PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION IN THE ANTIGONE

bY

J. H. Kells

In this paper1 I would like to consider not merely specific problems, but also the different kinds
of problems, the different kinds of meaning, that may be involved in a work such a s the Antigone.
In how mmy ways can we use the word meaning in connexion with a Greek play? Obviously
we should start with the meaning of the words in the most literal sense. How are we to translate a given sentence? For the answer we rely on rules of grammar, and our knowledge in
general of Greek. Our knowledge of Greek depends mostly on our remembrance of verbal
parallels. If, even with this equipment, we cannot translate a passage, we consult, I imagine,
the nearest commentary. There we shall find verbal parallels used a s possibly the most important single tool for finding out the literal mmning of a piece of Greek. Usually these methods
are enough. But not always. There may be no parallel in a particular instance, or no exact
parallel (presumably this will sometimes happen, because an original writer will sometimes
say something original), or such parallels as exist may point in opposite directions, so that
as far as they are concerned the Greek might be taken to mean quite different things. When
this happens we must look for some other constituent, or determinant, of meaning. Such a
constituent is context. Context is almost always to some extent or other a part of meaning.
We know what is being said, because we know what has been said, what is likely to be said.
When what is being said is in itself ambiguous (as happens more frequently in the classical
languages than in modern ones, because of their more varied word-order), it may be the context
&c &XLo-ca
which determines its meaning. Take for example Aesch. Eum. 742 &@hhEe
Considering this verse in isolation, the two last words might well seem to
TEIJX~WV dxouc.
go together TEUX&V d h o u ~ . Indeed I have seen them so taken in an article in a learned
journal. But to a reader who is submitting himself to the atmosphere and context of the passage
from which the line is taken, who has a valid picture of what is being transacted in the play
at this moment, it is clear that TCUX&;V goes with M h h E e ,throw empty - the ballots out
of theurns. To take the words in any other way would be absurd.

Scholars on the whole tend to pay too little attention to context as a constituent of meaning.
They do not, because they me brought up, so to speak, on the technique of the parallel. This
technique encourages the implicit assumption that the words themselves (in themselves), the
words plus grammatical rules and the like, convey the meaning. This belief encourages an
47

automatic, a static view of interpretation, not a dynamic one. And it may become a substitute
for thought - constant,active thought. Without it, or without enough of it, the meaning gets lost.

I should like to illustrate the point from the first ten lines of the Antigone. We all know
the scene - Antigone and Ismene alone together in the early morning, Antigone complaining of
the misfortunes of the house of Oedipus, which are being accomplished within the lifetime of
herself and Ismene. And now what means this proclamation which they say the commander
has just made to the city at large? Do you know at all - have you heard?

The meaning of the last words is, I suggest, clear and unequivocal: 01me you unaware
that there are advancing upon our friends evils such as should belong to [that is, be inflicted
only upon] enemies. To paraphrase: those whom we hold nearest and dearest (that is,
Polyneices) are to be treated, not merely indifferently, but in such a way as we should wish
our bitterest enemies to be treated.
Nevertheless the words are in themselves, we may say, ambiguous. For the genitive, TGV
&epGv m& is by common knowledge grammatically ambiguous. It can be objective, (as I
have taken it), or it can be subjective - evils coming from enemies(or the enemies), as the
German editors Schneidewin-Nauck-Radermacher take it. Again, the article - TGV &OpC;;v is in itself ambiguous. It can be deictic, particularizing: so Schneidewin-Nauck make the
phrase mean the enemies of Polyneices, that is, in this case, Creon; while Jebb, who takes
the genitive as objective, makes the phrase refer to the bodies of the defeated Argive army
lying dead on the battlefield. (In staging that would obviously require a gesture.) Or it can
be generic, classificatory - enemies, any enemies (as I have taken it). Why then do I say
that the words are unambiguous? Because their meaning is effectively delimited by a number
of contributing factors, among which context plays a very large part. If we pay attention to
the context, we shall see the meaning of the words perfectly easily; if we ignore the context,
our minds may go wandering along all sorts of false grammatical scents. Consider the context.
What has Antigone been talking about? What has she been concerned about? Is it the fact
that Thebes has lately been besieged by a hostile army (so that Antigone has enemies - outside
enemies - to be aware of)? Is it the fact that this army has just dispersed, so bringing kudos
to Creon and strengthening his position within Thebes, strengthening, that is, the position of
a faction that she has reason to dread as hostile to herself and her family? No, it is none of
these things. Her conversation has not been about outside things. It has been altogether
about her family, about the misfortunes that have befallen it and are likely to befall it. All
the other objects mentioned are mentioned as having subsidiary importance, as being important
only in relation to the grand fact that they affect Antigones (pihot,,her family, as represented
in this case by Polyneices. A proclamation has been made, affecting Polyneices, mvS{(ut,
n 6 k L therefore it is an important proclamation, one that will necessarily affect him because
everyone will necessarily have to obey it. It has been made by 6 c r r p a ~ q y 6 ~The word is
interesting. It is colourless. A t least it cannot have a hostile colour unless it were thought
to be ironic: Antigone hissing the word - d v cr-o-a-orpa~~y6v- implying that he was not fit
to be one. One has only to envisage this to see that it is absurd. Though it is perhaps
worth noting, while we are on the point, that the play assumes Creon to have been a pretty
good general, cf. 1161f:

48

Kp&v y&p
0;0ac ~v

<Tpm6c, oc
6vtjE

&poC, nm6,
ktjwCav xebvc?

where &xepGv does mean the citys enemies). In any case here, in our passage, T\OV mpaqy6v
is if anything a term of honour, and certainly a word of no great emotional c0l0ur.~ Antigone
is not concerned with Creon. She is either too broad-minded or too narrow-minded (according
to the way you look at it) to begrudge him his position of honour. This attitude of hers, skilfully
conveyed in a few lines, has established a context. And it is violating that context to pick out
6 v &xepGv as agents - persons of importance whom Antigone dreads, as sources of trouble to
herself and her family. This would divide her attention, make her less single-minded. Further,
it would make her give contradictory descriptions of Creon - since TOV m p a q y 6 v is colourless,
but TGV &xBpGv (meaning Creon) would be emotional within the space of three lines.

Why then do Lewis Campbell, Schneidewin-Nauck, Mazon-Dain, Maddalena (and, long ago,
the scholiast) go chasing after this very false hare? I think the main reason is the lack of an
exact verbal parallel to 6 v k0pGv m& in the sense in which I have taken it, and in which
without any kind of hesitation some of the older commentators took it.4 There is a similar
~ V
There too the substantives are classificatory.
phrase at Eur. Or. 123, V E ~ T ~6wp;lpm.
But VEp76pWV has no article. On the other hand the classificatory use of the article is separately parallelled at Ajux 648-9 dhh c h i a w ~ a/~$I ~ E L V \ O C Zpxoc ~ x md p ~ w h e r ccpp6vec.
But no exact parallel is quoted of the whole phrase. Sophocles has taken two principles,
existing already in the language, and put them together to make a new formula why shouldnt
he? - leaving the context to point its meaning.

But in the absence of an exact formulaic parallel, the scholars I have mentioned feel uucomfortable. Instead of looking to the context to determine the meaning, instead of allowing a
creative poet a certain latitude of expression, they prefer to go on peering at the words themselves
to see if they can wrest the meaning from them, on some self-evident grammatical principle.
Radermacher says that TGV &e@v can be taken in three ways: 1 ) with omixovta in the sense
evils which our enemies inflict
evils advancing from our enemies; 2) subjectively with m&
(i.e. threaten to inflict); 3) objectively with m& evils which are inflicted on enemies (the
way I have taken it). He then continues, only the first is possible here, because, as TOU~
y<houg denotes our friends - that is, Polyneices - so TGV &x@@v can only be understood to
mean the enemies of the sisters: that is, Creon, who, simply on the ground of his proclamation,
is a downright enemy of Antigone. He doesnt discuss the context. He tries to make the words
in themselves tell us what they mean. And in order to do this he conjures up a hypothetical and
arbitrary principle -that because TOUC yihouc means a definite person, TGV k0pGv must also
mean a definite person! In fact his premise is not true - mUs cpihou~doesnt mean Polyneices:
it alludes to him, a different thing. This is the static view of Greek and of literature. In
it grammar is alas! made into a substitute for thought. And the irony of it is that the process
may end being ungrammatical. For O-CECxovTa 6 v &@+,standing for mexovta 7 y ) ; ~ 6 v
&epGv, is said by Radermacher himself to be unparalleled in Attic poetry!

