an i | exaggeration indicative of her self-pity. But such an emo tion, under the circumstances, seems quite natural and understandable. The Chorus, at Antigone 1s reference to the laws (847), replies that she has gone to the utmost limits of rashness and struck heavily against the throne of justice (853-855). Their attitude clearly shows that, though they have ex pressed sympathy for her, to them, as to Creon, her defiance of his edict constitutes her crime. With the words TtocTpcpov b’ shtivsiq xlv* a0A.ov (856) they refer to the sentiment which they expressed in the second stasimon (see p. 168 above), that the doom incurred by the dead continues to fall 207 on the living (594-598). At the mention of her father, Antigone bitterly recites the horrors that have befallen her father and mother (857- 866), a recital that recalls Ismene's similar statement, early in the play (49-57), when she used the woes of their ill-starred family in her attempt to dissuade Antigone from joining their fate by trying to bury Polyneices. Now An tigone admits that through her brother she has been made to join that fate (867-871). The Chorus, still trying to comfort her, says: cfepeiv lev e{)Ge$ei6 l t i q (872). This expression is the first in dication that the Chorus reverences her deed. Not only have they shown sympathy for her, granted her the glory which she had initially desired, but now they have shown respect for her religious piety. They quickly qualify their words, how ever, adding that she was wrong to defy the power of Creon (872-875). All that remains now of their original and full- hearted agreement with Creon is their defense of his right and, in his person, the State's right to ordain for the 33 living as well as the dead (211-214), the main principle JJIt can be argued, of course, that from the beginning the Chorus agreed with Creon only on the principle that it was unlawful to defy the will of the ruler. Nevertheless, 208 that Creon himself had insisted upon in his quarrels with Antigone and Haemon. The gap between the Chorus and the King has continued to widen. Antigone, despite this admis sion from the Chorus of respect for her piety, still incon solable, concludes the kommos, lamenting pathetically and self-pityingly that she goes on her journey unwept, unmar ried, and unbefriended (876-881). Linforth, at the end of his description of this kommos, declares that the Chorus' attitude toward Antigone has been harsh: From the chorus Antigone receives no consolation. Their tactless words only intensify her loneliness. Their attitude is coldly judicial; they do not even give her the comfort of acknowledging that Creon1s decree was un just. She has no word of approval of her heroic deed from anyone. (p. 224) iSome of Linforth's own words, however, in his detailed it is an undeniable fact that they offered no objection when breon stated his religious principle that the gods would never honor such a man as Polyneices with burial (280-289). p?heir failure to raise an objection at the time could per haps be excused on the grounds of their fear of angering breon; but in the first stasimon, when Creon is not present, jfchey condemn the unknown burier of the body, declaring: "He who honors the laws of the land and the sworn justice of the :jods stands high in the city. He who rashly participates in sin has no city. May he never share my hearth and thoughts whoever does this (368-375)." This statement assuredly cffers positive evidence that the Chorus at that point in the play agreed with Creon's principles of government and c e l i q i o n . _______________________________________________ 209 analysis of this kommos seem to refute his conclusion or, at least, to make it inconsistent with some of his observa tions: When the leader sees her, knowing that she is on her way to death, he is deeply moved. As the chorus in the pre vious ode had observed that Haemon was so dominated by the power of love that he departed from the moral obli gation of respect to his father, so now the leader con fesses that he himself is moved to forget the moral ob ligation of respect to Creon and cannot restrain his tears. (p. 222) When the Chorus says to Antigone csfieiv p,sv euge^eta tlq (872), Linforth calls this remark "a somewhat grudging ex pression of approval" (p. 224). But there is no indication that their approval is grudging, for there was no need for them to speak these words at all, unless they were trying to console her. Their approval is not grudging but only quali fied by their next words, that Antigone was wrong to defy the lawful power of the king (873-875). It is true, how ever, as Linforth says, that "from the chorus Antigone re ceives no consolation." But this is not due to the fact that the Chorus does not try to console her, but simply to the fact that she is inconsolable. Creon has had enough of lamentations and now orders Antigone to be taken to her rocky tomb, declaring that since she is to be entombed alive, his hands are free of her 210 death (883-890). Antigone, still thinking of her family, hopes that her arrival in the realm of the dead will be welcomed by them, since with her own hands she has performed the burial rites for each of them (891-903). This thought is somewhat reminiscent of her previous and poorly reasoned rationalization in the prologue (74-75), that she owes more to the dead than to the living, since she will dwell with the dead for a longer time (see pp. 54-55 above). As she refers successively to each member of her family whom she has buried (898-900), when she comes to the name of Poly- neices (902), her hope, so similar to her rationalization in i the prologue (74-75), does not sustain her. Nor.is she com forted by that other rationalization which she had expressed in the second episode, that death is a gain since she is encompassed by evils (462-465), for she does not even allude to it. Now, having found no solace against death in the fulfillment of her desire for glory and proof of her nobil ity, nor in the Chorus' approval of her piety, nor in her previous rationalizations, she falls back upon reason again, trying to rationalize anew her devotion to Polyneices. It is a futile attempt to rationalize a fundamental and natural emotion: hocCtoi a ’ syob ’TL|j,r)cra, toiq <ppovoucnv e5. 211 Ou yap ttot* out’ &v et tehvcov £<puv o u t * e t Tio a iq n ot HaT0ava>v sTfjweTo, PCcx tto? v , lto5 v tov6* av t|p 6 ht]v txovov. t l v o q vojiou 6r) Tauxa upb<; x&PLV Aeya); TtoaiQ (xsv otv ( 10^ HaT0avovTog aXkoq rjv, Mai tioclq an' akXov cpooTOQ, e t toOS’ T^frrcXaHOV* HTjTpbg 6* ev "Atbou Hat TiaTpoq heheuOotolv ouh eot * abeXcpoQ ootlq ’ av (3A.aOTot tdote . Totcpbe he v '£°1 ' cf* eKTcpoTtH^oao’ eyib v6[lcc>, KpsovTt toout* sbo^’ anapTdvetv na't b e tv a T o \|m v i & H aatyvnT ov n a p a . Kat vuv dye t he S^a xepwv o$t< j o A.a(3&v aA.eHTpov, d v u fie v a to v , oute tou ydpou HepoQ Xaxovoav o u te TcaL&stou TpocpfjQ, aW'Sb* epriixog 7tp6g cptXoov t ) 5ua(iopoQ £toa* sic, OavovTtov ep yojiat naTaonacpaQ (904-920) Walter Agard believes these verses to be genuine and claims that they reveal Antigone to have an unnatural pas- 34 sion for Polyneices. He bases his belief on two points. (1) "It is obviously more than religious duty that impels her to bury the body. She loves him passionately (Antiaone 34l,Antiaone 904-920," Classical Philology. XXXII (1937), 263-265. 212 48, 'my own'; 73, 'I shall lie in death beloved, with him, my dear one'; 81, 'my dearest brother'; 503, 'my own broth er1)" (p. 264). In answer to Agard, Antigone says in verse 48, a\\’ ovbev auTcji tS5v e(io)V \i’ eupyeuv (isra,. There is nothing indicative of an unnatural passion in her use of the word £(AU)V. In fact, the plural of the word would seem to indicate that she is thinking of Polyneices simply as one of the members of her family. In verses 7 3 and 81 the key word is cpuAoc;. Ismene uses this same word in reference to Hae mon: w cpuA-TocO’ "Au(iov, ( oq a’ ocTU(ia£eu tcocttip (572). Agard himself, moreover, unlike Jebb (see p. 155, n. 132 above), attributes this verse to Ismene (p. 264). If Ismene can address Haemon as cpCX'TotS*, surely Antigone can use the same word without implying any sexual connotations. Antigone's use, moreover, of the word ocUTadeXcpov can have no special sexual significance, since she addresses Ismene with this very word in the opening verse of the play. If these argu ments against Agard's interpretation of these citations were not sufficient to condemn his view of Antigone's feelings for her brother, her own words offer conclusive refutation: cpuXri ( ie v t ^ e u v m T p u , u p oacpuA.ru; 6 e a o u , (xf(Tep, <puXr| aou, waauyvrjTov napa. eite'u SavovTcxq avtoxEup t i ( i , a c ; sya) 213 e \ o u 0 a n d x o a ^ r i a a holti i t i > |j .[ 3 C o u q xoag e&ama* vuv be, HoXuveihbq, t o aov 6e(jiaQ xcep uaTeAAouaa to ids' dp\?u[xau (898-903) Here Antigone reveals not just devotion to Polyneices but an impartial devotion to the burying of each member of her family. (2) Agard further suggests that Antigone is antagonis tic to marrying Haemon, due to her repugnance to marriage in general because of her mother's tragic experience. He tries to substantiate this view by pointing out that in verses 824-901 there are five references to the fact that Antigone will never marry (p. 265). Since his first point has been refuted above, Agard's second point collapses, because now the five references to the fact that Antigone will never marry are readily and easily understood as referring to the 35 fact that death is depriving her of marriage with Haemon. Bowra also believes this disputed passage to be genuine and sees in it no inconsistency with the motives Antigone 35Edmund Wilson, "Sophocles, Babbitt and Freud," The Shores of Light (New York, 1952), pp. 468-475, was the first jto suggest this interpretation of Antigone as abnormal. Cf. Waldock, pp. 104-109, for his arguments against Wilson's and Agard's views. 214 has previously expressed: "What Antigone means is that she feels a closer relationship to her brother than she ever could to children or husband and is willing to do for him after death what she would not do for them" (p. 94). While Bowra admits that this sentiment seems strange to us today, j he believes it represents an attitude of fifth-century Greece: The devotion of brother and sister, the special affinity between them, would not seem unreal to a Greek audience . . . If a brother is closer than a son, he is also closer than a husband? for he has more of the same blood, and in such calculations it is the degree of consanguin ity that counts. (p. 94) To support this view, Bowra cites as evidence the Meleager legend and the Intaphrenes story in Herodotus, III, 119 (p-. 94) which Sophocles undoubtedly borrowed and paralleled in his Antigone. The Meleager legend, of course, cannot be evidence for a fifth-century attitude any more than the bare substance of the legend of Orestes. It is the plays of Aeschylus, Sopho cles, and Euripides in their use of the Orestes legend that reveal fifth-century attitudes. In the same sense, the fact that Althea kills her son Meleager because he has murdered her brothers in no way’ discloses the fifth-century sentiment toward consanguinity. As for the Intaphrenes story, Bowra 215 never troubles to ask why Herodotus bothered to include it. The most apparent reason for its inclusion is its oddity, not its revelation of a common Greek attitude. Waldock puts it well, when he writes: It is obvious, of course, that it [the story] exists for the paradox. It lives because it is surprising, because it tickles the fancy with its strangeness. This is precisely why it came into being, because it reports an oddity in life. (p. 137) The validity, however, of Bowra1s evidence as substan tiation of his view of the fifth-century attitude toward consanguinity is actually beside the point, because Antigone j is not really evaluating by a standard of consanguinity whom she should and should not bury. Her standard of measurement is availability: the rarer something is, the more valuable it is. For example, according to her reasoning, if her brother had died but her father and mother still lived? and if her only aunt and uncle and their one child had perished, she would choose to bury her cousin rather than her brother, simply because, with her father and mother still living, she 36 could have more brothers but no more cousins. It may be ^Waldock, p. 134, explains Antigone's sophism well: "She would not have done it for a husband or a child? and she might not even have done it for a brother if there had been other living brothers in the background. Irreplace- 216 well, if we wish to consider verses 904-920 genuine, to recognize the oddity in her thought, to accept it as similar to the oddity in Herodotus' story, and to see if we can make 37 this oddity compatible with Antigone's character. If we can visualize Antigone's demeanor at this moment,j perhaps the manner in which she delivers these verses will give us a clue to their meaning and make them comprehensible and consistent with her character. The kommos has revealed Antigone to be completely inconsolable and despairing. The Chorus has been unable to cheer her either with their ac- i I knowledgment that she has won the glory which she had de sired or with their approval of her piety. Nor have her two previous rationalizations had the strength to sustain her against death. Under these circumstances, it would be highly improbable for Antigone to speak verses 904-920 in a ability, that is to say, is her standard: a relative be comes important precisely in the degree in which he or she is a rarity." *3 * 7 'L. A.' MacKay, "Antigone, Coriolanus, and Hegel," TAPA. XCIII (1962), 171, takes the same view of this dis puted passage as Bowra and sees in it the expression of the fifth-century attitude regarding consanguinity. Lesky, p. L08, also sees in verses 904-920 an expression of the impor tance of consanguinity: "We should not underrate the value, for Greek minds, of this rational exposition of the signifi cance of sisterly love." Cf. Knox, pp. 104-107; cf. Goheen, 78. | 217 i forthright and defiant tone full of conviction. At this moment she is, not an heroic, but a pathetic figure. In stead of speaking with assurance, confidence, and convic tion, she is puzzled and, searching to find a motive for her deed that will support her in the face of death, she deliv ers these verses questioningly, falteringly, and perhaps 38 even brokenly. One of Jebb's reasons for rejecting verses 904-920 is that he found verses 909-912 unworthy of Sophocles: "They [the verses ] are a tolerably close metrical version— and a very poor one, too— of the reason given by the wife of Inta- phernes for saving her brother rather than her husband or 39 one of her children." Verses 909-912 clearly represent the heart of Antigone's rationalization. If the composition of these verses had the elegance and polish that are typical of Sophocles' verse, and which Jebb demands, one might easi ly be led to believe that Antigone advances this rationali- 38Knox, p. 67, comments on verses 904-920: "She makes her long last speech, not in lyrical song but in spoken iam bics, the medium of reflection, discussion, analysis. She tries to reason out her own motives, to clarify for herself, now that the consequences are irrevocable, the motive and nature of her action." 