Morality Belongs to the Gods, Not the King - Summary and Themes from "Antigone" by Sophocles
Stephen Alexander Beach
Antigone opens with her and her sister talking about the fate and death of their two warring brothers who ended up killing each other. Because Eteocles was defending the city, he was buried properly, while Polyneices was not, as he was the attacker of the city. His corpse was left outside the city in the open air for the birds and dogs to devour, no ceremony given. Creon, who is now king in Oedipus’ stead, has forbid, by punishment of death, for anyone to bury Polyneices. Antigone, though, does not think it right in the eyes of the gods to leave her brother unburied, even though he was the attacker. “It’s not for him to keep me from my own.” And so, Antigone asks Ismene if she is going to help her.
Ismene says that their family already has a terrible fate, does she want them two to die as well? And so she will not help and will obey the king’s law. “So I shall ask of them beneath the earth forgiveness, for in these things I am forced, and shall obey the men in power.” But Antigone will not listen though to an unjust command, and would prefer death instead, as there is clearly an inversion of the moral law. “… I have dared the crime of piety. Longer the time in which to please the dead than that for those up here. There I shall live forever.”
Antigone is not afraid for people to find out she did it, as she knows that the gods are most important to obey, not man. Rather, her conscience is at peace. “but let me and my own ill-counseling suffer this terror. I shall suffer nothing as great as dying with a lack of grace.”.jpg)
A recounting of the war and the deeds of the brothers is then given, and Creon enters to summon a counsel of men to speak to. There, in context of speaking about his sons fight over power, he expresses his own views on ruling. He says that men’s hearts are shown when they have power, and that the silent or traitorous leader is the worst kind of leader. “You cannot learn of any man the soul, the mind, and the intent until he shows his practice of the government and law. For I believe that who controls the state and does not hold to the best plans of all but locks his tongue up through some kind of fear, that he is worst of all who are or were. And he who counts another greater friend than his own fatherland, I put him nowhere.” And so he decrees that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be dishonored. “Such is my mind. Never shall I, myself, honor the wicked and reject the just.”
The corpse is to be guarded from anyone who would try to bury it. Then one of the guards enters and is torn about whether to tell the news or not. He goes tell, and says that someone has buried Polyneices, but they have no idea who. They were arguing amongst themselves, but figured they must report it. They suspect it was a god who did it. Creon calls them out and accuses them of taking bribes.
He then speaks about how bad corruption is in a state. It is the love of money that will destroy a people. “No current custom among men as bad as silver currency. This destroys the state; this drives men from their homes; this wicked teacher drives solid citizens to acts of shame. It shows men how to practice infamy and know the deeds of all unholiness.” From there Creon is going to usher an oath, in the vein of Oedipus, that the guards will be punished horribly if they do not find the criminal.
The chorus sings of the strangeness of man, he who can do all things in this life cannot yet but yield to death, something he will never overcome. (192, 193)
The guards bring in Antigone, who they caught in the act of returning to continue the rites. Already Creon’s prideful oath is being seen as misguided now that it is his niece that is caught. She does not deny anything and confesses to the act, and the guards are cleared of wrong doing. Creon asks why she did what she did. She responds by saying that he does not have the authority to do what he did, and that she will obey the moral law and die at peace than let the opposite happen.
“For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Nor did I think your orders were so strong that you, a mortal man, could over-run the gods’ unwritten and unfailing laws. Not now, not yesterday’s, they always live, and no one knows their origin in time. So not through fear of any man’s proud spirit would I be likely to neglect these laws, draw on myself the gods’ sure punishment. I knew that I must die; how could I not? Even without your warning. If I die before my time, I say that it is a gain. Who lives in sorrows many as are mine how shall he not be glad to gain his death? And so, for me to meet his fate, no grief. But if I left that corpse, my mother’s son, dead and unburied I’d have cause to grieve as now I grieve not. And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool’s eye.”
