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

Author(s): Martin Cropp

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Oct., 1997), pp. 137-160
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/643056 .
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Greece & Rome, Vol. xliv, No. 2, October 1997

ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

(SOPHOCLES, ANTIGONE 891-928)

By MARTIN CROPP

(Z
0vltfoS, VVYPELOVj( KaGacUKa)s
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895
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7TOdOLs v,
KaLa )dQhhov
r' w-ors, ro38' i TALraKov, EL' 910
r7rpoS 8' v 4ALOv
KaA L 7TcaTpOS KEKEU~VTOLV
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TOLC E EVTOL EKTpOTLpUaaU
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voLL(w,KpEOVTLTaV^T O CLjtapTaVELVEV
KaL 8ELVd rTOApav, d CKaULyvrLTOV Kapa. 915
KaLVV d'yEL LELtdXEpoVOVTWAaflcov
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ArEKTpOV, OuTETOVy yatOU
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(0 E.ES LavodVWV EpXotLaL KcLTUKa0ca/g 920
Trrolav 7TapE6EAOOvaa SaLlqvLOv L"lK7v;
TL1 1E rT)V
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8VarT7rVOV .TL
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T77v 8vUUE/3ELCaV EUEflO1JUI rKraT 6v.
&AA'El ov rd7' ETarLViv OEOLS KaLAd, 925
tIv
7Ta8ovreTS av vyyvoLiEv 7)"apr
?d7TES
138 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

ELt LpOn lap-ravoUatL, /L '7TAEL'W

KaKL
7TcLOOLEV 77 KCL pawLV EK&0KWS EiLE.

904-920 deletedby Lehrs (905-913 by A. Jacob);911-912 citedby Arist.Rhet.1417"32-33

905 rhIv' dv C. Winckelmann: rE'KVovmss.

O tomb, O bridal chamber, O cavernous dwelling, eternal prison to which I am

journeying to meet my own, those perished in their great numbers and received by
Persephone amongst the dead. I am the latest of them, and my descent the worst by
far,895 before my allotment of life has reached completion. Yet, as I go, I boldly feed on
hopes of proving dear to my father when I reach him, and dear to you, mother, and to
you, dear brother. For when you died, it was I with my own hands900who washed you
and adorned you, I who poured your tomb-libations. But now for tending your body,
Polynices, this is my reward.
Still, to those with good sense I did well to honour you. Never if it were children and I
their mother,905 nor if it were my husband dead and decaying, by no means then would I
in defiance of the citizens have shouldered this burden. What law do I satisfy in saying
this? With a husband dead I would have had another, and a child from another man if
bereaved of this one;910but when my mother and father are hidden in Hades, no brother
could ever be bred for me again. Yet now that I have done you special honour because of
this law, I have in Creon's judgment done wrong and acted with dreadful audacity, dear
brother.915 And now he takes me, manhandling me in this way, unbedded, unwedded,
getting no share of marriage or children's rearing- no, thus bereft of dear ones, thus ill-
fated, I go still living to the caverns of the dead.920
What justice of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look in my misery any
more to the gods, whom can I call as my ally, since as it seems by acting piously I have
earned the blame of impiety? Well, if these things are good in the eyes of the gods,925I'll
agree, now I have suffered, that I have done wrong. But if these men are doing wrong,
may they suffer evils no greater than they are doing unjustly to me!1

Antigone's final speech is one of the most discussed passages in one of

the world's most famous works of literature, but surprisingly little
attention has been given to its rhetorical design.2 One cause of this,
certainly, is its problematic central section; the debate on the authenti-
city of Antigone's reasoning about her decision to bury her brother has
raged since 1821 and has too often distracted scholars from considering
the speech as a whole. In addition, the speech has often been
approached as an expression of Antigone's feelings, a final revelation
which goes to the heart of the matter at this final moment, so that
rhetorical design and argument are hardly to be expected. According to
Jebb (who deleted 904-20), 'In her latest words, Antigone expresses her
confidence in the love which awaits her beyond the grave; and also the
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 139

trouble which overclouds her trust in the gods, who know her deed, and
yet have permitted her to suffer this doom'.3 For Gerhard Miiller (who
also rejects 904-20), the speech is 'a portrayal of Antigone's isolation
amongst her fellow-men, amongst whom she can speak only in mono-
logue-form'.4 For Bernard Knox it 'resembles a soliloquy, a private
meditation. It is an attempt to understand the real reasons [for her
action] ... Now in the face of death, oblivious of the presence of Creon
and the chorus, with no public case to make, no arguments to counter,
she can at last identify the driving force behind her action.. .'; and 904-
20 can be seen as authentic once we see that this speech has a different
and deeper revelatory purpose than her earlier speech to Creon.5
When the rhetorical nature of the speech has been more fully
recognized, the results have not been entirely satisfying. August Jacob,
the first to delete some of it (905-13), did allow it the rhetoricalpurpose
of proving to Antigone's fellow-citizens that she had acted for good
reason, but he could not see how 905-13 served this purpose or could be
reconciled with her earlier declarations.6Tycho von Wilamowitz saw the
brother-argument as mere rhetoric unrelated with the characterization
of Antigone or with any larger dialectic in the play.7 Schadewaldt,
treating only 904-20 as argumentative, concluded that the speech as a
whole shows us an Antigone who has abandoned her sense of absolute
rightness and is assailed in her final moments by Doubt.8 George Steiner
finds throughout Antigone's final scene 'manifold virtuosities of rhetoric
... concentrated and deployed to their highest pitch around Antigone's
rites of death'; but he treats the speech as essentially inward-looking and
the brother-argument (if genuine) as formulated to convince herself.9
I would not deny that the speech is 'true' to Antigone's motives and
feelings, or that Sophocles handles these consistently, or that he achieves
a multiplicity of pathetic effects. But any analysis should start by
recognizing that the whole speech is shaped rhetorically as a public
address. Antigone is stating a position, not merely pondering her fate.10
In what follows, I shall offer an analysis of the speech as a rhetorical
whole. Defending 904-20 is not my main purpose, and I shall not
discuss the debate on its authenticity extensively," but my analysis will
suggest that this passage is an integral part of the speech even if its text
contains a few problems.12 A more exact definition of the speech's
character and purpose will also assist with some central questions in the
interpretation of the play.
140 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

II

It is hard to understand a speech without understanding its conclusion,

yet confusion surrounds the interpretation of the end of this speech,
especially its last four lines (925-8). It is easy enough to translate three
of them: 'Well, if'3 these things [that are being done to me] are good in
the eyes of the gods, rraOdvr~ a"v vyyvotLbEvLCLapT7YKdTES.But if these
men are doing wrong, may they suffer evils no greaterthan they are
doingunjustlyto me!'The sarcasmin 'evilsno greater'can be compared
with Hyllus'ssarcasmin dismissingDeianeira.14 The pluralsin 927-8
alludecontemptuouslyto Creon,as againin 942 '. .. whatI am suffering
fromwhatkind of men' (which cannotincludethe Chorusbecauseit is
addressedto them). But line 926 is difficultfor two reasons.First,does
the verb %vyyvotLEv mean 'recognize/becomeaware' or 'acknowledge/
agree' 'forgive'?Secondly,how shouldthe syntaxof the participlesbe
or
understood: 'after/throughsuffering I shall recognize that I have
transgressed'(the commonest and oldest interpretation),"5 or 'I shall
acknowledgethat I have sufferedfor having transgressed[i.e., deserv-
edly]' (Hermann),or 'aftersufferingI am preparedto forgive,having [if
that is the gods' judgment]transgressed'?V. J. Rosivachhas recently
reviewed these possibilities, and prefers the last for grammatical
reasons,'6but this interpretationhas its own difficulties.First,evyyvotlEv
'forgive'needs an object, which Rosivach supplies with difficultyby
understanding7roCaE,'these people' in anticipationof OLE in 927.
Secondly, in order to avoid making Antigone genuinely consider
forgivingCreon,Rosivachsuggestsshe is ironicallyfeigninghumbleness
and willingnessto forgive as a rhetoricaldevice - hardly a ploy one
expects from the Antigone of this play. In any case, the argumentin
925-8 is perfectly clear if the first couplet deals with the possibility of
Antigone's recognizing through her punishment that she has trans-
gressed in the eyes of the gods, and the second with the possibility of
Creon's being forced to recognize through being punished himself that
he is the transgressor. In that case 925-8 take up in inverse order the
contrast she has just made between Creon's point of view (913-20) and
the gods' (921-4).7 The precise counterpointing of words between the
two couplets of 925-8 confirms this: 'good ... evils' (KaAd: KaKdi), 'the
gods . . . thesemen (OEoi: o0E)', 'suffered ... suffer(raOdvrTE: ITLOLtv)',
'done wrong . .. doing wrong' (t7ap'raKdTEs:
CTL/ap7-avovUL).18
As for the grammatical problems raised by Rosivach, a solution is
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 141