So far I have been discussing kinds of meaning that can be discovered in the Greek as a
written text. But obviously a play written to be produced in the theatre envisages another kind
of meanmg, or (better) another way of producing meaning that is, the actors delivery of the
The same words, spoken in different ways, could produce a different total meaning.
There are several ways in which this could take place. First of all, the .literal meaning of

49

the words could be determined in one sense or another by voice-punctuation and intonation6
(the Greek actorb methods of doing this would be different from the modern actors, owing to
the different way of accenting ancient Greek); secondly, the e m ~ t i o nor,
, ~ it might be, the
intention or mental attitude supposedly underlying the words could be conveyed, partly at
least, by the actors delivery. The same sequence of words could be made, by the actor,
into a statement, a question, an exclamation. They could be spoken calmly, or angrily,
haughtily, ironically, and so on. And all these vocal effects might be enhanced by gestures,
.bodily movement.8 All these constituents of meaning were under the poets control, since he
was the producer the 6 b h h o g of the actors and c h o r ~ s . Since
~
he composed his play
for theatrical production (not in order to produce a written text on which scholars might meditate) he must have counted on using all these constituents of meaning. So he could write
lines which, taken by themselves, out of context, would be ambiguous, such as & c + h ~ 0
&g T & X L TEUX&V
~
~ X O U C . We neednt be surprised that these lines may appear to be
ambiguous as we read them. They wouldnt have been in performance. The author would
have explained at rehearsal how they were to be delivered.

But the actors delivery of his lines upon the stage would convey not merely literal meaning,
not merely the characters momentary intellectual or feeling tone, but also 6806 - the character
of a person, in so far as that is involved in his acts or sayings. {805 introduces us to another
kind of meaning - the implication of a persons worde or acts, the sort of person they make him
out to be.
In order to act a part in such a way that such implications are properly conveyed,
the good actor must understand the character he is trying to portray. He must conceive him
as a whole. (I cannot imagine that the ancient actor was in any way essentially different
from the modern actor in this respect.) This grasp of the character allows the actor to interpret the details of his role, the significant lines, acts and gestures consistently with his total
conception.I1 When the good actor delivers a line which is deeply significant for the character
of the person he is representing, he is aware of it; and he will try to deliver his line in such
a way that the effect is consistent with the character as he imagines it, that it reinforces the
total effect created, and that it supports or prepares the way for the effects which are to come
later. Even more so, of course, one must imagine the poet thinking ahead to the effects which
b is to produce later in the play. Here again, within this sphere of meaning, we shall find
serious objection to the version of d v +pGv XCL& which I have criticized. For there are
two ways in which it flagrantly contradicts the effects which we see being created later in
the play, and which are presumably being prepared now. The fist concerns the character of
Antigone.
There is a marked tendency among modem commentators to romanticize Antigone. She is
treated like the heroine of a romantic novel. It seems to me that this kind of interpretation
reveals the bias of these commentators for this kind of character. This is what they think a
heroine should be. It is not objectively based on Sophocles text. To judge by that, Antigone
is, true enough, an attractive young woman. But mentally and spiritually she is exceedingly
tough. Moreover, she belongs to an exceedingly tough class of personage, one which we no
longer meet in our society and are therefore liable to misunderstand. She is a woman for whom
the family is everything, who lives, both personally and vicariously, through the family, who
is prepared to regard herself, in the last resort (like Eugene ONeills Electra), as the personification of the family. Antigone is, we have no reason to doubt, loving and capable of love:
but her love is bound up with, and inseparable from, an idea. When Ismene transgresses this

50

idea, then Antigone will cut her off like a lopped bough. She is not malleably affectionate,
like Ismene. This is the character, I believe, that Sophocles has conceived and that he will
unfold a s the play proceeds. In the meantime he has laid a foundation for it by giving us
straightaway, in a few skilful words, an Antigone anguishedly absorbed in the fate of her family.
If we disturb that preoccupation, so as to make her a s much interested in the enemies who
threaten her dear ones as in those dear ones themselves, we disturb her concentration, we
lessen her single-mindedness, we weaken the initial characterization of the person who is to
be able to say, at her greatest moment, O ~ O ouv&x8eLv,
L
&?& o u p q ~ ~ b Thvu v . Surely
the poet who conceived that magnificent manifesto, making her supremely reject preoccupation
with t$@poc is not likely to have made the same character, in the first lines of his play, stoop
to divide her attention equally between her friends and her enemies!
Then there is an effect of dramatic situation, rather than of character as such, which Sophocles
is preparing for us later, against which this version offends. It is one with which we are familiar tom the Oedipus Tyrmnus: that of a character growing away from reality: Oedipus more
and more mis-reading his situation so that he believes all opposition to himself is inspired by
political motives d o r g . Creon in Antigone does the same; and the dramatic tension in
the Antigone is largely provided by the contrast between a Creon more and more developing his
compulsive illusion that he is the object of m t b ~ g that
,
is, that he has &@poi who are plotking
against him in Thebes, and the real situation, namely that he has to do with a peculiarly obstinate and dedicated example of family-feeling and devotion in the shape of Antigone. Now, if,
in the first lines of the play, Antigone has already shown herself to be actively concerned, not
merely with those she loves, but also with her h @ p o i (that is in this case, by definition,
Creon himself), then she has in fact confirmed Creons suspicion that he has to reckon with a
faction in Thebes which opposes him, and she has made his reading of the situation not illusion
but reality! When he declares

&A& T a k a mt & h ~ r b d x ~ w g
&vGpec &LS
G p o n e g kp@ouv k ~ o ~ ,
% p%&pa
~ [TEiOVTE6, o h * k o <u*
7
(289ff.l
?&ov ~LMXW ELXOV, & crc6pyeLv k&,

instead of his words creating dramatic irony,they are merely a realistic appraisal of the situation. So Sophocles manifest dramatic intention is perverted by this misreading of our line.
Perhaps enough has now been said to show that the version I have criticized of 6 v &e@v
m&ie wrong. Yet there remains one other cogent reason why it is wrong. And this is worth
adding, because it illustrates another source of meaning in Greek dramatic poetry. This source
is form, as employed in Greek sentenceconstruction. Greek sentences are constructed more
formally than ours because Greek writers use far more than we do - figures, q i $ a ~ a(attitudes,
gestures, postures of words). Some of the Greek figures we have inherited, some we have not.
Since the climate of modern literary taste is against formalism we tend, on the whole, to underestimate Greek formalism, and in particular the use of figures, either, if the figure is one with
which we are familiar, taking it too much for granted, or, if it is not familiar, ignoring it altogether. I n h e 10 we have an instance of the former case, where a figure with which w e are
familiar antithesis is involved. Now, if we follow the pmmpting of the figure of antithesis
alone, this suggests to us that TGV &xeP;;v is objective genitive. For, taking TGV kx8P;v
obj ect i vel y, A at i gone w i l l vir t d 1y be saying evils are coming to friends which ought

