The Antigone of Sophocles (1911)/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The best gate to the Antigone is through King Œdipus, an earlier chapter in the story.
This drama opens in front of the palace in Thebes. Suppliants in white tunics and cloaks have laid olive branches with fillets of wool on the altars. The doors of the palace open and Œdipus appears. He asks his dear children, as he calls them, the meaning of their attitude, the frankincense that fills the city, the solemn chants and frequent cries of dole. The priest answers for them: Heaven itself frowns upon the land; the city tosseth sore and cannot her head upheave; a curse is on her—the pasturing kine, the fruit of earth, the childless mother-pangs of women, and the abominable pestilence harrieth Thebes, while black Hades is glutted rich with wails and groans. Their king upreared their life from out the dust of death, when aforetime the dire sphinx exacted tribute, and now they entreat him to find some remedy, some refuge for them once again. But Œdipus has already divined their yearnings; he knows they ail, but none whose ailment equals his: his soul groans for state, for self, for all. He has wept long and has gone many roads in devious wanderings of thought; and the sole remedy he could find after diligent survey has already been applied: his own wife’s brother has been despatched in post to sacred Delphi, Apollo’s temple, to learn by what deed or word he might deliver the state. And now Œdipus is growing anxious; beyond all likelihood the son of Menoiceus stays; but when Apollo’s answer comes, he will leave nothing undone of all things whatsoever they be, that the god shall show. Suddenly Creon arrives with certain news, but—a riddle—neither good nor bad: “Good, an God will,—that is, if all come out aright.” The oracle neither comforts nor saddens. Then Creon speaks plainly: “Drive out the defiling thing in the land and breed it not so that it cannot be healed.” This defilement is explained to be a man who has shed blood and brought the storm of troubles on the state, namely, the man who has killed the former king. For Laius on the road to Delphi met a bloody end; his comrades too all perished, save one, who escaped and brought back word that robbers had overpowered them by force of numbers. The Thebans had done naught to seek or punish the murderers since the riddling sphinx had occupied their whole attention. Œdipus, having listened to the oracle, now promises to search out the criminal, for the sake of the land, of the god, and even for his own sake,—since in avenging Laius he but befriends himself. The suppliants retire, and fifteen Theban elders, men of noble birth, enter and express in song their feelings of distress and terror and entreat the gods to help them in their affliction.
Œdipus asks the assistance of the elders that he may obtain some clue which he may follow up in tracking out, the guilty man; he charges them to tell all they know; if the criminal be afraid, let him reveal himself, for no hurt will be done unto him—only he shall leave the land. But if he be screened, so much the worse: no one shall speak to the murderer or share house, sacrifice, or prayer with him, but thrust him forth. Œdipus is the ally of Apollo and of the murdered king: may the unknown slayer eke out in sin his unblest life; nay, more, if he should be unwittingly a member of the king’s own household, may the same curse rest on himself. In any event, e’en unurged, they should seek out the murderer of one so noble; but now since Œdipus holds the sovereignty once held by him, and also bed and wife, from whom they would have had children in common, had not issue been denied the former king, he will prosecute the case as for his own father, will leave no stone unturned to find the assassin, “and curses on him who withholds his aid!” The chorus protest their innocence and their ignorance, but suggest that he would not go amiss in his inquiry, if he were to send for Teiresias, who can descry what’s past and what’s to come. But Creon, his wife’s brother, has already advised this course; twice has he sent for Teiresias and he wonders why the prophet tarries. But lo! at this instant the blind soothsayer appears, led by a boy. The king entreats him to rescue them all from the blight of pollution by naming, if he knows, the murderer. But Teiresias is loth to speak, and turns to go. Œdipus implores him to unlock his lips, if he has knowledge, but the seer replies:
“I will not proclaim my secret grief—that I say not thine.”
“’S death! You know, and will not tell?”
“To spare myself and you. Your questioning will be vain.”
“Arch villain! Why, you would turn a very stone to rage—you will not speak, but remain untouched?”