suggested by the unusual use of 7raOdvrEs without an object in 925. One

possible circumstance for this is defined by Denniston as '. .. the
terseness of a proverb, 7TaOcOv
8 rE. VTor
TLOS (Hes. Works 218)'.19 This
'•yvwthe
is directly relevant to both the context and phrasing of Ant. 926.
Hesiod's sentence is gnomic, and it caps an argument about Justice
(Works 213-18):
'Q THpal7, aU 8' dKovESLK7rlS gL7' vpLv
Ic'tv
f oqEAAE.
vgpLs yap TErKaIO7 8ELAdC po-r(, O V f6Acs%
pq7L8LwS qEpEpeV 80O'7r'
apVOELS atE6 -r
lvva.aL,'6Ss 8'.
d-q-v )
EyKvpraSa '-rp'77q0L apEcAEi
KpELUawI) E~sTX%8'aLa8' -qK77 8' 'fT7p vjpLos LUXEL
Es TAOSgE EAOka,T7aO%v8 -rE V777rTLOS E)VW.

But you, Perses, listen to Justice and be not guilty of hybris.

Hybrisis bad for a lowly mortalnor even can a high one
easilybearit, but he is weigheddown beneathit
running into afflictions. To bypass them the other road
that leadsto just acts is better.Justiceholds its own over hybris,
once it comes out to the end: through suffering does the foolish man
[whosefoolishnesshas led him into hybris]come to knowthis.

Antigone's phrase seems to allude to Hesiod's statement of the idea of

pathei mathos.20 Her 1ra0-vTEs 'now I have suffered' matches Hesiod's
v 'through suffering', her
alkw 'I'll agree' matches his 'yvw
,vyyvotoEv
'comes to know'. Sophocles' expressive use of avv-compounds is well-
known,21 so it is not surprising that means 'I'll join in
,vyyvot[ev
recognizing', 'I'll agree'.22 She will abandon the 'self-determining
temper' to which the Chorus have attributed her ruin
(a•T•yvwCo0)
(875) and join with the gods and Creon in recognizing her transgres-
sion, if indeed the gods agree with Creon as their present inaction
suggests they may.
This allusion to pathei mathos has been noticed before,23 but its
significance has not been fully worked out. Hesiod asserted that the
unjust and hybristic man discovers the error of his ways through
suffering their consequences. This idea is expressed concisely and
allusively at other points in Tragedy including the famous choral
statement at Aesch. Ag. 176-8 and 250-1,24 the tyrannical threats of
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus against the same chorus (Ag. 1424-5, 1649,
1664, 1670), and of Oedipus against Tiresias (Soph. OT402-3, a close
verbal parallel to our passage).25 These and other passages26 where
bullying threats by tyrannical characters are expressed in terms of
corrective punishment suggest a further nuance in Antigone's words.
142 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

If the gods approve her punishment, her suffering and learning are just;
but if not, her punisher is committing a tyrannical outrage.
Antigone says in effect, 'If the gods are allowing my punishment
because they think Creon has justice on his side, then I am prepared to
infer from my suffering, in agreement with the gods and Creon, that I
have transgressed.' She then goes on to the alternative to which her
whole speech has led: 'But if I have justice on my side and the
transgression is Creon's, let him be punished as cruelly as he is punish-
ing me.' This bitter and challenging conclusion accounts, as is widely
recognized, for the exasperated reactions of both the Chorus and Creon
in the next four lines (929-32, 'Still is she gripped by these same gusts in
her soul, etc.'). It also shows exactly what Antigone means by o"'wv,'what
kind', in her final appeal to the elders for recognition of the injustice
done to her (940-3, 'See . . what I suffer, from what kind of man for
piously fulfilling my pious duty').
Line 927 is not the only reminiscence of Hesiod in this play. In Ant.
720-3 Haimon has echoed Works293-7 in reminding his father that the
next best thing to thinking everything out correctly yourself is to listen to
good advice (he tactfully omits Hesiod's rider that the man who does
neither is 'of no use'). Before that, in Ant. 650-1, Creon has quoted
Works702-3 on the chilly comfort of a bad wife.27 Hesiodic thought
seems relevant also in the Guard-scene, where Creon threatens the
guards in a battery of Hesiodic phrases concerning ruinous results from
wrongful profiteering. If they fail to produce the culprit they will be
strung up and 'exhibit this outrage ('lptv), so that in future you may
know where to snatch your profit (KE~pos),and may learn (Pad0-rTE) that
it does not do to favour profiting (T7 KEpSa tvELv) from every source. For
the most part you can see people ruined rather than
(dTrwlpxvovs)
prospering from shameful pickings' (309-14).28 Again, at the end of
the Haimon-scene, when Haimon has already left, Creon orders
Antigone confined to the tomb rather than stoned, and concludes with
a jibe whose extreme crassness surely cries out against his judgment
(777-80).29 'And there beseeching Hades, whom alone of gods she
honours, she will perhaps obtain a reprieve from death; or else she will
learn (yvdjaETat) at last, late though it is, that revering what lies in Hades
is wasted labour.' 6vyyvoL-LEv in 926 is indeed 'a direct response to
Kreon's yvma%'rat, 779.'30 Creon overflows arrogantly with gnomic
advice in this play, and at the ends of their two speeches Sophocles
ironically allows Haimon and Antigone to quote Hesiod back at him on
the subject of moral blindness. Creon's language is again Hesiodic when
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 143

he recognizes the damage he has done.31 And Sophocles may have had
in mind Hesiod's image of Justice manhandled by corrupt men, a victim
but also a bringer of vengeance, when he presented Antigone alone
amongst her male persecutors, dragged to an unjust death (Ant. 806-8,
839-42, 876-8, 937-43).32

III

Hesiod's hybristic man is a fool who thinks that his hybrisis a fine thing
(kalon) when it is really a bad one (kakon: Works214). The implication
in Ant. 925-8 is that Creon, not Antigone, has made this mistake. This
assertion comes from Antigone herself, and it essentially repeats her
accusation about foolishness in 469-70, which provoked a similar
comment from the Chorus about her indiscipline (929-30: cf. 471-2).
But now the echo of Hesiod's wisdom gives it some authority. This is
not all, however, for the assertion is linked with a fundamental discourse
which runs throughout the play and has surfaced already in this speech
at line 904. Terms for good and bad sense, thinking, counsel, judgment,
learning, and decision are liberally mixed with the terminology of piety
and justice in the discussion of both Creon's and Antigone's positions:
aboulia and euboulia;manthaneinand amathia; nous, xunnoia and anoia;
phronein,phrenes,phronemaand aphrosune;moria;gnome and gignoskein;
hamartanein and harmartia; dte; and a variety of cognates and alter-
natives. This fact was noted long ago and is often mentioned.33 Such
terminology is characteristically Sophoclean,34 and its occurrence in
Electra is particularly relevant.35 But we need to recognize in Antigone
the sheer density of this language of right- and wrong-mindedness,
along with the language of damage and destruction which goes with the
negative terms. It is concentrated at the beginnings, ends, and climactic
moments of virtually every scene, speech, or argument in the play.
Familiar though this may seem, the matter is worth reviewing in some
detail.36
In the Prologue, as soon as she understand Antigone's plan to bury
Polynices, Ismene appeals to Antigone to think about (pdovqucov)their
family's situation (49ff.), to reflect (vvoEtv) that they are women and
lacking in political power (61-4). She will obey Creon, hoping for
understanding (Wyyvotav,66) from her dead relatives, since overreach-
makes no sense (oK EXEL vov 0o•;8vla, 68-
ing herself (wi'pwaaarpdaa~ELvw)
9). Antigone admits the apparent unwisdom of her plan but insists that
144 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