51

to come to enemies - and that is antithesis, Rut on the other interpretation Antigone will
be saying evils are coming to friends which are coming from enemies - and that is not antithesis at all. Jebb, who took TGV &epGv objectively, was aware of this point. He says:
&3poI being the natural persons to hurt cpiho~,the antithesis loses point (sc. on the a s s u m p
tion that TGV AxE)pGv is subjective, as in the Schneidewin version, taken over by Radermacher).
I should like now to pass on to a case in this opening scene, where I believe a figure to be
involved which, being relatively unfamiliar to us, has been overlooked. The line concerned
is 71: &XI id &ou UOL 8omC- XESVOV 6 & / &llor,where Antigone is replying to
Ismenes refusal to join her in burying Polyneices. Ismene has, in the preceding speech, given
&v6pac 06 p x o 6 p w a
two reasons for her refusal, 1) TOCCO pZv yuvaix & L / &pup,~v, & T&
(that is, that it is a fact of nature that she and Antigone are women, with all the physical and
moral inferiority that that in her assumption implies), 2) &rsLTa ~ o ~ ; v E x &.px&d

&c
Y)ELOU~V(IW,
/ xal Tab' &xoG ELV &TL TGvR &hyIovcc (that is, thRt they are subjects, bound
to obey the law of the state). Antigone replies, o h SV X E X E ~ L ~ o ,h Ecv, E [ 86hoLg &TL /
TY)&UUE L V , &OF y2v T$&S
8 p h s p6~cc(I wont urge you any more - indeed I wouldnt accept
you now a s an ally). &Xh toe &nola O O L GomZ mCvov 66y&/&po
- Ill do the job
myself. nut L o ~ L pulls us up. Everything else is acutely pertinent to what has been said,
tightly bound on to it. But iue L be such-and-such - doesnt seem to connect with it. Jebb
trnnslates, be such a s thou wilt, show what character thou wilt; and hc quotes verbal parallele
for E%VCLL with TOLO%O(;, meaning be of such-and-such a character. This is obviously relevant
enough in matter; but there is still a lack of formal connexion of the emphatic be^ with the
foregoing. We feel that Ismene should have said something about being such-and-such, in order
to provoke Antigones i&L as a response. It is perhaps this feeling which has 1o.d some people
to take ioeL as from aka, and & O L ~ as its object in the neuter plural writing &oC& UOL
6 0 ~ s ;-judge, come to what conclusions you please. Then i& would be a response to what
Ismene has been doing in her speech she has been weighing-up, judging.

Well, of course, Ismene has said something about being such-and-such ~ o k ~o E vyuvazx
&L
&p\lpFV; but we dont make the connexiori because she has expressed herself with a different verb from E ~ V C C L , The natural reply to that remark of Ismenes would he, in Greek as in
English, be-by-nature whatever you choose ( whrrcns 1 shall be concerned H it11 doing), using
There i s howver no imperative of cpFvaL in use. This is not a
the imperative of cpGvaL.
difficulty in Cseek, because it is possible t o substitute for the notional imperative of cpGvai the
synonymous word ZOHL. In doing so one is not speaking in the natural way, but using an artificiality - a figure which is reasonably familiar in Greek, but not in English, The figure is
uariutio, replacing a word with its synonym, as in O.T. 54, dc ~ ; m p@E,ELS T ~ U ~f i Gd , h p
~ C Z or~ i n Ct h e~ instance
~
which w have just had: o k &v, E! e6xoLc & c L / ~ ( P & E L v ~
Here uariatio i s the stylistic bridge (as there must be some
E ~ O Uy ccv $ & ~
fip(;lqs
~ p&a.
bridge) allowing Antigones words to connect on t o Ismeneb. When this is realized, what was
otherwise a eturnbling-block to understanding is removed; and what was inelegant becomes
elegant and stylish.

I
_

It may swni that the point involved i R a small one, which affects the sense very little. I
agree, but would point out that there is also involved a technique of expression which, if it is
not observed in such small, more or less obvious examples, will not be available to explain
matters in more difficult ones. I shal1 now turn to what I believe to be such a case, later in
52

the play, in which failure to observe this very same technique has poduced, I think, a major
misunderstanding. The lines are 550-1:

In this dialogue Ismene has offered to share the guilt of (and the punishment for) Polyneicee
burial, with Antigone. But Antigone has repulsed her, harshly and contemptuously. She
doesnt want Ismene to die along with her. Her own death will be enough. Ismene replies
16rL .ris pwg poi uo% ? ~ . s L ~ ~ ~AOS;
~ v I J
What good is life to me without you? Antigone:
Icpd:ovt&pha- TOGBE y6+ du ~ F E C ~(that
~ V is, you dont belong to me any more; you belong
to him; so that your hopes for the future are bound up with him). This is a taunt; so Ismene
replies, Whydo you hurt me like this, when it does you no good? Then comes line 551,

giving Antigones answer.

In my discussion of this line I shall not spend time trying to prove that the manuscript
text of the line - chyoiba k\Ev 6% E { y h m & v 001 YE?G- which Pearson, SchneidewinNauck-Raderrnacher, and now, of course, Mazon-Dain retain, is corrupt,12 and that the elegant
emendation of Heath - h X y o h k3v 6%, E; YEG
y, & v 001 YE% - which has the closest
possible confirmation in the tell-tale circumflex which is to be found over the wof YEG
in
L, is right. Rut what I do wish to discuss is, assuming this reading to be right, what does
the line mean? How was it intended to be spoken?
Jebbs rendering is as b l l o ws. Ismene has said, Why do you hurt me, when it does you
Antigone picks up this last participle with &lyo&a $v
no good? ( 01% &eXoup&vq).
6.Fi.C - indeed it is to my pain that I hurt you, if I do hurt you (that is, if I mean to hurt you)
only YEG
2 mock - is substituted foi & v G j since in fact the hurting that Ismene complains
According to this version
of is mockery (the taunt Kp6ov-t E ~ K U * TOGEE & 0% x~$E$v).
Antigone, in this line, expresses tenderness, concern, anguish for Ismene. She is sorry to
hurt her, sorry for Ismene: and this feeling is particularly expressed by &lyociOa Events
have placed her in a position where she is forced, in order to defend herself, to say things
which hurt her sister. But she is sorry, in the midst of all this, for that sister: she is sorry
that the words hurt. Jebb comments that the line shows thatfthe taunt sprang from anguish,
not from a wish to pain. 0thersl3 have not deduced any softening of the earlier words from
this line. They regard those as unsympathetic towards Ismene. But r31e.y agree with Jebb
that 551 expresses tender feeling fop Ismene. Therefore they think that in this line there is
a change of tone on Antigones part. If one reads through the various attempts which have
been made to interpret the play generally, one finds that this line has enormous importance
placed upon it. In a recent study, for instance, by the American scholar Ivan M. L h f o ~ t h , ~ ~
Linforths view of Antigone as a tender, wistfully loving person is very largely based, in so
far as it is based upon anything objective in the play, on this one line. There is a good
reason why this line tends to have this large importance put upon it. It is the only single
line in which Antigone is thought certainly to express tenderness for any person other than
herself (and that in the kommos in which she takes her leave). (I a m assuming that line 572
6: cpiXTae Azpov, 6s ua--cc&eL m~5p,is spoken by 1 ~ m e n e . l ~ But
) is this interpretation
right? The question is worth considering very carefully, because, if it were not right, then
a whole facet of the character of Antigone ae it exists in the mind of commentators, might
disappear.

53

And straightaway we notice that this interpretation is at variance with context. Antigone
changes her tone - just here, just for this one line. And there is no good reason why she should
change her tone here. The context is forcing us to believe in another Antigone, an Antigone
keyed to quite a different mood. Her earlier remarks in this piece of altercation with Ismene
(conveyed first in balancing distichs, then, as the argument between them quickens to a climax,
in stichomythia) have been barbed, combative. Every single thing she has said has been in
contradiction of her sister, throwing back at her what she has said.16 Here, at this only point
in the stichomythia, will there be a slackening of pace and of tension, as well as a change of
mood.

