政治審慎一索福克勒斯《安提戈涅》中的政治教育

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments V

Abstract VI

中文摘要 VII

Introduction 1

0.1 Literature Review 1

0.2 Commentaries and Translations of Sophocles' Antigone 8

0.3 Domestic Study 9

Chapter One Sophocles and Athens 13

1.1Family and Ritual Order 14

1.2Enlightenment and Conservatism 16

1.3Greek Theatre and Democracy 19

1.4Homeric Tradition and the Source of Law 21

Chapter Two Opposition as a Poetic Theme 24

2.1Family as a Community 26

2.1.1The Destruction of Family 26

2.1.2Heroism and Family Ethics 28

2.2The Quality of Piety 31

2.2.1Contested Burial Rights 31

2.2.2Piety and Fate 34

2.3 Public and Private Life 37

2.3.1Subverted Binary Distinction 37

2.3.2Absent Logos 40

Chapter Three Chorus: Wisdom in the Overtone 43

3.1Law and Justice 44

3.2Piety and Progress 46

3.3Private Eros 48

3.4Caution for Tyranny 50

VIII

Conclusion 54

Bibliography 56

Introduction

0.1 Literature Review

From the perspective of jurisprudence, Antigone's dilemma has great value of research in that it serves as a fictional revelation of the origin and nature of law. In the Jurisprudence: The Philosophy and Method of the Law (1974), Bodeheimer appropriates the scene in Antigone to pose the problem of the conflict between two orders of law, namely the command of a sacral law and that of a secular king. Bodeheimer further elaborates the trigger for it and introduces the incisive change in Greek philosophy and thought in the fifth century B.C which divides the formerly undifferentiated law and religion. Ever since Sophists arise, the law is exposed to searching criticism and regarded as a purely human invention rather than the unchanging command of a divine being (Bodeheimer 6). In the Rhetoric (2007), Aristotle distinguishes laws from two resources namely (1) the particular law which each community defines for itself, which is partly written, partly unwritten; (2) the universal, unwritten law of nature (bk.1, ch.13). Natural justice binds on all men. It is what Antigone uses to defend her burial of Eteocles as just. She means that it is just by nature, and not of today or yesterday but lives eternally. Aristotle further argues that the written law and law of nature supplement each other (bk.1, ch.13). In accusation and defense, if the written law tells against the case, the universal law should be appealed to as a substitute. That is how the laws should be used. In this case, Angione is regarded as a spokesman for a mindset that denies the written law as the only authority and its supremacy if universally applied.

As to political and philosophical reading, the mainstay is composed of Hegel and Lacan. Hegel's interpretation is collected in the Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art consisting of two volumes as well as the Phenomenology of Spirit (Zhang). The

Ethics of Psychoanalysis should be consulted for Lacan's opinions (Ma). Antigone is taken up by Hegel and Lacan not as a political figure, but rather as one who expresses a pre-political opposition to politics, representing kinship as the sphere that conditions the possibility of politics without even entering into it. In this sense, the kinship and the states are separated apart. The idealized sphere of kinship, the symbolic, is set apart from the social sphere in Lacan's interpretation. What Hegel and his followers neglect is the incoherence and division residing in concepts of both the family and the state if they are to be regarded as a naturally unified community. Neither Antigone nor Creon is valid as a representative for each side.

In the Antigone's Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death, Judith Butler rejects Hegel's binary perception of Antigone by emphasizing her identity as the child of an incestuous marriage, which confounds her position within the kinship. In her opinion, Antigone hardly represents the normative principle of it. Butler proposes that the acts of Creon and Antigone mirror rather than oppose each other. Butler points out the ambiguity in Antigone's deed from the very beginning. It is through the appropriation of the authoritative voice of the one she resists that Antigone gains her autonomy. In this sense, the norms of the power she opposes turn indispensable for her to perform the act (Butler, 11). When Butler further deconstructs rhetoric devices in Antigone's speech, the fallacy of the latter is more and more exposed for she seems in lack of a coherent and solid standpoint. Her law appears to have but one instance of application. Her brother is not reproducible and thus she is determined to bury him regardless of any cost. It is no law at all in any ordinary, generalizable sense. She acts not in the name of gods but transgresses the very mandates of them.

Judith Butler further appropriates Antigone to advocate her feminist resistance politics. She argues that Hegel's defect lies in that Antigone's being deprived of subjectivity exposes the exclusive nature of patriarchal politics and culture. However, it should be noticed that such division is not considered as abusive as in today's society but a common practice in the fifth century. It is a displacement of

time and the corresponding social situation to render Antigone feminist merit. Butler further claims that Antigone's struggle for recognition from a marginalized position is still inspiring today for those who fight back oppression in varied forms. The ultimate aim of resistance politics is to remove violence among people and ethnic groups. Deprivation from any culture, discourse, power, and institution to make people “unhuman” and its accompanying violence should be cautioned. The contribution of Butler is perhaps that Antigone is given a reinvigorated appeal in the modern political movement.

In his Reading Greek Tragedy, Goldhill also notices the interaction between oikos (house) and polis (city-state). According to him, they are not incompatible in every aspect, as males in the city are also the rulers of the oikos and the females are the guardians not only of the house but also of the fertility of the state. He is against considering Sophocles as conservative because of the complex interplay and dislocations of the moral language in the text. Neither is it appropriate to boil down the challenge of women to a sort of all-embracing formula. The reason is that archaism in Greek tragedy introduces a series of tensions and paradoxes which resist a simple, univocal reading.

From the same strand as Hegel, as recorded in the Conversations of Goethe, with Eckermann and Soret, Hinrichs attempts to prove that Creon's denial of burial is merely implementing state's law. Creon is more of a personification of the state than an ordinary man. In this sense, he is the representative of state power in the tragedy and it is in him that the utmost political morality demonstrates, which, however, are rebutted by Goethe. He holds that Creon is spurred by his personal hatred towards the dead, nothing close to the political morality. Polynice's intention to reclaim the bereft family inheritance, which is seized by violence, is not so severe as to be accused of treason against the state and deserve being exposed after death. Goethe highly compliments Sophocles' craftmanship for it is his sophistic deployment of rhetoric devices endowed to his characters that enables Creon to be well-disguised as the spokesperson of the state. His speech always appears to be

righteous and appealing to the audience. In Sophocles' works, there constantly exists a gap between the real intent and the eloquence of language. Exactly it is where irony is produced. Ironies and ambiguities in the play invalidate the dualism in Hegel's interpretation which isolates blood ties and social relationships, nature, and culture.

