Antigone, serinin üçüncü ve son kısmı.

Yaşamış en talihsiz adamın kızı Antigone. Çok güçlü bir karakter, asla pes etmiyor, doğru olandan şaşmadan adalet arıyor.

Babasının ölümünden sonra iki kardeşi birbirlerine karşı savaşıp ölüyor. Ölen kardeşlerden biri ülkeyi yıkmak istediğinden Kral olan dayıları Kreon uygun bir cenaze töreni yapılıp gömülmesine izin vermiyor. Cesedi açıkta bırakıp kurda kuşa yem ediyor. Cesedi gömmek isteyenin cezasının ölüm olacağını duyuruyor. Antigone buna dayanamayıp tanrısal yasaları çiğnediği için Kreon'a karşı çıkıyor, yanlış yaptığını, diğer insanların kendisinden korktuğu için yüzüne doğruları söyleyemediğini anlatıyor. Kral ise itiraz kabul etmiyor, kendi koyduğu kuralların daha üstün olduğunu savunuyor.

Kreon'un "Koca Teiresias" dediği bilici çözüm için geliyor, tanrıların adaleti de.

Daha önce okuyup yorumlayanlar da dile getirmiş ancak ben de yazmak istedim, o çağda bir kadın karaktere böyle güçlü bir rol verilmesi efsane olmuş. Sophokles'in 123 oyundan geri sadece yedisinin kalmış olması da gerçekten çok üzücü, kim bilir neler vardı, hiç öğrenemeyeceğiz.

کرئون زمانه، بترس از آنتیگونه‌ای که می‌میرد ولی تو را هم به نابودی می‌کشاند

There's barely anything in the world as hilarious and amusing as a Greek tragedy. Oedipus is, in many ways, the daddy, but daughter Antigone holds her own as well. So much to think on, so much to learn, so much to laugh at. Those silly incestuous Greeks.


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Owen Bennett Jones recently wrote on the Islamic State in the LRB. "Every time a Jihadi movement has won power it has lost popularity by failing to give the people what they want: peace, security and jobs." When I read that I thought about poor King Creon. I have always felt disturbed by the vice of fate in this play which steadily traps and crushes. It was Creon's hubris which caught my attention this time. Doesn't he have a mandate? I imagine him simply incredulous. Why this dissent? Subsequently I read a number of secondary pieces, though as I feared Creon is a symbol, whereas Antigone remains human, though her plight is class-conscious according to some, whereas others view matters as a collision of opposed ideas. Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet explored such in their Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece.

Rather, it is between two different types of religious feeling; one is a family religion, purely private and confined to the small circle of close relatives, the philoi, centered around the domestic hearth and the cult of the dead; the other is a public religion in which the tutelary gods of the city eventually become confused with the supreme values of the State.

Who would have guessed that a few hundred years after the Enlightenment such rituals and disputation would remain foregrounded? My views on progress and positivism have been eroded greatly over the course of my adult life. A chill remains in the air and yet a glimmer of hope persists, even now. I hope to always harbor such impossibilities

✩ 5 stars
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this is a reread bc i forgot everything from high school.
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i didn’t expect a story that delves into such complex and opposing ideals.
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it takes so much out of the characters that at the end u are left with an empty void where the story & characters once stood.
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it delivers it in such a stellar way, that is completely unexplainable

Antigone is a strong contender in the Plays That Keep You Awake at Night competition. The background of the story reads, no surprise, like a Greek tragedy: Antigone is the orphaned daughter of Jocasta and Oedipus (the mother and father/brother team from Oedipus Rex) who has now lost both her brothers as well — they killed each other fighting over who got to rule Thebes. Uncle Creon, the new king, decreed that the “traitor” brother is to go unburied. The conflict is that Antigone plans to ignore Creon’s decree and bury her brother anyway, while Creon says if she does, he’ll have her killed.