It is of the very essence of stichomythia that it should be sharp, concise, and to the point.
In stichomythia each speaker has doled out to him a single line of dialogue, rather as the Greek
litigant had allotted to him a certain time in which to plead his case. In that short space of
a line he has to make his point, and make it tell. There is something artificial, unsympathetic
to us about stichomythia. We haven't got anything quite like it in our own literature, anything,
that is to say, which can be at once passionate altercation, and at the same time formalized,
pedantically balanced dialogue. I think that the analogy of the lawcourts helps one to understand how the Greeks came to cherish such a feature in drama. And we should remember too
that the art of pleading in the courts was in fact-the other great popular art besides drama which
was being developed and consolidated at the very same time as drama. The same audience
which saw the tragedies could listen to the speakers in the courts, whether as bystanders or
as actual judges. In the courts they would be already used to hearing an art of pleading which
specialized in the rapid presentation of subtle and damaging arguments - damaging to the opponent's point of view - sometimes presented through the medium of cross-examination by the
prosecutor of the defendant, sometimes even taking the form of an altercation between them
(as in the exchanges between Socrates and Meletus in Plato's Apology). It follows that we
should expect dramatic stichomythia, fostered as it was in this ugonistic environment, to be
normally concise, intelligible, and making, to the limits of the speaker's ability, telling points.
When we so interpret a line of stichomythia as to render it flabby, obscure, aimless or inconsequent, then this is a sure sign that either the original writing is bad (which is presumably the
last assumption we should make), or that the words are corrupt, or that we have somehow failed
to construe them or take their meaning, and have missed some element in them which is important,
and which the author-producer would have made his actor bring out in his presentation. Lines
of stichomythia must stand or fall by their point and relevance.

On these principles, the old text of line 551 is ruled out, because it is on any interpretation
flabby .and obscure. And the emended version, as interpreted above, is still peculiar and unsatisfactory, because it introduces inconsistency, and slackens the pace of an altercation when it is
growing to a pitch of intensity.
My conclusion is that 551 is being misinterpreted. There is another possible interpretation
which is not open to the above objections, and which I believe to be the correct one. The
mistake the editors make is to connect c h y o h with o h b v & ~ E ~ o u & ? . They do this partly
because both are participles, but mainly because they do not think of connecting bXyoZ;aa with
&v&,
because it is a different verb, different, they assume, in meaning from b h y o k . They
have forgotten, or ignored uariutio. In my view h y o k connects with, and is a reply to, &v &,
not O & ~ V &p~XoupLdvq. It is a mere accident that both &?~yyo"laOl
and o h b v &pcXoupdvq happen
54

to be participles. & k p h stands for h v ~ q d v q by

, variutio. Ismene has said, Why do you
hurt me when it does you no good? Antigone ignores the ineseential o&&v &E~ou~&w,, and
replies to the main proposition: Hurtyou? Nay, it is to my hurt it is I who am hurt - when
I mock at you, if I do mock at you! (On this rendering $,v S%a is corrective, not C O R O ~
rative, as Jebb takes it.17) Nor does Antigone, I think, mean hurt to her feelings of affection

for Ismene. That is inconsistent with the Antigone created for us in this play. She means
hurt to the pride, to the family ideal. Iemene has let the family down she is not worthy to
belong to it. She is a Creons woman, a disgrace. She is not hurt, because she is not
capable of being hurt, because she doesnt count. She is not a real person any more for
Antigone. She has been expelled into the outer pale. Not even does Antigones hesitation
over the mockery betray tenderness for Ismene. We must remember that mock at is not
necessarily an accurate tEanslation of YE%.
The word means frequently (and I think it
means here) not merely mock at, laugh at, but also triumph over in mockery, score off
(cf. Ajax 79 ohouv y h r , I;~~LWCOC &~epouc yeGv;). Antigones sarcasm IipEovr
&p&cx* TOGEE y6.p ou xqis&v, which is unanswerable (nor does Iemene tTy to answer it she merely rejoins Why do you hurt me?) is for her a triumph in argument over Ismene, if
she c h s e s to regard it as a triumph. She means then, It is to my hurt that I score off you,
triumph over you - if I do triumph over you - that is, if I bother to! To Antigone, as we said,
only the circle of her cpiXo~has importance. Ismene she has already, from the very first
moment of her refusal to help bury Polyneices, put beyond the pale. Ismene therefore has
, a &son over whom Antigone might feel
become for her an &+6~, or a potential &6&
entitled YEEV
, to triumph over, to rejoice at her discomfiture. But Antigone does not feel
disposed to enjoy this triumph over Ismene since, as a member of the family who has let the
family down, she is more properly a source of pain and shame than of pleasure and triumph:
she has proved herself, on Antigones high standards, b G v mx$ (71~(puxuCia)(cf. 38) - a
weakling product of a noble stock. A t the same time it is characteristic of Antigone to feel
contempt rather than active hostility towards her enemies o k o ~o u v & k L V , &I?& oupcp~kiv
&pv.
She may therefore, even regarding Ismene as an &6& , not bother to triumph over
her. 18

In this way, and on this rendering, Antigone maintains the incisive, reproachful tone of
her earlier remarks at this crucial point of the stichomythia. The line is made to fit properly
into its context - not merely the preceding part of the context, but also what follows. For
all Antigones following remarks are, if we study them closely, just as harsh, just as barbed.
What she says in 559-60, &POEL* ou $v Gfic, 4 66,; yux$ & k x ~ / ~ 6 6 v q m v&TE Toic
B c t v o k ~ v& p ~ b i v , which it is natural to take - in its beginning as a sarcasm, is only taken
in any other sense by Jebb because of his rendering of 55L He says: &pm L is not said
with bitterness (that could hardly be, after 551): rather it means, Take heart to live, as
Whitelaw renders it.

I should like to add a more general remark on this scene as a whole. I get the impression
that many commentators do not really understand what is being transacted in it. They think
that it is aimed at Creon. But in fact he is thrust aside at line 536, and does not come into
the picture again until 577. It seems to me very dramatic that Creon is thus thrust out of the
debate and that, despite the fact that he is physically the arbiter of the fate of both the sisters,
despite the danger from him, the sisters resume their personal dispute where they left it off
at the conclusion of the prologue of the play, just as if he were not there. The point of their
55

argument is that Ismene wanta to break back into Antigone's love and affection, to override
b ban of exclusion pronounced upon her by Antigone. That is why she expresses herself
as she does in 536 i&ipaxa ~ o t p y o v , &'imp 5s' &cOppoesi - &'imp 58' &opp&e~isn d ,
as some suppose, a flatpilly remark, indicating that Ismene is lukewarm in her support of
Antigone, and weakly leaves the initiative to her. It means that she is not thinking of Creon,
that her eyes are fixed now upon Antigone. Antigone, not Creon, is, as a simple matter of
fact, her judge. She cannot bear to be separated from Antigone, and she quite literally wishes,
to die with her. This does not mean that she has changed her mind about the burying of
Polyneices. She thought before that Antigone's decision to do that herself in defiance of
constitutional authority was wrong because it was unpracticable, and she still thinke so thie
is shown by 555-6:

She is true to herself just as Antigone is, and she cannot (as a Greek would say) yv&qv
6 i a r p e ~ i p ~ t . vshe
: ~ ~cannot go back on her reasons. The scene might be rendered in prose
English somewhat as follows:

CREON Will you affirm that you were a partner in the deed, or will you forswear all knowledge
of it?

ISMENE I have done it - if she agrees. I share - and I bear the blame along with her.
ANTIGONE Ah! that Justice will not accept from you; since, in the fist place, you would
not agree to do it, and in the second, I did not accept you as a partner!

Is.

Yet I feel no shame, when you are in this extremity, to put myself in the same boat
of suffering along with you.

Ahl

R o did the deed, Hades and the dead are witnesses.

IS.

Do not, I pray you, my sister, degrade me from the right to die along with you, and
to consecrate our brother along with you.

AN.

As for words I cannot

etand a friend whose friendship expresses itself only in those.

Don't you dare die with me! Don't make your own what you never laid hand to.