In the Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy, Rehm regards Sophocles' manipulating the motif of the marriage to death as the common element in tragedy. He argues that the perversion of weddings and funerals exposes fault lines deep within the city, disrupting the normal commerce between men and women, between public and private, and between oikos and polis. After the Persian Wars Athens institutes the so-called patrios nomos (patriot law) whose effect is profound. The burial rights of Athenian citizens dead in the war which formerly belonged to each household are now transferred to the city-state. It is thus authorized to give public and unified memorial ceremonies. Pericles regards the Funeral Speech as an important occasion to stress that the polis is more important than the individual. An ironic echo can be found in Antigone when Creon demands absolute obedience from citizens. It turns out to be destructive and incurs pollution if such demand ignores the due obligation to gods.

In the Lament and Closure in Antigone, Segal studies the strategy enacted in the Antigone to suppress women's lament and its failure. Creon denies Antigone her right to burial rites and at the same time asserts the city's claim over those of the house. Antigone's cry is akin to the wildness of nature since in the play she is compared to a bird by the guardian, contrasting with Creon's attempt to grasp the polis under rational human control. Eurydice's lament over Haemon echoes that of Antigone over Polyneices. And the funeral lamentation within his household marks Creon's defeat. The most ironic part is that Creon is devastated by the grief of losing his son, on which occasion his cry becomes indistinguishable from that of female wailing. The collapse of Creon suggests that the pursuit of absolute rationality is not only unrealistic but may be counterproductive and invite catastrophe if it is applied

to submit polis.

The tension between the two characters, Creon and Antigone has been noted by Nussbaum in The Fragility of Goodness. Though divided in perception like polis, philia, piety and justice, they are similarly one-sided, narrow in their picture of what matters. Both of them lack a communal acknowledgment of the world's intermingling of ecstasy and danger, of light and shadow. Nussbaum contends that neither philia nor justice should be assumed as conflict-free concepts. The nature of each of these features can only be seen in their combination with each other or opposition to each other, and too, its oppositions within itself.

Unsatisfied with dismissing Antigone as nothing more than an allegorical representative, in the Antigone's Motives: A Suggested Interpretation Charles S. Levy regards the motive of Antigone as a crucial problem to solve so that this heroic figure can be conceived as a credible person. In trying to figure out the motive, modern critics frequently approach either of the two extremes. Some like Goethe insist that Antigone behaves in an eminently rational way while others agree with Norwood that Antigone has no reasons; she has only instincts. Levy, then proposes something of a synthesis of the two extremes. He suggests that Sophocles portrays his heroine as being motivated by a combination of reason and instinct. The interaction of Antigone's reason and instinct is represented as a prime element when Sophocles develops the drama. And he does so less by descriptive means than by a dramatic device.

As can be seen from above, Creon and Antigone in previous studies are more and more returning to characters with flesh and bones rather than spokesmen for certain propaganda. Deconstruction and construction approaches enable readers to consider the complexity and displacement of internal references in the text which are hardly taken notice of from the dualistic point of view. At the same time, the larger extent to which the characters are restored to the historical background, the closer we come to appreciate the style of the tragedy of the fifth century and understand Sophocles.

The quarrel between poetry and philosophy runs through the fifth century and constructs the indispensable background against which a better comprehension of Sophocles can be reached. Watching plays in the theatre is an important means of political practice, which to some extent is analogous to participation in the Assembly. Goldhill points out that public debates, collective decision-making, and the shared ideals of participatory citizenship compose central elements of political practice to establish democratic institutions (Goldhill 5). In fifth-century philosophy, especially Plato's teaching, the act of “viewing” is often connected with acquiring knowledge. The word "I know" (oida) shares the same root as the word “I have seen”(oida). It possibly reminds us of Plato's allegory. The many beautiful things and many good things are seen with the faculty of “sight” (Plato 507 c). The truth is compared to the sunlight which sheds color upon things. Eyes are dimmed when they stop being directed at objects whose colors are lit by sunlight and turn to those who are enveloped in the darkness. In the same way, when the soul focuses on the site where truth is shining forth, it understands and knows intelligence; It resorts to opinions when focusing on what is mingled with darkness (Plato 508 d).

Unlike the passive relationship of seeing and being seen, it is far more complicated to watch plays in the dramatic festival. The audience are actively involved in the production of meaning in stagecraft. Goldhill expounds on his research for such interaction and argues that the security of the reader or audience is challenged by the instability introduced into dramatic form. They are alienated from the ready-made structure of the conventional response, so as to be forced to recognize the challenge to her/his paradigms and conventions of understanding. They are pushed to the boundary between their awareness of the self and that of the stage. In the overlapping zone between stage discourse and state norm, they reflect upon the essence of political life (Goldhill 264).

What has been discussed above possibly helps to understand what Elliot Bartky means by saying that “poetry preserves and transmits the myths of the city” in the Aristotle and the Politics of Herodotus's History. While Socrates issues a

devastating attack on tragic poetry in The Republic, he also admits that he has always loved such poetry “since childhood.” Aristotle further confirms the philosophic education through tragedy. His affirmation of tragedy is recorded in the Poetics. He holds that tragedy is the form of poetry that helps us to learn by helping to remove or weaken such passions which prevent us from thinking and seeing the world clearly. Aristotle aligns poetry with philosophy, claiming that poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history. The reason is that poetry sets eyes on the whole while history speaks of particular things (Aristotle 1451a38-b7) (Bartky 445). Poetry anticipates political philosophy. The poets' and the philosophers' inquiries into the nature of human affairs share a common ground. They are both concerned with such issues as the good, the justice, and even the sufficiency of all cities. Poetry, in the same way as philosophy, serves the city by shaping the souls of the citizens with regard to what is good or bad and what are just and unjust things. The influence of poets on politics is two folds.