While the conflict seems simple enough, it involves two competing arenas, political and religious. Politically, Antigone represents the aristos, the old ruling families, who aren’t as loyal to law as they are to their own families, and Creon represents the demos, or the voting masses, whose primary focus is the interest of the state and the rule of law. In the religious arena, Antigone wants to honor the gods’ laws by burying her brother, while Creon ignores the gods’ laws in favor of his own decrees. So who’s right? What is the balance of power between individuals and the state? The laws of man and the laws of gods? Governing with firmness and listening with reason?

The good news is that Sophocles gives each character a leg to stand on, but only one. Antigone is right to honor the gods’ laws but wrong to disobey the king’s decree, and Creon is wrong to disregard the gods’ laws but right to expect the laws of the land to supplant individual wishes. I’m guessing Sophocles would argue that the play’s success comes from the tension between these ideas as played out by two flawed characters. On the one hand, Antigone is a strident vigilante who doesn’t care that she’s breaking the law. And on the other hand, Creon is an insecure blowhard who doesn’t care that he’s breaking custom and the will of the gods by leaving his nephew’s corpse to be eaten by birds. Neither character is easy to side with, but each has a point.

However, the bad news is that Sophocles clearly sides with Creon — through the airtime he gives Creon (far more than he gives Antigone), through the chorus’s support (who are supposed to state the opinion of the audience), and through the plot itself, which gives Creon the realization of his mistakes and the cathartic “Woe is me” ending. Creon, not Antigone, follows the tragic hero trajectory. Antigone’s real tragedy is simply that she’s a member of a spectacularly dysfunctional family. While the plot vindicates Antigone’s position, Sophocles undermines her character at every turn, and for some reason this drives me bonkers. Obviously nobody would read Pride and Prejudice and **SPOILER ALERT** say, “Poor Wickham got short shrift! Jane Austen was clearly in the bag for Darcy. How unfair!” because those characters exist only as the author created them. Wickham is a scoundrel because Jane Austen created a scoundrel. However, the characters in this play existed before Sophocles and therefore outside Sophocles, so I don’t think I’m a lunatic for being irritated that Sophocles was manipulative in his treatment of them. In his real-life zeal to promote the interest of the polis, Sophocles weakens Antigone’s position by characterizing her as imbalanced and unnatural, which makes the didactic focus of the story political. That was his point, and in keeping with Greek tragedy of the 5th century BC, but it still irks me.

Was wiegt schwerer? Das irdische oder das göttliche Recht? Oder vielleicht auch der eigene Moralische Kompass?

Antigone, Tochter des Ödipus verstößt gegen König Kreons Anweisung ihren verstorbenen Bruder nicht ordnungsgemäß zu beerdigen. Sie tut es, da sie das göttliche Recht über das irdische stellt und sich, trotz Androhung der Todesstrafe an ihrem moralischen Kompass orientiert.

Einer Regel der griechischen Tragödie folgend, sterben alle involvierten. Jedoch nicht ohne das es vorher durch einen Seher angekündigt wurde.

Ich fande es sehr anstrengend zu lesen und empfehle interessierten eher die Arte Dokumentation zu Antigone in der Reihe die größten Mythen, als sich durch diese Verse zu quälen. Der Punkt abzug ist für mich wegen des anstrengenden Schreibstils.

تنها چیزی که این مدت تونستم بخونم که اونم به لطف دانشگاه بود آنتیگونیه
بازم شکر!

I started reading the Theban Plays the other day, compiled by Penguin and translated by Robert Fagles. That’s the power combo for now, though I am told half the fun is rereading with different translations. This particular edition presents the three plays in the order in which they were written, starting with Antigone, which is the final play in terms of chronology.