I shall do very well dying myself!

IS.

And what is there for me in life bereft of you?

AN.

Ask Creonl He is your connexion now1

IS.

Why do you wound me? What good can it do you?

AN.

Wound you? It ie I that am wounded when I jeer at you if I do jeer!

IS.

What then can I still do to help you?

AN.

Save yourself.

IS.

Alas! Am I then to be left out of yow death tool

I don't begrudge your escape!

56

AN.

Yes1 Because you chose life, I death.

IS.

Rut I would have saved you, if words could have saved you.

AN.

Your opinions were addressed to one audience, mine to another!

IS.

And yet we stand both equally guilty before the law.20

AN.

Keep your heart up! You are still alive! And - as for me - I died long ago in
helping the dead!

M y aim in this paper has been to try to get some of the details right, and to suggest that
we are still far from having reached the end of our resources in the mere interpretation of the
Greek of this play, as of others. However, the meaning of the parts cannot be separated
ultimately from the meaning of the whole, and I am bound, before I end, to say something
about this other kind of meaning: that is, the general meaning of the play as a work of art,
into which these parts might be expected to fit. This is what most books about Sophocles
are taken up with - what the plays, as plays, mean.
Here meaning includes value, particularly moral value. The issues which are raised in
and by the Antigone are of such a nature, and are expressed in such a way, as to challenge
the percipient (whether audience or reader) to make moral judgments about them. Unfortunately,
different percipients make different moral judgments about the issues raised, see different
meanings in the play. Some think Antigone was absolutely right, Creon absolutely wrong.
Some have thought that both were right - though this view has not now much vogue. Some
think that, though Creon was wrong, Antigone was wrong too. She should not have broken the
law. She shows a reckless, arrogant daring - $py, if you like - in defying the acknowledged
ruler of the state, in however good a cause.

I occupy what may seem a peculiar position in this argument. Fbr while I have tried to
bring out points in my detailed interpretations, which are usually emphasized only by those
who criticize Antigone and see fit to detract from her, and who correspondingly see more than
a tittle of right in Creon, yet I do not, on the whole, agree with these judgments. I agree that
Antigone is harsh to Ismene, but I do not draw from this the consequence that the dramatist
is in some way aginAntigone. A s far as it is possible for a work of art to declare in
favour of one of its characters Sophocles play seems to me to declare clearly enough in
favour of Antigone. For, apart from the fact that it shows her action to have been undertaken
in defence of a principle which the Greeks of the historic period (Sophocles of course assumes
an imaginary prehistoric background) came to regard as international law - respect for the
bodies of dead enemies21 - it also shows it to be underwritten, as it were, by the gods, who
intervene to punish Creon, not merely for not burying Polyneices, but for interfering with
Antigone when she undertook to bury him. A t 1068-9 Teiresias warns a e o n that he will pay
witha deathof his ownoffspring: AVO Z v ~ X E L Sp.5~ TGV gvw P a h v &TW, yu$p T
& T ~ W d v T*
m-cpCimc
& z ihere
~ means degrading Antigone from civil privileges.
The implication must be that the gods (speaking through Teiresias) do not regard Antigone as
% c i ~ o c , i.e. that she has not forfeited her rights. What the gods and religion say at this late
juncture in the play must be a final judgment. There could not be a clearer indication that,
according to the plays final tenor, Antigone has done no wrong.
57

Further, there is a more general point, other than the burial of Polyneices, at issue between
Antigone and the opposition characters (by which I mean Creon, the chorus, and to some extent
Ismene). The opposition believe that the state is supreme, and that religion and all other
values should be subordinate, ancillary to it. This is the moral of the famous second stashon.
The chorus there, giving their memorable description of mans growth towards civilization,
+pi. The polis is the
pointedly put at the pinnacle of this development mans &UV&OL
end and culmination of civilization. Only the failure to conquer death, now that the law of
the polis has been learnt, separates man from perfection. Significantly for the choruss scale
of values, excellence is defined by them in terms of the polis. Man is capable of good and
evil. Good is when he obeys the law of the n6& andthat justice which men invoke the gods
to maintain!22 Then he is &~nohy - high in the citys regard. For them obvioualy this is
the supreme honour Otherwise he will be & C O ~ L C , cast out from the city, a fugitive, a reject,
~ T L P O S .23
Ihe subor dinat ing TE linking 8&v ~ v o p x o v6 I m v to V ~ ~ O U71-C
is a
master-atroke of characterization. It crystallizes the whole attitude of the chorus: that the
6lxq of the gods is not a force independent of the state-law, but an appendage d it. The
chorus have never envisaged a situation in which the &ate-law might contravene divine justice.
Pith such implicit revereme do they regard the former. A s the state-law cannot contradict
the divine law, and as the state is the supreme value, then the best formula for living is to
obey the state-law implicitly. Piety and goodcitizenship are merged; obedience to stateauthority becomes E&$E wZ4 virtue becomes law-abidingness. That is why the chorus
offer from first to last no effective opposition to Creon. That is why they remain unalterably
opposed to A n t i g ~ n e . ~In~clear contrast, on the other hand, to this attitude of the chorus,
stands Antigone. She believes that religion and law-abidingness are separable; that there
are certain natural laws, such as the law of family-pietas, which are protected by religion,
independently of the state, and which override the citizens normal duty of obedience to statelaw. This is a great issue between her and the opposition; and we have no alternative,
because of the experience of the centuries of civilized history which lie behind us, but to
pronounce upon Antigones side. Furthermore, the Antigone, by showing the disastrous
practical consequences of applying the opposite principle, also pronounces for Sophocles
day and age, as well as for ours, on her side.
It seems then that the issues are clear enough, and the plays implicit judgment upon
them clear enough. Why has it ever appeared otherwise, why can it still appear otherwise
to some? The answer is surely that the play is a tragedy, not a melodrama. And the essence
of tragedy is conflict, an &y&v. (Aristotle has omitted, in the Poetics, to say so. But there
are indeed many things that Aristotle has omitted to say.) In order to make it an &@v, Sophocles
has made out the best possible case for the opposition - for Creon and those who share his
belief in the over-riding authority of state law, and he has done it so well as to make it almost
appear that he wanted us to think Creon right. The view was well expressed by Goethe in
one of his conversations with Eckermann (anno 1827) during which they discussed Hinrichs
book on the Antigone. Goethe insisted that Antigone was absolutely right, and that there
could be no question of a conflict of equally valid rights, such as the Hegelian Hinrichs had
postulated. Und doch, put in Eckermann, wenn man ihn reden hiirt, so sollte man glauben,
dass er einiges Recht habe.

Das ists eben, replied Goethe, worin SophoMes ein Meister ist und worin iiberhaupt
das Leben dea Dramatischen besteht. Seine Charaktere besitzen alle eine solche Redegabe

58

und wissen die Motive ihrer Handlungsweise so iiberzeugend darzulegen, dass der Zuhhr
fast immer auf der Seite dessen ist, der zuletzt gespochen hat.
Assuming, however, that this general position is unassailable, assuming that Antigone is
right and that the main point of the play is that, contrary to the expectation of respectable
and responsible persons in the play, and contrary, one may guess, to the expectation of a
great many people in Sophocles audience, she is right, we are still, it seems to me, left with
two acute problems of interpretation. The first is, how are we to explain the harsh attitude
of Antigone to Ismene? If we agree that Antigone is right, we cannot very well at the same
time accuse her of $py, and regard this harshness as a manifestation of it. W h a t then is its
point? And the second problem - a problem, I think, largely of production as well as of the
plays meaning - is, what to do with a main character, Creon, who is unsympathetic. In most
productions of the play, and in most interpretations (which are, after all, sketches for productions) it tends to fall away towards the end. This is surely because we are left with Creon
as the central figure - Creon, whom we have seen discredited, humiliated in a very devastating
way. After his early assertiveness he gives in - we might think almost too easily - to Teiresias.
He seems curiously weak and childish when he turns to ask the chorus what he should do (1099)
he who had been so self-confident, so dictatorial. It is noticeable too that Creon never, during
the long closing scene, offers to take his own life, although Haemon and Eurydice do so without
hesitation. Yet Creon, who has not merely lost his wife. and only son but has also, by his own
confession, been the cause of their deaths, has even more reason, one would think, to kill
himself than they had. It would seem, we may remark here, that Creon belongs to a different
type of character from the Antigones, the Haemons, and the Eurydices. He is mare like the
chorus and the guard, who all cling to life.26 But was it not an artistic weakness to leave
such a character holding the stage, after Antigones dismissal? It may be added that this
kind of problem arises to some extent with all the diptych27 plays of Sophocles - that they
may appear to fall away at the end, from the standards of the earlier parts.