Creon is indignant at this response and thinks that if he does not punish her that his rule is being undermined by a lowly woman. It becomes clear that they will not see eye to eye on this issue. Antigone points out that Creon’s council is cowed and too afraid to say anything against the king. Antigone says she believes that the gods require in death that there must be equal treatment of all. Creon responds by saying the man was guilty, but Antigone points out that this may not be what is considered in the realm of the dead. “I cannot share in hatred, but in love.”
Ismene is then brought in before the king and accused of helping in the crime. Ismene chooses to say that she did help, even though she didn’t, and wants to suffer with her sister. Antigone rebuffs her for her speaking of something she didn’t do. Creon begins to rage and bans his son Haemon from marrying his betrothed, Antigone. Both women will be killed.
The chorus speaks of a generational curse that the actions of Oedipus brought on his house. “Ancient the sorrow of Labdacus’ house, I know. Dead men’s grief comes back, and falls on grief. No generation can free the next. One of the gods will strike. There is no escape. So now the light goes out for the house of Oedipus, while the bloody knife cuts the remaining root. Folly and Fury have done this.” Likewise, the chorus speaks of the immutable law that men’s hubris will bring their doom, and that the prideful do not see it until it is too late (foreshadowing here to the end of the play).
Then Haemon enters and converses with his father. He sons ingratiates himself to his father as his father speaks about the wickedness of some women and that he doesn’t want him to marry her. Rather, a blessing is an obedient son who continues his father’s work and designs in the kingdom. Since he made that oath, he cannot break it just because she is his niece. It is his belief that the king’s command must be obeyed at all costs, if it is bad. This is the only foundation of order in the kingdom. “The man the state has put in place must have obedient hearing to his least command when it is right, and even when it’s not. … There is no greater wrong than disobedience. This ruins cities, this tears down our homes, this breaks the battle-front in panic-rout. If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them.”
Here the tone changes, though, in their conversation. Haemon admits that Creon’s council will not tell him the truth because they are scared of him, and that in secret they really disagree with the king’s ruling. He tells his father that he must open his mind to consider this. “Then, do not have one mind, and one alone that only your opinion can be right. Whoever thinks that he alone is wise, his eloquence, his mind, above the rest, come the unfolding, shows his emptiness. A man, though wise, should never ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.” And so Haemon asks for mercy for Antigone.
Creon then turns on his son and, again, becomes defensive, basically saying not to tell him how to rule the kingdom. Haemon responds, “No city is property of a single man. … You tread down the gods’ due. Respect is gone.” Haemon is telling him, like Antigone, that there is a higher authority than the king. Creon forbids marriage to Antigone. Parting, Haemon points out his father’s moral blindness. “You wish to speak but never wish to hear.”
In a rage, Creon is going to kill Antigone right in front of his son to punish him, but Haemon storms off and will not allow that to happen. And so Creon devises another way of killing Antigone. He is going to take her to a cave out in the wilderness and leave her with just enough food to eat. There she may survive or she may die.
The chorus then sings of the effects that love has on every person who lives. (208, 209)
Antigone has chosen her own fate, she has not been killed. Rather, in seeking true justice she will have to pay the price of her own life. Not only will she die, but she will die unwed and childless. Creon somehow things that the stain of her death will not fall on him. Before being taken away, some doubt creeps into Antigone’s mind as she reflects that if she had husband of children she probably would not have gone against the king’s command. But since she did not, she had to be loyal to her brother. She also begins to question if it really was the god’s desire. “What divine justice have I disobeyed? Why, in my misery, look to the gods for help? Can I call any of them my ally? I stand convicted of impiety, the evidence my pious duty done. Should the gods think that this is righteousness, in suffering I’ll see my error clear. But if it is the others who are wrong I wish them no greater punishment than mine.”
Creon, ironically, begins to reflect on fate saying “Fate has terrible power, You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it.” This is in reference to Antigone, yet Teiresias is about to enter to proclaim Creon’s fate. Teiresias has the king’s respect from times gone by, and so begins by saying that all the omens are showing that something is wrong with the state. He says that it was wrong what Creon did and that he must repent for this. The wise ruler admits when he is wrong and changes his course with wise counsel (not the faux council the king has set up for himself).