religion and philia require her to 'commit my unoffending crime' ("cta

rravovpyaaaua,74). The ending of the Prologue crystallizes the issue:
Antigone thinks her action will for all its apparent misguidedness
(8vaflovAtav)lead to glory even in death (95-7), while Ismene sees her
as mindless even though she is exhibiting proper philia to her
(dvov•)
philoi (98-9).37
After announcing his rule to the elders of Thebes, Creon declares that
political leadership will reveal a man's true spirit and way of thinking and
judgment (bvX-4VTE Kat bpovrtLaKaLyvdpqLv,176); the good leader must
adhere to the best counsels 179) even when this means
(PfovAEv~-Trwv,
subordinating private attachments to the communal welfare. So his first
proclamation will be that the body of the traitor Polynices shall be left
unburied to be mutilated by birds and dogs. 'Such is my way of thinking
(0pdvovypa) - the evil shall never excel the righteous in honour' (207-8).
The elders suggest that nobody will be so stupid ([pkpoc)as to 'yearn'
(Epdiv)for death and disobey the proclamation (220), while Creon can
see that someone might do so for gain (KEp8os, 221-2). Yet we know that
is
Antigone 'yearning' for impossibilities (dJ/iXdvwovpg, 90) and will
accept death (72, 95-7) from quite different motives. When the guard
reports that the body has been buried, the Chorus's reflection (6dvvota)
suggests a possibility of divine intervention (278-9), which to Creon
suggests they are mindless (dvovs,281); he is impervious to the idea that
there could be a divine interest in the burial.38The deficiency of his
perception is ironically underlined when he contemptuously dismisses
the guard's reminder of the unreliability of opinion ... ..
(80KEo SOKE•V
68dav,323-4).
On seeing the guard return with Antigone the elders fear she has
succumbed to folly (c poauv'p)in flouting the king's decree (381-3), and
the guard starts his account of the arrest by again reminding Creon of
how second thoughts disprove human judgment (4rivota ...
yvtCa/L[v,
389). Then in her famous speech about the unwritten laws Antigone
states that she has chosen not to risk divine punishment for fear of a
human's pdovrlqua (458-60, pdovrlqa connoting pride, u-Eya povEdv, and
potential hybris). If Creon sees stupidity (twopta)in her burying her
brother, that may show stupidity in him (469-70). Creon responds by
threatening to break her stubborn temper (pdvorlpa,473), for it does not
profit a 'slave'39to have a high temper (kpovECv 478-9). When their
Creontdya,
accuses her of being in
argument turns to stichomythia (508 ff.),
a minority of one: she thinks (qpovEi) differently from the Thebans and
in particularthe Chorus. At this point Antigone can only assert that he is
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 145

wrong about this, for she has no concrete evidence of support from
anyone. But this begins to change when Ismene is brought before Creon
and recants her previous opposition by attempting now to share her
sister's guilt. At the climax of their argument the issue is again put by
Antigone in terms of right thinking according to her chosen standards
(557), and Ismene responds that each of them has committed an equal
error (fapaap-ra) according to the standards of the other (558).40 Creon
opines that each is as mindless (d'vovv)as the other (561-2), and Ismene
agrees that their intelligence (voO~r)deserts those suffering misfortunes
(563-4).
In the following Stasimon the Chorus reflect on the workings of Stg,
particularly as they affect the Labdacid family. The instrument of its
destruction, like a bloody sacrificial knife wielded by the nether gods, is a
loss of rationality, an Erinys invading the senses (Aodyovr' cvota KaL
OpEvcWv'EpwtS, 601-3). This exhibits Zeus's irresistible power, which
works tirelessly to overcome human transgression. No human life is
invulnerable to ruin (&ras-,614), for all human minds are vulnerable to
hope (Am'es,615) which often manifests itself in unconscious deception
by empty-minded desires (&nd7raKovqovdwv pCTrwv,617); the unwitting
victim imagines the bad to be good, until his foot touches the burning
surface (an image of pathei mathoscomparable with the image in 853-5;
cf. pp. 148 and 150 below) and &tgis fulfilled (615-25).
Haimon arrives to confront Creon, professing respect for his valuable
opinions (yv4"pas, 635-6), and Creon agrees that a son should con-
stantly follow his father's opinion (yv4Op, 640). Let not Haimon now
abandon his senses (pEvasr) for the sake of marital pleasure (648-9).
Creon restates his political principles for Haimon's edification, and the
elders find he has spoken sensibly (Opovonvrwsos,682). In reply, Haimon
again introduces the topic of human sense (OpEvas, 683) and suggests
tactfully that there are differing points of view about Antigone's action
and one man's judgment cannot always be right; people who think they
are unique in judgement (kpovEcv) or discourse (yAcuaaav) or spirit
(t,Xb`v) exhibittheir vacuity (707-9, recallingCreon at 176). Learning
(tzavOdvEw) is creditable even for a wise man (710-11). Haimon
concludes with his reminiscence of Hesiod on the value of heeding
good advice (719-23; cf. p. 142 above).
The elders second Haimon's appeal for learning (pQaLeV, 725), but
Creon rejects indignantly the idea of being taught good sense
(cpovwEv)
by his junior (726-7). In the following stichomythia Haimon's pleading
gradually moves through frustration and accusation to an exchange of
146 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

recriminations about empty judgments, empty wits, and lack of good

sense (yv4opar, qpEvov, E) qpovErv, 753-5).41 He exits with a threat of
suicide (and Creon fails to understand even this), leaving his father 'to
rave madly (6s ... palvq) with those of his philoi who are prepared to
keep him company' (765). The elders, despite this barb, worry about
the depressive mentality (voO~)of an angry young man (766-7), and in
the following Stasimon they attribute Haimon's anger and insubordina-
tion to the influence of Aphrodite and Eros, who will madden a man,
wrenching his phrenestowards unjust and outrageous behaviour (791-
2). But Creon can see only hybris in his attitude: 'let him act and think
(bpovErw) beyond a mortal's level .. .' (768: for Creon, defying Creon is
a transgression of mortal limits).42 Creon announces his decision to
immure Antigone (realizing, it seems, that he cannot rely on popular
support for a public stoning, and convinced that he can free the polis
from pollution by a tactical trick), and takes his parting shot about
learning late that honouring the dead is futile (779-80: cf. p. 142 above).
After Antigone's final scene, the discourse of right-mindedness
continues in the climax and conclusion of the play. Tiresias presents
himself as Creon's teacher (992; cf. 998, 1014) and Creon agrees that he
has always been guided by the seer's thinking (qpEvds, 993). 'Now', says
Tiresias, 'be aware (Qpdvot)that you are on fortune's edge' (996). The
failures of sacrificial procedure which he describes are a civic disease
caused by Creon's thinking (OpEvds,1015); Creon must think about the
situation (cpd6vrov, 1023) and recognize his hamartia (1024-5); he can
still avoid being ill-advised (d'povAosr,1026) if he abandons stubbornness
and crassness (aiB0at`a ...aUKtLd7-ra, 1028); he must learn (tavOdvEw)
from one who means him well (Elc aotL pov7uasr, 1031). Creon prefers to
accuse Tiresias of corruption, and their argument in its turn is reduced
to mutual accusations of lack of good counsel (E~/lovAla,1050) and loss
of good sense (•p qpovEv, 1051). Tiresias delivers his devastating
prediction of the consequences of Creon's actions, and leaves with a
parting shot at the present state of Creon's mind and senses (voOv,
qpEvcwv, 1090). At last Creon recognizes the need for good counsel
and accepts the elders' advice to undo what he has
(ElovAhasr, 1098)
done as quickly as possible, so as to escape the Harm-spirits (BA6dua)
which the gods send to punish the wrong-minded (KaKdopovas, 1104,
vindicating Antigone's challenge in 925).
After the Chorus's prayer for Dionysus's healing intervention, a
Servant reports to the Chorus and Eurydice the events at the cave.
Creon, seeing Haimon embracing Antigone's body, instantly inferred
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 147

that his son had lost his reason: 'What state of mind (voOsr)did you get
into? What calamitous circumstance has brought your undoing?' (1228-
9). The Servant sums up the events as an exhibition of the terrible
effects of ill-counsel (JflovhAa,1242-3). Eurydice departs in an ominous
silence; the Servant's hope that her judgment (yv4pq) will hold and she
will not make some terrible 'mistake' (1250) is on the face of it
concerned with avoiding a public display of grief, but the terms he
uses and his thought that she may be 'hiding something secretly
suppressed in her angered heart' (1253-4) evoke a fear that she will
rashly kill herself.43 In his final scene of lamentation and repentance
Creon capitulates: 'Alas for the errors of a senseless mind ... alas, the
misfortunes sprung from my counsels ... alas, I have learned, wretched
as I am' (1261-72). The Chorus reinforce this: Creon's Stgresults from
his own hamartia (1259-60); his recognition of dike^has come late
(1270); prudence (fpovEav) is the key to prosperity; the lesson is
enforced late in life on those who violate piety and act beyond human
measure (1348-53).