In order to try to answer these questions it is necessary to ask oneself, narrowly, what
the play is about. Some think that it is about the heroism of Antigone; most would add that
it is also about the burying of Polyneices, and the rights or wrongs of that. And some would
see in and through all this a religious issue. In my belief the Antigone, in so far as it banscends all these other issues (and transcend them it does) is a play about politics. In this it
resembles the Ajax, a play with which it has often been compared.
The Ajax, like Antigone, is a diptych play. The first part describes the heroism of Ajax.
Ajax dies nobly. Like Antigone, like Electra, he cannot face life without honour, life lived
below his own (heroic) standards. But this first part of the Ajux, while depicting the greatness
of the man, also shows his weakness, his limitation. He is a man of unstable nature, who goes
mad over a suppsed injustice. He is a man of blood, ungentle to his infant child whom he
wishes to inure immediately to scenes of bloodshed.28 He is harsh to women. He cherishes
bitter enmities, unforgiving and unrelenting. Above all he is an individualist, a man whom
we cannot easily think of as taking the large, imaginative, statesmanlike view of a situation
in which he is personally concerned. That requires another type of man, more ordinary, less
heroically brave, but yet with his own kind of endurance, and far broader than Ajax because
he has more imaginative sympathy. It is typical of this Odysseus that he puts himself in the
shoes of other men - when Agamemon says to him 8wyag ozv p s TOV V E X ~ ~ V
L V &v;
he redies d y w y ~ *Ha & a s o c ; kv&8 h j q u t b (4. 1365). ?his i s true wisdom, true
oclxpp~6vq,the very essence of that deeply humble philosophy of life which is Sophocles
59

message to us. It is altogether wrong, it seems to me, to suppose that Sophocles sympathy
is primarily with the heroically great. Come to think of it, Sophocles is likely to have been
himself a man much more like the Odysseus of the Ajax than like Ajax. The compliment
which he pays to his Ajaxes and Antigones is the enerous compliment which a man of one
type pays to another quite different type who perhaps would not thank him for it, as the spirit
of Ajax is presumed not to be willing to allow Odysseus to attend at his funeral. (Aj. 1393 ff.)

The irony of the Ajux is that the individualist hero Ajax cannot do without the statesmanlike wisdom of Odysseus. Had it not been for Odysseus, the Atreidai wodd have applied to
Ajaxs corpse the same vendetta-like law of reprisal for which Ajax himself stood. Ajax
would have been dishonoured and his family ruined. But the proposed treatment of Ajax by
the Atreidai is not just an act of private vengeance. It is also a calculated political act.
To act otherwise would be soft, a signal to their enemies to revolt against them: 4 p E ~du
6~ LXO\UC T$E 84pi+q p c ~ v ~ i says
6,
Agamemuon (1362- and the point is explained by Menelaus
at length earlier, at 1079 ff.). Nor is it the mere burying or not of Ajax that is at issue here.
Even more important is the spirit of vendetta which the denial of burial symbolizes, vendetta
carried so far that it will not leave the enemy alone even when he is dead (what Teiresias
v,
1030). Like some two-thirds of the tragedies that surcalls TOV ~ a v 6 v c C n ~ m a v ~ iAntig.
vive to us, the Ajux is an attack upon the spirit of vendetta both in private life and in political
that, and its natural ally, Muchtpolitik.

If my analysis of the Ajux is right, similar principles may apply to the Antgone. Here
again is a diptych play of which the first part contains a heroic act. Rut in this case the
heroic act is not husbanded and turned to account by wise Statesmanship. The statesman here
who believes in Muchtpolitik has no Odysseus to restrain him, only the Erastian, yes-men
chorus. The play is the obverse of Ajux. The Ajux represents the triumph of statesmanship,
the Antigone its failure. For while Odysseus is the extraordinary ordinary man -the man who
transcends ordinariness by his power to sympathize with &ve+
LO; Creon is the ordinary
d i n a r y man, thrust into a position of responsibility which calls for qualities above the ordinary.
He is filled with the commonplace ideas of his day - that the state is above everything, that
military virtue is the supreme virtue, that women are inferiors, that sons owe unquestioning
obedience to their fathers; above all, that a man a gentleman - should see fiends and enemies
everywhere, and devote a considerable portion of his energy to the discomfiture of the latter.
Hear him talking to Haemon:-

He significantly leaves no middle-term between joining your father in his feuds and not joining
him. Surely this whole doctrine of Friends-Enemies is being attacked here, Surely we can
rightly see in Greek Tragedy here a criticism of life, a criticism which expressed itself, after
the manner of art, symbolically and allusively long before the point was made overtly by Plato
in the ~ ~ ~ ~ b l i ~ . 2 9
60

If we take this view of the play, that it is aimed, consciously or unconsciously (and we
need not suppose that the artists motivations are always fully conscious) at a certain kind
of social and political unwisdom (and we must remember the remarkable accumulation of valuewords of inevitably political connotation in this context - F@ouXta, ebpouXu, w\ ( P P O V E ~ V ,
and so on in the latter part of the play) then we can see how it is possible for Creon, though
in the wrong, to hold the stage as the plays most central, if not its main character, to the end.
For Creon is no mad Greek (as many of his interpreters treat him) and no villain: he is simply
an ordinary Greek, applying to statecraft ideas that were by no means disreputable in the
political climate of his day. And, though these ideas are shown by the play to be b a n h p t ,
we ought perhaps to sympathize with him (as his audience no doubt sympathized with him) in
the personal tragedy in which they involve him.

And now, lastly, for Antigone. She is, to a certain degree, a sort of female Ajax. That
is the reason for her harshness, her lack of sympathy for the commonsense, the less than heroic.
This is not Gflp LG, not condemnation, but characterdrawing. The limitations of the character
are exposed along with its magnificence. Rut there is a point at which the characters of
Antigone and Ajax part company. They differ partly because Antigone is a woman, but partly
also because the situation which Sophocles conceived for dramatization is so different (within
its likeness) from that in the Ajax. For in the Antigone there is no statesman, no Odysseus,
to bear the message of liberal clemency in politics. All we have is Creon, the doctrinaire
exponent of Machtpolitik and vendetta in statecraft, and the submissive chorus. It may well
be, as Whitman suggests, that this difference of situation is the measure of subtle changes
in Athenian society taking place between the dates of the Ajax and the Antigone (Sophocles
p. 88). Artistically, at any rate, the only possible solution to Sophocles problem was that
Antigone should bear the message herself! So the monolithic, Ajax-like character was weaned,
for the nonce, from the doctrine of love your friends and hate-and-harm your enemies and made
to champion the doctrine of liberal clemency and reconciliation. I end where I began: ohoi
O u V h e E LV,
OUWLL~E~V
&puv - ~ \ 0 6ZOUC c p d ~ o ucmEixo\yta
~
TGV &epdv mki - not
evils coming from our enemies (whom w e know and can identify), but evils such as belong
to our enemies (if there be any such!)