Creon again becomes defensive and accuses Teiresias of seeking money and tempts him to prophecy against him. So that’s what Teiresias does. He says that Creon’s child will die and that gods of the dead will come for him because he has left many unburied, but mostly because he has caused in inversion of justice by not buying the dead and by buying the living. “For you’ve confused the upper and lower worlds. You sent a life to settle in a tomb; you keep up here that which belongs below the corpse unburied, robbed of its release.”
This prophecy scares Creon and he sheepishly commands his evil deeds to be undone. He admits that there is a law higher than himself. “I’ve come to fear it’s best to hold the laws of old tradition to the end of life.” The chorus then makes a prayer to Bacchus, but it’s too late. A messenger arrives to the palace with bad news. He recounts to the queen that her son, Haemon, has killed himself. Creon and his crew buried Polyneices, and was going to free Antigone when he heard his son’s voice coming from the cave. Antigone had hung herself with her own veil. Creon runs over with his sword out to cut Antigone down but misses and Haemon puts himself in the way of the blade. Creon has killed his son. “Corpse on corpse he lies. He found his marriage. Its celebration in the halls of Hades. So he has made it very clear to men that to reject good counsel is a crime.”
Then Eurydice, the queen goes silent and is later found to have killed herself in the same way with a sword out of sorrow for the news. Creon enters with his dead son and finds his wife dead as well. Creon admits that power corrupted him. “You have learned justice, though it comes too late.” Since Creon inverted the proper roles of the living and the dead, the gods will do the same to him. He has lost everyone he loves to death. Worst of all, his wife cursed him as her last breath. Creon is reduced to absolutely nothing. He blames fate, though it has become clear that it is men’s actions which seal their fate. “Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. The gods must have their due. Great words by men of pride bring greater blows upon them. So wisdom comes to the old.”
Themes From Antigone
A first major theme that sticks out as a commonality between Oedipus Rex and Antigone is that power corrupts people. In Oedipus Rex Creon says that he doesn’t want power because he has all the benefits with none of the burdens in his current state. He is sound of mind and wise. Here, having taken power after Oedipus’ death, he admits that some god warped his mind, causing him to act in all of these ways. Both of the kings, in their pride and anger, make rash oaths of punishment which are cloaked in justice and virtue, yet because they are not actually just, they lead to their own downfall and the curse of the oath actually falls back on them, crushing them both into nothing. Justice must include mercy for people.
Connected to this is the notion that the state is more than one man. Creon thinks that the state is his own mind, and that all must unfailingly obey, regardless if he is right or wrong in his judgment. He surrounds himself with counsel that just reflects back to him what he wants to hear. When people try to correct him, he acts defensively in a rage. And so it is clear that wise counsel must be the companion of the king, if he is to rule with justice. He must be open to being corrected and to changing his mind when he sees that he is wrong. This is done by Creon way too late in the play.
Higher than this is the central theme of the play, in my opinion, that morality is something greater than any man can create, even the king. Morality belongs to the gods and is expressed in the age old traditions of the wise and elderly. Not even the most powerful man can transcend these immutable realities and laws. Antigone represents the authentic piety which is owed to the gods. Even though it may seem counterintuitive, she knows that the gods desire that all be buried and so is willing to follow her conscience even if it means death.
Likewise, too, the play makes clear that the dead are sacred, even if they were wicked in life. The human condition is such that all men are going to die, they cannot escape it. And so it is right and fitting that all have a proper burial. If we do not follow such laws of the gods, then they will find the proper fitting punishment for us. Just as Creon acted in the inversion of justice by not burying the dead and buying the living, so too the gods took all of the living from him and brought them to death.
When it comes to fate, there may be ordained situations or generational punishments that affect people, but at the end of the day it is the choices that people make that seals their fate. If they act with piety and justice they may escape the final consequences of fate.
