Antigone Article 12

Guide to Sophocles) Creon's First Speech and the

ANTIGONE

Reply of the Chorus A Student Edition with Commentary, Grammatical Notes, & Vocabulary

(161- 2 1

4J

iNTRODUCTION

.l\.

JOAN V. O'BRIEN Sam'"- 6; b. Q.w-d ,4,-hc\e.. )L 0.

s,

-f" r Ar+ io, Ll, I 3)

It.{

Southern Illinois Uniuersity Press CARBONDALE AND EDWARDSVILLE

Fejfer & Simons, Inc. LoNDON AND AMSTERDAM

e. IJrfU'S

~,.

..yhIS

ITER THE IRONICALLY Joyful entrance of the Cho. singing and dancing their hymn to Dionvsos celebrating the king's victory over the seven Argive invaders and especially over the dead traitor Polymces, the king enters to give his inaugural address to the elders. The audience immediately perceives that his priorities differ from those of his niece: the./?Q1i.: and not ll!liJiE..is his guiding principle. Still, in one important respect, there seems to be a family resemblance: he, like she, radiates self-confidence or perhaps arrogance. It IS difficult at first to determine which of the two qualities It

0(;

o.rt-,

IS.

We shall note here some of the ways C:.'s style reveals the man In this first speech and shall try to ascertain how the Athenian audience would :ea~t to his s:ated. principles. There is one significant stylistic linkage between uncle and ruece and that is in their mutual penchant for the first person pronoun. After the bond between the sisters is ent midway through the Prologue, An. discards the duals and s eaks with a predominating ego. The slyle is highly irregular for a woman, let alone so young

f"rn

31

Guide

/0

Sophocles'

• Creon '.< First Speech and the Reply

ANTIGONE /

a girl, and it g-IVCS the appearance of arrogance. The Icing's initial sratcmcru, on the other hand, displays appropriate pietv: tlmn, Ihe gnds, arc the first subject I Iii2). !lut thcy are only the grammatical subject, one s""n realizes: the real suhject is egl) (164) and remains so throughollt. Sj ucc the kin~'s professed purpose is to lay down

uf the

Chorus

when she advised Ism, to proceed on her course and keep her ship

):.S"""stralght (83). Such counsel in effect consigned the girl to Cr.'s ship. Although the ship of state is Cr.'s favorite figure' and straight sailing his goal (see "Vocabulary," chap.B, underorlhoJ and related words), the figure has a much more pregnant usage in the play S....as a whole. ]n the musings of the Cha., the sea is a constant symbol 0Wf'J both of man's resourcefulness ancl of the limIts of that re-

general norms for his rule, this emphasis on the first person requires

some manipulauon. Hc consistent ly manipulates the language so as to stress the fact that the remarks are his and to subordinate thc Iact thaI they arc principles worthy of consideration (19 1 ,

~ sourcefulness ('360 n.). Man's daring makes him victorious over

T'lus ma nj pu lation verges 00 the blasphemous at one point

the sea (334 ff.), but the swelling sea driven by, the Thracian winds creates chaos, churrung up the dark mud from the ocean ADO!".

1184) when the gramrna t icul struct ure of the sentcnce subordinates Zeus 10 him. The focus thus split between the king's principle and hIS ego results In a somewhat confused present aucn of his

engul fing Innocent and guilty al ikc (586-92). Such is the destructive power of aii, "disaster," as the Cho. reminds us in thc foreboding rhythms of the second stasirnon." In addition, the youthful Hae.

