INTRODUCTION goes beyond the horrific chthonic gods of the old myths and the old religion to more impersonal gods, who do not appear on the stage as anthropomorphic beings and are more important for the principles they endorse than for any visual effects The weaknesses of Hegels reading have long been clear. It is as simplistic to identify Kreon with"the law of the State"as it is to identify Antigone with individualism tout court. Even Antigone's devotion to family love, or philia, is problematical, given the incestuous bonds within this family and her harsh treatment of her sister, Ismene, Ant one, to be sure, may be identified with the emergence of an individual ethical consciousness that resists the domination of certain laws that have been imposed by Thebes' present ruler, but the play calls into question whether these laws may be associated with an abstract, im- of the State. It is questionable to identify a small fifth century city-state or polis with the modem abstract notion of State. The polis of Antigone is rather the total civic space in which the religious d the political, t and the fact that they are so intertwined creates the tragedy. Each protagonist sees only half of the whole, and each acts as if the two ealms are independent of the other. nevertheless, Hegel's influence should not be taken lightly, and his articulation of his position in his earlier work offers a more nuanced and profound reading. In Hegel's dialectical thinking of this period, the position of human and divine changes places. The family, in its honoring of the dead, can also embody the divine law, while the city state's law, as the creation of human beings and as the visible regulate of day-to-day affairs, can embody the human. In the fact that the two sides share in both human and divine law lies the irreconcilably tragi nature of the conflict. And this confict is also gendered between the feminine-ontological"and the "masculine-political, "between the nans domestic world of hearth and home and the man's public world of civic assemblies and legislative bodies. 6 Political. historical. and social considerations add further nuances Antigone is opposing not the city's Law(nomos)as a totality, but rather Kreon's specific"decree"forbidding the burial of her brother's body She is primarily the champion not of the individual against the State but of the ties of blood and birth that rest on the solidarity of the family m s, in w. von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann York, 1998), 174-78(March 28, 1827) see,e.g, Steiner, Antigone, 49-51: T C W. Oudemans and A P. M. H Lardinois, Tragic ambiguity(Leiden, 1987), 10-17. 6. Steiner, 34-35
INTRODUCTIO N goes beyond the horrific chthonic gods of the old myths and the old religion to more impersonal gods, who do not appear on the stage as anthropomorphic beings and are more important for the principles they endorse than for any visual effects. The weaknesses of Hegel's reading have long been clear.5 It is as simplistic to identify Kreon with "the law of the State" as it is to identify Antigone with individualism tout court. Even Antigone's devotion to family love, or philia, is problematical, given the incestuous bonds within this family and her harsh treatment of her sister, Ismene. Antigone, to be sure, may be identified with the emergence of an individual ethical consciousness that resists the domination of certain laws that have been imposed by Thebes' present ruler, but the play calls into question whether these laws may be associated with an abstract, impersonal Law of the State. It is questionable to identify a small fifthcentury city-state or polls with the modern abstract notion of State. The polis of Antigone is rather the total civic space in which the religious and the political, the private and the public are closely intertwined, and the fact that they are so intertwined creates the tragedy. Each protagonist sees only half of the whole, and each acts as if the two realms are independent of the other. Nevertheless, Hegel's influence should not be taken lightly, and his articulation of his position in his earlier work offers a more nuanced and profound reading. In Hegel's dialectical thinking of this period, the position of human and divine changes places. The family, in its honoring of the dead, can also embody the divine law, while the citystate's law, as the creation of human beings and as the visible regulator of day-to-day affairs, can embody the human. In the fact that the two sides share in both human and divine law lies the irreconcilably tragic nature of the conflict. And this conflict is also gendered between the "feminine-ontological" and the "masculine-political," between the woman's domestic world of hearth and home and the man's public world of civic assemblies and legislative bodies.6 Political, historical, and social considerations add further nuances. Antigone is opposing not the city's Law (nomos) as a totality, but rather Kreon's specific "decree" forbidding the burial of her brother's body. She is primarily the champion not of the individual against the State but of the ties of blood and birth that rest on the solidarity of the family. 