39Jebb, p. 260; see also Jebb, p. 164, n. ad. 904-920; p. 165, n. ad 909ff. 218 zation with full assurance of its validity instead of ex- 40 pressing it questionmgly and tentatively. The very oddity of the composition of the verses serves to parallel* emphasize* and underline both the manner of her delivery and the oddity of her thought* seeming to indicate to the reader! and the audience to take special note of the sophistry and lack of logic in her reasoning. Is the thought expressed in this passage inconsistent with Antigone's character? It is certainly inconsistent* as 41 Jebb notes* with her motive of obedience to divine law which she asserts in verses 450-460. Wycherley* however* has pointed out (p. 51) that a similar lack of logic occurs in verses 74-75, where Antigone* attempting to rationalize a motive for the burial* claims that she owes a greater al legiance to the dead than to the living* since she must Spend a longer time with the dead (see pp. 55-56 above). ^^Wycherley makes this comment on the quality of the composition of these verses, p. 52: "Finally* a word about the minor difficulties of language found in the passage . . . Those who condemn the passage have generally used these dif ficulties to provide a supplementary argument* without re garding them as fatal in themselves . . . May they not* in fact, be cited in evidence for the defense? Antigone is distracted and her arguments faulty; her language naturally halts and stumbles." ^Jebb, p. 164* n. ad 904-920. 219 The consistency between these two passages reveals that faulty reasoning is not inconsistent with Antigone's charac ter, for in the two instances where she tries to. rationalize 42 a motive for burying Polyneices she reasons poorly. Rea son is not her forte but Creon's. Antigone personifies emotion, and when her personal and emotional motives— her desire for glory and her devotion to her family— do not sus tain her against death, she grasps at reason like the straw of the proverbial drowning man. This passage (904-920) by its very oddity is a brilliant and emphatic reminder that the emotion of devotion to family, which is fundamental to Antigone's character, cannot be understood in terms of rea- 43 son, simply because it is such a pure and basic emotion. ^Besides these two rationalizations, the only other rationalization that Antigone offers in the play occurs in verses 461-468. Here, however, she is not trying to reason a motive for performing the burial but only a motive that will sustain her against death after the fact of the burial (see pp. 143-144 above). ^Kitto, Form and Meaning, pp. 170-171, sees Antigone as expressing in verses 904-920 an inconsistency which he excuses as due to the stress of her circumstances: "Antig one is neither a philosopher nor a devote, but a passionate impulsive girl, and we need not expect consistency from one such, when for doing what to her was her manifest duty she is about to be buried alive . . Norwood, too, p. 139, views Antigone's reasoning in verses 904-920 as revealing an inconsistency in her character: "Indeed, the 'difficulty' exists only in the minds of those who attribute inconsist- 220 While Kirkwood does not think that the thought ex pressed in verses 904-920 is inconsistent with or inappro priate to Antigone's character (pp. 164-165), he feels that the passage "is altogether too obscure in manner, too little explained in terms of clear development of mood, to be dramatically first rate" (p. 165), and he ascribes its pres ence in the play "more to Sophocles' desire for certain effects of structure and of pathos than to an effort in subtle psychological study" (p. 166). In answer to these objections, to those who are acquainted with the Intaphernes story in Herodotus, the manner of the passage in the Antig one . far from being obscure, is at once familar and easily recognizable; the mood of the passage, as described in our interpretation, fits exactly the mood of the kommos that ency in a character to incompetency in the playwright. But while illogical people exist it is hard to see why a drama tist should not depict them." Adams' interpretation, p. 54, while it does not go into the details of Antigone's reason ing or consider the apparent inconsistency in Antigone's character, essentially agrees with my view: "She is think ing of the husband she was to have had and the children she might have had, and she is trying to tell herself that her brother meant more to her than these could have meant. The pathos of her thinking this is the explanation of its pres ence. And if the syntax is somewhat confused in places, we know well enough how adept Sophocles was in breaking syntax to display emotion." Adams, however, fails to cite other instances where Sophocles indulges in this sort of realism. 221 immediately precedes it; unquestionably, moreover, while the passage is full of pathos, at the same time it reveals in a subtle and psychological way both the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of rationalizing a basic emotion and the failure of Antigone, whose character is fundamentally emo tional, to use reason well. 44 Jebb bracketed verses 904-920 on three counts: (1) the apparent inconsistency of motive expressed in verses 904-920 with the motive of divine law asserted in verses 450-460; (2) the lack of logic in the substance of thought in verses 904-920; (3) the poor quality of the composition of verses 9 09-912. The interpretation offered above has met all of these objections. Denys Page, however, basing his arguments on Jebb's objections, thinks that verses 904-920 are probably an actor's interpolation (pp. 86-89). While it is true that in answering Jebb's view we have also ans wered Page's, there can be no absolute refutation of the theory of these verses as an actor's interpolation, since almost any questionable passage in a Greek tragedy could be attributed to the interpolation of an actor. Against such a theory the probability of the genuineness of verses 904- 44See Jebb, p. 164, n. ad 904-920. 222 920 is the most that can be established. The fact that Aristotle quotes verses 911-912 (Rhetor ics . III. 16. 19) and unquestionably had the whole passage 45 in his text is not conclusive proof of genuineness, but it must be admitted "that our authority for this passage is better than what we have for most of the rest of the play— a manuscript written fifteen centuries after the perform- 46 ance." Nor can the fact that Wycherley has pointed out a similarity in thought between verses 904-920 and verses 74- 75 be considered a proof of genuineness (p. 51). This simi larity argues only for the consistency and congruity of the two passages. There is, however, in Page's own terms a weakness in his argument. He stresses, even more than Jebb, the strained and unusual syntax in verses 909-912 (pp. 86- 87). Nevertheless, despite the nature of this syntax, Page believes that "he would be a remarkably acute spectator who, hearing these lines spoken for the first time, rapidly too and with great passion, divined then: and there the weakness and incongruity" (p. 89). Without even considering the fact that our interpretation has taken the view that these 45See Jebb, p. 164, n. ad 904-920. 46Knox, p. 104. 223 words were spoken not rapidly, nor passionately, but fal- teringly and questioningly (see pp. 216-217 above), surely an Athenian audience, accustomed to the typical elegance and polish of Sophocles' style, would have been attracted by the unusual syntax to notice the oddity of the thought. If we believe that these words were spoken falteringly and ques tioningly, then the oddity becomes even more apparent. In arguing against Page's theory, one should ask why anyone would wish to consider this passage an actor's inter polation. The answer is obvious: such a person does not consider these verses top-drawer Sophocles and therefore reasons that they must have been introduced by an inferior artist. If, however, our interpretation, which has shown these verses to be quite appropriate and even brilliant, is acceptable, then the motive for believing this passage to be an actor's interpolation disappears. In view of our inter pretation of this passage and of our arguments for its gen uineness, Page's theory seems improbable and somewhat far fetched.^ 47Whitman, pp. 92-93, believes, like Page, that verses 904-920 are an actor's interpolation. Waldock, pp. 141-142, believes that these verses are either an actor's interpola tion or "if Sophocles really wrote them, then either he lost, for a few seconds, his grip (was striving for some- 224 | Antigone's rationalization (904-920) of her devotion to her family fails both to convince her of the reason she buried her brother and to bolster her against death. Having been unconsoled by the Chorus' acknowledgment of the glory she has won (817-822), by their approval of her piety (872), and by her own rationalization, she turns now to the gods. Here, too, she finds no solace and wonders why she should look to them, since her piety has earned her the reputation of impiety (922-924). No longer is she even sure that her deed is pious in the eyes of heaven, for now she says that i if her death is pleasing to the gods, when she has suffered it, she will come to know her sin (925-926); on the other hand, if her judges have sinned, she wishes that they may suffer no less evil than they have done to her (927-928). Hnsure of herself, of the rightness of her conduct, incon solable, Antigone, in a manner typical of her emotionalism, is left with only a curse to threaten those who judge her. At the conclusion of her speech, the dialogue returns to song which continues, unbroken, into the fourth stasimon. The Chorus comments on her curse, seeing in it the same thing we cannot quite see), or he observed the chance for this rather piquant effect, and thought the lapse from truth no great harm." 225 defiance (929-930) that had characterized her in the second episode. Creon orders the guards to take her away and delay no longer (931-932). Antigone makes a final appeal to her city, her gods, and the princes of Thebes to witness what 48 she is suffering because she reverenced piety. Antigone faces death not heroically, but lamenting and wailing pa- 49 thetically. The prologue and second episode revealed her heroism. This episode has disclosed her to be a woman, human and frail. Her humanity and frailty, by contrast, make her earlier heroism seem all the greater. ^®The words T^v suae fKctv aePCcrocaa (943) do not refute her earlier uncertainty of the piety of her act (923-926); they merely mean that she is suffering death because she reverenced what she thought was piety. Jebb, p. 164, trans lates verses 942-943: "See what I suffer, and from whom, Ibecause I feared to cast away the fear of heaven." ^ K i r k w o o d writes of Antigone1s departure for death, p. 127: "Antigone, after some evidence of human frailty in her kommos and in her last iambic speech (891-943), leaves to face death with pride and self-confidence (937-943)." It is difficult to reconcile Kirkwood's view with the tone of lament and wailing in verses 937-943. Also, it seems highly unlikely and extremely inconsistent that Antigone, after despairing and lamenting throughout the episode, should suddenly, and for no apparent reason, become proud and self-confident in the last seven verses. All that I can think of to account for Kirkwood's view is that he looks upon a typical Sophoclean hero as intransigent and is trying to make Antigone fit this mold. 226 Fourth Stasimon (947-987) The fact that there are many and various interpreta tions of this ode would seem to indicate that it is a par- 50 ticularly difficult stasimon to understand. The poem deals with the imprisonment of three mythological figures: Danae, Lycurgus, and Cleopatra. Kirkwood believes that this motif of imprisonment constitutes a lyrical finale to the previous scene: After the stirring kommos and the departure of Antigone there is no place for further dramatic development of this theme. The ode is a transformation of the pathos | of events into lyrical terms that fulfill and give res pite from the tragic action. Then the plot is renewed with the Teiresias scene.^ 5®Goheen writes of the difficulty of interpreting this ode, p. 64: "This ode has proved tantalizing to many read ers, for its relation to the action seems particularly vague and ambiguous." Kirkwood has this to say of the difficul ties that the poem offers, p. 210: "It is a striking poem; but as dramatic material, with relevance to the play, it has often seemed intransigent, because critics have tried to extract from it a kind of relevance that it does not have." Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 171. ^Kirkwood, p. 211. Waldock, p. 117, takes a similar view of this ode: "It [the ode] appears to be a lyrical embroidery of the reminiscent or associative sort; Antigone is to be immured in a cavern; well, a natural opportunity is given to recall other cases of the kind. Choric relevance can vary greatly: it is possible for it to be close and precise; but again it can be a loose formality." Linforth's interpretation is also quite similar to that of Kirkwood and itfaldock, p. 233: "The Stasimon is an interlude and con- tributes nothing to the plot."