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Antigone's Final Speech (Sophocles, Antigone 891–928)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Martin Cropp
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Extract

O tomb, O bridal chamber, O cavernous dwelling, eternal prison to which I am journeying to meet my own, those perished in their great numbers and received by Persephone amongst the dead. I am the latest of them, and my descent the worst by far, before my allotment of life has reached completion. Yet, as I go, I boldly feed on hopes of proving dear to my father when I reach him, and dear to you, mother, and to you, dear brother. For when you died, it was I with my own hands who washed you and adorned you, I who poured your tomb-libations. But now for tending your body, Polynices, this is my reward.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , October 1997 , pp. 137 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1997

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References

1. The text is as printed by Lloyd-Jones and Wilson, the translation my own. Developing versions of this paper were given to the Classical Association of Canada (Victoria, B.C., 1990), to the conference Greek Drama II (Universities of Canterbury and Sydney; Christchurch, N.Z., 1992)Google Scholar, and at the Universities of Calgary (1991), Washington (1993), California at Berkeley (1995), and California at Santa Cruz (1995). I have benefited from the comments of many members of these audiences. I owe particular thanks for assistance or advice to Desmond Conacher, Mark Griffith, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Wolfgang Rosier, and Mary Whitlock Blundell.

2. I have cited very selectively from the vast literature on Antigone. The following are cited by authors’ names. Editions etc.: Schneidewin, F. and Nauck, A., Sophokles, IV: Antigone, 11th ed. rev. by Bruhn, E. (Berlin, 1913)Google Scholar; Jebb, R. C., Sophocles, III: The Antigone (Cambridge, 3rd ed., 1900)Google Scholar; Müller, G., Sophokles: Antigone (Heidelberg, 1967)Google Scholar; Kamerbeek, J. C., The Plays of Sophocles, III: Antigone (Leiden, 1978)Google Scholar; Brown, A. L., Sophocles: Antigone (Warminster, 1987)Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H. and Wilson, N. G., Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., Sophocles: Antigone etc. (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1994)Google Scholar; Griffith, M., Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge, forthcoming)Google Scholar. Studies: Jacob, A. L. W., Sophocleae Quaestiones, I (Warsaw, 1821)Google Scholar; Kaibel, G., De Sophoclis Antigona (Göttingen, 1897)Google Scholar; Knapp, C., ‘A point in the interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone', AJP 37 (1916), 300–16Google Scholar; von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, T., Die dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin, 1917)Google Scholar; Perrotta, G., Sofocle (Messina, 1935)Google Scholar; VEhrenberg, ., Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar; Kirkwood, G. M., A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca, 1958)Google Scholar; Fritz, K. von, ‘Haimons Liebe zu Antigone’, in Antike und modeme Tragödie (Berlin, 1962), 227–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knox, B. M. W., The Heroic Temper (Berkeley, 1966)Google Scholar; Long, A. A., Language and Thought in Sophocles (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Ostwald, M., Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., The Justice of Zeus (Berkeley, 1971: 2nd ed., 1983)Google Scholar; DHester, . A., ‘Sophocles the unphilosophical, Mnemosyne 24 (1972), 11–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Else, G. F., The Madness of Antigone (Heidelberg, 1976)Google Scholar; Dalfen, J., ‘Gesetz ist nicht Gesetz und fromm ist nicht fromm: die Sprache der Personen in der sophokleischen Antigone’, WS 90 (1977), 5–26Google