While reading these classics (true classics I guess), I find that I need to read the introduction in order to get a bit more of the context surrounding their writing and/or performance. Robert Knox has been a faithful companion in that sense. Here are a few facts that I appreciated learning about this play (spoilers ahead):

- Creon has a “magnificent” speech at the beginning of the play, stressing that “loyalty to the city takes precedence over any private loyalty, to friend or family”. This would be considered satire today, I think. 2022, the Western world, we are laughing political candidates off if they go near this sentiment. But it looks as though the original audience would have agreed with him! So the speech does not have the “pompous ass” quality that we may ascribe to it.

- The main point of contention in the play is the burial and proper rites denied Polynices. Creon has declared it illegal for anyone to show mercy to the corpse of Polynices, as he became a traitor to the city, coming back to attack the city on the side of the enemy. Knox mentions that, once again, the audience would have been on the side of Creon!

“These vivid phrases would have recalled to them the destruction of Athens and the desecration of its temples by the Persian invaders in 480; they would have had no second thoughts about denying burial to the corpse of any Athenian who had fought on the Persian side. Denial of burial in their homeland to traitors, real or supposed, was not unknown in Greece. Themistocles, for example, the hero of the Persian War, was later driven from Athens by his political enemies, who accused him of pro-Persian conspiratorial activity. Hounded from one Greek city to another he finally took refuse in Persian-controlled territory, where he died.”

- A point that stood out to me as absurd was Antigone’s weird insistence that she would not have risked death by giving burial rites to her husband and child, as they are replaceable, and that a brother is far more valuable to her as he cannot be replaced. Apparently, the inspiration of this sentiment could be sourced to the work of Sophocles’ friend Herodotus, Histories.

“Darius the Great King had condemned to death for treason a Persian noble, Intaphrenes, and all the men of his family. The wife of Intaphrenes begged importunately for their lives; offered one, she chose her brother’s. When Darius asked her why, she replied in words that are unmistakably the original of Antigone’s lines.”

However, as Knox points out, this makes less sense in the play. The wife of Intaphrenes is saving the life of her brother who is still alive, whereas Antione is just being spiteful – Polynices is already dead!

A great introduction to Sophocles. Next is Oedipus the King. I will get my tweed jacket and cigar and make sure my beard is nice and trimmed before getting to that one. Things are about to get Oedipal.

ANTÍGONA Pois não distinguiu Creonte, na sepultura, um dos nosso irmãos, e desonrou o outro? A Etéocles, segundo se diz, tratando-o de acordo com a justiça e a lei, ocultou-o sob a terra, de uma maneira honrosa aos olhos dos mortos do além. Quanto ao cadáver de Polinices, perecido miseravelmente, diz-se que foi proclamado aos cidadãos que ninguém o recolhesse num sepulcro, nem o lamentasse, mas sim que o deixasse sem gemidos, por enterrar, tesouro bem-vindo para as aves de rapina, quando lá do alto espreitam, em busca da alegria de um repasto. Assim se conta que o bom de Creonte mandou anunciar a ti e a mim - sim, a mim, digo eu - e que há-de vir aqui proclamar estas decisões claramente aos que as não conhecerem, e a prática desse acto não a terá por coisa de pouca monta, mas quem quer que o cometa incorre em crime de lapidação pública nesta cidade.

Assim começa (ou antes, continua) a tragédia do ciclo tebano protagonizada por Antígona que, após a luta fraticida dos dois irmãos, mortos às portas de Tebas, é proibida de prestar cerimónias fúnebres para aquele dos dois que ousou estar do lado errado dos exércitos e atacar a cidade. Herdeira do miasma (leia-se maldição) de Édipo, que por sua vez a herdou dos seus antepassados, a jamais dividida entre o sentido de fidelidade à polis ou o sentido de fidelidade à família, Antígona, ousa desrespeitar a lei, representando a transgressora nata das instituições e políticas dos homens...

ANTÍGONA (...)onde podia eu granjear fama mais ilustre do que dando sepultura ao meu próprio irmão? Todos os que aqui estão diriam também como aprovam este acto, se o medo lhes não travasse a língua. Mas é que a realeza, entre muitos outros privilégios, goza o de fazer e dizer o que lhe apraz.