________________________________ 227 Our interpretations of the three previous stasima, which, in each instance, have regarded the role of the Chor us as that of a dramatic actor, have shown that each stasi mon has clarified the Chorus1 attitude toward the preceding action and at the same time has added new and dramatic rele vance to the play (see p. 197 above). The attitude of the Chorus has progressed from condemnation of the unknown bur- ier of the body in the first stasimon to condemnation of Antigone in the second, until by the close of the third stasimon the Chorus has been brought, through their concern for Haemon, to the point of pitying Antigone (see p. 197 above). In the fourth episode the Chorus expressed this pity in their attempts to console her (see p. 201 above). The divergence of the Chorus 1 feelings from those of Creon was slight near the close of the second episode (see p. 160 above), but it has been growing with increasing rapidity, until by the close of the fourth episode they have shown such sympathy for Antigone that they have all but approved of her deed, censuring still only her defiance of Creon1s edict (see pp. 207-208 above). In view of the close dramatic relationship of each stasimon to its preceding episode and the progressive change in the Chorus' feelings toward Antigone, it would be reasonable to expect in the 228 fourth stasimon a similar dramatic relationship and a fur ther clarification of the Chorus' changing attitude. If we accepted Kirkwood's interpretation of this ode as "a res pite from the tragic action," it would be not only a respite but, in the light of our interpretations of the previous episodes and stasima, it would be an actual interruption of 52 the play. All scholars agree that Creon is on stage during this ode, but none, to our knowledge, has seen fit to admit An tigone's presence. Her farewell in verses 937-943 is taken | literally to mean that she leaves the stage at once. Never theless, the text clearly shows that the Chorus in this ode 52 Kirkwood has consistently seen the Chorus of the Antigone as a commentator on the action rather than as a participating actor (cf. pp. 102-103, 172-173, and 198, n. 22 above). Aristotle states that the Chorus should be re- jgarded as one of the actors and should share in the action, not as in Euripides, but as in Sophocles fPoetics. 1456a). While one cannot accept Aristotle as the final and irrefu table authority on Greek tragedy, nevertheless it is inter esting that a man who saw and read more Greek tragedies than we shall ever have the opportunity to know, should make such a remark, particularly with reference to Sophocles. One might profit and gain considerable insight by trying to un derstand, at least, from the extant plays of Sophocles how Aristotle came to such a conclusion. Kirkwood's view of these four stasima in the Antigone makes the Chorus seem more like an encumbrance to the play than an integral and necessary part. 229 addresses Antigone twice (949, 987). Their second address T ~ (0) toxl, 987) is especially emphatic, occurring as the last two words in the stasimon. Jebb chooses to ignore any sig nificance in these instances of personal address: "As An tigone spoke the verses ending at 943, the guards were in the act of leading her forth. The choral ode may have begun before she had vanished; but she is not to be conceived as 53 strll present when she is apostrophised (947, 987)." Jebb gives no explanation for his view, and one can only assume that Antigone's farewell speech (937-943) indicated to him a departure that would consume only as much playing time as it would take the guards to lead her directly and promptly from the stage. There is no need, however, to insist upon such a prompt departure or to believe that Antigone has left the stage at or near the beginning of the ode. The very fact that at the conclusion of Creon1s speech (928) and before the end of the fourth episode music and song are resumed indicates that the frame of reference has become more artificial even before the ode begins. With this increase in artificiality, the strictures of time and action which a more realistic frame 53Jebb, p. 169, n. a^ 944-947. 230 demands are removed, so that it is quite possible for the movements on stage to become extremely slow, stylized, and perhaps, in the case of Antigone, even choreographed. We have observed, moreover, in the fourth episode that Antigone has appeared distraught and inconsolable. It is unlikely, then, that her movements in leaving the stage would be bold, heroic, and quick. It is more probable that she is being led from the stage by the guards in a slow and stylized manner as the Chorus begins its song. Their final address to Antigone probably occurs just at the moment she leaves the stage or immediately after. j Once it is admitted that Antigone is on stage during the fourth stasimon, the ode becomes easily intelligible and reveals a twofold dramatic relevance to the action of the play. (1) Throughout the fourth episode the Chorus has tried to console Antigone. The mention in their song of Danae represents a further attempt to comfort her. Danae, who had been guilty of no wrongdoing, had been imprisoned, 54 later freed, and had achieved great fame. The Chorus is suggesting to Antigone that if she is truly innocent, no 54See Hyginus, Fabula. 63; Apollodorus, II. 4.. 1; Horace, Carmina. III. 16. 1. 231 5 5 harm will come to her. Their allusion to Lycurgus, who had defied Dionysus and had been punished with madness, im prisonment, and death, suggests that if Antigone is guilty, she will suffer punishment deservedly. The Chorus, however, j is quick to realize the naivete of the concept of justice that they are trying to generalize from these two illustra tions: that the innocent are always saved and the guilty 56 punished. With their allusion to Cleopatra, who, though innocent, had suffered imprisonment without release, their attempt to comfort Antigone ends up.futile and abortive. I Their endeavors to arrive at a concept of justice that will console her has achieved only a Job-like generalization that sometimes the innocent are rescued and freed, sometimes the guilty are punished, and sometimes the innocent suffer pun ishment undeservedly and without release. Resignation and the barest glimmer of hope, if she is innocent, are all the comfort they can give her. One could argue, perhaps, believing Antigone to be absent from the stage, that the Chorus in addressing her ^See Homer, Iliad. VI, 130-140? Hyginus, Fabulae. 132, 142. Servius, In Aeneidos. III. 14? Apollodorus, III. 5. 1. ^®See Diodorus Siculus, IV. 44. 3. 232 twice is merely thinking of her and, in view of their sym pathy, trying to comfort themselves. But the appearance of y * * * co nai (987) at the very conclusion of the ode seems to in dicate that if the Chorus is only thinking of her and try- ! ing to comfort themselves, there would be no need for such an emphatic expression of personal address. In addition, it is more consistent with the Chorus' attitude toward Antigone in the fourth episode for them to be comforting her rather than themselves. Antigone, after all, is the one in need of comfort,' not the Chorus. (2) The Chorus' use of these three mythological fig ures, as well as being a profitless attempt to console An- ! tigone, reveals with equal importance a significant change in their attitude. Danae is innocent, Lycurgus guilty, and Cleopatra innocent. May not Antigone be innocent like [Danae, or guilty like Lycurgus, or innocent and suffering [undeservedly like Cleopatra? No longer is the Chorus sure 57 that Antigone has done wrong. Now that they are no longer c n 'Bowra, p. 105, though he does not see this ode as an attempt on the Chorus' part to comfort Antigone, does agree that the Chorus is revealed as changing in attitude toward Antigone: "The Chorus have begun to waver. For the moment jthey temporize and cannot make up their minds. They have jweakened . . . and their weakening makes them more ready to accept the message of the gods when it comes." Kitto, Form 233 certain that she is morally wrong, the divergence between the Chorus and Creon has reached its greatest extreme. Their last tie with him has been almost removed. The moral rectitude of his edict is no longer a certainty in their i minds but a question. The sympathies of the reader and and Meaning, p. 172, takes a view of this ode that is simi lar to Bowra's: "This is the way in which Sophocles invites us to take our farewell of Antigone. Is she innocent, like Danae, or guilty, like Lycurgus, or . . . the victim of al most inconceivable cruelty?" Adams' interpretation of this ode, p. 51, is not clearly stated: "The old men's attempt to comfort Antigone gives way to a last attempt to find some explanation for what is happening to her; and that is no better than a repetition." Adams makes no mention of An tigone 's presence on stage during the ode, and one cannot tell from his words, when he speaks of "the old men's at tempt to comfort Antigone," whether he is referring this at tempt to the previous episode or the ode. I. Errandea, "El estasimo cuarto de Antigona," Emerita. XX (1952), 108-121, believes that the three imprisonments, mentioned in the ode, foreshadow various punishments that will befall Creon. In our view, any portion of a play must do more than foreshadow what is to come, if it is to be comprehensible to reader or audience at that point in the play where it occurs (cf. p. i&8 above). The Chorus, moreover, is neither wise nor pre scient enough to imagine what will happen to Creon, and if this ode is mere foreshadowing, then it cannot be attributed to the Chorus' feelings and thoughts as a character in the play but must be ascribed to a direct communication from author to audience. The frame of reference that the play has established will not sustain such a direct communication from author to audience (cf. p. 102 above). In addition, the foreshadowing of events to come, if it could be under stood by the reader, would have the effect of destroying the suspense in not knowing what will happen. Goheen, pp. 65- 67, attempts to combine Errandea's and Bowra's interpreta tions, but his acceptance of Errandea's view is untenable because of the nature of the play's frame of reference. 234 jaudience, as we observed (p. 166 above), were entirely with question at that point in the play, as it still is, whether she or Creon was morally right. At last, with the uncer tainty which the Chorus has expressed in this ode regarding this question of moral rectitude, their attitude toward An tigone has become identical to that of the reader and audi ence . The presence of Antigone and Creon on stage during this stasimon works to the advantage of the play's form, serving jthe double purpose of keeping both their roles from appear ing foreshortened when Antigone leaves the stage for the fLast time at the close of this ode. The use of music from the beginning of the third stasimon (781) to the close of the fourth (987), with the exception only of the speeches of Creon and Antigone (883-928), heightens the pathos of An tigone's departure for death and culminates in a climax equal in intensity to that which was achieved solely through dramatic means at the close of the second episode (see pp. 160-161 above). by the close of the second episode. It was just a CHAPTER V THE ANTIGONE (988-1352) Fifth Episade___(_9_8_8^1114l It is obvious that the question whether it was right for Antigone to bury Polyneices or for Creon to forbid the burial cannot be resolved without divine intervention (cf. p. 151 above). The sudden appearance of the blind seer Teiresias marks this intervention and the beginning of the play's resolution. At first the King and the Seer greet each other with remarks of mutual respect and trust (988-995). After the polite formalities of greeting are finished, Teiresias prefaces the purpose of his visit with an admonition that Sreon once again stands on the razor's edge of fortune (996). This warning strikes terror into Creon's heart, and he asks the Seer what he means (997). There follows a truly frightening description of the omens which Teiresias has observed: he had heard the birds screaming and had known 235 236 that they were tearing and fighting each other in murderous combat (1002-1004); in fear he had tried to burn sacrifices on the altars, but the flesh had not burned but had merely smoked and sputtered (1005-1009). He had concluded from these signs that Creon1s policy had brought a sickness on the city (1015)-, for the altars and hearths of the city had been polluted by the flesh torn by birds and dogs from the corpse of Polyneices (1016-1018), and the gods were no longer accepting prayer and sacrifice (1019-1020). The birds, moreover, having tasted of the dead man's blood, were i no longer giving clear signs (1021-1022). Creon's act, it seems, has disturbed and revolted both heaven and nature. An order that was regarded as natural to the world of na ture and to the gods has been upset.^ In words that are reminiscent of Haemon's plea (710-724), moderate, reason able, and reassuring, Teiresias advises Creon to admit his error, not to be stubborn, and to fulfill the will of the ^Kitto, Form and Meaning, writes, p. 174: "What Creon has done, in refusing the burial, is an offence against Nature herself, against the laws of the gods, against the constitution of the universe— they are the same thing." Goheen writes, p. 89: "In the scene of peripety the de pendence of genuine "law" upon "nature," their interdepend ence within a cosmic unity of things, is imaged concretely and extensively in the first part of Teiresias' warning." 