Scholar; Neitzel, H., ‘πάθει μάθος– Leitwort der aischyleischen Tragödie?’, Gymnasium 87 (1980), 283–93Google Scholar; Rösier, W., Polis und Tragödie (Konstanz, 1980)Google Scholar; Segal, C. P., Tragedy and Civilisation: an interpretation of Sophocles (Cambridge, Mass., 1981)Google Scholar; Szlezák, T., ‘Bemerkungen zur Diskussion urn Sophokles, Antigone 904–920’, RM 124 (1981), 108–42Google Scholar; Lefkowitz, M., ‘Influential women’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Images of Women in Antiquity (London, 1983), 49–64Google Scholar; Rösier, W., ‘Der Chor als Mitspieler: Beobachtungen zur “Antigone”’, Antike und Abendland 29 (1983), 107–24Google Scholar; Steiner, G., Antigones (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar; Knox, B. M. W., Introduction to Fagles, R. (tr.), Sophocles: the three Theban Plays (Harmondsworth, 1984)Google Scholar; Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley, 1986)Google Scholar; Goldhill, S., Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murnaghan, S., ‘Antigone 904–920 and the institution of marriage’, AJP 107 (1986), 192–207Google Scholar. Oudemans, C. W. and Lardinois, A., Tragic ambiguity. Anthropology, Philology and Sophocles' Antigone (Leiden, 1987)Google Scholar; Blundell, M. Whitlock, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosivach, V. J., ‘The interpretation of Sophocles Antigone 926’, CP 84 (1989), 116–19Google Scholar; Sourvinou-Inwood, C., ‘Sophocles Antigone 904–920: a reading’, AION (filol.), 9–10 (1987–1988), 19–35Google Scholar; eadem, ‘Assumptions and the creation of meaning: reading Sophocles’ Antigone', JHS 109 (1989), 134–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bouvrie, S. de, Women in Greek Tragedy (Oslo, 1990)Google Scholar; Neuburg, M., ‘How like a woman: Antigone's “inconsistency”’, CQ 40 (1990), 54–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bennett, L. J. and Tyrrell, W. B., ‘Sophocles' Antigone and funeral oratory’;, AJP 111 (1990), 441–56Google Scholar; Mikalson, J., Honor Thy Gods: Popular Religion in Greek Tragedy (Chapel Hill, 1991)Google Scholar; Riemer, P., Sophokles, Antigone: Göttenville und menschliche Freiheit (Stuttgart, 1991)Google Scholar; Lefèvre, E., ‘Die Unfähigkeit, sich zu erkennen: Sophokles’ Antigone', WJA 18 (1992), 89–123Google Scholar; Foley, H., ‘The politics of tragic lamentation’, in Sommerstein, A. H. et al. (eds.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis (Bari, 1993), 101–43Google Scholar; W. Rösier, ‘Die Frage der Echtheit von Soph. Ant. 904–920 und die politischen Funktion der attischen Tragödie’, ibid. 81–99; Fresco, M. F., ‘Antigone und Anthropologie’, Mnemosyne 47 (1994), 289–318CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Segal, C. P., Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, Society (Harvard, Mass., 1995)Google Scholar.

3. Jebb xiii–xiv. Jebb 262 objects to interpreting 904–20 as ‘self-defence’.

4. Müller, 196.

5. Knox (1984), 48; cf. (1966), 105: ‘… she struggles with her own emotions in a self-absorbed passion which totally ignores the presence of those around her.’

6. Jacob, 365–8.

7. T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 45—50.

8. Schadewaldt, 82–8.

9. Steiner, 277, 279–80 (‘The Gethsemane-moment – Hegel's audacious analogy is not baseless – is upon her’).

10. That the speech is first and foremost a self-justification is also seen by e.g. Kaibel lOff., Neuburg 58. Foley 111–13 suggests that throughout her final scene Antigone is ‘using lamentation to make a public and politically-motivated display of injustice’.

11. For surveys of the debate in the 19th Century see Reiter, S., ZöG 49 (1898), 96 Iff.Google Scholar, and up to 1980 Szlezák. Important since then: Murnaghan, Sourvinou-Inwood (1987/8), Neuburg, Riemer 41–8, Rösier (1993). Why the passage should have been fabricated in the first place and soon accepted as Sophoclean by such readers as Aristotle (Rhet. 1417a29–33) has never been convincingly explained.