On the one hand, by questioning the sufficiency of all human conventions, the poet points to the limits of politics. On the other hand, by confirming that the right order of the city is essential for establishing a proper relationship between the divine and human realms, the poet acknowledges the promise of politics (Bartky 448).

From the perspective of public education and the poetry's intricate association with philosophy, scholars have contributed many insightful comments on the Antigone.

In the Die Politische Kunst der Grienchischen Tragodie (1988), Christian Meier points out that Sophocles disagrees with Attika's law that the corpses of betrayers shall not be buried in the state for he realizes that exposed corpses disrupt both the order of nature and the law of Hades. Sophocles possibly suggests the wisdom of the public and the danger for the ruler to dismiss them as merely submissive subjects. He also reminds Athens of the devastating power of the law when reduced to personal whim and the threat of a tyrant looming in the city.

In the Conclusion chapter of the Greek Tragedy and Political Philosophy:

Rationalism and Religion in Sophocles' Theban Plays, Ahrensdorf asserts that Sophocles' Theban plays do indeed confirm the tragic poet is philosophic. Philosophy seems to teach that the pursuit of wisdom through reason alone is the greatest good for a human being, and that reason is therefore capable of both understanding the world and of guiding us to happiness. The true model of rationalism can also be encountered in Sophocles himself, who exhibits a genuinely philosophic clarity, intransigence, and humanity.

In the “Figures of Commonality in Sophocles' Antigone”, Carlo Salzani concludes that the question of commonality is the central topic of the tragic education while the community is absent throughout the play. As a political tool, the purpose of the tragedy is to educate the polis through presenting on stage the dangers and problems of community life. There exists no state, community, democracy, or pluralism in the case when everyone seems to be self-centered and at the same time goes against the city. Sophocles' Antigone problematizes and deconstructs the notion of commonality from every possible perspective: in kinship and polis, language and communication, love and death, nature and law. In the play, the fragility and limits of the commonality are shown as well as the danger for the polis if its democratic construction is demolished. The tragedy is a part of the state political education, and it has the duty to dramatize conflicts, hostility and limits. By arising emotions like pity and fear, the audience's political awareness is aroused.

A comparison with Plato's teaching as the general background and the exploration on the usage of rhetoric devices, including irony and ambiguity in the Antigone should be given more emphasis. That's what this thesis attempts to contribute to the Antigone study.

0.2 Commentaries and Translations of Sophocles' Antigone

Seth Benardete, student of Leo Strauss, has a very detailed and eloquent commentary on the Antigone named Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles' Antigone, which clarifies the text line by line, showing us another dimension of the 8

Antigone research. The two basic sources of his study are classical philology and Strauss' political philosophy. “Sacred” should be considered within the structure of Greek mythology and “transgression” is another important concept of it. In the Homeric world, it firstly refers to “breaking the sacred oath”, and it also has the connotation of violating the code in the community life. Liu Xiaofeng holds that the oxymoron in the book title indirectly denies the claim of Hegel. The reason is that Antigone's violation is sacred due to her adherence to the traditional ritual order but Creon's is not. The discussion concerning transgression should belong to the realm of political myth.

The most cited and most influential commentary on the Antigone is perhaps the Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments written by Sir Richard Jebb, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. For readers with a basic grasp of the Greek language, this version will be less difficult to read. Jebb's book is abundant with connotations and citations from the classics, including works of Aeschylus, Aristotle, Homer, Plato, etc. His English translation is archaic. While some opinions of his are disputed by later critics, it proves his authority in classical philology on the other hand.

The Sophocles: Antigone edited with translation and notes by Andrew Brown is more friendly to Chinese readers. Brown's translation is more modern compared with Jebb's. The best part of this book is that the word-by-word interpretation quotes opinions from various critics which is very convenient for comparison and further research. It's more like an assortment of studies on Antigone from eminent scholars.

0.3 Domestic Study

Chinese scholars approach and interpret the Antigone mainly from the following aspects including feminist reading, dramatic adaptation, philosophical study and jurisprudence discussion. In the discussion of modern legislation, the final aim of law and its underlying ethic is discussed via Antigone's dilemma. And under such circumstance, she is often endowed with a rebellious spirit and treated as a 9

model who revolts against a law when it is outrageously insufferable. Zhang Benshun in the “On the Ethical Spirit of Law from Antigone's Hatred and the Lack of Chinese Kindred Right of Refusing to Be Witnesses at Court” puts that the image of Antigone stands for a symbol representing the attitude and spirit of citizens to use laws from a higher level as a counterpart to criticize the empirical law. She also displays citizens' resistance to evil laws according to the principle of natural law. The blood that Antigone sheds reminds us that whenever a law tries to establish authority of its own, the respect to humanity should not be sacrificed nor should the human value be neglected or suppressed. In the “The Spirit of Law Based on Human Relations — Jurisprudential Reflection on Antigone's Rage”，Du Qiuyue argues that Antigone's claim represents the positive law of citizens against the state based on human relations spirit and natural conscience. Her accusation against city-state law is called “Antigone's rage” in Western law research. The tragedy implies that the law should consider citizens' ethical feelings based on human relations and respect citizens' general moral feelings. The modern sense of individualism and humanism is attached to Antigone's claim concerning the issue of law-making.

In the “Antigone and Feminist Ethics”, Wang Nan summarizes responses from feminist critics including Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler to the male authoritative voices in the Antigone interpretation, mainly from Hegel and Lacan. Wang Nan points out feminist engagements with Antigone emerge as one of the most critical theories in the “post” fashion of thought. Post-structuralists appropriate Antigone to reflect upon modern issues of the marginalized group for her ambiguous identity serves as an exemplary trapped in the shadowy realm.

The “Antigone in China: Strategy, Route and Significance of Operatic Adaptation and Performance” by Chen Rongnv focuses on the adaptation of Antigone to Chinese traditional operatic form. She compares Hebei Bangzi Opera the Thebes City 2002 with Peking Opera the Mingyue and Zihan 2015. Both of them borrow Sophocles' Antigone as the chief source. In the “On Discrepancies of Expression Means Between Chinese and Western Tragedies — Comparison Between

Antigone and Doue Yuan”, Gao Jianwei establishes his theoretical framework on Aristotle's Poetics and makes a comparison between the Antigone and Doue Yuan from aspects of the dramatic theme, personalities of the protagonist and plot structure.