IV
In the final lines of her final speech (925-8) Antigone defiantly reiterates
the rightness of her position and the wrongness of Creon's, using the
terminology of prudence and error in which her conflict with Creon is
analysed repeatedly throughout the play; and a gnomic subtext derived
from Hesiod gives authority to her declaration. We can now consider
how the speech as a whole is rhetorically structured and leads to this
conclusion. Antigone examines her fatal decision and action by several
criteria, and from several points of view, in order to show whether she
has acted prudently or not, whether she or Creon has been in the right.
She uses categories which were formulated at the start of the play in her
argument with Ismene in the Prologue and have recurred in her
confrontations with Creon and with the Chorus in the amoibaion.
Each confrontation has ended in a break in communication between
Antigone and those who have rejected her arguments. At the end of the
Prologue Ismene recognized Antigone's philia towards her brother but
would not abet it. At line 523 Antigone insisted she could not deny her
philia towards her brother, and Creon responded that she would have to
love him in the Underworld. And now at the end of the amoibaion, the
Chorus have denied her their approval even as she goes her death, for
148 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

their comments at 853-6 and 872-5 have amounted to saying 'It serves
you right'.44So she does not directly address Creon or the Chorus in her
final speech.45 But her words nevertheless reiterate the justifications of
her action in the face of her humiliation and condemnation, and of the
gods' inaction, and while not addressed to the Chorus they are surely
aimed at them, and through them at her community of Thebes. Both
before and after the speech she calls on this community to witness the
injustice of her punishment (842-9, 937-43). These appeals revive the
claims of tacit community approval of her action made by Antigone
herself (504-5, 509) and by Haimon (692-700, 733), which Creon has
characteristicallyrejected, first claiming the Chorus's agreement, then
dismissing autocratically the idea that he as a ruler should be guided by
communal sentiment (734-9). Antigone's sense that the community
should by its own standards be approving her action is (we shall see) an
important key to the purpose of the central part of her speech.
The speech has three main sections which begin at lines 891 ('O
tomb, O bridal chamber.. .'), 904 ('Still, to those with good sense .. .'),
and 921 ('What justice of the gods have I transgressed . . .'). These
sections are dovetailed together by the addresses to Polynices in 902-4
('But now, Polynices. . . . Still, I did well to honour you .. .') and by a
syntactical connection between 921 and 920 ('Transgressing what
divine justice . . .'). But the shifts of focus and argument are made
very clear by the references to 'those with good sense' in 904 and the
gods in 921. We move from the dead family whose approval Antigone
claims despite her humiliation (Part 1), to 'those with good sense'
amongst the living whose approval she claims despite Creon's con-
demnation (Part 2), and finally to the gods whose approval she claims
despite their inaction on her behalf (Part 3).
In Part 3 the issue is whether Antigone has acted rightly according to
the justice of the gods (921), whether her act of piety towards Polynices
should have been, or will be, validated as an act of piety in their eyes
(924). Her refusal to accept the apparent implications of the gods'
inaction is marked by the resounding 'Well, if .. .' which divides this
third part of the speech exactly into two halves (921-4, 925-8; cf. p. 140
above). Her claims of justice and piety by the gods' standards respond to
the Chorus's ambivalence on these points, for in the amoibaionthey have
associated the divine justice with her punishment ('You have stumbled
againstJustice's high platform', 854-5) and implied that her act of piety
was tainted insofar as it transgressed civil authority ('Pious action
[sebein]is a kind of piety [eusebeia],but the authority [kratos]of those
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 149

in authority must in no way be transgressed', 872-4).46 Antigone now

reiterates the position she took in the Prologue, that her act was
acceptable to the gods though criminal in the face of Creon's decree
(74), and that she could not join Ismene in devaluing the divine values
by failing to act on them (77).47 This was also the basis of her argument
against Creon: the divine nomima outranked his authority as a ruler
(450-60).
Part 1 of the speech (891-903) concerns Antigone's rightness in the
eyes of her dead family. It too falls into two balanced halves, negative
thesis and positive antithesis: six lines (891-6) lament the disgraceful
and pitiful circumstances of her death, and seven respond that she still
(pEdvrot, 897) expects to enjoy the philia of her family because of her
philia towards them in tending their corpses. This criterion of philia was
again established in the Prologue, where Antigone's assertion of it ('I
shall lie with him, philos with philos', 73) was accepted by Ismene: '.
out of your mind, though properly philos towards your philoz' (99; cf.
n. 37 above). Creon has denigrated it (182ff., 486-8, 522-5), but
Antigone has rebutted his claims that Eteocles must be as hostile to
Polynices in death as in life, that she dishonours the one philos by
honouring the other (512-23). Antigone's argument from philia is her
most confident point, appropriately placed at the start of the speech, but
it is tempered by her sense that she is dying still more disgracefully than
her parents and brothers (895-6); the disgrace is itself shaming to the
family. This is a reversal from the Prologue when Ismene's warning that
'we shall perish most disgracefully' (60) was dismissed by Antigone with
confidence ('It will be a fine thing for me to die in doing this', 72; 'I can
suffer nothing so terrible that it will prevent me from dying finely', 96-
7). It is a reversal too of Antigone's confidence before Creon ('Whence
could I get a more glorious fame . . .', 502ff.). In the amoibaion the
Chorus has offered formulaic straws of 'glory' (817-18, 836-7) but she
has refused to grasp their insufficient consolation (838-41); they do not
offer the glory that is due to her pious deed, and they do not alleviate the
humiliation of the death she faces.
Part 2 of the speech (904-20) has the same kind of structure as Parts
1 and 3, with two almost equal sections (904-12, 913-20) and another
specific focus, the evaluation of her deed by living mortals. The first
section claims the approval of people of good sense (904) and provides
an argument for this claim: a particular nomos required her to act on
behalf of a dead brother in these particular circumstances, although she
would not have done such a thing in defiance of the citizens for (even)
150 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

dead children or a dead husband. The second section complains that

Creon on the other hand (pIvrot, 913) has judged her adversely and
condemned her to a disgraceful and lonely death. Thus Part 2 is
chiastically related with Parts 1 and 3, moving from positive to negative
evaluation rather than negative to positive. The ending of Part 2 returns
to the topic of her humiliation which opened Part 1, with 'caverns'
(K-arauKa~S, 920) echoing
'cavernous' (KaragKao s, 891) in a kind of
ring-composition.48 Creon's judgment is negatively exhibited between
the judgments of wiser living mortals (o01povoVvrTs) and of the gods who
are the ultimate if inscrutable authority in the climactic Part 3.
Part 2 is not only structured like Parts 1 and 3 and interdependent
with them; it also uses complementary categories. Part 1 concerned the
dead, her philia towards her family and her observance of funerary
duties. Part 3 will move to the gods, her piety, and observance of divine
justice. Between these, in Part 2, she addresses the living and her duties
towards the social order around her, the realm of human nomos.There is
no real contradiction between her advancing a human nomoshere after
she has appealed to a divine nomos earlier before Creon (450-70),
although the perception of such a contradiction has strongly influenced
arguments about the authenticity of this passage.49 In 904 ff. she is
concerned specifically with the perception that her defiance of civil
authority (nomos manifested at the human and social level) has in itself
put her in the wrong. Ismene called it reckless 'if in violation of nomos
(voiov flta) we transgress the ruler's decree or powers' (58-60); 'I do not
have the strength to act in defiance of the citizens (78-9).
(fla 'roAhrtAv)'
Creon has stood throughout on his rights and responsibilities as head of
the polis and especially his power to define nomoi (e.g. 191-2, 480-1).
The Chorus have accepted this (e.g. 213-14, 382) and have reinforced
the point in the amoibaion, arguing that Antigone has recklessly defied
governmental authority and so 'stumbled against the high platform of
Justice' (dl(as fl6Opov) (853-5). If these charges are true, Antigone has
not just acted imprudently but has breached a communal standard
which associates the ruler with nomosand insists that the ruler should be
obeyed.
Competing attitudes to nomos and its relationship with human
authority lie at the heart of the play's dialectic.so It is significant that
Antigone does not now simply repeat that the human authority in this
case (Creon's decree) was inferior to her own divinely sanctioned
standards. Rather she adduces a nomos (908-11) which seems designed
to justify or at least explain her disobedience while conceding as much as
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 151