Antigone opens with her and her sister talking about the fate and death of their two warring brothers who ended up killing each other. Because Eteocles was defending the city, he was buried properly, while Polyneices was not, as he was the attacker of the city. His corpse was left outside the city in the open air for the birds and dogs to devour, no ceremony given. Creon, who is now king in Oedipus’ stead, has forbid, by punishment of death, for anyone to bury Polyneices. Antigone, though, does not think it right in the eyes of the gods to leave her brother unburied, even though he was the attacker. “It’s not for him to keep me from my own.” And so, Antigone asks Ismene if she is going to help her.
Ismene says that their family already has a terrible fate, does she want them two to die as well? And so she will not help and will obey the king’s law. “So I shall ask of them beneath the earth forgiveness, for in these things I am forced, and shall obey the men in power.” But Antigone will not listen though to an unjust command, and would prefer death instead, as there is clearly an inversion of the moral law. “… I have dared the crime of piety. Longer the time in which to please the dead than that for those up here. There I shall live forever.”
Antigone is not afraid for people to find out she did it, as she knows that the gods are most important to obey, not man. Rather, her conscience is at peace. “but let me and my own ill-counseling suffer this terror. I shall suffer nothing as great as dying with a lack of grace.”
.jpg)
A recounting of the war and the deeds of the brothers is then given, and Creon enters to summon a counsel of men to speak to. There, in context of speaking about his sons fight over power, he expresses his own views on ruling. He says that men’s hearts are shown when they have power, and that the silent or traitorous leader is the worst kind of leader. “You cannot learn of any man the soul, the mind, and the intent until he shows his practice of the government and law. For I believe that who controls the state and does not hold to the best plans of all but locks his tongue up through some kind of fear, that he is worst of all who are or were. And he who counts another greater friend than his own fatherland, I put him nowhere.” And so he decrees that Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will be dishonored. “Such is my mind. Never shall I, myself, honor the wicked and reject the just.”
The corpse is to be guarded from anyone who would try to bury it. Then one of the guards enters and is torn about whether to tell the news or not. He goes tell, and says that someone has buried Polyneices, but they have no idea who. They were arguing amongst themselves, but figured they must report it. They suspect it was a god who did it. Creon calls them out and accuses them of taking bribes.
He then speaks about how bad corruption is in a state. It is the love of money that will destroy a people. “No current custom among men as bad as silver currency. This destroys the state; this drives men from their homes; this wicked teacher drives solid citizens to acts of shame. It shows men how to practice infamy and know the deeds of all unholiness.” From there Creon is going to usher an oath, in the vein of Oedipus, that the guards will be punished horribly if they do not find the criminal.
The chorus sings of the strangeness of man, he who can do all things in this life cannot yet but yield to death, something he will never overcome. (192, 193)
The guards bring in Antigone, who they caught in the act of returning to continue the rites. Already Creon’s prideful oath is being seen as misguided now that it is his niece that is caught. She does not deny anything and confesses to the act, and the guards are cleared of wrong doing. Creon asks why she did what she did. She responds by saying that he does not have the authority to do what he did, and that she will obey the moral law and die at peace than let the opposite happen.
“For me it was not Zeus who made that order. Nor did that Justice who lives with the gods below mark out such laws to hold among mankind. Nor did I think your orders were so strong that you, a mortal man, could over-run the gods’ unwritten and unfailing laws. Not now, not yesterday’s, they always live, and no one knows their origin in time. So not through fear of any man’s proud spirit would I be likely to neglect these laws, draw on myself the gods’ sure punishment. I knew that I must die; how could I not? Even without your warning. If I die before my time, I say that it is a gain. Who lives in sorrows many as are mine how shall he not be glad to gain his death? And so, for me to meet his fate, no grief. But if I left that corpse, my mother’s son, dead and unburied I’d have cause to grieve as now I grieve not. And if you think my acts are foolishness the foolishness may be in a fool’s eye.”