“You chide my temper; but your own you see not. What is to come will come, e’en if I refuse to unseal my lips.”
“’T is my right to hear, if come it will.”
“I’ll speak no further; stamp, rave, and fret, if you will.”
“Sooth, and I will. By God! I turn it all to your suggestion, plot and damned practice, manifest conspirator that you are, that you did contrive to murder our dead lord, and were you not blind, I’d say that you did the deed.”
“Indeed?—I charge you to abide by the proclamation you have made and from this day never speak to those nor me—you are the man that defiles this land accursed!”
“Insolence surpassing insolence! How do you expect to escape?”
“I have escaped: the truth is my strength.”
“Say it again—I did not catch the purport.”
“You slew the man whose slayer you seek.”
“Measureless liar! You’ll not repeat with impunity that infamous charge.”
“Shall I tell you more to make you chafe the more?”
“All you like—’t will have no effect.”
“You have been living with your dearest kin most foully and knew it not.”
“Presumputous priest! Do you think you will say on and on and not smart for this?”
“Yes, if there’s strength in truth.”
“There is, except for you; but you are blind in ear and mind and eye.”
“And you a pitiful wretch to utter taunts that all will soon hurl back on you.”
“Are these treasons complotted and contrived by Creon, or are they your own?”
“Creon harms you not—you harm yourself alone.”
Œdipus then inveighs against wealth and sovereignty for the envy that goes with them—machinations, hollowness, treachery and all ruinous disorders. This power Thebes put into his hands unasked, and now his old and trusty friend Creon is seeking to overthrow him and gripe the general sway into his own hand by the merit of vile gold, by hiring a miserable charlatan, a scheming juggler, blind in his art, but open-eyed for gain, for glistening gold, the yellow slave that will knit and break religions.
“Come, why did you not guess the riddle of the Sphinx—it required a seer’s skill—instead of waiting for the ignorant Œdipus to come and by mother-wit alone, with no lore of birds, to make her mute?”
“Though you are king, I have the right of reply—I am not your servant, but Apollo’s. I am blind, you have taunted me with that—you can see, yet you see not in what woe you are, where you dwell, nor with whom you live. Know you of whom you are? Your mother’s and father’s curse shall drive you from this land with eyes that now see the light then in darkness shrouded. Therefore calumniate Creon, reproach me for my message: for in all the world there is none that will be more miserably crushed than you.”
“Vengeance! Death! Confusion! Such words from him! Damnation seize you! Out of my sight! Hence! Avaunt! Back whence you came and rid me of your presence!”
“I had not come, had you not sent for me.”
“I knew not that you would talk so foolishly, or hardly would I have called you in.”
“I am—in your esteem—a fool; but to your parents wise.”
“Parents? Stay! Who are they? Who?”
“This day begets, this day destroys you.”
“How in riddles darkly-syllabled each point is glanced at.”
“Are not you most skilled in guessing riddles? I will go. Lead me, boy.”
“Aye, lead him. Your presence has been annoyance, your absence will please me much.”
“I will go, when I have spoken what I came to speak,—but not in fear of your frown; for you can never do me hurt. And I tell you that the man you have been seeking, he is here, in this place, passing for a foreigner, but in the end proved a Theban born, and he will not be pleased to find it out. Then sightless, though now endowed with sight, a beggar then, though now rich, with staff in hand he shall wander to a strange land. And he shall be found to be at once brother and father of his own sons, husband and son of her who bare him,—possessor of his father’s bed and shedder of his father’s blood. Go thou within and think on that, and if thou dost find that I have lied, deny henceforth that I possess the gift of prophecy.”
The chorus waver. They can not give credence to the seer’s utterance, yet the wise augur moved them; for he hath still been tried a holy man: his words have always been infallible. Nevertheless, they will wait till the word the seer has spoken against the opinion Thebes holds of his high name shall be verified. No prophet can be trusted if he prove false; but Œdipus was shown to be wise when the sphinx came against him of old; hence they will not adjudge him guilty.