237 gods by burying Polyneices (1023-1030). The Seer concludes his speech, assuring Creon that it is a good thing to learn from someone who counsels well, has his best interests at heart, and speaks for his gain (1031-1032). Since Teiresias is an earthly representative of the gods and the medium through which divine will is made known, Creon cannot oppose him as he had Antigone, advancing the intention of his decree, which distinguishes the right eous from the evil by honoring the former and punishing the latter (see pp. 149-150 above). Nor can he oppose Teiresias with the argument which he employed against Haemon, that the State belongs to the ruler (see p. 184 above). For Creon to put forward such arguments now would amount to declaring that the will of the ruler takes precedence over that of the gods, a concept in which he himself, in fact, has never asserted belief. Teiresias has spoken not out of self- interest, like Antigone and Haemon. His sole concern, like Creon's, is for the welfare of the State, and he has re ported religious matters that pertain to that welfare. Thus Creon is forced to answer him in terms of religion, and if he is to maintain his own will over what the Seer reports to be the will of the gods, he must prove Teiresias wrong. ¥et in the eyes of all the Seer's authority in questions of 238 religion is far greater than the King's. Therefore, before giving his own religious interpretation, Creon must first attack and undermine the authority of the Seer. Teiresias' use of the word Ksp&OQ (1032) at the close of his speech is the key that triggers Creon to explode with accusations of false reports which he claims Teiresias has given under the influence of bribery (1035-1039), words that remind us of the charges of bribery that he had levelled at the Guard early in the play (293-314). Having attacked Teiresias' reputation and authority, Creon now offers his jown religious view. He does not state his reasoned relig- I ious belief for forbidding the burial of Polyneices but chooses rather to answer Teiresias' report that the flesh of Polyneices' corpse has defiled the altar of the gods: i . . . T&cpa) 6* S H E LVOV OUXU KpU(J)ETE ou&’ ei 0eA.oua* ot Zr]vbg ocietol [ 3opav CpepELV VIV dcpTT&CoVTEQ &q AlOQ ©pOVOUQ, ou6> (oq jxCaa|ia touto j i t ) xpeaaq, sy(b 0&7txeiv TOxpr)cra) meuvov* eu y&P olS* otu 0eouq iiiaCvsLV ouxiq avOpamauv a0£VEi (1039-1044) Bernard Knox views the thought expressed in these verses as a blasphemous defiance of the gods: "The words 239 of Creon must have caused a shudder in the audience? he violently and blasphemously repudiates that Zeus on whom he called when he was sure that the gods were on his side, and who has now, through the prophet, made clear his displeas ure" (p. 109). Bowra, on the other hand, while he believes that the thought expressed in this passage is not blas phemous, at the same time feels that, under the circumstan ces, what is normal and reverent religious belief becomes 2 blasphemy m Creon's mouth. But can a religious belief jthat amounts to doctrine be reverent on one occasion and | - blasphemous on another? Jebb furnishes us with the answer to this question of blasphemy by drawing a distinction be tween the pollution of a sacred place and the defilement of a . god: The idea of religious | i . La ( J| ! a was that a mortal had con tracted some impurity which disqualified him for commun ion with the gods. The tainting of an altar cut off such communion by bringing uncleanness to the very place where men sought to be cleansed. Creon excitedly imag ines a seemingly worse profanation and then excuses his apparent impiety by a general maxim which all would ad mit: "no man can pollute the gods."3 2Bowra, p. 1 0 8 , to support his belief that Creon's ut terance is not blasphemous, cites Euripides' Hercules Furens tC 6 ’ , ov n a C v e i a S v r i T o q a>v T a t w v G e w v { 1 2 3 2 ) . 3Jebb, p. 186, n. .a& 1044. 240 Accordingly, Creon is quite right and pious when he says, "No man can defile the gods" (1044). His rationalized as sumption, however, that the gods would not bury such a man as Polyneices, constitutes blasphemy, since it is this as sumption that has resulted in the pollution of the altars. It is exceedingly ironic that what sounds like blasphemy (1039-1044) is really pious reverence, while what has ap peared to be a reasonable, though questionable, assumption is actually blasphemous. Creon, moreover, has now expressed two contradictory interpretations of religious belief that at last have dis closed an inconsistency in his reasoning. His previously rationalized assumption that the gods would not honor such a man as Polyneices with burial had reduced the gods to the level of man by implyipg that if Creon were a god, he would reason in this fashion. Now he has declared that the estate of the gods is so superior to that of man that it is im possible for a mortal to defile them. If the gods are so far above the nature and condition of man that it is im possible for a man to defile them, then it is an illogical as well as a blasphemous assumption on Creon1s part that gods and men are so much alike that they reason similarly. Creon cannot have it both ways. One of his beliefs must be 241 wrong, and from Teiresias1 report we know that it is Creon1s rationalized belief regarding the burial of Polyneices. The conviction which has been growing steadily in the reader's mind that Creon has unconsciously rationalized his religious | belief to support his policies (see p. 192 above) has now been fully confirmed by this inconsistency in his reasoning. Not only has Creon, through the use of reason, perverted religious belief to serve his views of the welfare of the State and to free himself from a familial obligation, but now Teiresias' report of pollution has driven Creon to transgress, in defense of his policy, the consistency that logical reasoning demands. Teiresias' interpretation of the will of the gods, has attacked Creon's policy that forbids the burial of Poly neices; Creon has impugned the Seer's honesty (1035-1039), {Nevertheless, in the stichomythia that follows (1048-1053) ! they are slow to indulge in mutual re-criminations and in sults, still maintaining some respect for each other. Tei resias defends his honesty, declaring that the giving of good counsel is worth more than wealth (1050). Creon re joins that the greatest folly is not to be prudent (1051), alleging in veiled language that Teiresias' desire for gain 242 4 has exceeded the bounds of good sense. In reply, the Seer suggests that this is the very sickness from which Creon is suffering (1052). Still restraining himself and wishing to maintain an appearance of respect for Teiresias, Creon says that he does not wish to insult the Seer by replying (1053). Their quar rel could have ended here, and their differences would have: remained unresolved, but Teiresias, angered beyond the point of appeasement, reminds Creon that he has already insulted him by saying that he prophesied falsely (1054). Even now preon makes an effort to show a modicum of respect for Tei resias and falls back on his original accusation that proph ets are known to -love gain, this time attempting to soften his accusation by pronouncing it as if it were a general aphorism (1055). This charge only renews Teiresias' anger, and he answers in a similar vein that the breed of tyrants loves shameful gain (1056), suggesting that Creon has ground 5 religion underfoot for his own personal advantage. This implication restores the argument to the basic issue between them: the difference in their interpretation of divine will 4Cf. Jebb, p. 187, n. ad 1050. 5Cf. Jebb, pp. 187-188, n. M 1056. • 243 and their validity as interpreters. At this remark Creon's anger rises again, but he still wishes to avoid an outright break with Teiresias and reminds the Seer that he is speak ing to his King (1057). Teiresias admits that he is aware of this fact and, turning Creon's words around to defend his own reputation, reminds Creon in turn that it has been only through his good counsels that Creon has saved Thebes (1058). It is impossible for Creon to deny that Teiresias has offered good counsel in the past. Nevertheless, to support his own interpretation of divine will, he must un dermine the authority of the Seer. Forced to use again the blatant insult (1055) which he has been trying to avoid, no longer cloaking and softening the accusation by giving it the appearance of an aphorism, Creon now insists in a per sonal and direct charge that the Seer, though wise, has a love for evil deeds (1059). At last Teiresias, driven to the heights of anger by this affront, utters that which he had hoped there would be no need to mention (1060). He prophesies for Creon a fate of dire ruin and grief. The Seer foretells that in the im mediate future Haemon, though he does not mention him by name, will die as payment for his father's sins (1065-1067), for Creon has been wrong to immure a living soul from the 244 sunlight (1068-1069) and to keep from the gods of the under world a corpse, unburied, unhonored, and unhallowed (1070- 1071). In his first speech Teiresias had made no reference to Antigone. His whole concern had been for the burial of Polyneices, the omission of which had brought pollution upon the State, but now for the first time referring to Antigone (1068-1069), he adds to Creon's sins the fact that he has entombed a living soul. In addition, Teiresias proclaims that the hatred of all the cities that had participated in Polyneices' expedition will be aroused by Creon's failure to bury the enemy dead who had fallen in the battle (1080-1083). This is the first obvious indication given to the reader that Creon has re fused to bury not only Polyneices1 corpse but the bodies of his Argive allies as well. A hint of this, however, had been given early in the play in Antigone's words, 7tp6q touq pCA-OUQ OTeCxovxa t&v sxQp&v warn (10). Now her thought becomes even clearer. This fact regarding the Argive dead, which here receives prominence and clarity for the reader, was probably understood throughout the course of the play by the Athenian audience which was familiar with the legend of 245 6 the war of the Epigoni. It matters little, however, wheth er this fact is known throughout the play to the modern-day reader, for it adds nothing to the drama nor alters it in any way except to underscore, at this point, the complete ness of Creon's iniquity and offense (see pp. 68-69 above). After he has delivered his prophecy, Teiresias departs as abruptly as he had appeared. The Chorus reminds Creon that Teiresias has never prophesied falsely (1091-1094). Creon cannot deny this (1095); he is perplexed and fright ened ( 1095-1096 ) . Whichever course hi. follows, whether he yields or insists upon his own will, he has only something to lose (1096-1097): if he yields, he feels that his pres tige as ruler is diminished; if he persists in his will, 6See Jebb, pp. 191-192, n. a& 1080-1083. ^Kirkwood, pp. 65-6 7, has failed to notice that Antig- lone’s words, Tipbg touq cpCXouq atetxovm sxQpwv mochoc, have alluded to Creon's interdiction against the burial of the Argive dead; consequently, he believes that verses 1080- 1083 present entirely new information; nevertheless, he makes a similar point in his comment on the effect that [these verses have on the play: "To mention [early in the play] the general interdiction of burial would have dissi pated our sense of the enormity of Creon's treatment of [Polyneices in particular and would have distracted our at tention a little from this one important fact, the fate of [Polyneices. But now, when it is very much to the point to [have everything crashing upon Creon's head, it is useful for Sophocles to bring in this other fact." Cf. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 174.________________________________________________ 246 great and terrible personal loss will befall him. The Chorus suggests that he listen to wise counsel (1098). In despair, Creon asks them what he should do and promises to obey whatever they advise him (1099). Creon, who as ruler | of the State has acted in accordance with abstract and im personal principles of reason that supported his concept of divine will, the State, the ruler, and the citizen, has been driven to the realm of personal and natural sentience. Pre viously, the only emotions he had exhibited were the pride and anger which he had displayed in his first scene with the Guard and in his quarrels with Antigone, Haemon, and Teire- g sias. Now at last he has experienced fear. This is the moment for which the reader has waited and for which the Chorus has not even dared to hope. The read er's sympathies have been entirely with Antigone from the close of the second episode (see p. 166 above), the Chorus' from the close of the fourth stasimon (see pp. 232-234 above). Asked for advice, the Chorus quickly enjoins Creon to free Antigone and bury Polyneices (1100-1101). Creon hesitates for just another moment, reluctant to yield (1102), but at the Chorus' persistent urging (1103-1104), he ^Cf. Linforth, p. 237. 