5. Among the earliest criticism is Goethe's, in J. W. von Goethe, Conversations with Eckermann, trans. John Oxenford (1850; reprint New York, 1998), 174-78 (March 28, 1827). For further discussion see, e.g., Steiner, Antigones, 49-51; T. C. W. Oudemans and A. P. M. H Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity (Leiden, 1987), 110-17. 6. Steiner, 34-35. 4
INTRODUCTION More specifically, she opposes to Kreon's authority the traditional au thority of the old aristocratic families to honor and bury their dead The care for the dead was especially the prerogative of women, and it as increasingly restricted in Athens in the sixth and fifth centuries as the democracy sought to limit the power of the aristocratic clans, but it was nevertheless widely respected. The Athenian institution of the public, city funeral for warriors who died in battle, established around the middle of the century, sharpened the confict between the familys unwritten laws"that pertain to the burial of the dead, which are also the"custom-laws"(another meaning of nomoi or nomima)that have a lace within every city and rest on the sanctity, as she says, of"Justice, who resides in the same house with the gods below the earth"and on the authority of Zeus himself(translation 495-501 /Greek 450-55) 9 Thus, while she is so human and moving in the fragile strength of her defiance of the ruler, she has on her side the weight of religious tra- dition, the universal recognition of the rights of burial, and the perfor- mance of those offices for the dead that traditionally belong to women in the polis and in the family Viewed more broadly, Antigone brings down to earth and to purely human characters some of the conficts of Aiskhylos'Oresteia. Antig- Boss position has some affinities with that of the Furies in Aiskhylos ict between Olympian and chthonic, upper and lower worlds, in he last play of the Oresteia, the Eumenides. Here the newer and younger Olympians, Apollo and Athena, who belong to the reign of Zeus, are identified with the male-dominated political institutions of e ancient gods, the Erinyes or Furies, daughters of primordial Night, defend the bonds of blood and birth and the rights of the mother and of Earth in their vengeful pursuit of the matricide, Orestes. To be sure, the issue of Antigone is burial, not vengeance; the cosmic order is in the background, not the foreground; and the focus is on the family as a whole and not on the rights of the father as against those of the mother. Antigone also presents the conflict in terms of the more impersonal "eternal laws of the gods" rather tha ment in the play see my Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity aspect of the play by William Tyrrell and Larry Bennett, Recapturing Sophoce mima)of the gods"of which Antigone speaks in 5oo-5or +54-55 refer primarily to the sanctity surrounding burial rites. Yet her word nomoi, literally "laws, in 498/452, also indicates that broader issues are invol
INTRODUCTIO N More specifically, she opposes to Kreon's authority the traditional authority of the old aristocratic families to honor and bury their dead. The care for the dead was especially the prerogative of women, and it was increasingly restricted in Athens in the sixth and fifth centuries as the democracy sought to limit the power of the aristocratic clans, but it was nevertheless widely respected.7 The Athenian institution of the public, city funeral for warriors who died in battle, established around the middle of the century, sharpened the conflict between the family's mourning and the public ceremony, and this conflict is doubtless in the play's background.8 Against Kreon's laws (nomoz) Antigone sets the "unwritten laws" that pertain to the burial of the dead, which are also the "custom-laws" (another meaning of nomoz or nomima) that have a place within every city and rest on the sanctity, as she says, of "Justice, who resides in the same house with the gods below the earth" and on the authority of Zeus himself (translation 495-501 / Greek 450-5 5 ).9 Thus, while she is so human and moving in the fragile strength of her defiance of the ruler, she