Highly indignant to think that he must bear such blame, Creon enters just as Œdipus emerges from the palace. The latter sincerely believes that he has not been exempt from the envy of his kinsman’s swelling heart.
“Sirrah, have you the hardihood, you, the proved assassin of Laius, you, apprehended in the fact and act of wresting my crown from me,—to seek my house. Was it cowardice or folly you saw in me that prompted you to hatch this plot? The crown of Thebes is not to be sought by any by-paths and indirect crooked ways.”
After a warm altercation Creon avers that he has never had a thought of aspiring to be King, one who often feels a world of restless cares; he prefers his present position with its security and honor free from distress; the profits of the king’s dethronement would never be pregnant and potential spurs to such an action. If Œdipus does not believe him, let him go to Delphi and let the oracle rectify his knowledge, let him ask whether he brought back a true message from Apollo. Jocasta, Creon’s sister, comes forth just in time to overhear the high words, and inquires their cause. She urges the wranglers to forbear, to be ruled by her, and in the best consideration to check their hideous rashness.
“Whence arose this strife?”
On learning that the king imputes to his brother-in-law a bold conspiracy, and that he is accused of sending the seer to proclaim her husband as the assassin of Laius, she bids Œdipus allay his fire of passion with the sap of reason and listen to her; an oracle came from Delphi once declaring that the child born of Laius and herself should slay his father; but when the babe was only three days old, it was exposed on a bleak mountainside. So the oracle was not fulfilled—the babe did not slay its father, nor did Laius die by the hand of his child; for, according to report, the king was murdered by robbers at three crossways. Mention of this spot startles Œdipus. He asks for more specific information and learns that it was in the land of Phocis where roads from Delphi and from Daulia meet.
“How long ago?”
“Just before you ascended the throne.”
“O Zeus! What hast thou planned to do to me?—What was the man like?”
“Tall, his hair just turning gray, in form not unlike you.”
“Unhappy man that I am! I imprecated curses on myself and knew it not.”
“What is the matter? Œdipus, my lord, you startle me!”
“My mind misgives. ‘Teiresias after all, I fear, is not blind. But tell me this, Did he set forth with few, or many, in royal state?”
“Five in all, one a herald, and Laius in a carriage.”
“God in heaven! ’Tis plain—But who reported the occurrence?”
“A slave, the sole survivor.”
“Is he here?”
‘‘No, for when he came and found you crowned king, he besought me to send him to the pastures, to tend the flocks, as far from town as possible. He deserved even a greater reward for a favor he once did.”
“I would see him.”
“He can easily be brought back. But what good will it do?”
“I fear I have said too much already and—I want to see him.”
“I will send for him. But surely I too have a right to know what troubles you.”
And willingly shall I tell you all. In whom else should I confide?
My father was Polybus of Corinth, my mother Merope, a Dorian. I was held second to none among the citizens, till one day, at a banquet, a fellow who had drunk much wine said that I was not my father’s son. I contained myself that day, but on the morrow I questioned my parents. They were angry at the man who had uttered the reproach; but it ever haunted me—for the whisper of it went abroad—and, unknown to them, I went to Delphi and asked Apollo, who answered not my query, but dismissed me with words of woe and terror, saying that it was my fate to mate with my own mother, bring into the world progeny that men would loathe to look upon, and murder him who was the author of my being. I turned, avoiding Corinth, and went where you say the king was slain. There I met a herald, and a man in a carriage drawn by colts. They tried to force me from the road. Furious, I struck the driver; but the old man watching his opportunity, as I passed, fetched me a blow with his double goad upon the head. But dearly did he pay for his rashness. A swift, sure blow from this right arm rolled him out of the car upon his back. Then I slew all. Now, if he was related to Laius, was ever man more wretched? Who could be more accurst?—received in no home, no man to speak to me—and to think that not another, but I myself laid this curse upon myself—and I must defile the dead man’s wife by the very hands that slew her lord. Do you not see that I am all vile? Am I not utterly polluted?—banished, never to see my own again, never set foot on my native soil, or else wed my mother and kill my father, Polybus. Oh! Great heaven! No! May I never see that day, but vanish from the sight of men before I meet with such an awful doom!