In “The Ethical Problems of Ancient Greece in Hegel's Interpretation of Antigone: the Law of Family and the Law of Polis”, Niu Wenjun justifies and defends Hegel for his opinions which are generally deemed as gender-biased. His argument is grounded in the fact that rather than defending the traditional gender role orientation, Hegel opens up the possibility to overcome the above-gender metaphysics and realize gender equality as well as women's liberation. Heidegger has made several attempts to interpret the first chorus in the Antigone throughout his lifetime and is deeply attracted by it. In the Heidegger's Antigone, Ouyang Fan contends that Heidegger's first interpretation provides profound reflections upon human nature which shares a similar ground with Nietzsche's tragic spirit. The second time Heidegger approaches the Angione, he places the focus on the single character and puts forward the “ambiguity of not being at home”.

In “The Glorious Beauty of Antigone”, Ma Yuanlong makes a summary of Lacan's creative explanation for the Antigone. Lacan argues that Antigone is in no sense an ordinary character for she displays a kind of magnificent glory. Such brilliance comes directly from her willful and obstinate sacrificing herself and being driven by the eros that is demonstrated as an uncompromising desire for death. At the same time, Lacan deems that Antigone has gone beyond aT8 in that she voluntarily undertakes a somber death contrary to Aristotle's opinion who believes that Antigone acts ignorantly in the previous scene. Angione, the tragic hero born two thousand years ago, perfectly reproduces Lacan's deep thinking on the desire for death and thus he takes Sophocles' Antigone as the core text in the ethics of psychoanalysis.

Chen Siyi in the “Physis and Nomos in the Antigone” proposes that the tension between “physis and nomos” exists not only between the family and city-state virtue

but also between the natural force of each individual and the community in which he is placed. In the Antigone, personality traits of both Antigone and Creon display the heroic natural force in ancient Greek poetic tradition, and this kind of personal strength forms a strong tension with the community norms they defend.

As can be seen from above, most domestic studies focus on the summary and introduction of previous studies from prominent critics, and most of them express their own viewpoints through the Antigone. The interpretation which develops in the context of the play needs to be supplemented.

Formally published as well as widely circulated Chinese translations of the Antigone consist of two versions so far, respectively from Luo Niansheng and Zhang Zhuming. A revised translation based on Luo Niansheng's previous work is attached to the appendix of the Sacred Transgressions: A Reading of Sophocles' Antigone contributed by Zhang Xinchang. Collections of research on the Antigone which have been translated into Chinese include the Sophocles and Greek Enlightenment edited by Liu Xiaofeng and the Choral Songs in Sophocles' Antigone by Zhang Wei.

Chapter One

Sophocles and Athens

Sophocles is one of the most prolific Greek tragedians whose works survive. His career spans a remarkably long period, from 468 to his death in 406. During this period, Athens has experienced several far-reaching events, including the career of the statesman Pericles and the refinement of democracy, the teaching of Socrates and the sophists. Subjected to large-scale and sudden cultural and material changes, the generation's experience is dramatized in tragedies. Segal contends that the sharp polarization of values that men are experiencing, as well as intellectual tools used by philosophers and practicing rhetoricians of Sophists, are reflected by the situation of conflict and antithetical debates of tragedy (9). Although the way the text “reflects” society is a difficult notion due to its interconnection with the democracy ideology, it reminds critics or anyone who tries to approach the text of the necessity to consider historic background, to think as a fifth-century Greek when trying to interpret their fine arts. On the other hand, the universality in Sophoclean hero's dilemma and his sophisticated employment of dramatic devices endows his works with never-fading charms. Trying to avoid being dogmatic in his political teaching, Sophocles lets his characters speak for themselves. His plays convey to the audience their insights into human behavior and their foresight for a potential danger looming in the politics of the city-state. As Segal highly praises him, Sophocles “has seemed to each generation to be the quintessentially classical poet and yet to be remarkably modern” (ix). To approach the Antigone, it is necessary to clarify the tragedian's standpoint about issues concerning man, nature and gods.

1.1Family and Ritual Order

City-state is a specific form of unity composed of groups rather than individuals. These groups pre-existed city-states and will continue to exist after the establishment of city-states. Athens belongs to four social organizations for he is a member of his family, phylae, phratry and city-state at the same time. Ritual practices are performed throughout a citizen's lifetime. From one rite to another, he is symbolically recognized and integrated into different social organizations at different life stages. One common belief thus turns crucial in the formation of the community, which constructs the very base of unity. When Thesee unifies the twelve tribes, at his demand, the Athenian temple is announced to be the religious center of Attic (Coulanges 120). Religious piety is significant in every aspect of public life in the city-state, including the social institutions, customs, and law-ritual order. The ancient belief is in the essence associated with the construction of order in Greek city-state political life. The right to celebrate sacrificial rites is reserved for the father of a family, which further affirms his authority over domestic affairs. One purpose of marriage is to guarantee the religious observances expected of the oikos, particularly the funeral rites for its deceased members (Rehm 21). That is the standpoint Antigone firmly takes. She says “I certainly mean to bury my own brother — and yours, if you will not. I will not be caught betraying him.” (Antigone 45). [ All lines cited in this thesis are from Sophocles: Antigone edited with translation and notes by Andrew Brown, Aris&Phillips LTD, 1987.

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One of the most tensive scenes in the Antigone is the death of Haimon who fulfills his marriage ceremony in the grave. The reunion of the newlywed and the destruction of their native family forms a bizarre juxtaposition. The messenger reports it to Creon, saying that “and he lay, corpse enfolding corpse, achieving his marriage rites, poor boy, in the house of Hades” (Antigone 1240).

Within the family, the hierarchy of filiation is strictly divided. Clear boundaries are set between fathers and sons. Quarrels with older members of the family are feared as dangerous forms of instability because they may cause pollution, spread disease and poor crops, etc. Patricide is with no doubt the nastiest transgression and pollution. In the Antigone, the curse that has been cast on Oedipus shrouds his descendants.