University College London

NOTES

1 Thie paper was read to the M o n Classical Society on 14 November, 1962. I am pateful to thoee who
c d u t e d to the lively discussion that followed. While I waa writing the paper I f d that I w88 li.4
quently reminded d a Special U n i m i t y Lectwe delivered upon the Antigone by Messor D. L. Page,at
Univereity College M o n , on 19 octobea 1959,which poduced a very considerable effect u p ne,as I
imagine it must have upon a lot of people. I refer to this lecture latar.
2 The messenger epeaka ae if Creon had been tbe responsible leader duringthe Late battle, though ofcomse
the leaderehip really belonged to Eteoclee, end though in hie fvet speech to the chcnre Chon emphas,ized
his owtl newness to leadership. similarly ~eireeiaaaaye to a e o n ( 9 9 ~ ) Z O ~ W 6 L tp% T$
kwxM~$?eLC d h v . I do not think WB are meant to reduce these t b g a to a logical ccneisbncy in
our minds. It suited Sophocles dramatic purpose, perticularly towards the cloee of the play, to regard
Crem ae tbe established ruler, the man who bas waved hirnself by success, who can yet be tumbled to

61

dieamk through S@cUn~aand lthe c ~ p a g ed a ymmg girl withnothing but justice m ber side.

3 ~uring
the discmeion, some b e w i ~ m nWBB
t exgreased about the effective meaning oi mpixqy6~imm,
and ite implication for Crecms cavltitutioaal positica. I do not think that qything mue is m a d than that,
Meoclee being dead, &on is now the conrmender-ipchief. As such, however, he would bave & of Thebed
vd&po&tion (her rmn of military age.) under hie command and this would make it the easierfor bimto
step into the shoes of Eteoclee in civil rule aa well as military, aided aa be w88 by his canetitutional claim
tothe b c m e of Thebee (cf. 1734). Still, the playia doIllinated by a w a r a t m o s h . It is the war ahm&re which explains, if it does not excuse, the savagery ofthe measures F n againat Polyneicee. It is
rightthat~shouldthinkofCreon~theverybegIrmingas~OT~~.

lxpefivcc~erat inteP. T& &V

4 Schaefer, fm instance, explains clearly andbeautifully: TO & w p v
d ,inter ?la q p . h t h ab te perpetiebatm. id nunc OTE [XE L w\oc;T&C &OK, inferkr d o i s :
qua rmlla mia cog~tar~
poteet mfelicitaa, nulla foedior cmt\lmelh.

11 C p i s p y in the characws(ation is discussed by Ariatotle Poet. chap. l$ (1454 a 22 f.). He cycludee

~p;p p a+?+
TLS 6 o T;)v p . l p . q ~ ~76(p&wv
v
wri. TOLO%OV ?leg +LOSIC
;jlw6 qy9
a-bv
SET ELW, and that it is necesaay fcr the poet
<T,TETV \TO, a,ucLuxaiov, q x%e~mg
I j c I 7 ~TOV T O L O ~ O V12~ o ~ a G
r ~
h EL
n( V
+LV
q auxym7ov q EL-.
~anachsaacterm
a Greek plw suqxise us? Can he cz she behave aa what M E. M. Fcrater, speaking of the v e y different
warld of the modern novel, describes as a mumi character, acting on occasion with the incalculability d
We (Aspects o f the Novel. p. 1@)?
In my view, yes. Sophocles Clytenmestra, I believe, does just this
when she exhibits genuine grief over tbe supposed death of Chstes (Electm766-T11). But this is reaacm
able inconsistency. As hk Fcrater puta it, the test of a round character is whether it is capable d surpising in u conuincing way (my italics). bkqcetations of dram, on the other haud, which aasuum randam
a pointless incanaistencies in the characterization should be suspected.
12 The greatest objwtim to the line aa it stands in the M39. is that it ia tenibly awkward and difpicult to
translate. Haw then could it be effective in R rapid paasage of stichomythia?
13 L Campbell, f a instance.
14 Antigone and Creon (Uniu. of C a l i f m i a Fzlblicatims in Classical Philology) 1961.

15 The dishonom ref& tothere. is of course that of denying Haemon the right to choose a bride wcrthy d
y m choice. That seem to um fm better
himself for himeelf. The line meam how your father dishI
mid by Iemene. Rut ifanycme believes thet it is said by Antigone, that does n d geatly affect the
rmkeinthetd.

62

16 Indeed, Antigcmen tone &omthe beginning of the play hae been severe, uktender towards Iemene. This
was demonstrated in a masterly way by D. L. Page in his lecture at university College (see note 1 ern).
Thus it is not merely the immediate context of this mgumnt which creates this impasion of harshness:
it has been built up, skilfully and deliberately, throughout the play. It is idle, in such circumetencee, to
Ireat individual lines selectively, reading into them the sentiments we assume any good sister should
cherish towards another. We should humbly submit ourselves to the imessions and atmosphere the poet
is striving to create. Thus dramatic meaning is created meaning which may seem to som to be subjective, but is nevertheless objective in that it p.oceeds from the shape and fmmewcrk of the actual play.

$V
S h is not otherwise atksted. Most, but not all editors (see,fcr inetance,
Schneidewin-Nauck-Radeamecher) take it here as ccrrobcdive. Actually Denniston (Particles)gives
and $v can contradict cc comct s peviws assertion.
sulEcient examples to show that bcth S+
Further, $v 64 ie found, and is corrective, at O.T. 294 and SB.

17 The collocation

18 I have tried in the above to give a faithful account of how I read line 551,how I imgine it to have been
spoken. But, having delivered rqy paper, I happened to look at Beyfields Red hlacmillan edition, which
I had, I am sary to say, not consulted befm. Though Bayfield takes $V 6 h aa omdmitive, he
manages to wring the same kind of sense from the line that I do. His excellent ncte (thebest, I think,
by any commentator) deserves quotins: The point of the difficult line 551 lies, I think,in the double
meaning of p%, mock and laugh,which tranelation cannot convey. The meaning seems to be, ThoBe
who mock as I confess I did do indeed usually get the @Xv;s of pleasure out of their mockery
(laughtewnockery); in mocking at you I get no such & ~ r p ~ c , aXyoGxz ~ E (an
G oxymcmn). G p
suit the meaning wmockery springs 5vm my anguish; fcp that we should
assents, a d would
rather have had 6.lTOL. Antigone does not softan cr apologize; though she ceases to m k ,
she remains cold and impassive to the end of the dialogue. Rofesscp T. B. L Webetar has also drawn
my attention to Cocteaus tranelation (Antigone,in vol. i of Theatre, Paris,Gallimard, 1948): Je ris
un rire contre toi qui nest pas drBle. Je ne raille pes sans me faire du d.
The m t impCrtant PO&
which arises from all this is that Antigone should not be thought to change her tone,to become bder
towanls Ismene. That is the fallacy which many commecommit, and it is one which I hope I shall
have helped to overcome in moet peoples minds, even if I shall not have persuaded them to take the

Qeek exactly as I do.

19 cf. Aesch. Agnm 932.

20 Her guilt befm the law would be as mat as Antigones because C~OG~EWLC planuing, cc aiding and
abetting the deed (of which her confession, 536-7,would be evidence) was equivalent to doing it: cf.
Andoc. Myst. 94,Upeius Attische Recht 613. Antigones reply means Dont wary,bhey havent exeaikd
you yet &e. hmene may get &). She doesnt believe Creon will execute Ismene fcr a lUgterical

outbumt.

21 D. L Page argued that Creons treatment of Polyneices was in accord with normal Athenian p t i c e , citing
a number of well-knm paseams to show that the Athenians denied bmial in Athenian soil to traitcra
(Thm., i 138. Vita Antiphovrtis 24;
Leocr. 113). But to deny burial within a specified,ama is one
pscribe Fyztionfs$her;
,Chon commands $V F&&mov,
WC?, np\os OWGV
Sip4/
WCL npg xu& &MKOV
aLxLa8Evr ~8eiv(205-6). Cf. D. W. Lucaa The Creek Ttagic Poets, 2nd
ed. (1959)p. 140. Ch the other hand I do not see the need to add to Creone crimes that he left the other
ccrp3es of the Seven unburied. This idea seems to me to nest upon a m i s h t e r p ~ W
ion of 10803,which
I take to refer only to the pollution of the citys a l h by tba cauying thither of the remaha of Polymices

&.