Jocasta reassures Œdipus. The herdsman cannot retract the tale he has told of the massacre. Besides, Apollo predicted the death of Laius at her child’s hands. So far as prophecy is concerned, she would not turn to the right or the left. But the queen’s mind changes later. Her misgivings prompt her to provide herself with suppliant branches and incense and to visit the altars—she begins to fear that naught can be avoided whose end is purposed by the mighty gods.
A messenger enters and inquires for the sovereign. He brings good news to the house and to its lord: Polybus is dead, and the people will crown Œdipus king of Corinth. Jocasta exclaims, as the king emerges from the palace: “Listen to this man, and then say whether oracles can be believed.” The message is repeated, and Œdipus feels relieved,—his alarm had misled him. Now he has no cause to fear—except that his mother Merope is still living. He will not return to Corinth; while she lives, he cannot hope for peace. The Corinthian eases his mind by telling him a secret: Polybus and Merope were not his parents, for he, the messenger, had received Œdipus when a babe from the hands of a herdsman in the winding glens of Cithæron, his ankles transfixed with spikes,—hence his name, Œdipus (Swellfoot). That shepherd was one of Laius’ men. The chorus surmise that it must have been the man for whom the queen has sent. The queen urges the king to pay no attention to the matter: but Œdipus is now bent on knowing his origin; and he suspects that Jocasta fears that, if the secret is revealed, he will be proven baseborn. The queen prays that he may never find out who he is. This irritates Œdipus beyond measure, and he gives peremptory orders for the herdsman to be brought.
“Let her glory in her wealth and pedigree.”
Jocasta exclaims: “Unhappy man! ’T is the last I shall ever say, and nothing ever more.”
She rushes into the house, and the shepherd, who is now brought forward, is recognized by both the chorus and by the Corinthian. The king makes inquiry. The messenger aids the old shepherd’s memory:
“You gave me a child to bring up as my own—that babe and this man is the same.”
“Damnation! keep your mouth shut!”
Œdipus is obliged to threaten to resort to rigorous measures before the old man consents to tell the whole story:
“I gave it.”
“Whose was it? Your own?”
“Beseech your Highness, no, another’s,—for Heaven’s sake, ask no more!”
“You ’re lost, if I have to ask again.”
“I got it from Laius’ house.”
“A slave's?”
“The next is the dread word for me to say.”
“And for me to hear,—but it must be heard.”
“Well, yes, it was said to be his. She could tell you best.”
“Did she give it to you?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“To kill.”
“Her own child?”
“Because she was afraid of the prophecies.”
“What prophecies?”
“That he would kill his father.”
“Oh! Oh! All true! O Light, never will I look on thee again! Born accurst, living sinfully with those I should not, and murderer of my sire!”
Œdipus is resolved to know the truth at any cost; heroically he sets at naught his own anguish of heart. Jocasta realizes that she can live no longer. She alone discerns the whole truth; she alone realizes that the awful dénouement is coming; and for dramatic skill and power hardly any drama in the ancient and modern world contains anything so fine as her exit.
After the choral song a second messenger enters. He comes from the palace.