“Sister, closest of kindred, Ismene's self, do you know of any evil, among those which stem from Oedipus, that Zeus is not bringing to pass for us while we still alive?” (Antigone 1) Antigone believes that an infinite stock of evils is awaiting the two sisters. There exists a problematic relationship within the Oedipus family not only between mother and son but also among siblings. “Thirdly our two brothers on one day, each miserably slaying his own kin, with hands raised against one another brought about their mutual death” (Antigone 55). Ismene stresses particularly the way the two brothers slay each other. To express that the deed is done with one's own hand implies such usage of one's own hand is unnatural. An echo can be found in line 1177 and line 1316 when Haimon's and Eurydice's deaths are mentioned.

Chorus: His father's hand or his own? (Antigone 1177)

Messenger: The boy, glaring at him with wild eyes, spitting in his face and making no reply, draws his sword on his father in a frenzy of rage (Antigone 1233).

Messenger: With her own hand she struck herself in the belly when she had learned of her son's lamentable fate (Antigone 1316).

Teiresias has predicted that Creon will pay Haimon's life as a price for his imprudence. It proves to be true in that Creon's verbal stimulation is the direct cause of Haimon's suicide. On Haimon's part, he voluntarily gives up his life to impose on his father a punishment. His suicide is both out of love for Antigone, hatred for Creon, and shame on himself. In a fury, he attempts to kill his father. Even though he is on the right side, patricide is deemed as a grave violation of the ritual order and social norms which can hardly be excused. Haimon seems to feel that only if he is dead can this grave mistake be compensated. Although he loves his father, at the

same time he realizes that Creon will never repent unless after losing his only son. As to Eurydice, her death is an unintended consequence of Creon's impiety

Pollution is also connected with all cosmological categories. It comprises religious offenses, violations of social relations such as incest, the transgression of ethical taboos, and confusion of life and death. In Sophocles' Antigone, ominous omens are shown on Teiresias' alter. At first, Hephaestus does not shine forth from the sacrifice. Then the thigh bones drip wet slime onto the embers that lay bare of their covering of fat. The gods no longer accept sacrificial prayers nor do the birds scream out intelligible cries. These signals mark the hazardous fusion of the underworld and the upper world when Creon exposes the corpse to the public and imprisons a living soul in the stone tomb until her death.

“I shall take her where men's feet do not tread and bury her alive in a cave in the rock, providing just enough food for expiation, to avoid pollution of the whole city” (Antigone 773). Creon thinks if he doesn't shed any blood with his own hand then he will not be accused of murdering his niece, which invites punishment. With such assumption, he acts like an opportunistic especially his attitude towards religious affairs. He leaves Antigone in the cave and hopes that she will starve to an ostensibly natural death without causing pollution. Brown describes such attempt as both “childish” and “literal-minded”. The gods are not mocked by such methods; if the homicide is culpable, pollution would follow in any case (Brown 185). Creon is utterly and hopelessly impious.

1.2Enlightenment and Conservatism

The ancient belief undergoes unprecedented crisis under the attack of the sophist movement. The relativity of values proposed by sophists undermines the existing authority of religion, city-state and family from the root. Protagoras writes: “Man is the measure of all things”. To put the man in the central position suggests an important relativism in the process of determining the values of things. The general enlightenment sharply challenges the traditional worship of the god. Guthrie

contends that an attack on absolute values or divine sanctions in the ethical sphere is based on the contrast between certain things which are only “conventional” and others that exist “in nature” (Guthrie 9). Sophocles' response to the Sophistic movement can be detected from the characterization of Creon. Goheen holds that in Creon there are distinct traces of the “enlightened,” rationalistic attitude identifiable with the Sophists or with the so-called Sophistic movement which comes to prominence in the second half of the fifth century B.C (Goheen 90). Creon is regarded by many critics, including Schmid and Egger, as an ironic criticism of the Sophistic rationality and ethical relativism.

“It is by them, I know well, that these men have been suborned with bribes to do this deed. For no such evil currency as money has ever arisen among men” (Antigone 293). Creon believes that the one who buries Polynices must have received bribes. Such assumption labels a price to both corpses of Polynices and Eteocles and, further, reduces the disposal of the body and its relevant sacred ceremony to the system relatively measured by money. That the proper treatment of the bodies of the deceased is a matter of dealing with the gods and the human soul can hardly be accepted by Creon. His impiety is complete blasphemy.

The fifth century is also an age filled with bouncing confidence in the power of man's rational activity, particularly concerning scientific and philosophical investigation. The end of complete knowledge and control over things is believed to be attainable. The English terms “technology”, “technique”, “technical” derive from techne (art). It is used as an expression of the new art of rhetoric, the new advances of medical science, and also the various areas of human expertise such as farming, sailing, handicrafts. However, this kind of self-reliance is at the risk of transgression. “The sense of progress brings with it a sense of going too far, of transgression” (Goldhill 205).

Because of affirmation and pursuit of the new wisdom, men's position in the cosmology and the way people understand the world has been fundamentally changed. The theological system constructed since Hesiod and Homer has been

subverted. The interpretation of the essence of the human world provided by traditional poetry is on the edge of being abandoned. In the fifth century, people no longer believe that the human world is chaotic, nor that the truth hidden in the world of gods is too vague to obtain without reliance on their inspiration. People turn to their own minds, which are deemed as sufficient enough to get access to the world of truth.

Creon: Did they bury him because they held him in high esteem as a benefactor — a man who came to burn their colonnaded temples, their votive offerings and their land, and to scatter its laws to wind? Or do you see the gods honoring the wicked? It is impossible (Antigone 285).

In Creon's narration, gods are also involved in the political dispute of the citystate and take his side. He avoids talking about the essence of the strife for it risks exposing an internal split within the Oedipus' family but exaggerates the way Polynices has destroyed the temple and offerings. Creon slyly equals worshipping gods to protecting their temples and thus his argument sounds superficial and utilitarian. His hash and definite conclusion reveals a lack of reverence, not to mention the subsequent prudence.