has on her side the weight of religious tradition, the universal recognition of the rights of burial, and the performance of those offices for the dead that traditionally belong to women in the polis and in the family. Viewed more broadly, Antigone brings down to earth and to purely human characters some of the conflicts of Aiskhylos' Oresteia. Antigone's position has some affinities with that of the Furies in Aiskhylos' conflict between Olympian and chthonic, upper and lower worlds, in the last play of the Oresteia, the Eumenides. Here the newer and younger Olympians, Apollo and Athena, who belong to the reign of Zeus, are identified with the male-dominated political institutions of the city, whereas the ancient gods, the Erinyes or Furies, daughters of primordial Night, defend the bonds of blood and birth and the rights of the mother and of Earth in their vengeful pursuit of the matricide, Orestes. To be sure, the issue of Antigone is burial, not vengeance; the cosmic order is in the background, not the foreground; and the focus is on the family as a whole and not on the rights of the father as against those of the mother. Antigone also presents the conflict in terms of the more impersonal "eternal laws of the gods" rather than through the 7. For the importance of female lament in the play see my Sophocles' Tragic World: Divinity, Nature, and Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), 119-20, 125-27, 135-36. 8. This aspect of the play is stressed by William Tyrrell and Larry Bennett, Recapturing Sophocles' Antigone (Lanham, Md., 1998), especially 5-14, 115-17. 9. Bernard Knox, The Heroic Temper (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964), 97, shows that the (literally) "unwritten and secure custom-laws (nomima) of the gods" of which Antigone speaks in 500-501 / 454-55 refer primarily to the sanctity surrounding burial rites. Yet her word nomoi, literally "laws," in 498 / 452, also indicates that broader issues are involved. 5
INTRODUCTION awe-inspiring mythical presences of the Furies. Nevertheless, the fram- ing of this conflict between male and female and between civic order and primordial religious tradition bears comparison with the Oresteia Antigone too looks for support from the divinities of the lower world (in the lines cited above; also in 593/542), and her vindication comes, finally from Hades and the Furies(1145-47/1074-75 Comparison with the Oresteia, however, also reveals how poorly the Hegelian scheme of thesis-antithesis-synthesis fits the play. Antigone has one of the resolution that ends the eumenides, where the furies fi- nally accept the Olympian persuasion of Athena and consequently are reconciled with the polis of Athens and transform themselves into the more benign and acceptable Eumenides, the"Kindly Ones. "In Antig one the confict between the blood ties within the family to which the women are particularly devoted, and the realm of political action that belongs to men is played out almost entirely on the human level.The gods appear only as the remote agents of retributive justice; and the mortal representatives of family ties and civic duty respectively both suffer a terrible doom, antigone by the despairing suicide of her death in her cave-prison, Kreon by the blows that leave him disoriented, isolated and totally crushed at the end The Hegelian notion, however, that both sides have some degree of right on their side-or, as A C. Bradley will later rephrase it, that there is a division in the ethical substance with a resultant "violent self- restitution of the divided spiritual unity"10-has the merit of getting us into the fundamental issues of the play. Conflict is the heart of this hich is so structured that each protagonist can act only by at- tacking and destroying the central values of the other. The play offers conflicting definitions, explicit or implicit, of the basic terms of the human condition: friend and enemy, citizen and ruler, father and son, male and female, justice and injustice, reverence and irreverence, pu- ty and pollution, honor and dishonor, and even (in the Ode on Man) conflicting judgments of what is anthropos, a human being-powerful or helpless, something"wonderful"or"terrible"(both of these, mean ings of the same word, denon). Not only are the definitions in conflict, but the terms themselves become ambiguous or(as in the case of An- igone's"holy wrongdoing)paradoxical. Antigone and Kreon use the same words to mean different things, like philos and ekhthros, " de 10.A.C. Bradley, " Hegel's Theory of Tragedy"(agog), in Paolucci(above, n. 1), 38 29-48, especially 4-43
