Oedipus Rex: Other Representations

In Greek mythology, Antigone (/ænˈtɪɡəni/ ann-TIG-ə-nee; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter

of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles,

and Ismene.[1] The meaning of the name is, as in the case of the masculine equivalent Antigonus,
"worthy of one's parents" or "in place of one's parents".
Oedipus Rex[edit]
Antigone and her sister Ismene are seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as Oedipus laments the
"shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving his daughters to. He then begs Creon to watch over them, but in
his grief reaches to take them with him as he is led away. Creon prevents him from taking the girls
out of the city with him. Neither of them is named in the play.[2]

Oedipus at Colonus[edit]
Antigone serves as her father's guide in Oedipus at Colonus, as she leads him into the city where
the play takes place. Antigone resembles her father in her stubbornness and doomed existence.
[1]
She stays with her father for the majority of the play, until she is taken away by Creon in an
attempt to blackmail Oedipus into returning to Thebes. However, Theseus defends Oedipus and
rescues both Antigone and her sister who was also taken prisoner.
At the end of the play both Antigone and her sister mourn the death of their father. Theseus offers
them the comfort of knowing that Oedipus has received a proper burial, but by his wishes they
cannot go to the site. Antigone then decides to return to Thebes.[2]
Antigone[edit]
Antigone is the subject of a story in which she attempts to secure a respectable burial for her
brother Polynices. Oedipus's sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had shared the rule jointly until they
quarrelled, and Eteocles expelled his brother. In Sophocles' account, the two brothers agreed to
alternate rule each year, but Eteocles decided not to share power with his brother after his tenure
expired. Polynices left the kingdom, gathered an army and attacked the city of Thebes in a conflict
called the Seven Against Thebes. Both brothers were killed in the battle.
King Creon, who has ascended to the throne of Thebes after the death of the brothers, decrees that
Polynices is not to be buried or even mourned, on pain of death by stoning. Antigone, Polynices'
sister, defies the king's order and is caught.
Antigone is brought before Creon, and admits that she knew of Creon's law forbidding mourning for
Polynices but chose to break it, claiming the superiority of divine over human law, and she defies
Creon's cruelty with courage, passion and determination. Creon orders Antigone buried alive in a
tomb. Although Creon has a change of heart and tries to release Antigone, he finds she has hanged
herself. Creon's son Haemon, who was in love with Antigone commits suicide with a knife, and his
mother Queen Eurydice, also kills herself in despair over her son's death. She has been forced to
weave throughout the entire story, and her death alludes to The Fates.[2] By her death Antigone ends
up destroying the household of her adversary, Creon.[1]
Antigone is a typical Greek tragedy, in which inherent flaws of the acting characters lead to
irrevocable disaster. Antigone and Creon are prototypical tragic figures in an Aristotelian sense, as
they struggle towards their fore-doomed ends, forsaken by the gods.
Other representations[edit]
In the oldest version of the story, the burial of Polynices takes place during Oedipus' reign in Thebes,
before Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta. However, in other versions such
as Sophocles' tragedies Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, it occurs in the years after the
banishment and death of Oedipus and Antigone's struggles against Creon.
Seven Against Thebes[edit]
Antigone appears briefly in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes.
Euripides' lost story[edit]

The dramatist Euripides also wrote a play called Antigone, which is lost, but some of the text was
preserved by later writers and in passages in his Phoenissae. In Euripides, the calamity is averted
by the intercession of Dionysus and is followed by the marriage of Antigone and Hæmon.[3] Antigone
also plays a role in the Phoenissae.
Appearance elsewhere[edit]
Different elements of the legend appear in other places. A description of an ancient painting
by Philostratus (Imagines ii. 29) refers to Antigone placing the body of Polynices on the funeral pyre,
and this is also depicted on a sarcophagus in the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome. And
in Hyginus' version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides,
Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Hæmon to be slain, is secretly carried off by
him and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bears him a son, Maeon. When the boy grows
up, he attends some funeral games at Thebes, and is recognized by the mark of a dragon on his
body. This leads to the discovery that Antigone is still alive.[3] The demi-god Heracles then intercedes
and pleads with Creon to forgive Hæmon, but in vain. Hæmon then kills Antigone and himself.[4] The
intercession by Heracles is also represented on a painted vase (circa 380–300 BC).[5][6]

Oedipus Rex: Other Representations

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In Greek mythology, Antigone (/ænˈtɪɡəni/ ann-TIG-ə-nee; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter

of Oedipus and either his mother Jocasta or Euryganeia. She is a sister of Polynices, Eteocles,

Euripides' lost story[edit]

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