Sophocles must have noticed or experienced the tension between enlightenment and conservatism himself. He is recorded to take the role of “orgeones”, which means those who sacrifice to gods privately founded. Sophocles is a life-long priest of the orgeones and receives Asklepios in his own house, using it as a sacristy. Besides, he has composed a paean in his honor. A sculptured figure of the “receiver” is set up in the small chapel to confer on Sophocles' immortality of remembrance. After his death, his is honored by Athens as a hero and given the title “Dexion” (Ferguson 90). Goldhill holds that these stories point to a special connection believed to exist between Sophocles and the heroes in the religious life of the city. And Schmidt regards such experience as extremely pious. He concludes that Sophocles firmly takes the side of the traditional religion and is the only one

who can play a conservative role against the fifth-century enlightenment spirit.

1.3Greek Theatre and Democracy

In Poetics chapter IV, Aristotle records the origin as well as the development of poetry.

Tragedy—as also Comedy—was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there it stopped. Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. Sophocles raised the number of actors to three, and added scenepainting (Aristotle, Poetics 7).

In the Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History, Pomeroy introduces that Aeschylus is the first of the famous tragedians of fifth-century Athens. He adds a second actor which makes possible real conflict and moves tragedy beyond tableau into the realm of drama (Pomeroy 222). Unlike today's perception of tragedy, in the Greek world, it functions more than a form of art or entertainment and is closely interconnected with the shaping of the public ideology.

Easterling points out that the main difficulty in appreciating Greek tragedy lies in its different concept of the individual as a part of the community than today's personal experience (129). Easterling admits that there are times when the audience are made uneasy by the extremely public nature of Sophoclean characters, as indeed by that of all characters in Greek tragedy (129). In other words, the isolated view which neglects the central part tragedy plays in the spiritual and intellectual life of the polis as well as the mutual interdependence of citizens is anachronistically misleading.

An essential part making up the sense of being a citizen is the military outlook. Wars break out successively and there are very few years without military engagements. Pericles especially emphasizes the essential involvement of the democratic citizens in the military defense of the polis when he says “each of us is willing to fight and to die” (Knox 85). To keep up the morale, the public funeral becomes a special occasion when the patriotic rhetoric is widely used. The final aim of political practice of democracy is to form in each citizen an essential allegiance and obligation to his country (Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy 6).

Creon's speech is based on such principle when he proclaims that “nor would I ever regard my country's enemy as my friend, knowing that it is our country that preserves us, and it is only while she remains upright, as we sail upon her, that we make our friends” (Antigone 190). In this passage, Creon equates the personal enemy and friend with that of the city-state. His argument is grounded in a premise that is disputable within itself. The city-state is not always unified as a whole and what Creon fails to see is the inevitable division in every aspect of public life. For example, to which extent can obedience to the ruler be equivalent to obedience to the city-state? Creon assumes there is no distinction between those two concepts, but that is not the case. At least Antigone refuses to accept it.

Watching plays in the theatre is an important means of political practice, analogous to participation in the Assembly. It is both a right and duty for every citizen to attend the theatre, which is supported by liturgy, the system of raising money from wealthy individuals. To be a theoros (state ambassador) means the responsibility to attend games or religious festivals. Such duty is performed in the institutions of the state and institutionally supported by financial and legal means (Goldhill, Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy 6). The structure of civic ideology is related to the dramatic festivals and the sorts of transgressions enacted in tragedy and comedy. As Goldhill puts it “the tearing of fifth-century man from his whole-hearted affiliation to the texts and values of the past is a violence germane to the tragic festivals” (Reading Greek Tragedy 146).

The repression imposed by one gender on the other is revolted by female characters' outspokenness on the stage. The tension between the sexes, as an explicit feature in the Antigone, is not without parallel in the city's polarized conception about a citizen. The women are linked with the inside, isolated from public life with their acting sphere confined to the house (Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy 72). It is the area associated not just with family life, but with women in particular, as much as the worlds of assembly and gymnasium are men's privilege. The ideology of the city-state is designed to devalue women in general. The binary distinctions between women and men, the inside and the outside are regularly regarded as natural and proper. Tragedy, as an art form, safely and sharply questions and challenges the fixed norm. In this sense, the epithet “conservative” which is traditionally applied to Sophocles may need qualification.

1.4Homeric Tradition and the Source of Law

In the ancient Greek world, both music and law are important means of education. The basis of children's education is composed of Muses - poetry, singing, and dancing which is linked to gymnastics. In the Laws, Plato explains how education is carried out in the form of singing and dancing under the guidance of the chorus. The difference between men and animals is that animals have no perception of order or disorder in their movements, that is of rhythm or harmony. But they are appointed by gods to men as companions in the dance. The harmony and rhythm give the pleasurable sense and men join hands with each other in dances and songs. Here community takes shape for the first time in the music scenario under the supervision of gods. Chorus is defined as a term naturally expressive of cheerfulness. The cultivation of the soul is achieved by steering its natural feelings towards pleasure and pain since childhood. Before children are able to attain reason, the particular training in terms of pleasure and pain is taken care of by gods or the chorus in music education. The final aim is that feelings including pleasure, pain and hatred are rightly implanted in souls. Melodies with a natural truth and

correctness are instituted by a lawgiver whose part must by played by gods or a divine person.

Like music, the law serves as a tool to educate citizens. It is firstly prescribed by Zeus. According to Homer, Minos visits his father's temple every nine years and delivers his words in written ritual laws (Lin 3). Laws should either be ascribed to gods or someone who knows. In Plato's Laws, the Athenian distinguishes good judges from bad ones to prove that the best law should not be focused on war, but its opposite (628a). It should not be designed to destroy anyone; rather, it functions as a mediator so that the philia (friendship) among people can be well protected (627e). Secondly, the legislator should pursue the wholeness of virtue. In the same way as the shepherd wants to allocate good pastures to sheep, legislators should assign people works suitable for their nature so that their souls can be taken good care of.

The principle of Creon's legislation is contrary to the one mentioned above. Creon: Must I rule this land to please anyone but myself? Haemon: It is no city that belongs to one man. Creon: Is the city not held to belong to its ruler?

Haemon: You would do well as monarch of a desert (Antigone 736). Creon believes, as a ruler, he has the city-state at his disposal. Haemon challenges it by telling his father if he sticks to tyranny, he might as well rule in a desert. The city-state is opposed to a desert in that it has its own rights and autonomy and citizens will not bear to be mistreated as objects. As Brown puts it, “Creon's insistence on his absolute authority is something that no fifth-century Athenian could have approved” (Brown 183). In addition, neither the law nor obedience to the ruler is adequate to conflicts of interests, which Creon fails to see, deluded by his inadequacy in cognition of the complexity in public affairs.