possible to the general sentiment that rules and rulers should be obeyed,
that one should not normally act 'in defiance of the citizens' (907). This
phrase is problematic, and the problem has been fully reviewed recently
by Wolfgang R6sler. He maintains that the Sophoclean Antigone could
not describe herself as acting 'in defiance of the citizens', and he sees the
phrase as a sign of inauthenticity in the passage."5According to R6sler's
general view of the play,52 Creon's treatment of Polynices' corpse is a
blatant violation of communal standards supported only by an undemo-
cratic Chorus, and the Theban regime in this play is a negative exemplum
inviting the disapproval of the Athenian democratic audience; Creon's
decree is imposedon the polis (cf. 6-7, 27-8, 44, 192-3, 203-4), and the
Athenian audience would have taken it for granted that the ordinary
citizens of Thebes, like themselves, recognized his violation of tradi-
tional standards and Antigone's right to defy him. So when Ismene
suggests that Antigone will be acting 'in defiance of the citizens' (79),
this merely characterizes (in Rosler's view) Ismene's own confusion. In
her final scene, Antigone's confidence in her rightness and in the
support of the community at large must remain unshaken.
The position is, I think, less definite than this. In the Prologue the
question of the community's opinion was left open; Antigone did not
claim popular support, and she formulated her intentions strictly in
terms of fulfilling her divinely sanctioned family duties which she
claimed Creon had no right to obstruct (cf. 21-2, 31-2, 45-8, 71-81,
89). Her claim to be 'committing an unoffending crime' (74) recognized
a difference of perception between herself and others,53 and she did not
reject Ismene's suggestion that she would be acting in defiance of the
citizens, nor her description of disobedience to the ruler's decree as a
violation of a nomos (59-60). When Haimon revealed the popular
opinion to Creon (692-700) he described sentiment rather than a
precisely formulated convention.54 Sophocles seems, then, to have
outlined a situation in which the ruler's proclamation is at variance
with the people's deeper sense of what is right but nevertheless
commands per se a degree of popular assent. (And Creon has the further
justifications of the war-situation and Polynices' treachery. The nomos
advanced by Antigone in 908-12 is in part a response to the nomos 'no
philia for an enemy of his country' on which Creon based his prohibition
of the burial, 187-92.) Thus the isolated Antigone is portrayed as feeling
that Creon has carried the community with him and that the Chorus has
spoken for the community.55
Antigone's nomosin 908-12 is of a particular kind which defines 'the
152 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

proper way of acting under given sets of circumstances or for a

particular kind of individual'56- in this instance, the sister's duties of
philia in the matter of her dead brother's burial, for which she claims a
unique ranking. Although the formulation as a nomosis new, the essence
of this claim is not. In the debate with Creon she has claimed that her
duty to her brother would be generally recognized. In 465-8, 502-5,
510-11 she emphasizes the closeness of the sibling tie ('my own
mother's son', 'my very own brother', 'those from the same womb'),
while Creon in contrast rejects his duties to Antigone as one of his own
blood (6`dalowv), his own sister's daughter (486-9, 658-9). But how
compelling is her claim, and why is it expressed in an oddly negative
form, 'I would not have done the same for a dead husband or son'? The
answer may be that the claim is compelling by implication even though
Sophocles has not made Antigone put it in a theoretical form; her
rhetoric in this moment of pathos is confined to the substance of what
she has or has not or would not have done. The principle underlying her
bare statement is that a sister's relationship with her brother and the
philia-obligations it entails are more binding than those with a husband
or a son; the relationship with the brother is neither established nor
severable by processes determined by human nomos.57In Athenian
society both the marriage of a woman and her provision of children to
a husband were social and contractual matters prescribed and deter-
mined by nomos.Divorce or the death of her husband would return the
woman to her own oikos, while her children belonged to her husband's
oikos. The bond between siblings was unartificial and permanent; so it
might be regarded as more natural, more purely rooted in physis. If
Antigone's nomos here is based on physis, or at least on the sibling tie
being more compelling because not man-made nor breakable, her
argument resembles her earlier appeal to the Unwritten Laws, which
also asserted that a nomos established by the arbitrary declaration of
impermanent mortals could not overrule the permanent, ever-living
nomima of the immortal gods (450-7).58 The action of the play proves
her right, as Nature itself rebels against the unnatural exposure of the
corpse, polluting the city and disrupting its religious processes (998-
1022). Nomos, then, is not a self-contained category. Antigone's defence
in the matter of human nomos in 904-12 implies that her duty to her
brother was determined by natural philia and required her to defy a
nomoswhich lacked validity insofar as it violated natural obligations.59
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 153

Antigone's final speech as a whole justifies her decision to defy Creon

and bury her brother, considering it successively from the three relevant
points of view (the dead, the living, the gods) and providing a review of
the play's central moral and religious concerns. The rest of the play
confirms that Creon has erred and roused aitgand the Erinyes against
himself (especially 1023-7, 1074-6, 1259-69), has shown unwisdom
(1052) in failing to observe the established nomoi (1113-14), and
brought pollution on the city and interrupted its communications with
the gods (1015-22). Antigone's claims to justification may be read not
merely as part of a one-sided rhetoric of her own but as part of a
consistent texture in the play. Creon does not represent a legitimate or
almost legitimate conception of the rights or nature of the polis, for the
text insists with increasing clarity on a contrast between his pretensions
as a ruler and the foolish and hybristic tendencies which characterizehis
performance as a ruler and influence his decision about the body. He is a
bad ruler, and not merely in the sense that he makes an error of ritual
judgment of the kind to which any ruler is vulnerable because of the
obscurity of the gods' wishes.60 His act is hybristic, largely self-induced,
and avoidable. Nevertheless he is no monster of arbitraryinjustice, and
the text does seem to imply that his hybris is, up to a point, an easy error.
The principles he declares have much in common with Athenian
ideology of the period.61 His decree commands considerable acceptance
as nomos.The elders of the Chorus who advise him are not much slower
than he is to perceive his error. These elements of political plausibility in
Creon suggest that Sophocles' text reflects political concerns that were
real in the democratic Athens of his day: the sources and extent of the
civil government's authority, the need for government to accommodate
natural or traditional rights, the capacity that any government has to
bring harm to a community through misconceiving its powers and
acting arbitrarilyand with limited vision.62
Antigone, on the other hand, is right not just in her action (righting
Creon's ritual error) but in her moral and religious intuition: she
genuinely 'has good sense' (bpovEO).Yet there are negative factors in
her characterization and in her suicide, and the play isolates her to an
extreme degree. This is to some extent a simple matter of dramatic
dynamics: there is no dramatic tension, no peripeteia,unless Creon starts
from a position of dominance and plausibility (but with the seeds of his
154 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

downfall sown and growing from the beginning) and his opponent and
victim from a position of isolation and implausibility. Moreover, since
the tension between polis authority and private rights was real and finely
balanced in mid-fifth-century Athens, a mythic-dramatic examination
of it needed to allow degrees of right and wrong on both sides. The
positions and characters are polarized, but in a complex way. Their true
nature and value emerges gradually.63
But neither of these factors required that Antigone should meet her
end as a marginalized and humiliated figure. In Sophoclean tragedy
human virtue or innocence are no guarantee against disaster, and the
ruinous errors of individuals such as Creon may rebound indiscrimi-
nately on their families and communities. But those engulfed are never
entirely without fault; nor indeed are those who survive. Deianeira's
emotional nature precipitates the death of the husband she loves, and
her friends in the Chorus fail to prevent it. Electra's triumph over her
father's murderers is marred by her obsessive vengefulness. In Antigone,
none of the principals is faultless. The Elders abet Creon's error out of
their excessive deference to authority. Haimon's loss of self-control
destroys the last chance of making Creon see reason before it is too late,
and his suicide leads to his mother's death and his father's final isolation.
If Antigone is flawed by passion,64her death-wish, and her heredity as a
daughter of Oedipus,65 these flaws make it less wrong, or more
acceptable, that she should die in the way she does - but they do not
make it right.66
At the same time, Antigone in her death is an instrument of the gods,
or of nature. It is sometimes said that her defiance is ultimately futile
because the gods, not Antigone, prove Creon wrong through the
portents which Tiresias reports. But Antigone alone is the instrument
of Creon's punishment. It is her defiance, her condemnation, and her
entombment that cause the rift between Creon and Haimon which
destroys their family. Tiresias in his first speech reveals the unburied
body's pollution of the realm of nature which mediates between gods
and mortals, and his second speech validates Creon's punishment. But
Antigone's rebellion is virtually a part of the rebellion of nature, and part
of the mechanism of retribution. And she cannot rebel and meet her
necessary death without being the self-willed, undisciplined, and un-
feminine6" outcast that Sophocles portrays.
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 155