9,
corpee.

22 G v ~ ~ v c p x o6vImv ,whatever may be the pecise meaning of that curious *se.

23 Aa will be seen I do Mt subscribe to the view that b + f h h gis having hie city on high, 6hdy loehg
(i.e. destroying)hie city.

24 he mminga of E ~ J E ~ ~ ~ C - S I X X X Sam
~ ~ of
S coume divalent. ~ b ~ pcan
f mean
i ~ lpiouein
stfct4 religious a p e , cp it can me) sinply dutiful a,law-abkbg, cf. F , P h o e n S W , E L p
YPY, ~ ~ L X G C ~Vp q , .~patvv/605T L / A ~ ~ ~O
~ L xV
s ~ v&ah
,
6 EUJE~E~VX ~ W V ,
Antiph. 6.93 etc. Sophocles seeme to me 9 play o n , y bjlguity throughout the p y , especially in

V 6 d @ L C L V EUOEpOb E-qV
(924). @6wrrCpfLcc Sh,
tbe ladessnees of vhich she h e been convicted by Creon and the chorus. By E W E B O G she
refera to tbe natural piety with which she buried Polynaicee. The same conflict almost PUrming ie
W g m e S famoUe Cry 6

63

expeesed by the chcrue at 872 PI$ELV

$V
e&$skx TK: ' h e enough your respect i.e. your dutifulness to your brother's body is a kind of respectfulness' (the &her kind is their own sense of respect to
the tempmid power).

25 ~ k u e they
,
say h e , d q l T O L , pfi T L wc'L BE<kov/.cd$yov T&',
CGvvoux fJoukikL &b.~
(2789). The importance of these words hae been neatly exaggerated. They are spoken before the chave
have any idea who did the deed. From the moment it becomes clear that it WE Antigone. they offer no effectiVe(oppo$tion to Creon end no disposition to ally themselves with Antigone. They describe her colduct
9 * \
as q m u q (383). She, fcr them, F q b Y T'O $ v q p
mpov
&mG m~p\o5/ .c;6 ~ D X L ~ (471),
&
she is the unfcntunate descendant d an accursed stock (3rd et asimon, where I take the A6you ~ ' h v o u x
C F ~ E ~$J' V LV& of 602 to be most definitely Antigone's\ Afterwards they listen to the argument
between Creon and Haemcm, in which Antigone's conduct is defended by the latter, and comment that 'there
is much to be said on both sides' (2246). But they me so far h m having underetood the pointa of pinciple
raised in Haemon's speech that they can say in the 4th stasimon that it is Aphrcdite (not any winciple of
justice) that is responsible for the quarrel between H a e m and& father ('7%). They complain fact
that Aphrodite (acting though Antigone's chsrmrr) is ae powerful as, even mcee powerful thmthe great
&Up.& k e . the regulatione of established government)in which they believe (7959). This powerful a b tion now wcsks so strongly in themelves that they can no longer (ofd,end ytimal and altogether 1f""b'ding
a:
are) resist the impulse to pity Antigone (801 vGv 8' $3q )to mwcx 0 w @ v / &pq q x p L
q7.h x.T.X. ). Their pity moves them to try to comfort her. But this coinfatis confined to assuring
her that ehe goes to her grave glcrioue, commended (by them? " b y do not sw so), of her own accord, not a
victim of wasting sickness or death in battle (817ff. ). "hie comfort lacke humanity. Moreover, is it wholly
sincere? ~ o e not
s 83~rltSx?&i hk TOL mi ~ ~ o y c v v ; l c+psic
,
8; /+mroi mi eqtoyevaic n.7.h.)
hint that they think h r a prig? ff th";t is not thep tone, her ?ply, is, yixhlligible o l ' p ~yEk*$fx~. TL
pa? npp\og G v m & v , / oux o~xop6vavwk,e~c,ahh ~ l q x n o v ;(83940). ~n
any caee,
whatever their feelings towards her, their pinciplee reunchanged. They amount to utter condemnation
of her action. 'Having advanced', they say, 'to the Anthest Emit of rashness, thou hast struck heavily against
the lofty pedesta1,of jimtice' (852-5,Jebb's vereion. Me adde, 'by S h q b y underetami the law of the State
not those
VqLLWwhich Ant. preferred obey').
And their final julgment upon h y is -,hing
(87y
U6pELV $V
&&PEL&
TLc;/
Wpkx 6 &' S$ Xp&Txp&.EC,/
7 D p @ X C ' O V OW%.@
7 D E k L . / CrE
F ' a K v K &b'
&p ('your peasion for "going it alone" has been the ruination of you'. ae WB
might paraphrase). Well might Antigone, this first martyr, the ptototype of all martyre, complain that she goes
to her grave alone, friendless (876f.). Well might she protest against the essential lawleseness end the
violerwe with which she is treated (937ff., and cf. 841-51).

&

93

4"

1L6 Cf.. f y 9 chorus, 220

06%FLV
o'h, fiq

&,

and fcr the guard 43940 &l.?&

I&WX
(inaddition to almost everything else says
about himself). It is worth remmimring that the Athenians, while they expected citizens to be willing to fight
and if necessay die Zrn their ctty, ,also set a'value upon a Flthy clinpng-ontto,life: cf. \Nic@e,' words in
'I'huc, 6.9 =L'~_OL ~ r u y
TL
~ ~ 4 q q . 1 , ) EX TOG TOLO~COUp i , ~ p u o ? ~ME~OIV ?TEFLq e p p c o c , ,
a;c"~~
qpxti-o, vq&qv qt~oilryup& m@qv
E~KXL
,cg a v wc? T Q ~, V T ~ T L TL 9owag
s rn q c n
o
w F L mvcov P o u h o ~ ~rpeouCr8aL.
q
vpovm-p~' p h w n x rxf, a v o ~ o ~ o h j r om~
4ntigone on the other hand is like Sophoc,les' Electra, of whom the chorue in his Electm say 0th 15 G V
apGv +ip / I;& W0a;ic e);fChE~ c l va q G \ x x ~edk L / U ; v ~ + q (1082). ~n
the opening scene of the
Antigone Sophoclee, indeed, shows Antigone. to my mind as to Rofessca Page's, far too much "in lave with

~ F rptxr,
B
WCYV / dp& 7@cpumT;is Epee camp

death".

~ V E %

That is the dark side of her character.

27 I use 'diptych' as a convenient term for the plays in which the main character disappears befm the end end
thus c ~ u s e the
s &amat.ic interest to s4ift, to som extant, h m himeelf to other pereons or mattere. I do nct
imply by it any jdgment as to artistic unity or lack of it.

28 Cf. Aj. 548-9.

29 Hk. i. .332 b f. and 334 b. The Greek doctrine, 'Love your fkiends and hate (and do hsrm to) your enemiee',
in at least as old aa Archilochus (cf. Pap. 0ry.XXIII (1954) 2310 b. i. col. i. 14-15). Cf.also Solon tk. 13.K.
Theog. 363-4; F'hl. Pyth. 2.83 f. Som$imes t h e , d o c p is ejrpressed in a disguised fcrm, ~ ~ a t " u e $ , ' ,
$. Aesch. 4 g n ~137: 7;;s T L ~c&orc %+ 7cc1)ouwv x.T.~.; Soph. Aj. 79 OvlLOUv y E ? W
~$5~ c m o gE LS F x e p o ~y ~ h ;It was the fear of being laughed at (i.e. triunphed over) by her enemies
that decided hkdea to kill her children. E h . Med. 797. This doctrine provided an ethical baeie for
political stmis. It is an ethic which, it seems to me, corns out on the whole badly in the s d h g

tragedies.

64