Antigone's appeal to philia and Creon's appeal to law oppose each other. “Antigone: It is not my nature to join in hatred, but in love (phil-). Creon: Love (phi-) them then, if you must, when you come to the world below” (Antigone 523). The

repetition of love in their antithetical argument attains a dramatic effect. Creon's exclusive allegiance to the city-state ignores totally the ties of family and blood. His rigid separation of philos (friend) and ekhthros (enemy) is at odds with Antigone's claim to devotion to the family. Instead of being aimed at maintaining philia, Creon's law is designed to subdue and further destroy it.

Any attempt intent to discuss the relationship between texts of Greek tragedies and the tradition should find it necessary to take Homer into consideration. At a variety of levels and in a variety of important ways, their works are echoed in the three great tragedians. Throughout the fifth century, Homer enjoys fame as "the best and most divine of poets", as Plato put it (Plato, The Republic 530b9-10).

Although the Homeric texts have the greatest authority in the sixth century, the fifth-century democratic society of Athens is gradually deviating from it. In the Homeric world, the common mass of citizens are often ignored or despised by individualistic heroes. On the contrary, in the fifth century, the notion of community and collectivity is attached to unprecedented importance. In the funeral speech for the war dead, the names of the dead are not announced for their personal honor is subsumed to the continuity of the city. One is remembered as a part of the military involvement who sacrifices himself for the common good.

Tragedy's writing adopts and rewrites Homer in a specific way. The phrasing of line 1100 and 1101, literally send up the maiden upward, use the same verb of ascent (anhiemi) as the Eleusinian text (Segal, Tragedy and Civilization 181). In the Homeric myth, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is robbed by Hades. When she returns to her mother the earth begins to grow and when she descends to Hades, everything becomes desolate. The infertile Antigone is in sharp contrast to the mythical recycle. Segal contends such contrast in the dramatic structure emphasizes the discrepancy between the reality of Antigone's life and the mythic pattern to which she assimilates herself (180). Sophocles' rumination may be that the cosmological order provided by ancient myths is not sufficient to handle the complexity in political affairs in the fifth century.

Chapter Two

Opposition as a Poetic Theme

Oudemans attributes the tension to the poetic source of Greek tragedies for they are all drawn on the same mythical corpus (28). Levi-Strauss maintains that the Theban cycle of myths centers around oppositions. To develop his theory, Oudemans coins two pairs of terms: “extreme fusions” and “extreme fissions” “extreme culturedness” and “extreme naturalness” for further elaboration. For example, Antigone's defending the honor of the Labdacids is motivated by the family obligation in a cultural sense while her fierce spirit is driven by her own nature. The controversy among various parties, between male and female, individual and community forms a field where different views collide with each other. At the same time, it functions as the source of dramatic tension. For example, Vernant regards the opposition of collective values of a citizen body and the individual expression of the hero as an essential element in the formal structure of the tragedy (56). In “The Female Intruder: Women in Fifth-century Drama”, Shaw argues that the drama reaches compromise, explicit or implicit between male and female, oikos and polis. The assertion either of a pure masculinity or a pure femininity is thus blocked

The existence of these oppositions makes it hard for anyone who tries to interpret Sophocles' tragedies to draw a single and definite conclusion, which as a matter of fact does not exist either. Brown sums up three factors that are particularly

important to define the essence of Sophoclean drama including a concern with the mutability of human affairs. “No condition of life is ever stable, as the Messenger in Antigone proclaim” (Brown 3). This may also be the reason why it is difficult to simply classify Sophocles into the conservative or radical dramatist group. What is certain is that various interconnections among these oppositions constitute the profundity of Antigone's dramatic theme as well as the complexity of social life in reality. It is precisely where Creon's biggest fallacy lies. He tends to perceive the world as being constituted on strictly defined and incompatible conceptions. From his standpoint, issues must be either right or wrong, reasonable or stupid.

Creon: Shall men of my age be taught wisdom by one of his? Haemon: Nothing that is not right; and, if I am young, you should consider my actions, not my age. …

Haemon: You see? You sounded all too young in saying that (Antigone 728).

In his conversation with Haemon, Creon takes an arrogant attitude brought about by a superior age. Haemon rebuts his father by pointing out that it is Creon, not he, who sounds immature in his reluctance to accept any piece of advice from the young. His stubbornness finally challenges the boundary of transgression due to a lack of political prudence to divide the realm belonging to the god and that belonging to humankind. Political prudence, first of all, involves respect for the god and then each individual in the city-state, for public life is never an enclosed domain. The controversy lies in that “it serves the highest good of society for the members of society to be fully human, but the very operation of society erodes the character of its members” (Shaw 266). Secondly, it requires compromise for the aim of logos (words), as the very premise of political affairs, should be consensus rather than suppression.

Taking ambiguity as an important component of discourse interaction and meaning generation in the context, this chapter will center on issues including family as a community, contested burial rights, piety and fate, subverted binary

distinction, and absent logos.

2.1Family as a Community

In The Human Condition, Arendt expounds on the opposition between oikos and city-state. Ardent points out that more than an opinion or the theory of Aristotle, it is a simple historical fact that the foundation of the polis is preceded by the destruction of all organized units resting on kinship, such as the phratria and the phyla (Arendt 24). However, whether the oikos, as a community, is fundamentally unified is challenged by Sophocles who presents the tension between private eros and family ethics.

2.1.1The Destruction of Family

Despite in the name of defending their families, both Antigone's and Creon's deeds derivate from their rhetoric. By destroying herself, Antigone cuts the normal process of generational continuity in the same way as Oedipus and Jocasta do with their incest and patricide. Antigone's name echoes her marriage with Hades. In addition, Creon's giving Antigone to Hades not to his son allows her to live out the etymology of her name. It is Antigone herself who denies the oikos the possibility of its own continuation (Goldhill 105). The function of marriage in the oikos is thus dramatically inverted. Haimon's suicide is deemed as a form of sexual consummation by Rehm, for the description of his death is erotically charged. He notices that the details — a lover's embrace, heavy breathing, the gush of liquid, drops of blood, pale white skin — suggest both the seminal emission of male orgasm and the defloration of a virgin on her wedding night (65). Antigone and Haimon reunite with each other in the underworld and an ironical juxtaposition of marriage and death is thus produced. It is only after he destroys the lineage of his own family that Creon comes to realize his folly in bitterness. As much as Creon attempts to support the city through the repression of the family, it is through his family that his whole life becomes warped (Goldhill 105).