12. Only 909–12 pose syntactical difficulties (the dangling genitive absolute in 909; the reference of τοῦδε in 910; ‘there is no brother who could ever be born’, 912). Some allowance should perhaps be made for the fact that Sophocles was compressing a piece of ‘casuistic ratiocination’ (Kamerbeek, , p. 22)Google Scholar into a handful of lines.

13. For the emphasis see Denniston, J. D., The Greek Particles (Oxford, ed. 2, 1954), 473Google Scholar.

14. Soph. Track. 819–20, ‘Let her go on her way rejoicing and herself enjoy the pleasure she is giving to my father’. Similar conclusive wishes for requital, though without the sarcasm: Track. 1039–40 and (if genuine) Aj. 839–40.

15. Schol. vet. 926; LSJ9 s.v. συγγιγνώσκω II. 1; Moorhouse, A. C., The Syntax of Sophocles (Leiden, 1982), 260Google Scholar; and many commentators.

16. He finds no parallels for συγγιγνώσκειν as ‘become conscious that…” without a reflexive indirect object, or as ‘acknowledge’ with a participle rather than infinitive as object; and notes that this verb and its cognates regularly mean ‘forgive’ elsewhere in Sophocles and Euripides. Rosivach's discussion is mentioned without comment in Lloyd-Jones, H. and Wilson, N. G., Sophoclea (Oxford, 1990), 138Google Scholar, and reflected in Lloyd-Jones's Loeb translation. For other such interpretations see Rosivach, 117 n. 6 and (unapproving) Hester, 37.

17. For verbal and rhetorical links between 904–20 and the rest of the speech see Kaibel, 1–8.

18. Cf. Rosivach, 118, Neuburg, 58 n. 13.

19. Denniston, J. D., Euripides: Electro (Oxford, 1939), p. 180Google Scholar on El. 1045.

20. We may prefer to think of this idea as ‘proverbial’ rather than ‘Hesiodic’ (the idea certainly had proverbial status, e.g. Pl. Symp. 222b5–7), but the evocation of the whole Hesiodic thoughtpattern and the appearance in Ant. of other closely related reminiscences of Hesiod's Works(see below) suggest that the latter is being invoked.

21. In this play note especially 523, οὔτοι συνέξθειν ἀλλὰ συμφιλεῖν ἔυν, ‘The natural thing for me is not to hate them together but to love them together’; also 41, 66, 266, 279, 537, 541, 846. See Long 52 and 59 n. 109 on σὑννοια (66, 279), and in general Whitlock Blundell, 103–4 (on Ajax) and other references in her index.

22. This usage occurs in Hdt. 1.91.6, Croesus ‘agreed (συνέγω) that the fault was his own and not the god's‘; similarly 1.89.3, 6.92.2. A participle as object-clause is appropriate in Ant. 926 since it concerns acceptance of a perception.

23. Bruhn on 926; Kamerbeek, ad loc; Adams, S. M., Phoenix1 9 (1955), 59Google Scholar; Minadeo, R., Arethusa 18 (1985), 152Google Scholar. Cf. the translations of R. E. Braun (Oxford, 1973) and Don Taylor (London, 1986). Griffith on 925–8 adds that 928 evokes the proverbial idea that the doer must suffer (e.g. Aesch. Cho. 313, δράσαντα παθεῖν).

24. In Ag. 176–8 the way of understanding and righteousness is contrasted with the way of foolish injustice leading to disaster, suffering and learning. Schol. M Ag. 177 compares Works 218. See Lloyd-Jones (1971/1983), 86–8 and JHS 76 (1956), 62–3Google Scholar; Gagarin, M., Aeschylean Drama (Berkeley, 1976), 139–50Google Scholar; Neitzel 283–93 and Hermes 106 (1978), 411–13Google Scholar stressing that Aeschylus like Hesiod describes two moral ‘routes’.

25. ‘If you were not an old man, you would learn through suffering to recognize your presumption (παθ὿ν ἔγνως ἄν οἷά περ φρονεῖς).’