NOTES
1. The text is as printed by Lloyd-Jones and Wilson, the translation my own. Developing
versions of this paper were given to the Classical Association of Canada (Victoria, B.C., 1990), to
the conference GreekDrama II (Universities of Canterbury and Sydney; Christchurch, N.Z., 1992),
and at the Universities of Calgary (1991), Washington (1993), California at Berkeley (1995), and
California at Santa Cruz (1995). I have benefited from the comments of many members of these
audiences. I owe particular thanks for assistance or advice to Desmond Conacher, Mark Griffith,
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Wolfgang R6sler, and Mary Whitlock Blundell.
2. I have cited very selectively from the vast literature on Antigone. The following are cited by
authors' names. Editions etc.: F. Schneidewin and A. Nauck, Sophokles,IV. Antigone, 11th ed. rev.
by E. Bruhn (Berlin, 1913); R. C. Jebb, Sophocles,III: The Antigone (Cambridge, 3rd ed., 1900);
G. Miller, Sophokles:Antigone (Heidelberg, 1967); J. C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles,III:
Antigone(Leiden, 1978); A. L. Brown, Sophocles:Antigone (Warminster, 1987); H. Lloyd-Jones and
N. G. Wilson, Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford, 1990); H. Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles:Antigone etc. (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1994); M. Griffith, Sophocles: Antigone (Cambridge,
forthcoming). Studies: A. L. W. Jacob, SophocleaeQuaestiones,I (Warsaw, 1821); G. Kaibel, De
Sophoclis Antigona (G6ttingen, 1897); C. Knapp, 'A point in the interpretation of Sophocles'
Antigone',AJP 37 (1916), 300-16; T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Die dramatischeTechnikdes
Sophokles(Berlin, 1917); G. Perrotta, Sofocle (Messina, 1935); V. Ehrenberg, Sophoclesand Pericles
(Oxford, 1954); G. M. Kirkwood, A Study of Sophoclean Drama (Ithaca, 1958); K. von Fritz,
'Haimons Liebe zu Antigone', in Antike und moderne Tragbdie(Berlin, 1962), 227-40; B. M. W.
Knox, The Heroic Temper (Berkeley, 1966); A. A. Long, Language and Thought in Sophocles
(London, 1968); M. Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1969);
H. Lloyd-Jones, TheJustice of Zeus (Berkeley, 1971: 2nd ed., 1983); D. A. Hester, 'Sophocles the
unphilosophical', Mnemosyne 24 (1972), 11-59; G. F. Else, The Madness of Antigone (Heidelberg,
1976); J. Dalfen, 'Gesetz ist nicht Gesetz und fromm ist nicht fromm: die Sprache der Personen in
der sophokleischen Antigone', WS 90 (1977), 5-26; H. Neitzel, 'irrOEL/Oog - Leitwort der
aischyleischen Trag6die?', Gymnasium 87 (1980), 283-93; W. Rosler, Polis und Tragdidie(Kon-
stanz, 1980); C. P. Segal, Tragedyand Civilisation:an interpretationof Sophocles(Cambridge, Mass.,
1981); T. Szlezak, 'Bemerkungen zur Diskussion um Sophokles, Antigone 904-920', RM 124
(1981), 108-42; M. Lefkowitz, 'Influential women', in A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (eds.), Imagesof
Womenin Antiquity (London, 1983), 49-64; W. R6sler, 'Der Chor als Mitspieler: Beobachtungen
zur "Antigone"', Antike undAbendland 29 (1983), 107-24; G. Steiner, Antigones (Oxford, 1984);
B. M. W. Knox, Introduction to R. Fagles (tr.), Sophocles:the threeThebanPlays (Harmondsworth,
1984); M. Ostwald, FromPopularSovereigntyto theSovereigntyof Law (Berkeley, 1986); S. Goldhill,
ReadingGreekTragedy(Cambridge, 1986); S. Murnaghan, 'Antigone904-920 and the institution of
marriage', AJP 107 (1986), 192-207. C. W. Oudemans and A. Lardinois, Tragic ambiguity.
Anthropology,Philology and Sophocles'Antigone (Leiden, 1987); M. Whitlock Blundell, Helping
Friendsand HarmingEnemies (Cambridge, 1989); V. J. Rosivach, 'The interpretation of Sophocles
Antigone 926', CP 84 (1989), 116-19; C. Sourvinou-Inwood, 'Sophocles Antigone 904-920: a
reading', AION (filol.), 9-10 (1987-8), 19-35; eadem, 'Assumptions and the creation of meaning:
reading Sophocles' Antigone',JHS 109 (1989), 134-48; S. de Bouvrie, Womenin Greek Tragedy
(Oslo, 1990); M. Neuburg, 'How like a woman: Antigone's "inconsistency"', CQ 40 (1990), 54-
76; L. J. Bennett and W. B. Tyrrell, 'Sophocles' Antigone and funeral oratory', AJP 111 (1990),
441-56; J. Mikalson, Honor Thy Gods: Popular Religion in Greek Tragedy (Chapel Hill, 1991);
P. Riemer, Sophokles,Antigone: Gitterwille und menschlicheFreiheit (Stuttgart, 1991); E. Lefevre,
'Die Unfdihigkeit,sich zu erkennen: Sophokles' Antigone', WJA 18 (1992), 89-123; H. Foley, 'The
politics of tragic lamentation', in A. H. Sommerstein et al. (eds.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis
(Bari, 1993), 101-43; W. R6sler, 'Die Frage der Echtheit von Soph. Ant. 904-920 und die
politischen Funktion der attischen Trag6die', ibid. 81-99; M. F. Fresco, 'Antigoneund Anthro-
pologie', Mnemosyne 47 (1994), 289-318; C. P. Segal, Sophocles' Tragic World:Divinity, Nature,
Society (Harvard, Mass., 1995).
3. Jebb xiii-xiv. Jebb 262 objects to interpreting 904-20 as 'self-defence'.
4. Mfiller, 196.
5. Knox (1984), 48; cf. (1966), 105: '. .. she struggles with her own emotions in a self-absorbed
passion which totally ignores the presence of those around her.'
156 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

6. Jacob, 365-8.
7. T. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 45-50.
8. Schadewaldt, 82-8.
9. Steiner, 277, 279-80 ('The Gethsemane-moment - Hegel's audacious analogy is not
baseless - is upon her').
10. That the speech is first and foremost a self-justification is also seen by e.g. Kaibel 10ff.,
Neuburg 58. Foley 111-13 suggests that throughout her final scene Antigone is 'using lamentation
to make a public and politically-motivated display of injustice'.
11. For surveys of the debate in the 19th Century see S. Reiter, ZbG 49 (1898), 961 ff., and up to
1980 Szlezik. Important since then: Murnaghan, Sourvinou-Inwood (1987/8), Neuburg, Riemer
41-8, R6sler (1993). Why the passage should have been fabricated in the first place and soon
accepted as Sophoclean by such readers as Aristotle (Rhet. 1417a29-33) has never been convin-
cingly explained.
12. Only 909-12 pose syntactical difficulties (the dangling genitive absolute in 909; the reference
of 70o8Ein 910; 'there is no brother who could ever be born', 912). Some allowance should perhaps
be made for the fact that Sophocles was compressing a piece of 'casuistic ratiocination'
(Kamerbeek, p. 22) into a handful of lines.
13. For the emphasis see J. D. Denniston, The GreekParticles (Oxford, ed. 2, 1954), 473.
14. Soph. Trach. 819-20, 'Let her go on her way rejoicing and herself enjoy the pleasure she is
giving to my father'. Similar conclusive wishes for requital, though without the sarcasm: Trach.
1039-40 and (if genuine) Aj. 839-40.
15. Schol. vet. 926; LSJ9 s.v. aKWt II.1; A. C. Moorhouse, The Syntax of Sophocles
avyyLyv,
(Leiden, 1982), 260; and many commentators.
16. He finds no parallels for ovyyLyvaUKCELV as 'become conscious that ...' without a reflexive
indirect object, or as 'acknowledge' with a participle rather than infinitive as object; and notes that
this verb and its cognates regularlymean 'forgive' elsewhere in Sophocles and Euripides. Rosivach's
discussion is mentioned without comment in H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclea(Oxford,
1990), 138, and reflected in Lloyd-Jones's Loeb translation. For other such interpretations see
Rosivach, 117 n. 6 and (unapproving) Hester, 37.
17. For verbal and rhetorical links between 904-20 and the rest of the speech see Kaibel, 1-8.
18. Cf. Rosivach, 118, Neuburg, 58 n. 13.
19. J. D. Denniston, Euripides:Electra (Oxford, 1939), p. 180 on El. 1045.
20. We may prefer to think of this idea as 'proverbial' rather than 'Hesiodic' (the idea certainly
had proverbial status, e.g. P1. Symp. 222b5-7), but the evocation of the whole Hesiodic thought-
pattern and the appearance in Ant. of other closely related reminiscences of Hesiod's Works (see
below) suggest that the latter is being invoked.
21. In this play note especially 523, obio oCVV'XOEwLVaAAaoavtiLAEivy ovv,'The natural thing for me
is not to hate them together but to love them together'; also 41, 66, 266, 279, 537, 541, 846. See
Long 52 and 59 n. 109 on aovvoua (66, 279), and in general Whitlock Blundell, 103-4 (on Ajax) and
other references in her index.
22. This usage occurs in Hdt. 1.91.6, Croesus 'agreed (avv yvw) that the fault was his own and
not the god's'; similarly 1.89.3, 6.92.2. A participle as object-clause is appropriate in Ant. 926 since
it concerns acceptance of a perception.
23. Bruhn on 926; Kamerbeek, ad loc.; S. M. Adams, Phoenix 9 (1955), 59; R. Minadeo,
Arethusa 18 (1985), 152. Cf. the translations of R. E. Braun (Oxford, 1973) and Don Taylor
(London, 1986). Griffith on 925-8 adds that 928 evokes the proverbial idea that the doer must
suffer (e.g. Aesch. Cho. 313, paicavra
rvaOecv).and righteousness is contrasted with the way of
24. In Ag. 176-8 the way of understanding
foolish injustice leading to disaster, suffering and learning. Schol. M Ag. 177 compares Works218.
See Lloyd-Jones (1971/1983), 86-8 and JHS 76 (1956), 62-3; M. Gagarin, AeschyleanDrama
(Berkeley, 1976), 139-50; Neitzel 283-93 and Hermes106 (1978), 411-13 stressing that Aeschylus
like Hesiod describes two moral 'routes'.
25. 'If you were not an old man, you would learn through suffering to recognize your
presumption (7raO~wv gyvwsav old rEp Opoves).'
26. Cf Eur. Supp. 580 (where Collard lists similar phrases with different verbs), Hcld. 65; in 3rd
Person, e.g. Eur. Andr. 1006, HF 840. Cf. Fraenkel on Aesch. Ag. 1649.
27. A. Rzach, Hesiodi carmina (Leipzig, 1902), listed reminiscences of Hesiod in later poetry
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 157