Oh what sights, what deeds, what grief! Neither the Phasis nor the Ister could wash this dwelling clean. Jocasta’s dead!—No sooner entered than she rushed straight to her bridal bed, clutching her hair in both hands, and began to call on Laius, bewailing the fate that brought about the procreation of a son that was to slay his sire and she a widow left only to bear seed to her own son,—bemoaning the bed where she bore husband to husband and son to son. Then in burst Œdipus with such a shriek that we could not watch her anguish to the end. To and fro he rushed and begged us for a sword, and calling on his wife who was no wife, but a field tilled for both his children and himself. Some god above showed her to him, not we, and with a wild and dreadful cry he sprang toward the door, forced the bolts from their sockets, and rushed into the room. There he saw his wife hanging in a noose of twisted cords. With a great cry of woe he loosed the knot and laid her on the floor. Then there was an awful sight to see. From her vesture he tore the brooches of beaten gold, raised them on high and drove them full into his own eyeballs, as he shouted, “No more shall you behold all the wrongs I suffered, all I wrought, but in darkness see what should not be seen, and know not whom I longed to know!” Not once, but many times he smote, and at each blow bedewed his beard—not a drizzling ooze but a dark shower of blood fell from his eyes unceasingly. He cries now for some one to fling the doors wide open and show to all the Thebans the father’s murderer, the mother’s—too foul for utterance—declaring that he will cast himself out and no more abide in Thebes, to his house a curse self-accurst. Look! the gates are opening. Soon will you behold a spectacle that even he who loathes must pity.
As the musicians play an overture, Œdipus comes forth.
Woe is me! Alas! Wretched, wretched! Where am I moving now? Oh!
Destiny, what a leap on me!
Chorus. Awful, unbearable, unspeakable!
Œdipus. O darkness unaidable enshrouding me, irresistible, unutterable, horrible. Woe is me! and woe again! Oh how my soul is pierced by the stings and the pangs of the sorrows I never can forget!
Chorus. Yea, small wonder if you moan the twofold anguish now.
Œdipus. Oh, my friends, you are still loyal and true, patiently caring for the poor blind man. You are there, I know it well, for I hear your voice despite the darkness of these eyes.
Chorus. O horrible deed! How could you blot out the vision of your eyes? Prompted by what power above?
Œdipus. Apollo, my friends, Apollo it was that brought upon me this terrible, horrible sorrow. But no other hand struck the blow save mine alone. Why should I see when there was nothing sweet for me to see?
Chorus. Too true—even as you say.
Œdipus. What, pray, was I to look upon, to care for, or to listen to with pleasure now? Take me out of the land as quickly as you can, O my friends, take me, the damned, disgraced, accurst, and hatefullest of all mortals to God.
Chorus. Wretched both for thy fortune and for thy feeling. Would God that I had never known thee!
Œdipus. Curses on the man, whoever he was, that loosed the cruel fetters on my feet and delivered me and kept me back from death! I thank him not. No! For if I had died then, I would not now be such a burden of woe to myself and to my friends.
Chorus. I too wish that that had been.
Œdipus. Then I would not have proved the murderer of my father, not have been called the spouse of her from whom I myself was born. But now am I god-forsaken, mother-defiled, and my father’s bridal bed made my own; and if there is any ill still worse than ill, all this is mine—O Cithæron, why didst thou shelter me? Why didst thou not slay me at once, that I might never show to men from what blood I sprang. O Polybus, and Corinth, and the old house that was known as the house of my fathers, what fairness filmed the ulcerous place, whilst rank corruption infected it within? For now vile and of the vile I am found to be. O ye three roads and secluded glen, thicket and narrow pass where three ways meet, that drank my blood shed by these hands from my father’s veins! Do you remember what deeds I wrought and what I further did, when I came here? O nuptials, nuptials, you brought me into life and then did breed again, producing fruit from the same soil, and gave for men to see fathers, brothers, sons of the same blood, brides, wives, mothers, incestuous acts and all the foulest sins that men can name!
At this point Creon enters. He tells the wretched king that he has not come to mock and cast reproaches. Œdipus begs him in God’s name to grant him a boon—to thrust him out, that he may vanish from the sight of men and perish from the earth. But Creon suggests that they first consult Apollo. Œdipus finally acquiesces, and charges, nay, entreats him to bury Jocasta with due rite.