INTRODUCTION awe-inspiring mythical presences of the Furies. Nevertheless, the framing of this conflict between male and female and between civic order and primordial religious tradition bears comparison with the Oresteia. Antigone too looks for support from the divinities of the lower world (in the lines cited above; also in 593 / 542), and her vindication comes, finally from Hades and the Furies (1145-47 / 1074-75). Comparison with the Oresteia, however, also reveals how poorly the Hegelian scheme of thesis-antithesis-synthesis fits the play. Antigone has none of the resolution that ends the Eumenides, where the Furies finally accept the Olympian persuasion of Athena and consequently are reconciled with the polis of Athens and transform themselves into the more benign and acceptable Eumenides, the "Kindly Ones." In Antigone the conflict between the blood ties within the family, to which the women are particularly devoted, and the realm of political action that belongs to men is played out almost entirely on the human level. The gods appear only as the remote agents of retributive justice; and the mortal representatives of family ties and civic duty respectively both suffer a terrible doom, Antigone by the despairing suicide of her death in her cave-prison, Kreon by the blows that leave him disoriented, isolated, and totally crushed at the end. The Hegelian notion, however, that both sides have some degree of right on their side —or, as A. C. Bradley will later rephrase it, that there is a division in the ethical substance with a resultant "violent selfrestitution of the divided spiritual unity"10 —has the merit of getting us into the fundamental issues of the play. Conflict is the heart of this work, which is so structured that each protagonist can act only by attacking and destroying the central values of the other. The play offers conflicting definitions, explicit or implicit, of the basic terms of the human condition: friend and enemy, citizen and ruler, father and son, male and female, justice and injustice, reverence and irreverence, purity and pollution, honor and dishonor, and even (in the Ode on Man) conflicting judgments of what is anthropos, a human being—powerful or helpless, something "wonderful" or "terrible" (both of these, meanings of the same word, deinon). Not only are the definitions in conflict, but the terms themselves become ambiguous or (as in the case of Antigone's "holy wrongdoing") paradoxical.11 Antigone and Kreon use the same words to mean different things, like philos and ekhthros, "dear 10. A. C. Bradley, "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy" (1909), in Paolucci (above, n. i), 385. 11. On these conflicts and ambiguities in the larger context of the nature of Greek tragedy, see Jean-Pierre Vemant, "Tensions and Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy," in J.-P. Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece (1972, 1986), trans. J. Lloyd (New York, 1990), 29-48, especially 41-43. 6
NTRODUCTION ne"and"enemy, " or nomos, law. Antigone's incestuous birth compli- cates these ambiguities of language by confusing the basic terms of kinship: in the family of Oidipous, son and husband, brother and son, sister and daughter horribly coincide. What in fact sets the plot into motion is the mutual slaughter of the incestuously begotten sons/broth- rs, Polyneikes and Eteokles, who are simultaneously too close in their claims on the inherited throne and too distant in their murderous strug gle, simultaneously the nearest of"dear ones, "philoi, and the most bitter of"enemies, "ekhthroi ' The play's obsessive harping on words for elf, " common, ""one another "is the verbal expression of this deadly fusion of same and opposite that underlies the tragedy of the house of Odious The ambiguities of philia, being near-and-dear, in this house are enacted in the opening scene between the two sisters. The language of intimate kinship in Antigone's opening address to Ismene is painfully fractured by the end of that scene, and Antigone's virtual identification with her sister in the opening line, with its untranslatable juxtaposition of koinon autadelphon, literally, "shared/sharing self-sister, "has turned to scorn and near hatred by the time the two young women leave the In this opening scene Antigone not only sets out the main issues but also displays all the contradictions and dangers that define her char acter: her intensity of feeling, the single-mindedness of her devotion to family, her unbending will, her readiness to defy the entire city in the name of what she believes. her involvement with the dead. and her villingness to face death if necessary. With sarcasm she shows her independence