including these two. M. L. West's supplement, Philologus 113 (1969), 1-9 and 130 (1986), 1-7,
adds nothing from Ant.
28. In addition to Works213-18 cf. Works30, 'Goods are not for seizing (piranKTd-)';324, 'when
profit (Kp8os0) deludes one's mind'; 352, 'Do not make evil profits (KaKdKEpaLvELw); evil profits
(KaKd KepEa) amount
to ruin'; 356, 'Gift is good; seizure (Jpirae) is bad . . .'. On the varying
definitions of 'profit' in Ant. (esp. 326, 464, 1036-9, 1045-7, 1055-6, 1063) see Goheen,
14-19; Dalfen,Kdp80•
21-3.
29. It is seen as proper by Calder, 400 n. 48, Oudemans-Lardinois, 185, and its impiety
(proclaimed by Tiresias, 1068-76) is minimized by Sourvinou-Inwood (1989), 146.
30. Else, 66 n. 52.
31. Works265-6, 'a man who does ill to another does ill to himself; ill counsel is most ill for its
deviser', seems to reverberate through the ending of the play (esp. 1050-1, 1242-3, 1259-60,
1269-70); cf. Antigone's remark about suffering from her own ill-counsel (95-6). The 'gods' swift-
footed Harms' (1104) recall Hesiod's Curse which 'runs along with crooked judgments' (Works
219). Works214-16 (quoted above, p. 141) seems to be recalled in Creon's self-condemnation,
Ant. 1272-4, 'I have learned, low (ehAaLos) as I am. Upon my head a god struck me, holding a great
weight (fldpog),and hurled me into savage ways (68o0')'.
32. West on Works220-4 explains the imaging there of Justice as victim, then avenger.
33. See esp. Knapp, 300-16 (he regarded 904-20 as an interpolation) and e.g. Goheen, 75 ff.,
Kirkwood, 233-6, Long, 50-3, Else, 51, 69, Goldhill, 173-8, Whitlock Blundell, 130-6, Mikalson,
179, 278 n. 22, Bennett and Tyrrell, 447, Lefevre, 94-9.
34. Knox (1966), 12-26 surveys the relevant vocabulary throughout Sophocles' plays.
35. Electra'sdevotion to her father and Antigone's to her brotherare debated in very similarterms:
see esp. Soph. El. 307-9, 328-50, 523-9, 549-50, 992-1057, and cf. T. C. W. Stinton, Collected
Papers on Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1990), 476-8 (= M. Cropp et al. [eds.], Greek Tragedyand its
Legacy[Calgary, 1986], 82-4). OpovErv is explicitly linked with the observance of naturalduties in 'the
most prudent (OpovtywraTiovg) birds' of El. 1058ff. (cf. Antigone's screeching like a mother-bird
whose nest has been robbed, Ant. 423-7). Cf. also Eur. Bacch. 268-9, 310-12, 326-32, 479-85 etc.
(another play in which a Theban ruler new to power fails in understanding of the divine).
36. I have found little mention of it in the Commentaries of Miiller (see on 383, 1261) or Brown
(see on 1242-3). Kamerbeek mentions it occasionally (e.g. on 95-7, 683-4, 707-9, 726-7), but not
in his list of 'Recurrent metaphors and motifs' (pp. 33-5).
37. Line 99 is still often misinterpreted as if Ismene is saying 'I still love you despite your
foolishness'. This lacks point, and misses the obvious antithesis between ivovg and cpOcsih?r7.For
the correct interpretation commentators compare Eur. LT. 610.
38. However understood, the miraculous appearance of the burial (249-58) and the later
whirlwind (417-21) establish this and suggest a revulsion of nature against the exposure of the
body, anticipating the real revulsion reported by Tiresias (998-1022).
39. 8otAos(479) is an obvious indication of Creon's tyrannical and transgressive temper, like his
threat to torture the guards (308-14; see n. 26) and his summary condemnation of Ismene (486-
90). Antigone rejects the classification of Polynices as a slave, 517.
40. 557-8: 'On your arguments (cf. '~L ... 70-r ... AdooLy,556) you thought you were being
prudent; on mine I thought I was.' - 'Yes, and the error is equal for each of us'. Commentators have
often supposed that 557 refers to the opinions of others(Creon and/or the living vs. Polynices and/or
the dead, or [reading aotlifv aol] Ismene herself vs. Polynices and the dead) and that 558 refers to
Ismene's claim to share Antigone's guilt. But 559-60 make no sense as a response if 558 is taken in
this way.
41. Lloyd-Jones, CQ 4 (1954), 93 (cf. Sophoclea 135) conjectures a' dcis for KEvadin 753, and
this appears in the new Oxford text. Thus 'What kind of threat is it for me to acquaint you with my
resolutions', rather than 'What kind of threat is it for me to speak against empty opinions?' This
removes the point from Creon's next response ('You'll regret your advising ..') and its follow-up
('... empty-witted as you are yourself).
42. Creon characteristicallyuses himself, or political authority, rather than divine authority, as
the reference-point for eusebeia:cf. Dalfen, 14-16.
43. On the overt level of meaning see Foley, 111-12. Segal (1995), 119-37 shows how
Eurydice's role in the play mirrors Antigone's and exhibits the effects of Creon's blindness to her
realm of values.
158 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