26. Cf. Eur. Supp. 580 (where Collard lists similar phrases with different verbs), Held. 65; in 3rd Person, e.g. Eur. Andr. 1006, HF 840. Cf. Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 1649.

27. Rzach, A., Hesiodi carmina (Leipzig, 1902)Google Scholar, listed reminiscences of Hesiod in later poetry including these two. West's, M. L. supplement, Philologus 113 (1969), 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 130 (1986), 1–7, adds nothing from Ant.

28. In addition to Works 213–18 cf. Works 30, ‘Goods are not for seizing (ἁρπακτά); 324, ‘when profit (κέρδος) deludes one's mind’; 352, ‘Do not make evil profits (κακὰ κερδαίνειν); evil profits (κακὰ κέρδεα) amount to ruin’; 356, ‘Gift is good; seizure (ἅρπαξ) is bad…’. On the varying definitions of κέρδος ‘profit’ in Ant. (esp. 326, 464, 1036–9, 1045–7, 1055–6, 1063) see Goheen, 14–19; Dalfen, 21–3.

29. It is seen as proper by Calder, 400 n. 48, Oudemans-Lardinois, 185, and its impiety (proclaimed by Tiresias, 1068–76) is minimized by Sourvinou-Inwood (1989), 146.

30. Else, 66 n. 52.

31. Works 265–6, ‘a man who does ill to another does ill to himself; ill counsel is most ill for its deviser’, seems to reverberate through the ending of the play (esp. 1050–1, 1242–3, 1259–60, 1269–70); cf. Antigone's remark about suffering from her own ill-counsel (95–6). The ‘gods' swiftfooted Harms’ (1104) recall Hesiod's Curse which ‘runs along with crooked judgments’ (Works 219). Works 214–16 (quoted above, p. 141) seems to be recalled in Creon's self-condemnation, Ant. 1272–4, ‘I have learned, low (δείλαιος) as I am. Upon my head a god struck me, holding a great weight (βάρος), and hurled me into savage ways (ὁδοῖς)’.

32. West on Works 220–4 explains the imaging there of Justice as victim, then avenger.

33. See esp. Knapp, 300–16 (he regarded 904–20 as an interpolation) and e.g. Goheen, 75ff., Kirkwood, 233–6, Long, 50–3, Else, 51, 69, Goldhill, 173–8, Whitlock Blundell, 130–6, Mikalson, 179, 278 n. 22, Bennett and Tyrrell, 447, Lefèvre, 94–9.

34. Knox (1966), 12–26 surveys the relevant vocabulary throughout Sophocles' plays.

35. Electra's devotion to her father and Antigone's to her brother are debated in very similar terms: see esp. Soph. El. 307–9, 328–50, 523–9, 549–50, 992–1057, and cf. Stinton, T. C. W., Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990), 476–8Google Scholar (= Cropp, M. et al. [eds.], Greek Tragedy and its Legacy [Calgary, 1986], 82–4)Google Scholar. φρονεῖν is explicitly linked with the observance of natural duties in ‘the most prudent (φρονιμωτάτους) birds’ of El. 1058ff. (cf. Antigone's screeching like a mother-bird whose nest has been robbed, Ant. 423–7). Cf. also Eur. Bacch. 268–9, 310–12, 326–32, 479–85 etc. (another play in which a Theban ruler new to power fails in understanding of the divine).

36. I have found little mention of it in the Commentaries of Müller (see on 383, 1261) or Brown (see on 1242–3). Kamerbeek mentions it occasionally (e.g. on 95–7, 683–4, 707–9, 726–7), but not in his list of ‘Recurrent metaphors and motifs’ (pp. 33–5).

37. Line 99 is still often misinterpreted as if Ismene is saying ‘I still love you despite your foolishness’. This lacks point, and misses the obvious antithesis between ἄνους and ὀρθῶς φίλη. For the correct interpretation commentators compare Eur. I.T. 610.

