Antigone - Daughter of Oedipus, In Literature, Daughter of Eurytion

In Greek mythology, a daughter of Oedipus, King of Thebes. After the Seven Champions had attacked the city, Antigone buried the body of her brother Polynices (one of the attackers), so defying King Creon's order that such a traitor should remain unburied. She was condemned to death by starvation, but hanged herself. In Sophocles' play of the same name, Antigone becomes a symbol of the individual's right to defy the state over a matter of conscience.

Daughter of Oedipus

Antigone was the best known daughter/sister of Oedipus and daughter of Iocaste (Jocasta), or, according to the older story, of Euryganeia. However, due to the incestuous nature of their relationship, Antigone is also Oedipus's sister and Iocaste's grandaughter. When Oedipus, on discovering that Iocaste, the mother of his children, was also his own mother, puts his eyes out and steps down as King of Thebes, Antigone accompanies him into exile at Colonus. After Oedipus' death Antigone returns to Thebes, where Haemon, the son of Creon, king of Thebes, becomes enamoured of her.

Antigone, sister of Polynices, defies the order, explaining, "It is the dead/ Not the living, who make the longest demands/ We die forever" but is caught. Antigone's sister, Ismene, then declares she had aided Antigone and desires the same fate, although she was innocent. Despite the fact that Ismene tried to take part in the blame, Antigone refuses her "partial" blame and scolds her for not assisting in the first place.

Tiresias, the blind prophet, then enters to explain to Creon how he has been wrong in sentencing Antigone to death: "Give in to the dead man, then: do not fight with a corpse—What glory is it to kill a man who is dead?" Throughout this speech, there are many places where Tiresias is essentially restating what Haemon already said to Creon earlier in the story (also to try to convince him to free Antigone). Creon is extremely resistant of these prophocies (ironically this is the same stance that Oedipus took to the warning brought to him by Tiresias, and Creon was the voice of reason telling him to listen to the prophet, now however when it is his turn to listen to the prophet, Creon will not, and because of this doom himself just as Oedipus did) at first but upon Tiresias's exit, the spectating chorus of Theban elders remarks that Tiresias has never been wrong, causing Creon to admit that he is starting to worry about his decree. Creon then hurries to the cave in which Antigone is locked but Antigone has already hanged herself rather than be buried alive.

It can be debated that Antigone was just after the glory; Antigone seems to be a play that can be interpreted in several ways, however for one to understand this play to its full extent, one must also know that in the time in which the play was written, it was perfectly normal and expected for a woman to follow the orders of the man of the house.

In Literature

Antigone's character and these incidents of her life present an attractive subject to the Greek tragic poets, especially Sophocles in the Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides, whose Antigone, though now lost, is partly known from extracts incidentally preserved in later writers, and from passages in his Phoenissae.

In the order of the events, at least, Sophocles departed from the original legend, according to which the burial of Polynices took place while Oedipus was yet in Thebes, not after he had died at Colonus. Again, in regard to Antigone's tragic end Sophocles differs from Euripides, according to whom the calamity was averted by the intercession of Dionysus and was followed by the marriage of Antigone and Haemon.

In Hyginus's version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Haemon to be slain, was secretly carried off by him, and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bore him a son Maeon. Heracles pleaded in vain with Creon for Haemon, who slew both Antigone and himself, to escape his father's vengeance. Antigone placing the body of Polynices on the funeral pile occurs on a sarcophagus in the villa Pamfili in Rome, and is mentioned in the description of an ancient painting by Philostratus (Imag. ii.

The story of Antigone has been a popular subject for books, plays and other works, including:

Antigone, one of the three Theban plays by Sophocles Antigone, opera by Carl Orff Antigone, play by Jean Anouilh "The Island", play by Athol Fugard Antigone, play by Jean Cocteau Antigone, comic book by David Hopkins (writer) Antigone, adaptation of the original play by Peruvian poet José Watanabe and performed by Teresa Ralli of the theatre company Yuyachkani.

Daughter of Eurytion

A different Antigone was the daughter of Eurytion and wife of Peleus. In Phthia, Peleus was purified by Eurytion and married Antigone, Eurytion's daughter. Bitter, she sent a messenger to Antigone to falsely tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus' daughter;