CREONTE Dos filhos de Cadmo, és a única a encarar os factos dessa maneira.

ANTIGONA Estes também, mas refreiam a boca na tua presença.

Assim Antígona se expõe à prepotência do poder político:

CREONTE Esta soube bem ser insolente, quando tripudiou sobre as leis estabelecidas. E depois de feito isso, comete nova insolência, vangloriando-se da sua acção e rindo de a ter praticado. Porém é ela que será um homem e não eu, se lhe deixo esta vitória impunemente.

Claro que, aproveitando este diálogo, não resisto ao desafio de encontrar e reconhecer uma bravata muito moderna na justaposição de Antígona, jovem mulher solteira, perante Creonte um governante plenipotenciário. Mais do que providenciar a censura das grandes obras ou o cancelamento das personalidades que fizeram a cultura da qual somos descendentes diretos, defendo sempre uma leitura contemporânea - mesmo que ela não constasse dos planos do autor, e Antígona (como outras peças da época áurea, Lisístrata, por exemplo) presta-se muitíssimo bem a isso. Veja-se:

ANTIGONA Não nasci para odiar, mas sim para amar.

CREONTE Agora que vais lá para baixo, ama-os, se amar se devem; mas, enquanto eu viver, não será uma mulher quem dá ordens.

Ou:

ISMENA (...)é preciso lembrarmo-nos de que nascemos para ser mulheres, e não para combater com os homens; e, em seguida, que somos governadas pelos mais poderosos, de modo que nos submetemos a isso, e a coisas ainda mais dolorosas. Por isso eu rogo aos que estão debaixo da terra que tenham mercê, visto que sou constrangida, e obedeço aos que caminham na senda do poder.

Ou ainda:

CREONTE (...)àqueles que seguem caminho direito, é a obediência que salva a vida a maior parte das vezes. Deste modo se devem conservar as determinações, e de forma alguma deixá-las aniquilar por uma mulher. Mais vale, quando é preciso, ser derrubado por um homem, do que sermos apodados de mais fracos que mulheres.

No entanto, e que fique claro que nas veias destes homens não correria ponta de feminismo que permitisse, à data da sua criação, uma leitura deste género para estas obras, mesmo que não nos afastemos da Atenas de século V a.C., Antígona tem para oferecer temas pertinentes e para todos os gostos, desde o questionamento da ordem social e dos impositores da lei...

HÉMON (...)quem julga que é o único que pensa bem, ou que tem uma língua ou um espírito como mais ninguém, esse, quando posto a nu, vê-se que é oco.

___

HÉMON Não há Estado algum que seja pertença de um só homem.

CREONTE Acaso não se deve entender que o Estado é de quem manda?

HÉMON Mandarias muito bem sozinho numa terra que fosse deserta.

...à oposição entre a vida familiar e a polis (vida pública), que vimos protagonizada pelos heróis trágicos - não sem discussão se disserta sobre a primazia de Antígona ou Creonte...

ANTIGONA Não foi um escravo que morreu; foi um irmão.

CREONTE Que ia assaltar esta terra; o outro tomou armas por ela.

...à discussão sobre a natureza divina ou humana da lei...

CORO Muitos prodígios há; porém nenhum maior do que o homem.
(...)
Da sua arte o engenho subtil p'ra além do que se espera, ora o leva ao bem, ora ao mal; se da terra preza as leis e dos deuses na justiça faz fé, grande é a cidade; mas logo a perde quem por audácia incorre no erro.

E, claro, jamais se esgotam nestas palavras que aqui deixo, o verdadeiro valor e poder que estas obras tiveram na construção da cultura europeia ocidental. Quem não lembra, nestas passagens, o jugo religioso que ainda se impõe para muitos...:

CORO (...)aos mortais não é dado libertar-se do destino que lhes incumbe.