38. However understood, the miraculous appearance of the burial (249–58) and the later whirlwind (417–21) establish this and suggest a revulsion of nature against the exposure of the body, anticipating the real revulsion reported by Tiresias (998–1022).

39. δοῦλος (479) is an obvious indication of Creon's tyrannical and transgressive temper, like his threat to torture the guards (308–14; see n. 26) and his summary condemnation of Ismene (486–90). Antigone rejects the classification of Polynices as a slave, 517.

40. 557–8: ‘On your arguments (cf. ἐπὶ … τοῖς … λόγοις, 556) you thought you were being prudent; on mine I thought I was.’ – ‘Yes, and the error is equal for each of us’. Commentators have often supposed that 557 refers to the opinions of others (Creon and/or the living vs. Polynices and/or the dead, or [reading μὲν σοί] Ismene herself vs. Polynices and the dead) and that 558 refers to Ismene's claim to share Antigone's guilt. But 559–60 make no sense as a response if 558 is taken in this way.

41. Lloyd-Jones, , CQ 4 (1954), 93CrossRefGoogle Scholar (cf. Sophoclea 135) conjectures σ' ἐμάς for κενὰς in 753, and this appears in the new Oxford text. Thus ‘What kind of threat is it for me to acquaint you with my resolutions’, rather than ‘What kind of threat is it for me to speak against empty opinions?’ This removes the point from Creon's next response (‘You'll regret your advising…’) and its follow-up (‘… empty-witted as you are yourself’).

42. Creon characteristically uses himself, or political authority, rather than divine authority, as the reference-point for eusebeia: cf. Dalfen, 14–16.

43. On the overt level of meaning see Foley, 111–12. Segal (1995), 119–37 shows how Eurydice's role in the play mirrors Antigone's and exhibits the effects of Creon's blindness to her realm of values.

44. On the Chorus's impact on Antigone in the amoibaion see e.g. Perrotta, , 79Google Scholar, von Fritz, 238–40, Kirkwood, 164. On their integration in the action of the play and relationships with Creon and Antigone, see Rosier (1983).

45. Creon does likewise (cf. Griffith on 883–90, 935–6), as does the Chorus, 929–30.

46. These words of the Chorus contradict Antigone's assurance (511) that ‘there is nothing shameful in treating piously (sebeiri) those born from the same womb’. ‘Piety’ includes fundamental duties towards other people as well as the gods (cf. e.g. Dalfen, 14–15). In 872–4 the Chorus are saying that Antigone's observance of her duty towards her brother has conflicted with another, superior duty sanctioned by the gods, i.e. obedience to a ruler's authority. In 165–7 Creon notes that they have always revered [σέβοντας] the powers of their rulers. In 213–14 they assure him that every nomos is at his disposal, whether it concerns the living or the dead.

47. Good remarks in Kirkwood, 236–8 and Dalfen, 14–20 on differing priorities for eusebeia and conflicting opinions about the eusebeia of Antigone's action (note especially 300–1, 511–16, 730–3, 744–5, 777–80, 1349–50).

48. The repetition has been thought to indicate interpolation: e.g. Müller ad loc, Else, 109.Griffith on 904–15 notes several points of ring-composition within this passage.

49. See e.g. Jebb, p. 259.

50. See e.g. Segal (1981), 154–5, 170–3. Dalfen 9–14 collects the relevant passages. See also E Ostwald (1986), 148–61 – though I think he exaggerates the legitimacy which its status as a nomos gives to Creon's burial-prohibition, and therefore the degree to which Sophocles was portraying a conflict between equally valid obligations. Antigone is not allowing the charge of impiety in 74 and 923–4 (as Ostwald 155–6 and n. 56 suggests), and in 921 she is not saying that she has adhered only to the justice of the dead (Ostwald 153). δαιμόνων in 921 has the same connotations as θεῶν in (e.g.) 77.