As for my children, the boys can earn a livelihood—they are men and can take care of themselves; but my two girls, my poor hapless, helpless girls, who never sat apart from me at table, nor lacked my presence, but always shared my daily bread—do you care for them; and let me touch them and weep with them o’er our sorrows. Pray, noble prince, pray grant me this. If I could but touch them with my hands, I would feel that I had them with me as when I had my sight. What! Can it be? O ye gods! do I hear my sweet girls sobbing? Can it be that Creon has taken pity on me and brought my darlings here? Is it true?
“Yes, I did, for I knew that you yearned to have them.”
“Heaven bless you for your kindness and may it prove a better guardian than to me.—O my children, where are you? Come here, come to these brother arms of mine, to these hands that made your father’s eyes once bright, such orbs as these, because seeing naught, knowing naught, I became the author of your being at the source of my own existence. I can but weep for you—unable to see—to think of all the bitter days you now will have to live. To what gatherings, to what festivals will you go, and not come back home in tears instead of smiles. And when you reach the age to wed, who, my children, who will risk to take upon himself the disgrace that blights my own offspring, as it must yours? For wickedness and crime of every sort are here. Your father killed his father, wed his mother, and got children of her from whom he sprang himself, so that father, daughter, both were fruit of the selfsame womb. These taunts they will cast at you—then who will wed? There is none, my children, and you must wither barren and unmarried. O son of Menoiceus, you are all that’s left to them—for we twain who gave them birth are gone—do not suffer them, your poor, little nieces, to roam about as homeless waifs.—Bring them not down to the level of my shame and misery. Have compassion on them: they are so young, so delicate, so utterly destitute, except for you. Say that you will—signify that you will, and touch me with your hand. Children, were you old enough, I would give you much advice; but this must now suffice: endeavor to live as Heaven wills, and may your lot be happier than your father’s.”
“You have indulged your grief enough now. Go within.”
“I must obey, though hard it is.”
“Yes, everything in season.”
“Do you know on what condition I will go?”
“Tell me, and then I shall.”
“Send me forth from this land to dwell.”
“You request what the god must grant.”
“But I am an abomination to the gods.”
“Then the favor will be granted soon.”
“You consent ?”
“I never speak in vain what I do not mean.”
“Conduct me then within.”
“Come, let the children go.”
“O take them not from me, not them.”
“Do not yearn to have your way in everything; strong in power you did prevail, but power followed not through life; you see how soon your mightiness met misery.”
Œdipus, Creon, Antigone and Ismene move slowly away, while the leader of the chorus concludes the drama with these words:
Inhabitants of Thebes, look ye, this is Œdipus, who guessed the famous riddle and was a man most high in power; the people envied him in all his pomp and glory, and now behold in what an awful sea of misery submerged. ‘Therefore, never till the final day of all has come, till the goal of life is touched without hurt, deem any living creature happy.
In the Œdipus at Colonus, the blind old man, wedded to calamity and driven from Thebes, accompanied by his faithful Antigone, comes to Athens, where he is hospitably received by Theseus. Ismene arrives from Thebes and tells how her brothers had quarreled for the throne: Eteocles, the younger, had driven out Polyneices, who had fled to Argos, threatening to return with an invading army. Polyneices now enters and implores his father to espouse his cause. But Œdipus prays that his son may never regain the throne, may never return to his adopted Argos, but fall by the hand of the man who robbed him of his heritage. Polyneices begs his sisters to see that his corpse is given burial, if his father’s imprecations should be fulfilled.
In the Seven Against Thebes of Æschylus, Polyneices with his army has arrived. Many thousand warlike Argives are embattailed and ranked before the gates. Of the seven chiefs selected to stand against the seven Argive leaders, Eteocles is matched with his brother. The chorus sings of the impending conflict which will spill fratricidal blood upon the dust of Earth, and of the curses of wrath which the father had launched against his sons for their unfilial acts towards him. A scout enters to announce that the realm is saved, but that the princes are dead, slain by each other’s hand. It is here that Sophocles, in his Antigone, takes up the thread of the story.