...ou os ecos deterministas que ainda são o conceito filosófico por excelência de uma sociedade que continuamente põe em causa o livre arbítrio...:

MENSAGEIRO (...)a fortuna dirige e a fortuna faz balançar sempre a felicidade e a infelicidade. E ninguém pode ser profeta sobre a humana condição.

Tudo isto compete para fazer de Antígona, em minha opinião, uma das peças, entre as obras deste período (sem excluir a épica, talvez apenas Ésquilo tenha o mesmo privilégio), que melhor envelheceu pois continua, até aos nossos dias, a permitir múltiplas leituras, interpretações, encenações, não esgotando as possibilidades de recriação e aproveitamento por cada época que se sucede, e isso é fruto de um talento estrondoso.

Depois desta leitura, ocorreu-me que aqui há uns dias me apanhei numa mentira involuntária: digo inúmeras vezes que as minhas releituras nunca correm bem, o que é claramente falacioso já que leio e releio peças de teatro a torto e a direito e, de cada vez que o faço, elas apenas melhoram. E se já li Ésquilo dúzias de vezes, Sófocles não lhe fica muito atrás.
Há, porém, uma cedência a fazer - é forçoso reconhecer que esta edição, pela mão de Maria Helena da Rocha Pereira, não tem igual e isso só veio a acrescentar à experiência.

Эта трагедия имеет гораздо более глубокий смысл, чем «Царь Эдип». Жить по неписаным человеческим законам, или по Божьим законам, поступать по морали - вот чем руководствуется Антигона, несмотря на смертельный риск ослушаться приказа. Ее чувство справедливости деятельное, активное, идущее от сердца. Она действует в меру своих сил, полная скорбных чувств. Ее героизм заключается в одиночном выступлении против могущественной власти, противопоставлении порядочности и нравственности самодурной мстительности царя Креонта. Исмена, напротив, является воплощением слабости, и она абсолютно незаметный персонаж, создающий фон для Антигоны.
У Креонта своя логика, она ложна, она ошибочна, потому что он пытается оправдать свои негуманные действия по наказанию предателя Полиника интересами города-государства. Здесь мы видим типичную для тирании отсылку на приоритет государственных интересов над человеческими (божественными), и это указывает на глубину понимания автором природы деспотизма.
Все люди связаны между собой прежде всего узами любви. Эти узы любви приводят к невозможности жить без любимых. И эти узы любви являются карающими для Креонта, потерявшего всех, кто ему был дорог. Это то, что называется Роком. Слепой Тересий предсказал, что не будет благополучия городу. Народ ропщет. Вот результат тирании.

Antigone is a play written in circa 441 BC by Sophocles. The story is an example of a woman refusing to obey patriarchal royal authority. It's also an example of a King causing devastation to his own household by dictating extreme orders to others.

Antigone, a young unmarried woman, defies the edicts of the king by providing burial rites for her dead brother. She justifies her actions as following the wishes of the Gods which are higher than those of the King. She is banished to be locked in a tomb to die.

An old sage convinces the King that he's made a mistake, so the King orders the tomb to be opened. Antigone is found dead by suicide. Consequently the king's son and wife also commit suicide due to their anguish caused by Antigone's death.

The play ends with the King a broken man but, according to the Greek chorus, a wiser man.

An interesting factoid to consider is the choice of the name Antigone—Anti (against) gone (procreation).

The following is a link to my review of a novel that is a modern retelling of the Antigone story in the setting of American military in Afghanistan:
n  n    The Watchn  n, by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya.

The following is a link to a Wikipedia article about another novel patterned after the story of Antigone:
n  n    Home Firesn  n, by Kamila Shamsie.

The following is a link to my review of a book about the applicability of Greek myths to modern life and that uses the name "Antigone" in its title:
n  n    Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Mythsn  n, by Helen Morales.