247 relinquishes his original purpose and will, acknowledging that it is futile to fight against necessity (1105-1106). As he leaves the stage, he admits for the first time, though grudgingly, that he has been wrong; 6s5oiMa yb.p iif| xobg jiaSeatSTag v o\iovq/ apL crxov r j a m ^ o v x a xov Ptov xeXstv (1113- 1114). The intervention of divine will, as reflected in Tei resias, has proved Antigone's religious faith right and Creon's rationalized belief wrong. It should be noted care fully, however, that neither Teiresias nor the Chorus has conceded Antigone's right to defy the State. As far back in the play as the fourth episode the Chorus had expressed ap proval of Antigone's piety (892), but at the same time they had clearly disapproved of her defiance of the State (873- 875, see p. 209 above). In the fourth stasimon their regard of Antigone had even softened to the extent that they had implied that perhaps she was being punished unjustly and that Creon's edict lacked moral rectitude (see pp. 232-233 above), but even then they had failed to admit that it was within her rights to oppose the will of the State. Fifth Stasimon (1115-1154) The final ode, a hyporcheme, is an invocation and 248 prayer to Dionysus, the god with whom the city is most closely associated. The appeal of the Chorus to the god to come to the city to lift the plague (1141) is exultant and joyous. Though there is neither a reference nor an allusion to Antigone in the Chorus’ final ode, the exuberance and joyousness of their prayer indicate their feeling that all will soon be set aright and that the action with which the play has been involved will terminate happily and in accord with their sympathies. Since Creon, in the previous epi sode, has agreed to bury Polyneices and to free Antigone, and since nothing seems to stand in the way of the success ful accomplishment of both actions, there is no reason at this moment for the Chorus to have any misgivings that they may be disappointed in their expectation. Adams, however, sees only the effect of irony in this ode of hope and exultance: "In the ensuing hyporcheme there is the usual irony that the chorus think . . . that all will now be well, whereas we know that somehow Creon will fail 9 and his doom descend upon him." . Professor Adams, however, has oversimplified the reader's experience with this ode. i 9 Adams, p. 56. Lrnforth, p. 238, takes a similar view of this ode. Cf. Bowra, p. 111. The reader who has had no previous experience with the play is at this point as ignorant of its outcome as the Chorus itself. Since his feelings toward Antigone are the same as those of the Chorus (see p. 234 above), his identification with the Chorus in their song of expectation and joy is com plete. For this reader there is absolutely no irony in this 10 ode. On the other hand, the reader who has previously read the play experiences this ode in a more complex fash ion, his experience taking place on two levels. He identi fies himself with the Chorus' hope and joy, but his aware ness that Creon is doomed to fail prevents his identifica tion from being complete. His feeling of hope and joy is less strong than that of the Chorus and of the reader who has not read the play. For this reader— for him alone— given the perspective of knowing the conclusion of the play, lOsome might object that familiarity with a well-known myth or legend upon which a Greek tragedy was based would give a reader foreknowledge of the outcome of a play before he had even read or viewed it; consequently, this fore knowledge, gained from the myth or legend, would allow him to perceive irony in certain incidents as the play devel oped. This is unquestionably true in some Greek tragedies— the Agamemnon and Oedipus Rex, for example, just to name two — but there is considerable evidence that the legend of An tigone was not a familiar one and that much of the material lin the play was not based upon legend at all but invented by Sophocles himself. See Bowra, p. 64; Whitman, p. 83’ Lucas, b. 143. 250 there is irony in this ode of joy and expectation.^ Together with the parodos, the final ode forms a frame that embraces the intervening stasima. The Chorus' hymn of victory in the parodos looked to the immediate past {see p. 62 above). The four stasima that followed revealed the Chorus' gradually changing attitude toward Antigone, their increasing divergence from Creon, and their ultimate identi fication with the feelings of the reader and audience. Just as the parodos looked to the past, so the final stasimon 12 'looks to the immediate future. ! Exode (1155-1352) A messenger enters and announces to the Chorus that all has been lost and that Creon, having suffered the worst mis fortunes, is but a breathing corpse (1155-1171). When the Chorus inquires what burden of grief the Messenger brings (1172), he informs the Elders that Haemon has perished by his own hand (1175, 1177). At this moment Eurydice, the wife of Creon and the mother of Haemon, makes her entrance bo pray to the goddess Pallas (1183-1184). She has -L-k^f. Linforth, p. 238. l^Cf. Linforth, p. 238. 251 overheard the Messenger's words and wishes further clarifi cation (1183-1191). The Messenger in a lengthy speech (1192-1243) reports that Creon and his attendants had first buried Polyneices and then gone to the cave where Antigone had been immured. There they had found that Antigone had hanged herself; Haemon, who had preceded Creon to the cave, at the sight of his father had made an unsuccessful attempt to kill him and had then committed suicide. The Messenger's report raises three related problems of interpretation. (1) Did Creon in burying Polyneices first and then proceeding to the cave of Antigone reverse the order of events as he had expressed it in his intentions to the Chorus (1108-1112)? (2) Would Creon have been in time to save Antigone if he had gone to the cave first? (3) Since Creon, though obdurate at first, had ultimately obeyed Teiresias, why does he suffer catastrophe and punishment? (1) In the previous episode Teiresias had warned that one born of Creon's loins would die because Creon had wrongfully lodged a living soul in a grave and had prevented the corpse of Polyneices from being buried (1066-1071). A moment later the Chorus had enjoined Creon to free Antigone and bury Polyneices (1100-1101). The order of events in both Teiresias' warning and the Chorus' words of advice had 252 placed the freeing of Antigone before the burial of Poly- 13 neices. Creon, from the description which the Messenger has given, has reversed the order of events suggested by Teiresias and the Chorus. Jebb regards this reversal of events as a flaw in the dramaturgy of the play, though not a serious one (p. xx). With sound critical judgment he writes: "A fatal delay must not seem to be the result. merely of negligence or of ca price" (p. xix). He attributes the cause of this blemish to the undeniable fact that for the Messenger to have reported the burial after the incidents at the cave would have been anticlimactic (p. xix). Though Jebb can explain, at least to his own satisfaction, the reason for this apparent blem ish, he cannot expunge it except to say that Greek drama, because of its interest in rhetorical effect, is not so con sistent or clear as modern drama in matters which, though part of the play, occur offstage (p. xix). But surely this is a more serious blemish than Jebb is willing to admit, for if he is correct about this reversal of the order of events, we have an important dramatic effect improperly and arbitrarily motivated, which constitutes a flagrant •^cf, Bowra, p. 111. 253 inconsistency between characterization and story incident * 14 (cf. p. 118 above). Of course, this kind of flaw only exists if Creon has given some indication that he agreed with Teiresias and the Chorus on the sequence of events. Jebb believes that he has indicated this: "The Chorus puts Creon1s duties in the nat ural order: 'free the maiden from her rocky chamber and make a tomb for the unburied dead' (1100)? and Creon.seems to feel that the release, as the more urgent task, ought to lave precedence" (p. xviii). But does Creon feel this? The Chorus certainly does, and we— the reader and audience— do. ^Kirkwood, p. 258, n. 17, agrees with Jebb that if (Creon had not reversed the order of events, the Messenger's report would be "wretchedly anticlimactic." Kirkwood, how ever, unlike Jebb, finds in the reversal of the order of events "a good dramatic reason" and does not even see a flaw [in it. Waldock, pp. 129-132, believes the sequence of events, as Creon performed them, to be "a matter of struc tural convenience," claiming that "the reverse order was, of Icourse, unthinkable— the drama would have lapsed towards ab- urdity." Agreeing with Jebb, however, that the play's ptructure is blemished, Waldock goes on to say: "The inner reasons, then, for the sequence are plain. But how does it look from our side? It will not stand up to much critical pressure. We do not know why Creon changed his mind— or, if lie had not changed his mind, why he hit on the extraordinary tdea of proceeding first to the body of Polyneices. The jtruthsis that there is n& reason— no presentable, dramatic reason. . . . There is no motive within the play for the act." Adams, pp. 56-57, believes that Creon intended to free Antigone first and then changed his mind. F 254 What Jebb, however, describes as the "natural order" may seem natural to us and to the Chorus, but before we admit the presence of this blemish in the structure of the play, we should be certain that this order seems natural to Creon. Accordingly, we must be careful not to allow our feelings and anxiety for Antigone to dictate what we think the struc- ture of the play ought to be, but we must be sure to permit the structure to develop from within the play as a result of the constituent elements that compose it, in this instance, particularly the elements of (a) language, (b) story inci dent, and (c) characterization. Let us examine the problem first from the standpoint of language. (a) When the Chorus advised Creon "to free the maiden and bury the dead," he replied: 2)5' d)Q e % < x> a u E i x o i n / av‘ l t * o t o x o v e q 01 T* OVTEQ OL T* &7I0VTEQ, CX^CvaQ XEpO^V d p i i a a O * e X o v t e q e Lq etc6 x i . o v t o t i o v . Eycb 6 ’ , E7TEL&T) 6o^0C £ 7 l£ a T p d c p T ) , a u T O Q t1 E&riaa xcu Ttapoov ExXucroiaat. (1108-1112) There is no question about the meaning of verses 1108-1110. Jebb himself admits that they relate only to the burial of 255 15 Polyneices. He believes verse 1112 pertains to Antigone and renders it: "I will be present to unloose her, as I my self bound her." From Creon's statement of the order of events as he sees it, it is evident, at least from the se quence of the verses, that he is thinking first of burying Polyneices. If there were any antithesis between the phras es l t ’ i t ’ o t o x o v e q/ ot t * o v t e q (1108-1109) and eycb 6* (1111), one might reasonably argue that Creon believed the release of Antigone to be "the more urgent task," but such an antithesis does not exist, and even Jebb denies its ex istence: "The sense is not: 'do you go and bury Polynei ces, while 1 release Antigone.' Creon takes part in both 17 tasks." In the text itself both the fact that Creon speaks first of burying Polyneices and the fact that there is no antithesis between what his attendants will do and what he will do argue, at least from the standpoint of lan guage, against Jebb's assumption that Creon's foremost thought is to save Antigone. (b) It is upon the implications in the story incidents 15Jebb, p. 197, n. ad 1109. 16Jebb, p. 197; cf. Linforth, p. 241. • * - 7Jebb, p. 197, n. ad 1111. 256 that Jebb relies for his belief that Creon is thinking first of rescuing Antigone: "If she dies, his son must die (1066). Therefore, while he glances at the burial rites by telling his men to bring axes, he describes his own part by 18 his most urgent task— the release." While it is true that Creon has realized from Teiresias' warning (1066-1071) that 19 if Antigone dies, his son will die, nevertheless he has no reason to fear that Antigone is in any immediate danger. A delay of a few minutes or even of several hours could hardly i 20 be expected to endanger her life. In the natural course of events she could live, though immured, for at least a day or two. Consequently, the pressing and immediate urgency to release Antigone, which Jebb sees, is not really present. 18Jebb, p. 197, n. M 1111. ^Haemon had said to Creon during their quarrel: f] 6' ouv OaveLTOU wat Oavoua’ o?y.EL Tivd (751). Haemon's "an other" had been ambiguous and Creon had understood it as a son's threat against his father's life (see p. 186 above). Teiresias' warning (1066-1071), however, had clarified the ambiguity, and now Creon must realize that Haemon had meant himself. The description in verses 1206-1230 of Creon's apprehension when he hears cries of wailing as he approaches the cave in which Antigone is immured gives further substan tiation of his awareness of the nexus between the fates of Haemon and Antigone. Cf. Adams, p. 57. on cuCf. Krtto, Form and Meaning, p. 175? McKay, p. 169? Linforth, pp. 240-241. 257 Still, one might raise the objection that if, as it actual ly appears, Creon has expressed a preference to bury Poly neices first, the Chorus, which has been deeply concerned for Antigone and has told him "to free the maiden and bury the dead,1 1 in that order, might have been expected to remon strate and to remind him not to postpone rescuing her. This objection, however, is easily removed: the Chorus, too, realizes that Antigone is in no immediate danger, and their statement of the desired order of events is simply a natural expression of their uppermost feeling at the moment and not an imperative injunction to Creon. As a result, when Creon in his reply to them reverses the order of events, there is no need for them to be alarmed. In the excitement, more over, of Creon's sudden conversion it is even possible that his reversal of the order of events escapes their notice. Certainly the joy and exaltation which they express in the fifth stasimon give no indication that they have misgivings or fears about the future. 21 Jebb and those who agree with him, it appears, have allowed their anxiety for Antigone, born of a knowledge of later events in the play, to mislead them in interpreting 21See Kirkwood, p. 258, n. 17; Waldock, pp. 129-132; Adams, pp. 56-57.______________________________ _____________ 258 Creon's reply to the Chorus. Neither in the language of the text nor in the implications of the story incidents is there any evidence in Creon1s reply that he agrees with the Chorus on the natural order of events. Therefore, Creon's execu tion of the two tasks follows exactly the sequence of his intentions as he expressed them to the Chorus. (c) Although we have demonstrated that Creon has nei ther changed his mind nor contradicted himself in burying Polyneices first and then setting out to release Antigone, nevertheless the dramaturgical blemish which Jebb noted still partially remains unless we can show that the order of the tasks, as Creon performed them, is properly motivated. The answer lies in Creon's character. Throughout the play Creon's first and sole concern has been for what he believes to be the welfare of the State. To this end, employing rational principles rather than the normal sentience common to human beings, he has guided his actions. To support his policy, he has even used reason to the extent of rationaliz ing a religious belief which now he knows to be wrong. Con cern for the State and a penchant for using reason are the two chief components of his character that have been shown to us. Teiresias, moreover, in his first lengthy speech (998-1032) to Creon made no mention of Antigone and only 259 emphasized that Creon's failure to bury Polneices had brought a sickness upon the State (1015). In accordance with his character, Creon, motivated as usual by his concern for the State rather than by a more personal and humane con- i * cern for the living, reasons that Antigone, to all appear ances, is in no imminent danger and proceeds first to the burial of Polyneices in order to lift the sickness from the 22 city. In fact, if Creon had acted otherwise and had first set about releasing Antigone, this order of events would have been inconsistent with his character and would have represented a real blemish in the play. In the Messenger's report it is obvious, as it has been pointed out (see p. 252 above), that the order of events helps make his speech rhe torically effective and that if the sequence had been re versed, the latter part of his speech would have been anti- climactic; but it is equally true that the order in which Creon performs his two tasks is soundly motivated, consis tent with his character, and consonant with the expression of his intentions to the Chorus. (2) Relevant to Creon's choice of actions is the ques tion whether he would have been in time to save Antigone, if 22cf. Linforth, p. 240; McKay, p. 169; Bowra, p. 111,. 