Creon is indignant at this response and thinks that if he does not punish her that his rule is being undermined by a lowly woman. It becomes clear that they will not see eye to eye on this issue. Antigone points out that Creon’s council is cowed and too afraid to say anything against the king. Antigone says she believes that the gods require in death that there must be equal treatment of all. Creon responds by saying the man was guilty, but Antigone points out that this may not be what is considered in the realm of the dead. “I cannot share in hatred, but in love.”
Ismene is then brought in before the king and accused of helping in the crime. Ismene chooses to say that she did help, even though she didn’t, and wants to suffer with her sister. Antigone rebuffs her for her speaking of something she didn’t do. Creon begins to rage and bans his son Haemon from marrying his betrothed, Antigone. Both women will be killed.
The chorus speaks of a generational curse that the actions of Oedipus brought on his house. “Ancient the sorrow of Labdacus’ house, I know. Dead men’s grief comes back, and falls on grief. No generation can free the next. One of the gods will strike. There is no escape. So now the light goes out for the house of Oedipus, while the bloody knife cuts the remaining root. Folly and Fury have done this.” Likewise, the chorus speaks of the immutable law that men’s hubris will bring their doom, and that the prideful do not see it until it is too late (foreshadowing here to the end of the play).
Then Haemon enters and converses with his father. He sons ingratiates himself to his father as his father speaks about the wickedness of some women and that he doesn’t want him to marry her. Rather, a blessing is an obedient son who continues his father’s work and designs in the kingdom. Since he made that oath, he cannot break it just because she is his niece. It is his belief that the king’s command must be obeyed at all costs, if it is bad. This is the only foundation of order in the kingdom. “The man the state has put in place must have obedient hearing to his least command when it is right, and even when it’s not. … There is no greater wrong than disobedience. This ruins cities, this tears down our homes, this breaks the battle-front in panic-rout. If men live decently it is because discipline saves their very lives for them.”
Here the tone changes, though, in their conversation. Haemon admits that Creon’s council will not tell him the truth because they are scared of him, and that in secret they really disagree with the king’s ruling. He tells his father that he must open his mind to consider this. “Then, do not have one mind, and one alone that only your opinion can be right. Whoever thinks that he alone is wise, his eloquence, his mind, above the rest, come the unfolding, shows his emptiness. A man, though wise, should never ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind.” And so Haemon asks for mercy for Antigone.
Creon then turns on his son and, again, becomes defensive, basically saying not to tell him how to rule the kingdom. Haemon responds, “No city is property of a single man. … You tread down the gods’ due. Respect is gone.” Haemon is telling him, like Antigone, that there is a higher authority than the king. Creon forbids marriage to Antigone. Parting, Haemon points out his father’s moral blindness. “You wish to speak but never wish to hear.”
In a rage, Creon is going to kill Antigone right in front of his son to punish him, but Haemon storms off and will not allow that to happen. And so Creon devises another way of killing Antigone. He is going to take her to a cave out in the wilderness and leave her with just enough food to eat. There she may survive or she may die.
The chorus then sings of the effects that love has on every person who lives. (208, 209)
Antigone has chosen her own fate, she has not been killed. Rather, in seeking true justice she will have to pay the price of her own life. Not only will she die, but she will die unwed and childless. Creon somehow things that the stain of her death will not fall on him. Before being taken away, some doubt creeps into Antigone’s mind as she reflects that if she had husband of children she probably would not have gone against the king’s command. But since she did not, she had to be loyal to her brother. She also begins to question if it really was the god’s desire. “What divine justice have I disobeyed? Why, in my misery, look to the gods for help? Can I call any of them my ally? I stand convicted of impiety, the evidence my pious duty done. Should the gods think that this is righteousness, in suffering I’ll see my error clear. But if it is the others who are wrong I wish them no greater punishment than mine.”
Creon, ironically, begins to reflect on fate saying “Fate has terrible power, You cannot escape it by wealth or war. No fort will keep it out, no ships outrun it.” This is in reference to Antigone, yet Teiresias is about to enter to proclaim Creon’s fate. Teiresias has the king’s respect from times gone by, and so begins by saying that all the omens are showing that something is wrong with the state. He says that it was wrong what Creon did and that he must repent for this. The wise ruler admits when he is wrong and changes his course with wise counsel (not the faux council the king has set up for himself).