20 7- 10 ) .

rules of conduct. Yet, the initial confusion seems understandable

\{\:l5 and the aRcd seer T'iresla<: both try 10 vain to warn the king that

~of~-r. hIS narrow conception of naVigation will be lata: only the flexible

In a ncw long anxious to establish hIS authority. 'the sustained pontifical tone, however, is inclined to remind the thoughtful listencr of An.'s earlier IIlsinuation about the king's autocratic bent fill· In other respects, Cr.'s style differs sharply from that of his niece. The "Ionl( rolling sentences, thc weighty rhythms, the grandiloquern usc of plurals show power conscious of itself." j But there are other revealing aspecls of his style: his addiction to sententious statements of principle, valid enough in themselves, but rigidly, even ruthlesslv applied to the case of hIS nephew; and his pompous generalities (17B, 182) 209) that put him on a level with the platitudi nous Ruar~, 10 the ne~t scene." Such a.presentatlon may initially

't\,'

A~

sc.

\

C) ,

!(tl~

I \ I

c,~

x):

dazzle the eho. and IIn.,r"s the audIence, but the thoughtful_lIln~\ IlStencr gradllally perceIves that the long IS attempting to cover r~ l\leS up the baSIC IJ1sccuntics of "a weak man, used In taking second. t..c-vfJ plac".n Thebes."" (rICp\a.ce. .Cl ".wit-\" ( .' ;+ 'b0otil'>~) I\'IS i !-lIS main means 01 concealing thiS

l~lsecur~ty IS the in:age _he

. \1f\lJ

!/or

proJects of Illmsclf as the helmsman stralghtcllIng aocl redIrecting 50.1 the shIp of state. He has personally steadicd the storm-tossed ship fIIe;l-o.P. and can contain any futurc tempests by hIS straight sailing. His use of the nautIcal metaphor IS the first sustained figure 111 thc play and it is.clear that his goal is straight and upright navigation \ . of the-._state (163-90), a goal that .he intends to achieve at any D.OII1C. ~(bhh-67)· An., we bcgln to realize, knew her uncle quite well j..>"",

As

-tv

32

pilot will survive (710-18; cl. 994). In the unifying Image at the cnd of the play, the king finally cnes out: "Oh, inexorable harbor ~ Hades, why, oh why, have you destroyed me now?" !I 284-85 . rOil' and n.). In the light of that final goal, the terrible ~ of Cr.'s) • aphorism in thIS speech IS fully revealed: "One cannot fully know the nature, spIrit, and Judgment of a man until he proves hImself in the administration of the laws" (175-77). It is only In the light of that final goal that one .,ercelves just how superficial the similarities between unele and nicce were: her ap.,arent arrogance In the

e

Prologue masks a deep conviction that her cause is just; his self confidence rests onl1' on the tenuous strength of his ~ (see

34 8 n.). So much for the style of the man. What about the substance of his argument? How would the Athenian audience react to Cr.ts nomos, his law and guiding principle, that the straight sailing of the polis transcends all personal ~onside:~t1on (T 78 ff.)? It w~s: of course, a commonplace of Athenian political thought that friendship and family love can only exist in a healthy polis. Indeed, Cr.'s words here find an echo in Thucydides' account of Pericles' famous Funeral Oration (Thucvdides 2. 60); and the king in Euripides' Medea (written a decade later) almost agrees with Cr.-but with one Important reservation: his children mean more to him than the state (Medea 329). We know, too, that Dernosrhenes, a century

33

Cuuie to Salihue/cs'

ANTtGONE /

Creon's First Speech and the RclJiy

later, found this whole speech cxcmpl arv of pruper official conduct since he quoted it as a corrective against Acschincs." Thus the klllg's prindplc S('Cn1:i theoretically sound. It is in his rigid application of the theory to the stinking corpse of his

Icading the audicncc to make.:

S",p h o C .-'e.s'

tJ,. J2.. vn e.