and bittemess when she recounts that "the noble Kreon has proclaimed"his order against the burial of Polyneikes(39-43/31- 34), while at the same time she personalizes the confict and dramatizes its immediacy and the consequent need to act decisively. She has a visceral sense of Polyneikes exposed corpse-she not only recounts that no one may hide it inside a grave, wail over it or weep for it, "but she also pictures it as horribly desecrated by vultures, "a sweet-tasting treasure that birds will spy and feed on with their greedy joy"(34-38/ 27-30). That this image is distinctive, we see from comparing Kreon's otherwise similar description of his decree later(229-35/ 203-6) 12 The paradox of what Antigone calls her"holy crime"(go/74)shows her understanding of her isolation but also signals the moral complexity literally the detail of"disfigurement"or" outrage"), but he does not use Antigane's more vivid
INTRODUCTIO N one" and "enemy," or nomos, law. Antigone's incestuous birth complicates these ambiguities of language by confusing the basic terms of kinship: in the family of Oidipous, son and husband, brother and son, sister and daughter horribly coincide. What in fact sets the plot into motion is the mutual slaughter of the incestuously begotten sons/brothers, Polyneikes and Eteokles, who are simultaneously too close in their claims on the inherited throne and too distant in their murderous struggle, simultaneously the nearest of "dear ones," philoi, and the most bitter of "enemies," ekhthroi. The play's obsessive harping on words for "self-," "common," "one another" is the verbal expression of this deadly fusion of same and opposite that underlies the tragedy of the house of Oidipous. The ambiguities of philia, being near-and-dear, in this house are enacted in the opening scene between the two sisters. The language of intimate kinship in Antigone's opening address to Ismene is painfully fractured by the end of that scene, and Antigone's virtual identification with her sister in the opening line, with its untranslatable juxtaposition of koinon autadelphon, literally, "shared/sharing self-sister," has turned to scorn and near hatred by the time the two young women leave the stage. In this opening scene Antigone not only sets out the main issues but also displays all the contradictions and dangers that define her character: her intensity of feeling, the single-mindedness of her devotion to family, her unbending will, her readiness to defy the entire city in the name of what she believes, her involvement with the dead, and her willingness to face death if necessary. With sarcasm she shows her independence and bitterness when she recounts that "the noble Kreon has proclaimed" his order against the burial of Polyneikes (39-43 / 31- 34), while at the same time she personalizes the conflict and dramatizes its immediacy and the consequent need to act decisively. She has a visceral sense of Polyneikes' exposed corpse —she not only recounts that "no one may hide it inside a grave, wail over it or weep for it," but she also pictures it as horribly desecrated by vultures, "a sweet-tasting treasure that birds will spy and feed on with their greedy joy" (34-38 / 27-30). That this image is distinctive, we see from comparing Kreon's otherwise similar description of his decree later (229-35 / 203-6).12 The paradox of what Antigone calls her "holy crime" (90 / 74) shows her understanding of her isolation but also signals the moral complexity 12. Kreon says "eaten by birds and dogs" and adds the epithet "shameful for anyone to see" (or literally the detail of "disfigurement" or "outrage"), but he does not use Antigone's more vivid expression. 7
NTRODUCTION of her forthcoming act. When Ismene refuses to help, Antigone turns abruptly from affection to hatred. She openly accepts the folly of her own resolve. and she is determined to die the "noble death"of the male warrior. on the model of the homeric hero her claim to th honor that she will win from her deed her determination to "lie be. side"her brother in death in her "holy wrongdoing, "and her open defiance of the city at a time of crisis, would almost certainly alarm the audience of male Athenian citizens, accustomed to the view that women do not challenge men(as Ismene states in 76-77/61-62), especially in the all-male areas of politics and public life The ensuing ode, sung by the chorus of Theban elders, reveals th one-sidedness of Antigone's position in the context of the citys fears and so sets the stage for an initially sympathetic view of Kreon. The chorus describes the battle of the preceding night in images of ani- mality, blood, madness, and fire that