Creon again becomes defensive and accuses Teiresias of seeking money and tempts him to prophecy against him. So that’s what Teiresias does. He says that Creon’s child will die and that gods of the dead will come for him because he has left many unburied, but mostly because he has caused in inversion of justice by not buying the dead and by buying the living. “For you’ve confused the upper and lower worlds. You sent a life to settle in a tomb; you keep up here that which belongs below the corpse unburied, robbed of its release.”
This prophecy scares Creon and he sheepishly commands his evil deeds to be undone. He admits that there is a law higher than himself. “I’ve come to fear it’s best to hold the laws of old tradition to the end of life.” The chorus then makes a prayer to Bacchus, but it’s too late. A messenger arrives to the palace with bad news. He recounts to the queen that her son, Haemon, has killed himself. Creon and his crew buried Polyneices, and was going to free Antigone when he heard his son’s voice coming from the cave. Antigone had hung herself with her own veil. Creon runs over with his sword out to cut Antigone down but misses and Haemon puts himself in the way of the blade. Creon has killed his son. “Corpse on corpse he lies. He found his marriage. Its celebration in the halls of Hades. So he has made it very clear to men that to reject good counsel is a crime.”
Then Eurydice, the queen goes silent and is later found to have killed herself in the same way with a sword out of sorrow for the news. Creon enters with his dead son and finds his wife dead as well. Creon admits that power corrupted him. “You have learned justice, though it comes too late.” Since Creon inverted the proper roles of the living and the dead, the gods will do the same to him. He has lost everyone he loves to death. Worst of all, his wife cursed him as her last breath. Creon is reduced to absolutely nothing. He blames fate, though it has become clear that it is men’s actions which seal their fate. “Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. The gods must have their due. Great words by men of pride bring greater blows upon them. So wisdom comes to the old.”
Themes From Antigone
A first major theme that sticks out as a commonality between Oedipus Rex and Antigone is that power corrupts people. In Oedipus Rex Creon says that he doesn’t want power because he has all the benefits with none of the burdens in his current state. He is sound of mind and wise. Here, having taken power after Oedipus’ death, he admits that some god warped his mind, causing him to act in all of these ways. Both of the kings, in their pride and anger, make rash oaths of punishment which are cloaked in justice and virtue, yet because they are not actually just, they lead to their own downfall and the curse of the oath actually falls back on them, crushing them both into nothing. Justice must include mercy for people.
Connected to this is the notion that the state is more than one man. Creon thinks that the state is his own mind, and that all must unfailingly obey, regardless if he is right or wrong in his judgment. He surrounds himself with counsel that just reflects back to him what he wants to hear. When people try to correct him, he acts defensively in a rage. And so it is clear that wise counsel must be the companion of the king, if he is to rule with justice. He must be open to being corrected and to changing his mind when he sees that he is wrong. This is done by Creon way too late in the play.
Higher than this is the central theme of the play, in my opinion, that morality is something greater than any man can create, even the king. Morality belongs to the gods and is expressed in the age old traditions of the wise and elderly. Not even the most powerful man can transcend these immutable realities and laws. Antigone represents the authentic piety which is owed to the gods. Even though it may seem counterintuitive, she knows that the gods desire that all be buried and so is willing to follow her conscience even if it means death.
Likewise, too, the play makes clear that the dead are sacred, even if they were wicked in life. The human condition is such that all men are going to die, they cannot escape it. And so it is right and fitting that all have a proper burial. If we do not follow such laws of the gods, then they will find the proper fitting punishment for us. Just as Creon acted in the inversion of justice by not burying the dead and buying the living, so too the gods took all of the living from him and brought them to death.
When it comes to fate, there may be ordained situations or generational punishments that affect people, but at the end of the day it is the choices that people make that seals their fate. If they act with piety and justice they may escape the final consequences of fate.
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