51. Rösier (1993), 91–4; see also Müller ad loc, Lesky, 207, Dalfen, 10 n. 8, Szlezák, 133.

52. Cf. Rösier (1980).

53. πανουργία is a strong term. Creon uses it of crimes in general (300), linking it with impiety in I 301 (παντὸς ἔργου δυσσέβειαν). On the counterpoint between 74 (with 68) and 300–1 see Goheen, 127–8 n. 2.

54. It is hard to see any dramatic purpose for this passage if what Haimon says in 692–700 is not supposed to be largely true, though Sourvinou-Inwood (1989, 144) questions this. Haimon confirms Antigone's claim that she has unspoken support (509). Creon accepts this when he retorts that the polis at large has no authority (734–8).

55. Cf. Whitlock Blundell, 147. Rösier argues that Antigone separates the Chorus from the politai by ceasing to address them as politai once she recognizes their lack of sympathy. He contrasts 806 with 842–3 and 940. But 842–3, ‘O city, O wealthy men of our city’, does not separate the community from its elders. The phrasing conveys that she feels abandoned by both of them (cf. Müller p. 187), for she then turns away from both and is reduced, like the isolated Philoctetes (Phil. 936–9,986–8), to calling on the natural environment (844–6) to witness that she has no philoi and is a victim of unjust nomoi.

56. Ostwald (1969), 24–5. But it does not follow that this nomos is wholly arbitrary and self-contained, as he suggests elsewhere (1969, 53; 1986, 154 n. 49). If Antigone adduces a nomos here, and complains about Creon's misvaluation of it (913–14), this surely serves to relate her argument. at this point to the earlier arguments about nomos. Riemer 44–8 also seems to exaggerate the privateness of Antigone's reasoning.

57. See e.g. Segal (1981), 183–5, de Bouvrie, 186–7. The opposition between blood-ties and marriage-ties is of course thematically relevant at this point in other ways, as Murnaghan and Neuburg in particular have pointed out. Antigone's normal future in marriage is being destroyed by her devotion to her brother, and her intended husband is the son of her persecutor. Creon will be punished through the loss of son and wife.

Murnaghan sees Antigone in the final speech as seeking ‘justification and consolation for her loss of marriage’ (205) and describes her as overvaluing phusis and the unwritten laws against culture and the polis, dissociating herself from marriage as an institution (198–201, 207). This risks exaggerating the degree to which the text makes Antigone responsible for the conflict. The text tells us little about her character, principles, and vision that is not tied to the immediate issue of her obligation to defy Creon's decree, and nothing about Antigone in normal times except that she had a strong personality and was eager to marry Haimon (570). It does not make her exclusive focus on the family a cause of the problem in the same way that Creon's decree is.

58. Aristotle understood Antigone's appeal to the divine nomima as an appeal to Nature (Rhet. 1373b4–13; cf. 1375a31ff.). See e.g. Kerferd, G. B., The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge, 1980), 113Google Scholar, in a useful survey of the nomos-physis controversy.

59. Cf. especially Goheen, 76–93 on this point and on the reflection of Antigone's moral awareness in a language of intuition and feeling. Note especially how her renewed complaint about Creon's notnoi in the amoibaion (847) is addressed to the world of nature (cf. n. 35 above) and linked with her loss of phibi, and of course how Creon finally recognizes that he has breached ‘the established nomoi’ (1114–15).

60. This has been argued recently, from somewhat differing premisses, by Oudemans and Lardinois (1987) and Sourvinou-Inwood (1987–8; 1989). Oudemans and Lardinois suggest that Sophocles was adhering to an ‘integrative cosmology’ typical of archaic Greece. Creon has acted responsibly and is right to suppose that as its ruler he embodies the polis, but he has the tragic handicap of having to rule without knowing fully what the gods approve or disapprove. Antigone's claims to know about the gods' wishes and about justice are unjustified (166,168–9); in 904–20 she is admitting that her preference for her brother was flawed but refusing to abandon it (187 ff.), and in 921–8 she is admitting that the gods are against her but refusing to agree with mem. Fresco provides an extensive critique of this position.