44. On the Chorus's impact on Antigone in the amoibaionsee e.g. Perrotta, 79, von Fritz, 238-
40, Kirkwood, 164. On their integration in the action of the play and relationships with Creon and
Antigone, see R6sler (1983).
45. Creon does likewise (cf. Griffith on 883-90, 935-6), as does the Chorus, 929-30.
46. These words of the Chorus contradict Antigone's assurance (511) that 'there is nothing
shameful in treating piously (sebein)those born from the same womb'. 'Piety' includes fundamental
duties towards other people as well as the gods (cf. e.g. Dalfen, 14-15). In 872-4 the Chorus are
saying that Antigone's observance of her duty towards her brother has conflicted with another,
superior duty sanctioned by the gods, i.e. obedience to a ruler's authority. In 165-7 Creon notes
that they have always revered [ac'fovras]the powers of their rulers. In 213-14 they assure him that
every nomosis at his disposal, whether it concerns the living or the dead.
47. Good remarks in Kirkwood, 236-8 and Dalfen, 14-20 on differing priorities for eusebeiaand
conflicting opinions about the eusebeiaof Antigone's action (note especially 300-1, 511-16, 730-3,
744-5, 777-80, 1349-50).
48. The repetition has been thought to indicate interpolation: e.g. Miiller ad loc., Else, 109.
Griffith on 904-15 notes several points of ring-composition within this passage.
49. See e.g. Jebb, p. 259.
50. See e.g. Segal (1981), 154-5, 170-3. Dalfen 9-14 collects the relevant passages. See also
Ostwald (1986), 148-61 - though I think he exaggerates the legitimacy which its status as a nomos
gives to Creon's burial-prohibition, and therefore the degree to which Sophocles was portraying a
conflict between equally valid obligations. Antigone is not allowingthe charge of impiety in 74 and
923-4 (as Ostwald 155-6 and n. 56 suggests), and in 921 she is not saying that she has adhered onlyto
the Justice of the dead (Ostwald 153). 8aLld6vv in 921 has the same connotations as OE6Jvin (e.g.) 77.
51. R6sler (1993), 91-4; see also Mfiller ad loc., Lesky, 207, Dalfen, 10 n. 8, Szlezik, 133.
52. Cf. R6sler (1980).
53. vavovpylais a strong term. Creon uses it of crimes in general (300), linking it with impiety in
301 (ravds Epyov 8vaafELaav). On the counterpoint between 74 (with 68) and 300-1 see Goheen,
127-8 n. 2.
54. It is hard to see any dramatic purpose for this passage if what Haimon says in 692-700 is not
supposed to be largely true, though Sourvinou-Inwood (1989, 144) questions this. Haimon
confirms Antigone's claim that she has unspoken support (509). Creon accepts this when he
retorts that the polis at large has no authority (734-8).
55. Cf. Whitlock Blundell, 147. R6sler argues that Antigone separates the Chorus from the
politai by ceasing to address them as politai once she recognizes their lack of sympathy. He contrasts
806 with 842-3 and 940. But 842-3, 'O city, O wealthy men of our city', does not separate the
community from its elders. The phrasing conveys that she feels abandoned by both of them (cf.
Miiller p. 187), for she then turns away from both and is reduced, like the isolated Philoctetes (Phil.
936-9, 986-8), to calling on the natural environment (844-6) to witness that she has no philoi and is
a victim of unjust nomoi.
56. Ostwald (1969), 24-5. But it does not follow that this nomos is wholly arbitraryand self-
contained, as he suggests elsewhere (1969, 53; 1986, 154 n. 49). If Antigone adduces a nomoshere,
and complains about Creon's misvaluation of it (913-14), this surely serves to relate her argument
at this point to the earlier arguments about nomos. Riemer 44-8 also seems to exaggerate the
privateness of Antigone's reasoning.
57. See e.g. Segal (1981), 183-5, de Bouvrie, 186-7. The opposition between blood-ties and
marriage-ties is of course thematically relevant at this point in other ways, as Murnaghan and
Neuburg in particularhave pointed out. Antigone's normal future in marriageis being destroyed by
her devotion to her brother, and her intended husband is the son of her persecutor. Creon will be
punished through the loss of son and wife.
Murnaghan sees Antigone in the final speech as seeking 'justificationand consolation for her loss
of marriage' (205) and describes her as overvaluing phusis and the unwritten laws against culture
and the polis, dissociating herself from marriage as an institution (198-201, 207). This risks
exaggerating the degree to which the text makes Antigone responsible for the conflict. The text tells
us little about her character, principles, and vision that is not tied to the immediate issue of her
obligation to defy Creon's decree, and nothing about Antigone in normal times except that she had
a strong personality and was eager to marry Haimon (570). It does not make her exclusive focus on
the family a cause of the problem in the same way that Creon's decree is.
 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH 159

58. Aristotle understood Antigone's appeal to the divine nomima as an appeal to Nature (Rhet.
1373b4-13; cf. 1375a31 ff.). See e.g. G. B. Kerferd, The SophisticMovement (Cambridge, 1980),
113, in a useful survey of the nomos-physiscontroversy.
59. Cf. especially Goheen, 76-93 on this point and on the reflection of Antigone's moral
awareness in a language of intuition and feeling. Note especially how her renewed complaint about
Creon's nomoi in the amoibaion (847) is addressed to the world of nature (cf. n. 35 above) and
linked with her loss of philoi, and of course how Creon finally recognizes that he has breached 'the
established nomoi' (1114-15).
60. This has been argued recently, from somewhat differing premisses, by Oudemans and
Lardinois (1987) and Sourvinou-Inwood (1987-8; 1989). Oudemans and Lardinois suggest that
Sophocles was adhering to an 'integrative cosmology' typical of archaic Greece. Creon has acted
responsibly and is right to suppose that as its ruler he embodies the polis, but he has the tragic
handicap of having to rule without knowing fully what the gods approve or disapprove. Antigone's
claims to know about the gods' wishes and about justice are unjustified (166, 168-9); in 904-20 she
is admitting that her preference for her brother was flawed but refusing to abandon it (187 ff.), and
in 921-8 she is admitting that the gods are against her but refusing to agree with them. Fresco
provides an extensive critique of this position.
Sourvinou-Inwood argues that Sophocles and his audience would have had much more
sympathy than we do for Creon's political values and would have seen Antigone as a subversive
figure who 'does the right thing for the wrong reasons' after Creon has unfortunately done a wrong
thing (upsetting the cosmic order by a false ritual move) for the right reasons (wanting to humiliate
a traitorby dishonouring his body). Only from Tiresias do we learn that he has done wrong, and his
wrongness does not cancel the wrongness of Antigone's motivations in resisting him; she is no more
than 'part of the disorder unleashed into the city as a result of the offence against the gods and the
cosmic order' (1989, 148). In this reading, lines 904-20 are inconsistent with Antigone's earlier
arguments and show her to be challenging the polis for personal reasons, subordinating marital ties
to blood-ties in an unAthenian way, and usurping a male role in undertaking the actual burial of
Polynices. Her claims to piety are unsubstantiated, and she has no claim to authority as a source of
value in conflict with the polis (1989, 142-3). My own analysis has suggested that the text advertises
the deficiencies of Creon's actions and character earlier and more persistently than Sourvinou-
Inwood allows, and gives correspondingly more authority to Antigone's position, in spite of the
attractions of some of Creon's principles in Athenian eyes and of some admitted negativities in
Antigone's conduct and situation.
61. See e.g. Knox (1966), Calder, Sourvinou-Inwood (1989), 135, 141-2. On the whole, the
text appears to portray Creon as leading the polis into error and danger for a mixture of reasons,
some 'good' and some 'bad' according to the polis-ideology of democratic Athens. Even 'good'
reasons (security, discipline, loyalty to the state, male dominance, etc.) were hardly exempt from
examination by a tragic poet, and I doubt if Sophocles would have been regarded as 'a subversive, a
challenger of the values of the polis' (Sourvinou-Inwood [1989], 147) for problematizing them.
62. Cf. especially Ehrenberg ch. 2-4 (with too much emphasis on the particular application to
Pericles); Knox (1966), 75-102; Hester; Ostwald (1986), 148-61.
63. Cf. Dalfen, 12.
64. Cf. Whitlock Blundell, 130 ff., though I do not share her perception of a 'spurious rationality'
(134) in Antigone's argument at 904 ff.
65. This heredity seems to me to be relevant to Antigone's motivation and to our sense of her
tragic fate (cf. 1-6, 49-60, 463-4, 559-60, 594-603, 857-71, 891-6). But this is not to say that she
is a victim of ate arising from the curse on her family, as Lloyd-Jones (1971/1983), 113-16 suggests.
Ati-induced behaviour must surely be irrational and self-destructive. Antigone behaves self-
destructively but by no means irrationally. When the Chorus say in 853-6 that she has 'tripped
against the high platform of Justice' and is 'paying off an inherited ordeal (7ra-rp(ov ... &OAov)',
the
Justice referred to is the justice envisaged by Creon and the Chorus (cf. pp. 12-13), and the remark
about her inherited guilt does no more than suggest that in what is happening to her there is some
justice derivable from this source.
66. Greek tragedy avoids the moral or religious outrage which would be caused by the suffering
of an extremely virtuous and innocent person. See T. C. W. Stinton, CQ 25 (1975), 238-42 (=
CollectedPapers on Greek Tragedy [Oxford, 1990], 164-8), with reference to Aristotle's theory of
hamartia.
160 ANTIGONE'S FINAL SPEECH

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