260 he had not chosen to bury Polyneices first. William Chase Greene believes that Antigone's death, which results also in the death of Haemon, could have been averted if Creon had 23 gone to release her before burying Polyneices. If Pro fessor Greene is correct, we would be able to see a plau sible, simple, and direct relationship between Antigone's death and the order of events which the nature of Creon's character has dictated. But the evidence in the play does not allow us to assume that this is the significance of Creon's performance of the events. A considerable time, of course, is spent by Creon and his attendants in giving a full burial to Polyneices: they offer prayers, wash what remains of the body, gather firewood, and finally after burning Polyneices' remains raise a burial mound (1198- 1204). We do not know, however, exactly how much time these burial rites consumed. Nor do we know the precise moment when Antigone committed suicide. In her despair she may ^ Moira: Fate, Good, and Evil in Greek Thought (New jXork and Evanston, 1963), p.:.92: "Antigone . . . could have been saved at the last minute but for Creon's misguided bungling." Greene adds, p. 147: "Even now Creon could save Antigone if he hastened to the tomb.. . . But in his new jood intention Creon delays to perform the rites of Poly- ueices, and arrives at the tomb too late." Adams, p. 57, also believes that it was possible for Creon to save Antig one . 261 24 even have killed herself immediately upon being immured. Also, though Haemon was at the cave when Creon arrived, we have no way of knowing at what moment Haemon started for the cave, nor by how much his arrival preceded his father's, nor i j how long Antigone was dead when Haemon reached the cave. There is neither evidence that Creon could have saved An tigone, nor is there evidence to contradict this possibili ty. There exists only the tantalizing ambiguity of two al ternatives: (a) perhaps Creon could have saved Antigone; (b) on the other hand, even if he had gone to the cave 25 first, she might have been dead by the time he arrived. If, moreover, the interpretation of Professor Greene were valid, while it would be consistent with and appro priate to the play, it would add nothing new, for to make the order of events directly responsible for Antigone's death would be merely for the play to repeat and reinforce ^Cf. Linforth, p. 240. Jebb, p. xix, agrees that there is no way of ascer taining whether Antigone could have been saved. Linforth, p. 240, believes that Antigone could probably not have been saved: "The only mischance was that she acted too quickly, not that Creon acted too slowly." MacKay, p. 169, agrees with Linforth: "Sophocles gives us no reason to suppose that any haste on Creon's part would have sufficed to save Antigone. Haemon had not waited, and he came too late." 262 what scarcely needs repetition: namely, that Creon's char acter is accountable for Antigone's death. Both the pro mulgation and enforcement of his edict, which are the direct consequences of his character, have already made this point. Furthermore, to force upon the order of events such an in terpretation would make Antigone's death, in the structure of the play, quite melodramatic. Is there, then, any new significance in the ambiguity which the play poses? The ambiguity actually works in two ways. (a) With respect to the structure of the drama, the fact that it is indeterminable whether Creon could have saved Antigone by going first to the cave absolves the play of melodrama. (b) With respect to the meaning of the play, this ambiguity must unquestionably leave Creon with a feel ing of uncertainty that is more painful than certitude. For the remainder of his life he will be tormenting himself with the unanswerable question whether he could have saved An tigone. The torment of uncertainty is a punishment he must endure until his death, and perhaps this is his greatest punishment and the one that will alter his character the most, presumably for the better: Creon, who has always reasoned and acted swiftly and surely, will never again be able to think and act with absolute certainty that he is ; 263 right. (3) The suicide of Haemon, which comes as a direct re sult of Antigone's death and represents a large measure of Creon's punishment, raises an interesting and difficult j problem. Teiresias had declared that Creon stood on the razor's edge of fortune (996), a warning that seemed to in dicate that if Creon heeded the Seer's counsel, he still had the opportunity to avoid committing irreparable damage and suffering personal ruin. At first, Creon was stubborn and recusant, but when Teiresias prophesied terrible punishment from the gods, Creon yielded quite quickly. Since Creon ultimately obeyed Teiresias, why is the prophecy fulfilled with the death of Haemon and the punishment of Creon? Or was it already too late for Creon to set matters right and escape dire punishment when Teiresias had warned him that he stood on the razor's edge of fortune? Bowra believes that Creon's initial obduracy is respon sible for the fulfillment of the prophecy: Teiresias has delivered his warning; Creon has rejected it. The inevitable nemesis follows. The evil that might have been avoided must come to pass. . . . If Creon had heeded the warning, he would have escaped the penalty. Teiresias foretells it only when he knows that Creon is obdurate. (p. 108) This interpretation rests upon the supposition that in some 264 way the gods had communicated to Teiresias that if Creon yielded to him at once, nothing would befall him, but if he opposed Teiresias even for a short while, though he ulti mately yielded, the prophecy would be fulfilled. Linforth thinks that the fulfillment of the prophecy was inevitable whether Creon yielded to Teiresias immedi ately, a bit later, or not at all (p. 236). He believes that the opportunity Teiresias offered Creon in his initial warning (996) was merely the chance to improve his character or spirit: In the first speech [998-1032], Teiresias promises good for Creon if he will yield to the evidence of the bad omens.... This would seem to imply that the terrible things predicted in the second speech [1064-1090] might be averted. But since the outcome is inevitable, and since Teiresias knows that it is, his promise of good to Creon must contemplate only the reform in his spirit which Teiresias urges upon him with great force at the end of his first speech [1031-1032]. If he will yield he will be a better man, saved from himself, though not from the consequences of what he has done. (p. 236) Both Bowra's and Linforth's interpretations are plau sible enough in themselves, but neither is acceptable be cause each contradicts a point that the play has stressed with particular emphasis in the fifth episode. Creon's rationalized religious belief that the gods would not honor Polyneices with burial because he had come to burn their temples was an attempt on Creon1s part to give a rational explanation of the manner in which divine will works. Tei resias 1 report of the omens has proved Creon's reasoning blasphemous and wrong. On the other hand, Antigone's relig ious belief, which is emotional and traditional, has been proven pious and correct. By implication, since Creon's belief is wrong and Antigone's right, reason itself has been denigrated as a means to account for the manner in which divine will operates. The interpretations of Bowra and Linforth attempt to give rational explanations of how divine will works. In this sense both of these interpretations contradict the spirit and meaning of the play. Creon, of course, must be punished. He has sinned against the gods with his edict? ignoring Haemon's pleas, he has shown a com plete disregard for the human emotion of love, both Haemon's i i for Antigone and what was proper for himself as a father; condemning Antigone, he has exhibited a pitiless contempt for human life. We are not permitted to glimpse why divine will functions in the manner that it does; we are only shown that it takes effect to the full. When the Messenger has finished his report (1241), Burydice without a word withdraws into the palace. Her silent departure gives rise to apprehensive fears in the 266 Messenger and the Chorus (1244-1266). The Messenger .enters the palace to see if there is an ominous meaning to Eury- dice's silence. At this moment the Chorus marks the ap proach of Creon, whose sorrowful demeanor is all too clear (1257-1260). His attendants are carrying the body of Hae mon (1257-1258). The Chorus immediately condemns Creon, commenting that his troubles are not the fault of a stran ger's madness but of his own sins (1259-1260). The remainder of the play except for the choral tag at the conclusion (1348-1352) is a long musical kommos between Creon, the Chorus, and the Messenger (1261-1347). Overcome with grief, Creon bemoans the death of his son, admitting that it has been his own doing, not Haemon's, that has caused his suicide (1261-1269). When the Messenger returns from within the palace to the stage and prefaces his next announcement with foreboding remarks (1278-1280), Creon is so numbed by anguish and guilt that he cannot even imagine that anything worse can befall him (1281). His sorrow is already full, but grief is poured upon grief when he learns from the Messenger that Eurydice has died (1282-1283). Creon does not know as yet why' she has died. The screw is given one more turn when, as the doors of the palace are flung open to reveal Eurydice1s corpse, the Messenger 267 discloses that Eurydice has stabbed herself to death, curs ing Creon with her last breath as the murderer of her sons (1301-1305).^ At this Creon longs for someone to strike him dead (1306-1311). Creon's life is now but a living death to him (1322). Professing his guilt and his foolish ness, he begs to be led away (1339-1346). Creon's kommos is significantly parallel to Antigone's in the fourth episode (806-882), both exhibiting a state of extreme emotional distress. As she suffered, so now he has suffered. His suffering, however, is greater, for hers has ended, while his will continue, a factor that gives some measure of satisfaction to the reader as recompense for Antigone's, Haemon's and Eurydice's innocence and death. Emotion has pervaded every motive and action of Antigone. Creon's kommos has revealed that he has made a painful journey, has gone full circle from the precinct of reason to Antigone1s realm of emotion. He has been reduced to the Q / r ^The other son was Megareus. When the Argives were attacking the city, Teiresias had prophesied that Thebes could npt be saved unless one of the Cadmean race, born from the dragon's teeth, should die. Creon and his two sons were the only remaining pure-blooded descendants. To save the city, Megareus killed himself. See Jebb, pp. 230-231, n. M 1303. 268 27 human nature that has marked Antigone. We have observed in the previous episode that it was only fear engendered by Teiresias1 prophecy that had made Creon admit that he was wrong (See pp. 245-246 above). But it takes more than threatening words, even when they are uttered by a prophet, to change a man's character; for we also observed that Creon, true to himself, went about bury ing Polyneices and rescuing Antigone, concerned first for the welfare of the State and only secondly for Antigone's salvation, employing his customary reasoning to assure him self that Antigone was in no immediate danger (see pp. 258- 259 above). If words do not change a man's character, events do. Whereas before we saw Creon display only the emotions of pride, anger, and fear (see pp. 245-246 above), now, deprived of his son and wife through his own doing, he experiences the emotions of penitence, guilt, self-pity, love for what he has lost, terrible anguish, and p 7 ^'Kirkwood, p. 191, agrees that the two kommoi are par allel? he feels, however, p. 127, that Antigone in her kom- mos faces death "with pride and self-confidence," while "Creon is completely broken." We have shown, however, that Antigone does not face death heroically but pathetically and with wailing and lament (see p. 225 above). It seems that the parallelism between the two kommoi is even closer than Kirkwood has remarked. 269 humiliation— a veritable gamut of human emotions. The man of reason, the cold and impersonal ruler, interested only in the welfare.of the State, has been tempered by his suffering to the condition of a human being who, guided by his per sonal emotions as well as his reason— and often caught in a conflict between them— will never again be able to act with disregard for the emotions of others or with certainty that his actions are right (cf. p. 262 above). As Creon is led into the palace, the Chorus concludes the play: 7iCiAAa) to 9povsLv eu6ai|j,ovCaQ itpooTov TJTOxpxet’ XP^l Y* 0 eo{;q p,r)&ev dasTETeuv' jj.eyd\oL &e \6yot, \ i e y 6 i k o i c , 7iX.r)ydQ tSv uinepauxcov (XTtOTE lOOCVTEQ yrjpa to cppovEiv E6L&a^av. (1348-1352) The Chorus, while condemning Creon, admits that he has been 28 set on the path toward wisdom. OQ Cf. Kirkwood, pp. 126-217; Bowra, p. 66; Adams, p. 58. CHAPTER VI THE PLAY AS A WHOLE Themes With the cessation of the interplay and integration of the drama's constituent elements— language, characteriza tion, story-incident, time, and point of view— all subjected to the limitations imposed by the play’s mode, the reader's and viewer's experiencing of the drama has come to an end. It remains still to assess the nature of this experience, to consider, in short, the final products of the play's ele ments: its themes and form. To recapitulate for a moment, most of the themes have been posed as a series of oppositions: (1) religion and the I 1 2 State; (2) reason and emotion; (3) the individual (and the ^See pp. 59, 75, and 164 above. ^See pp. 75, 164, and 165 above. 