Sourvinou-Inwood argues that Sophocles and his audience would have had much more sympathy than we do for Creon's political values and would have seen Antigone as a subversive figure who ‘does the right thing for the wrong reasons’ after Creon has unfortunately done a wrong thing (upsetting the cosmic order by a false ritual move) for the right reasons (wanting to humiliate a traitor by dishonouring his body). Only from Tiresias do we learn that he has done wrong, and his wrongness does not cancel the wrongness of Antigone's motivations in resisting him; she is no more than ‘part of the disorder unleashed into the city as a result of the offence against the gods and the cosmic order’ (1989, 148). In this reading, lines 904–20 are inconsistent with Antigone's earlier arguments and show her to be challenging the polis for personal reasons, subordinating marital ties to blood-ties in an unAthenian way, and usurping a male role in undertaking the actual burial of Polynices. Her claims to piety are unsubstantiated, and she has no claim to authority as a source of value in conflict with the polis (1989, 142–3). My own analysis has suggested that the text advertises the deficiencies of Creon's actions and character earlier and more persistently than Sourvinou-Inwood allows, and gives correspondingly more authority to Antigone's position, in spite of the attractions of some of Creon's principles in Athenian eyes and of some admitted negativities in Antigone's conduct and situation.

61. See e.g. Knox (1966), Calder, Sourvinou-Inwood (1989), 135, 141–2. On the whole, the text appears to portray Creon as leading the polis into error and danger for a mixture of reasons, some ‘good’ and some ‘bad’ according to the pofo-ideology of democratic Athens. Even ‘good’ reasons (security, discipline, loyalty to the state, male dominance, etc.) were hardly exempt from examination by a tragic poet, and I doubt if Sophocles would have been regarded as ‘a subversive, a challenger of the values of the polis’ (Sourvinou-Inwood [1989], 147) for problematizing them.

62. Cf. especially Ehrenberg ch. 2–4 (with too much emphasis on the particular application to Pericles); Knox (1966), 75–102; Hester; Ostwald (1986), 148–61.

63. Cf. Dalfen, 12.

64. Cf. Whitlock Blundell, 130 ff., though I do not share her perception of a ‘spurious rationality’ (134) in Antigone's argument at 904 ff.

65. This heredity seems to me to be relevant to Antigone's motivation and to our sense of her tragic fate (cf. 1–6,49–60,463–4, 559–60, 594–603, 857–71, 891–6). But this is not to say that she is a victim of âtê arising from the curse on her family, as Lloyd-Jones (1971/1983), 113–16 suggests, Âtê-induced behaviour must surely be irrational and self-destructive. Antigone behaves selfdestructively but by no means irrationally. When the Chorus say in 853–6 that she has ‘tripped against the high platform of Justice’ and is ‘paying off an inherited ordeal (πατρῷον… ἆθλον)’, the Justice referred to is the justice envisaged by Creon and the Chorus (cf. pp. 12–13), and the remark about her inherited guilt does no more than suggest that in what is happening to her there is some justice derivable from this source.

66. Greek tragedy avoids the moral or religious outrage which would be caused by the suffering of an extremely virtuous and innocent person. See Stinton, T. C. W., CQ 25 (1975), 238–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar (= Collected Papers on Greek Tragedy [Oxford, 1990], 164–8)Google Scholar, with reference to Aristotle's theory of hamartia.

67. But not unfemale. As Lefkowitz, 52 puts it, ‘Antigone must be female for the dramatic action to occur in the first place, because only a mother or a sister would have felt so strongly the obligation to bury the dead’. In Sophocles' portrayal it is Antigone's elemental female qualities (ultimately shared by her sister, 536 ff., and echoed in Eurydice's suicide) which cause her to act on her obligation.