\. First of all, Soph. and his audience were breathing the clear \~~L(}.- )air of tree Athens at the pinnacle of her civilization after their \

~1) \(,[).,ov po..v·J

older brot hcrs had died at Marathon to defend the freedom of

Chm ,

clean corpus: HO O not let your violent hatred blind you to trample

justice under fool. He was my most bitter enemy .. yet you would be unjust if you dishonor him. For you would not wrong him but the laws of the gods (taus thriin lIomaus)." The concern of Odysseus here (Ajax 1332 H.) and the concern that the poet makes the audience feci throughout the An. i~

nephcw that thc playwright Icads the audience to question the regal position. The Athenians admired the flexibility of Pericles! p
q! the

\ the corpse'::; legal rights so much as outrage at the degrading, i'f'r,e,fI'(!,'

:

inhumane treatment of the dead (see 29-30, 199 206, 410 t z, 697-98, 1016-22, 1039 44, 1080-83, 1198). So, although Cr., the king. had responsibilities different from those of Cr., the nearest

male relative to the deceased, thiS first speech reveals Cr. the king

RimpervtOu::; to the dutie!'i of Cr. t~e kinsman. 1 he king's conscious \rtJ'c\,J repetition of, the idea of «cQm~.6_? blood," twic~ in a fe~ lines ()~o"

S (19 8- 20 1) points to a fundamental Irony

hiS pOSItIOn: he IS both \.:. ,...," aware of Polynlces' neglect of hIS kin and IS blindly repeatlOg e.,.f'" Polynice:->l pattern. This insensitivity to human concerns, especially 10

to blood concerns, culminates in the episode with his son whose

the i ndivtdua l aga mst the tyranny of the Invading forces of the

very name denotes "Blood" (see 658 n.). But in this first speech Pcrsi an despot. At this ln-n-f moment 111 Athenian history, there the rejection of blood-rights is only implied. The audience would was a dialectical tC'O!'iiOI1 between mclividu al and cornmuu nv , wuh see a rigidity out of step with the concern for burial that impelled the scale tlppl11g toward the' i ndivrdual. Although Pericles was to the Athenians at Marathon to bury the Persian enemy (Pausamas urge the Athenians to have a love nffair with their city (Thucydidcs t • :J2. 5); and they would not, to our knowledge, recall any Athenian 2. 4:l. f) and although tlus love demanded g-reat sacrifice, the very precedent for such defamation of the traitor's corpse (the closest base of the love affair was the respect for the ri,~hts of the mdividual. parallel in Hellenic records is denial of burial Within Aurea, in Such was no! the case in coutem porar)" Sparta where CI".'::; pri nci ples Xenophon Hell auca i . 7. 22). ~()~and netruns would have parallels in political pracucc." Pcrhap::; - ",'Still, the only sign of disapproval the Cho. registers IS contained 'i:o\. only at Athcn::; and only dunng tht" Periclean age CQuid the Au thor" s ~.~ the tiny partIcles PO" ge, "1 su prose." Wi th these monosyllables, ().. '~It.- \YI have bcen written. The legend that Soph. died rehearsing the All." 6\>~~rthey heSitantly suggest their reluctance, while acknowledging the -1", 6'0\~ may, if true, reflect his tragic realization that the creative tension vJ'IPking's power (kratas) to carry out hiS ruthless decree: "It IS withm 'r\,s I between IJflhf and person had already gone slack In the forty Interyour /Jower, I suppose (fIOU gel, to legislate for us all, both hying verung years. and dead" (213-14). The timid Cho. lacks the courage to say more. Soph.ts own concern for the individual's religious anel human Q... The untranslatable gc by throwing the emphasis on the word nght of burial was not nrw In 4-42 or 441 when he wrote this , -\'\~~ "power" is their pathettc suggestion that power does not make play. In the las: scene or his earlier Ajax, Odysseus, bitter enemy "::,S ~J \YI it right. 01 the dead AJaX, eloquently rejects the decision of the sceptered ~& Thus An.ts passion and rigid adherence to her beliefs in the Atrcidac to expose Ajax's body as "rood fur the sea-birds." His ~'cY!:"-/ Prologue is followed by the authoritative address of the new king rebuttal to their decision has long been recognized as the best .~t. With its own principles rigidly and sententiously presented. Soon commentary on the central act of the All. anywhere in the Sopho-\pv'1 . \ the two antagonists will meet in heated confrontation (441 ff.).

-c

34

~~.

.

~