270 271 3 family) and the State. In addition, there are two other themes that are not posed as oppositions but as questions: (4) whether tyranny is a good form of government or has an 4 inherent weakness in it; (5) whether Creon or Antigone is 5 guilty of hybris. (1) Relevant to the theme of religion and the State, nowhere has Creon asserted that the will of the State should take precedence over divine will. In fact, his reasoned religious belief, which he has used to justify his edict to the Chorus (282-289), has identified divine will with that 6 of the State. It xs only with the appearance of Teiresias that it becomes apparent that Creon has been mistaken. Con sequently, the theme of religion and the State cannot be ^See pp. 58-59, 75, and 164 above. ^See pp. 75-76, 165, and 192 above. ^See pp. 63 and 165 above. 6See pp. 73-74 and 99 above. Bowra, pp. 70-71, fails to consider Creon1s reasoned religious belief and believes that he has set the will of the State above that of the gods: "From a Greek point of view Creon errs because he assumes that reasons of state justify him in denying their iue to the gods. He neglects the distinction between what is due to them and what is due to men, between what is holy and what is merely just." Kirkwood, however, p. 267, agrees that Creon believes he is acting in accordance with divine tfill. 272 viewed from Creon's standpoint as a true opposition but only as a false relationship which he has established. Creon being a tyrant, his will is the State's will, and, accordingly, his view of divine will represents the State's view. His mistake was to invent an interpretation of religious belief which supported the State's policy in stead of making the action of the State accord with accepted religious custom. The resolution of this theme, with re spect to Creon, asserts the principle that it is not for the State to interpret religious belief but to accept that which has become traditional. Creon himself admits as much when he says: 6 e 5 o i h o c y&P touq KaSeOTSmg v o j x o d q / apicnrov r j 3<|)£ovTa tov pCov t e A.e l v (1113-1114). 7 Since Creon, though he has his own religious belief, never argues questions of religion with Antigone and always answers the assertion of her religious faith with the ra tionale of his edict that traitors and rebels should be 8 punished and dishonored, it is only from the standpoint of Antigone that we can clearly see the theme of religion and the State as a true opposition. In the actual exchange of ^See pp. 75, 99, 145, and 163 above. ®See p. 150 above. 273 words between them, Creon1s argument is basically politi- 9 10 cal, Antigone's basically religious. Her statement of her religious motive (450-460) for burying Polyneices di ll rectly pits religion against the State, and the play has definitely proved her action right on religious grounds. The theme of religion and the State has been clearly resolved in three ways: (a) from Creon1s standpoint it has been shown that the State does not have the right to impose an interpretation of religious belief that is contrary to traditional tenets; (b) from Antigone's standpoint it has been shown that when there is a discrepancy between the I State's will and accepted religious custom, religion should prevail; (c) taken together, these two resolutions categor ically imply a third: the belief that the moral authority of accepted religious creed is of a higher order than the 12 moral authority imposed by the State. 9See pp. 145, 149 above. l^See pp. 141-142 above. •^See p. 142 above. •^This doctrine, which has come down through the ages, sometimes ignored, at other times heeded, has always been a significant question and frequently a problem. Even in a democracy, such as ours, which insists upon the separation of Church and State, when there is a conflict between the 274 (2) Creon's concern has been for the welfare of the State. His motives for effecting this welfare belong to the realm of reason: (a) his edict, which, to deter others from becoming traitors, dishonors the corpse of Polyneices and 13 forbids its burial; (b) his rationalized religious belief that both supported his edict and freed him from the obliga- 14 tion to bury a kinsman. As soon as Teiresias has made known the will of the gods, we can see that Creon has gross- 15 ly miscalculated. Reason has led him to err: He has spoken blasphemously in saying that the gods would not honor Polyneices with burial and has acted sacrilegiously in for- I bidding that burial. Antigone's concern has been for the honoring and burial of her brother's corpse. Her motives belong to the realm of emotion: (a) devotion to her family; (b) a traditional religious faith; (c) a desire to gain glory and so prove State's will and accepted religious belief, the State has usually yielded, granting to religion special dispensations and exemptions. Whenever the State has not yielded, resis tance and ensuing problems have arisen. ■^See pp. 68-73 above. l4See pp. 74, 98, and 164 above. Cf. Goheen, pp. 82- 83. ^See pp. 240-241 above. 275 16 that she possesses a nobility worthy of her lineage. Twice she has tried to rationalize a motive for the burial 17 of Polyneices and each time she has failed miserably. Motivated by her emotions, Antigone has been led to do what is religiously correct. It would be idle, however, to conclude that the play resolves the theme of reason and emotion by professing that emotions should always be considered the best guide to ac tion. It is obvious that in this capacity reason has rarely needed defenders and has almost always been regarded with general approval. Rather, the play resolves this theme as a warning that reason is not always the best and the only guide to proper action and that human emotion should not be overlooked. It is a warning which, while it has vital mean ing for the reader of today, must have had just as much significance for the contemporary Athenian audience that lived in the floodtide of a sophistic movement that wor- 18 shipped reason as the arbiter of thought and action. See pp. 58 and 163 above. l7See pp. 55-56 and 219 above. 18The Antigone was produced in 443 or 441 B.C. For the date of the play see T. B. L. Webster, An Introduction to Sophocles (Oxford, 1936), p. 2. Cf. Jebb, pp. xliii-xlvii. 276 (3) The theme of the opposition of the individual and the family to the State poses more difficulties. Its reso lution is not nearly so well defined as that of the theme of reason and emotion. Though Antigone has been proven right on religious grounds to have buried Polyheices, nowhere has the play asserted that she was right to defy the State. While the Chorus has reverenced Antigone’s deed (872), at the same time they have disapproved of her defiance of 19 Creon's edict (872-875). Teiresias, too, though he states that Creon was wrong to forbid the burial of Polyneices and to bury Antigone alive (1069-1071), never condones Antigo ne's defiance of the edict. In fact, he disregards this 20 issue entirely, making no mention of it. While it is true that the burial of Polyneices turns out to be the correct and expedient action for the State to take, it is equally true that if it had not been, Antigone would still have tried to bury her brother. Antigone's. concern is solely for the family and the precepts of religious faith. With regard 21 to the polls she is completely apolitical. Her defiance ■*-^See p. 207 above. 20Cf. Linforth, p. 256. 2^Cf. Knox, p. 114. 277 of Creon from the political point of view is an anarchistic act against the State. On the other hand, when the Chorus says that it is for Creon to ordain for the living and the dead (210-214), this statement, whether we like it or not, represents the tradi- 22 tional view of the ruler's prerogatives in a tyr.anny. Accordingly, Creon is within his political rights to prevent the burial. But what are the rights of the individual and family when their will is opposed to that of the State, es pecially when the edict of the State has been proven to be wrong? In other words, when the State has issued an edict that is not morally right, is the individual justified in 23 acting contrary to that edict? The evidence offered by the play indicates that Creon's edict was wrong on religious grounds, though it was his right and prerogative to issue such an edict; the evidence also indicates that Antigone was eight on religious grounds to bury her brother but wrong to CO ccSee p. 75 above. 23negel saw Creon1s and Antigone's actions in this light: "In the view of the Eternal Justice, both were wrong, because they were one-sided; but at the same time both were right" (quoted in Jebb, p. xxi. The passage to |vhich Jebb refers may be found in G. W. Hegel, Vorlesuncren uber die Philosophie der Religion. Samtliche Werke [Leipzig, |l884], 13. 56.). Cf. MacKay, p. 194. 278 24 transgress the State's edict. An explication such as this hardly represents a clear-cut resolution of the theme of the individual and the State but seems merely to restate the theme more fully. The theme of tyranny, however, as we 25 shall see, is closely related, and its resolution implies additional, though not complete, resolution to the theme of | the individual and the State. (4) In the first episode the Chorus introduces the theme of tyranny with these words: Eol tocut* dpeaKet,, tol Mevoi,Kea)Q, <mx0£iv>, TOV Trj&E &uaV0VV HCXl t6v £U|J,EVfj 7EOA.E i v6( i a ) 5e rnvu tcou y* eveaxC aot, hocY tcov QavovTcov x^TCocfoi £ < i 5 | j . £ v nepi 26 (211-214) This statement merely acknowledges the nature of tyranny as a form of government. Any resentment that these words evoke ^^olfgang Schadewaldt, "Sophokles, Aias und Antigone," Neue Weg zur Antike. VIII (1929), 93-97, concurs in this view. Cf. Kirkwood, p. 53; Knox, pp. 114-115. Several scholars, however, think that Antigone is entirely in the right and Creon entirely in the wrong: Jebb, pp. xxi-xxii; Lucas, p. 139; Bowra, p. 66; Whitman, pp. 88-90. ^See p, 192 above. 2^see pp. 75-76 above. 279 from the reader lies outside the drama in the political attitudes that he brings to the play. It is not until the second episode, in the quarrel between Antigone and Creon, that the theme of tyranny evokes resentment from within the play. Here where Antigone is shown risking her life for her beliefs, while Creon, seemingly, is risking nothing for. his, 27 all our sympathies are with her and against Creon. Here, moreover, the reader1s resentment of tyranny is purely emo tional. ! In the third episode, while more is added to this emo tional resentment by the quarrel between Haemon and Creon, at the same time the situation produces from within the play an intellectual resentment of tyranny. Haemon's words (705- 709, 737, 739) portray the concept of democratic government; Creon's words (663-671, 736, 738) picture the nature of tyranny. The very fact that neither the reader nor Creon himself, even if he were willing to relent, can ascertain whether Haemon represents the will of the populace reveals 28 an inherent fault in tyranny as compared with democracy. It is not that Creon is a good or evil tyrant, but simply 27 See p. 166 above. ^®See pp. 181-183 above. 280 29 that tyranny itself is evil. It Is this attitude toward the theme of tyranny that supplies additional resolution to the theme of the individ ual and the State. Under a tyranny the individual, when opposed to the will of the State, has no rights, but under a democratic government Creon's voice alone would not have represented the State's will. Individuals like Antigone and those of the citizenry who agreed with her would have had a voice in the expression of that will. As a result, under democratic conditions, it is quite possible; though not a certainty, that an edict such as Creon's either would not have been issued or Antigone would not have been punished so severely for having transgressed it. (5) Now that we have seen the resolution of all the themes except that of hybris, the answer to the question whether Creon or Antigone is guilty of hybris becomes fairly obvious. (a) Since tyranny itself by its very nature is portrayed as hybristic, Creon just by the fact of his being a tyrant is guilty on this score. We have seen his hybris in his quarrels with Antigone and Haemon. (b) Creon's con cept of the family, of the blind obedience that a son owes ^9See p. 183 above. 281 his father, denies normal and human familial emotion and is completely analogous to his concept of the relationship of . . 30 the ruler and the citizen to the State. Just as his con cept of the State is hybristic, so is his concept of the family. It is through the family, moreover— through the loss of his son and wife— that retribution ultimately 31 strikes him. (c) His total blindness and lack of sensi tivity to the power of emotions in others— in Antigone and 32 Haemon— are also part of his hybris. (d) Creon's complete reliance on reason to invent a religious belief rather than accept the traditional one has even led him to blasphemy: his rationalized assumption that the gods would not honor a man with burial who had come to burn their temples has 33 lowered the estate of the gods and equated them with men. It is apparent that Creon is guilty of hybris on many counts. Antigone is guilty only on one: her defiance of 3®See p. 184 above. 3^-A. C. Bradley, "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," Oxford [Lectures on Poetry (Bloomington, 1961), p. 74, writes: "Creon has violated the sanctity of the family, and in re turn sees his own home laid in ruins." ■30 Cf. Kitto. - Form and Meaning, p. 167. 