show the horror of what the city might have suffered had the fierce enemy warriors broken through the walls. Entering directly after the ode, Kreon vehemently denounces Polyneikes, the attacker who came to"burn their country and the tem- ples with columns around them and the offerings inside"(28-29/ 285-87) On the other hand, the absolute refusal to bury a traitor's body, though legally justified, could be perceived as harsh. A traitor's corpse was often cast outside the city walls, where family members might bury it and where the danger of pollution to the city would be avoided. This is in fact the punishment specified for Polyneikes'corpse by Aiskhylos in Seven against Thebes and by Euripides in Phoinikian Women 1* Else- where too in Greek tragedy the refusal of burial is regarded as cruel and impious, as in Sophokles' Aias and Euripides Suppliants. I'In the heeds his mother's plea to defy Kreon and the victorious Thebans, bury the fallen Argive warriors, and thereby"stop them from overturning the Wi See patr 1997), 26-28, who argues that Kreon? does ino birds. opendix z For further discussion of the problem of the justification of Kreon's decree, see Steiner, as. For Euripides Kreon for the burial of the exposed corpses of the attacking Argive warriors: see Griffith,'s note on
INTRODUCTIO N of her forthcoming act.13 When Ismene refuses to help, Antigone turns abruptly from affection to hatred. She openly accepts the folly of her own resolve, and she is determined to die the "noble death" of the male warrior, on the model of the Homeric hero. Her claim to the honor that she will win from her deed, her determination to "lie beside" her brother in death in her "holy wrongdoing," and her open defiance of the city at a time of crisis, would almost certainly alarm the audience of male Athenian citizens, accustomed to the view that women do not challenge men (as Ismene states in 76-77 / 61-62), especially in the all-male areas of politics and public life. The ensuing ode, sung by the chorus of Theban elders, reveals the one-sidedness of Antigone's position in the context of the city's fears and so sets the stage for an initially sympathetic view of Kreon. The chorus describes the battle of the preceding night in images of animality, blood, madness, and fire that show the horror of what the city might have suffered had the fierce enemy warriors broken through the walls. Entering directly after the ode, Kreon vehemently denounces Polyneikes, the attacker who came to "burn their country and the temples with columns around them and the offerings inside" (328-29 / 285-87). On the other hand, the absolute refusal to bury a traitor's body, though legally justified, could be perceived as harsh. A traitor's corpse was often cast outside the city walls, where family members might bury it and where the danger of pollution to the city would be avoided. This is in fact the punishment specified for Polyneikes' corpse by Aiskhylos in Seven against Thebes and by Euripides in Phoinikian Women.14 Elsewhere too in Greek tragedy the refusal of burial is regarded as cruel and impious, as in Sophokles' Aias and Euripides' Suppliants.15 In the latter play, Theseus, the civilizing hero and model king of Athens, heeds his mother's plea to defy Kreon and the victorious Thebans, bury the fallen Argive warriors, and thereby "stop them from overturning the 13. With 90/74 see the similar phrasing of 990-91 / 924 and 1011 / 943. 14. Aiskhylos, Seven against Thebes, 1013-25; Euripides, Phoinikian Women, 1629-30. See Patricia E. Easterling, "Constructing the Heroic," in Christopher Felling, ed., Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford, 1997), 26-28, who argues that Kreon's punitive treatment does not correspond precisely to any known historical situation in the fifth century. The Aiskhylean version, however, though specifying burial outside, does nevertheless include exposing the body to dogs (no birds, however) and the prohibition against burial by the family (Seven, 1013-15). The date of the ending of the Seven, however, remains controversial, and it may have been influenced by Sophokles: see Appendix 2. For further discussion of the problem of the justification of Kreon's decree, see Steiner, Antigones, 114-20, and Oudemans and Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity, 101-2, 162-63. 15. For Euripides' Suppliants see the Note on 1153-58 / 1080-83. In Antigone, 1133-61 /1064-86, Teiresias is probably referring to the tradition that Theseus, King of Athens, intervened against Kreon for the burial of the exposed corpses of the attacking Argive warriors: see Griffith's note on Greek lines 1080-83. 8