33See p. 240 above. | 282 34 the State both in attitude and action. Both characters are guilty of hybris, but the extent of Creon's hybris is greater. Form Many scholars have called the Antigone a diptych play, some using the term pejoratively and others merely descrip- 35 tively. The term was apparently devised to cover those plays that offer a problem in unity of form, because they i 1 36 [seem to fall into two parts. The Antigone is regarded as | [one of these plays, inasmuch as Antigone, who begins the drama and plays a role equal in prominence to Creon1s, is 37 never seen again after the close of the fourth stasimon, while from this point on the part of Creon is considered dominant. 3^See pp. 144-145 and 277-278 above. •^See Kirkwood, pp. 42-54; Kitto. Greek Tragedy, p. 116; Adams, p. 42; Waldock, pp. 51-60; Webster, pp. 102-103. 36see Kirkwood, p. 42. 3?To my, knowledge, the interpretation offered by this study is the only one that has Antigone on stage during the fourth stasimon. See pp. 226-234 above. All other inter pretations have Antigone leave the stage at the close of the fourth episode. 283 Waldock sees this shift in emphasis not as a direct breaking of the play into two parts but as a gradual and imperceptible movement which, nevertheless, robs the drama of power (pp. 50, 122-123). He believes Antigone to be the main character and the play properly named (p. 123). Like Waldock, Adams also sees a shift of interest in the play which, however, he does not feel damages the drama (p. 43). At the same time, while Professor Adams considers Creon to be the main character (pp. 42-43), he believes that Sopho cles "gave his work the name of the character that mattered to him most" (p. 43). L. A. Post, also, considers Creon the main character and believes that the treatment of Antigone's role harms the play: "It is a mistake for a dramatist to make a character who is killed off early in the play so in teresting that the rest of the play is inevitably dulled by 38 comparison." Professor Kitto, too, thinks that Creon is the main character: The centre-piece is unmistakeably Creon. We may prefer to make it Antigone, but if we do, Sophocles' design becomes in some degree unintelligible; in particular, it becomes hard to understand why Antigone's body is not brought back.^9 38From Homer to Menander (Berkeley, 1951), p. 102. 39Form and Meaning, p. 176. Kitto's view of this 284 It is apparent from the opinions cited above that the whole problem of unity of form in the Antigone revolves around the question whether Creon or Antigone is the main character. Is there any reason, however, why a Greek trag edy cannot have two main characters of equal significance? It almost seems as if the scholars mentioned above, while avoiding the pitfall of trying to ascertain the "tragic 40 hero," have been left with the overtones of that pitfall •which have led them to insist upon a single main character. Why can we not consider the Antigone to be a play about a burial, the conflicting attitudes of Antigone and Creon toward that burial, and what happens to each of them because of these attitudes? In our attempt to demonstrate the play's unity of form we shall try to show that as characters problem of the play's form is slightly different in his Greek Tragedy, p. 130: "The last part of the Antigone makes no sense until we realise that there is not one central character but two, and that of the two, the significant one to Sophocles was always Creon." 4®See John Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (New York, 1962), pp. 12-18, for his arguments against the empha sis that has been placed on singling out the tragic hero in each drama. Jones believes that the traditional Hero con cept is one which Aristotle .had not really intended and which Romanticism has read into the Poetics. Kitto, Form and Meaning, p. 233, writes: "The centre of a play is not necessarily a Tragic Hero." 285 Antigone and Creon are of equal weight and importance. The fact that the play takes its name from Antigone is hardly justification for considering her and her alone as the main character. Titles can frequently be misleading. One has only to reflect on Aeschylus' Agamemnon to realize that the title of a play is no criterion for selecting its leading character. Here, surely, Clytemnestra has a far 42 more dominant role than Agamemnon. In Sophocles' own Philoctetes Neoptolemus can scarcely be regarded as a sec- 43 'ondary figure. If the title of a play, moreover, always i Indicated the main character, surely Euripides' Alcestis is ^Kirkwood, p. 51, essentially takes this view of the play: "There can be no shadow of doubt that Sophocles wanted to create two opposing forces of about equal weight lin the drama. . . . Antigone's fate only attains completely jexplicit meaning in relation to Creon's fate." Bowra, p. ,65, also recognizes the play's unity of form in much the isame manner: "Its [the play's] subject is the conflict be tween Creon and Antigone, and it does not end until this reaches its final stage with Creon's humiliation." At the same time Bowra's regard of the characters, p. 65, is am biguous, or at the very least ambiguously expressed: "The play is rightly called Antigone? for she is the most impor tant character in it; but, so far as the composition is con cerned, it deals with Creon even more than with her. His personality pervades the whole and holds it together after she has left the stage." ^Cf. Jones, p. 18. A "3 Cf. Norwood, pp. 161-162; see Kirkwood, pp. 58-59. 286 44 misnamed, for Admetus is obviously the protagonist. Or to take an example from Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar Brutus plays the dominant role. In fact, with regard to the titles of Greek tragedies we know neither who assigned the titles 45 nor when they were assigned. If Sophocles' Antigone had been called The Burial, it seems highly improbable that any one today would find fault with such a title. Consequently, (1) if another title could serve the play just as well, (2) •* if we do not know when the title was given to the play or by whom, (3) and if we have examples of other Greek tragedies in which the title does not name the leading character, it is illogical and presumptuous to use the title of the A&- tiaone as supporting evidence that Antigone has the play's principal role. One argument that has been used in an attempt to prove Creon the leading character is that he speaks more than half 46 again as many verses as Antigone. The Chorus, however, 44cf. W. K. Prentice, Those Ancient Dramas Called Tragedies (Princeton, 1942), p. 85. 45Cf. Knox, p. 2. 46Antigone speaks approximately 200 lines, and Creon, 350. Cf. Kitto, Greek Tragedy, p. 124; Linforth, p. 251. 287 delivers more verses than Antigone and as many as Creon? yet no one thinks that the Chorus . is the main character, or that even in a secondary role it has more importance than Antigone. Therefore, the number of verses alone that have been assigned to a role does not always and necessarily de termine the leading character. What does determine the principal role is the extent to which a character claims the reader's and audience's thoughts, concern, and attention— visual as well as non-visual— together with the number of verses assigned to the role. Antigone dominates the prologue, Creon the first epi sode. In the first stasimon the Chorus supports Creon1s I | edict and condemns the unknown burier of the body, who the 47 reader and audience are well aware is Antigone. Thus the first stasimon divides the interest between Creon and An tigone. The two characters share the second episode equal ly. During the second stasimon, while the Chorus is con demning Antigone, Creon, but not Antigone, is on stage. His presence offsets the subject of the ode, which concerns Antigone, and maintains a balance in the importance of the 48 two roles. Thus through verse 630, nearly one-half of the 4^See p. 112 above. 48See p. 174 above. 288 play, the two roles are of equal weight. Creon and Haemon share and dominate the third episode. Though Antigone is not present, the quarrel between father and son basically pertains to her, with the result that while the attention of the reader and audience is focused upon Creon and Haemon, their concern is for Antigone. Still, it must be admitted that in the third episode Creon's role begins to assume a somewhat greater importance than Antigone's. In the third stasimon, the Chorus' song about love, particularly with reference to Haemon1s love for An- 49 tigone, causes us to think of her, but Creon's silent presence on stage equalizes the importance of her role in 50 . . this ode, since she is still absent from the stage. An tigone, however, completely dominates the fourth episode in her kommos with the Chorus, not only by the pity which she draws from the Chorus and audience but also by the actual number of verses that she speaks. Of the 144 verses in this episode, Antigone delivers 112. Creon, who is on stage 51 throughout the episode, remains silent through the first eighty-four verses and speaks only twelve verses in the 4^See pp. 195-197 above. 53-See p. 199, n. 23 above. 'if) See p. 199 above. 289 entire episode. Antigone's absolute dominance of this epi sode compensates for the greater importance that Creon1s role had assumed in the third episode. In the fourth stasi- 52 mon, moreover, both Creon and Antigone are on stage, but since the words of the Chorus are addressed to her, a slight edge in importance must be given to her role in this ode. Thus, relevant to the question whether Creon or Antigone is the main character, at verse 987— three-quarters through the play— once more we can speak of the two roles as being ap proximately equal in weight and importance. ! Though Antigone does not appear again after the close of the fourth stasimon, Creon1s dominance of the last quar ter of the play is not so complete as it appears on first sight. Teiresias shares the fifth episode with him equally. Antigone, though not mentioned by name, is referred to by Teiresias (1068-1069), the Chorus (1100-1101), and Creon (1111-1112). She is uppermost in the thoughts of the Chor- 53 us, the reader, and audience. After Creon has departed at the conclusion of this episode, the exultance and joy of the Chorus in the ensuing stasimon are mainly for Antigone, for ishe has been their chief concern. ^See pp. 228-229 above. ^3See p. 246 above. 290 Creon, after the fifth episode, only appears again (1257) when the exode (1155-1352) is half over. The first half of the exode is devoted mainly to the two speeches of the Messenger (1155-1171, 1192-1243). His first and shorter speech (1155-1171) pertains only to the King, but his second and longer speech pertains as much to Antigone as to Creon. When Creon finally makes his appearance, he engages in a > kommos with the Chorus (1261-1347) t,hat lasts up to the final choral tag (1348-1352). Waldock claims that in the last hundred verses of the play Antigone is forgotten (p. 122). While it is true that in these verses, which comprise Creon's kommos, there is no reference to, or any mention at all of Antigone;, neverthe less, the very fact that the verses are expressed in the form of a kommos serves to remind us of the play's other kommos— Antigone's (802-886). The significant parallelism 54 m meaning of the two kommoi has already been pointed out. The form of the second kommos not only accentuates the mean ing it expresses but at the same time by its parallelism in form recalls the meaning of the first kommos, thus prevent ing us from forgetting Antigone. This parallelism is ^See p. 267 above. 291 perhaps one of the finest examples of how form affects and complements meaning. It is this use of form that obviates the shift of interest from Antigone to Creon, which Waldock 55 sees . Professor Kitto's view of Creon as the central charac ter, which rests upon the fact that Antigone's body is not 56 brought back when Creon returns, can also be answered by the form of Creon1s last hundred verses. Creon's kommos, as it has been pointed out, does not let us forget the meaning expressed in Antigone's kommos nor, naturally, Antigone her self. This reminder of Antigone is sufficient, but, of course, it can be argued that the reminder would have been much stronger if her body had been brought back. The fact is, however, that such a reminder would have been too strong. At this moment in the play the reader and audience are relishing with satisfaction Creon's despair, because their sympathy and concern have been directed toward Antig one. To see Antigone's corpse would have vitiated the sat isfaction we experience in Creon's grief by diverting our feelings to greater sorrow for Antigone. We are reminded of her to just the right degree, enough to remember her, but ^See p. 283 above. ^See p. 283 above. 292 not so much as to lessen the satisfaction derived from Sreon's lament. In keeping with the analysis of the play's form pre sented above, if we consider the extent to which Creon and Antigone claim the reader's and audience's thoughts, atten tion, and concern and not just the number of verses assigned to each role, there seems so little basis to choose one or the other as the main character, that it seems simply logi cal and reasonable to believe that the play has two leading characters. Since, moreover, there is no shift of interest to Creon that excludes our interest in Antigone, the play sustains its unity of form. The Antigone is, indeed, a play iabout a burial and only reaches its completion when we have learned what has befallen each of its two principals, the I 57 proponent and opponent of the burial. rn i ^ Aristotle, Poetics. 1 4 5 0 a , writes: r| y a p Tpayuj&Ca |j.C|rnaLC s a t i v o u h avQpwmov a\A .a Ttpa^ecoQ. ■ c f . p . 2 8 5 , n . 41 above. BIBLIOGRAPHY 293 BIBLIOGRAPHY Literary Theory i Blackmur, R. P. "A Critic's Job of Work," Form and Value in Modern Poetry. Garden City, N. Y., 1957. Bradley, A. C. "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," Oxford Lectures on Poetrv. Bloomington, 1961. Cherniss, Harold. "The Biographical Fashion in Literary Criticism," University of California Publications in Classical Philology. XII (1943), 279-292. Cornford, F. M. Thucydides Mvthistoricus. London, 1907. Dewey, John. Art as Experience. New York, 1924. Durrell, Lawrence. "Space, Time, and Poetry," A Kev to Modern British Poetry. Norman, 1952. Eliot, T. S. "The Frontiers of Criticism," On Poetry and Poets. 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Core Title Antigone: A study in critical method

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