Haimon's self-sacrifice for love is in sharp contrast to his father's belittling women of their status in marriage. He bears deep affection towards Antigone that receives few responses. Antigone has a single loyalty to her brother, from which all her actions stem. Although the audience are told by Ismene that they suit each other (Antigone 570), Antigone's feeling towards her fiancee is rarely expressed in public. Under such circumstance, the devotion she bears towards Eteocles seems unusual. She says “I shall lie with him, a loved one with a loved one, guilty of righteous crime” (Antigone 72). She uses xwiooyai which means Tying there, dead, buried side by side”. If the relationship between Antigone and Eteocles is compared to one between the living people, she takes a tone as if talking about a romantic relationship. The complexity in the Antigone-Polynices relationship is approached by psychoanalytic means. Anzieu regards Antigone's attachment to Polynice as “incestuous, a displaced incestuous attachment to her father.” Vernant and Vidal- Naquet strongly argue against it in that Greeks are extremely careful to distinguish the eros from the philia (100). The affection between brother and sister represents the model of philia because eros, standing for sexual union and love desire, can't possibly seize those who are familiar with each other. In the Aesthetics, Hegel insists there is only an absence of desire between brother and sister. Martha Nussbaum in The Fragility of Goodness holds that Antigone appears to have no great attachment to the brother (66). Lacon claims that it is not the brother in his content whom Antigone loves, but his being as such (Ma 117). To clarify this issue is of great significance in that it is associated with Antigone's qualification to represent oikos. For example, Judith Butler rejects Hegel's binary perception of the Antigone by emphasizing Antigone's identity as the child of an incestuous marriage, which confounds her position within the kinship (15).

The discussion concerning the chaotic relationship among family members caused by fate or nature ultimately comes down to the question: whether the oikos, as a community, is fundamentally unified. Its function to preserve the ritual order is questioned by Goldhill who concludes that neither the city nor the household can be

maintained as the locus of order, value or principle (105). Ahrensdorf totally denies family as a truly natural community in that the killing between family members within the Labdacids family invalidates the shared common good, including the attempted infanticide of Laius, the patricide of Oedipus, and the fratricides of Eteocles and Polyneices. Members of that community kill one another, their own flesh and blood, for the sake of attaining or protecting political power (117). Ahrensdorf ascribes Antigone's death to her “self-interested desire for immortal happiness” and “lack of faith in human love, in the love of others for her.” (134)

At the end of the play, Antigone starts to doubt her conviction by asking that “and what divine law have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods any more in my misery — what ally should I invoke — when for my piety I stand convicted as impious?” (Antigone 925) Finally, she is in the face of the question of whether justice equals an exclusive devotion to the family. By presenting Antigone's confusion, Sophocles invites his audience to think through the ultimate consequence of beliefs about piety. He possibly suggests that what pious heroism lacks is the wisdom of reconciliation and political prudence.

2.1.2Heroism and Family Ethics

Compared with Antigone, Ismene is more capable of representing family ethics. Antigone is associated with the distant mythological picture, where there is only loneliness and death, and she is destined to face all these alone. As Knox puts it, there is one word that is applied to them [Sophoclean heroes] all, to describe their character and their action: strange, dreadful, terrible (23). “In his total alienation from the world of men the hero turns his back on life itself and wishes, passionately, for death” (Knox 34). Different from the quality of pious heroism, family ethics should be based on considerations for the continuation of it. Then its position within the Greek cosmology must be properly settled. The prerequisite for the maintenance of a household requires respect for the edict released in the city-state with a prudent political attitude. And that's what Ismene uses to persuade her sister yet turns out to

be vain.

It is no easy task to ask heroes to yield for they are too stubborn to listen. “Their watchword is: he who is not with me is against me” (Knox 21). As the only two surviving members of the family, Antigone reaches the conclusion that the family members must meet in Hades, while Ismene is more concerned about the continuation of generations. For Ismene death puts an end to all forms of relationships in the world. That's why when she refers to the deceased Polynices, she can only use the past tense. “Thirdly our two brothers on one day, each miserably slaying his own kin, with hands raised against one another, brought about their mutual death” (Antigone 55). Issues concerning the living ones are Ismene's prime consideration. On Ismene's part, it's no longer necessary to incur more harm in the case when the dead are dead. To survive should be the most important for her as well as Antigone. Contrary to Ismene, Antigone lacks the cognition of the terrible result of breaking the state edict. Her standpoint is that she will spend more time in the underworld.

Antigone: Be what you please; I shall bury him. It will be fine for me to die in doing that. I shall lie with him, a loved one with a loved, guilt of a righteous crime. I shall have to spend more time pleasing those below than those here; for there I shall lie for ever (Antigone 75).

By firmly rejecting any reconciliation with the city-state and pushing away those who try to persuade her to do so, Antigone turns herself a dramatically isolated antagonist. She is confined to her own realm, self-knowing and self-legislating, separated by her own instincts of good or bad from both the family and the citystate. Antigone's rawness, primitiveness are called attention to by the chorus. The following lines stress that she is under the impact of emotions. “Clearly the girl has a fierce spirit inherited from a fierce father. She does not know how to yield to misfortune” (Antigone 471).

Antigone's anger towards Ismene accumulates and finally comes to a burst. In

29 a harsh tone, she chastises her for her refusal to help. “Oh, proclaim it aloud! I shall hate you much more for your silence if you do not announce these things to all” (Antigone 87). She is too impassionate to reconsider Ismene's arguments. With an intent to preserve the last survivors, Ismene tries to remind her sister of the importance of yielding. As women, they are hardly capable of challenging men; Secondly, they are ruled by those who are stronger so that they must obey. However, Antigone's emotional black-and-white mindset narrows her vision. Goldhill points out that Antigone is “under her own law” and “self-willed”. “As she puts herself above the law, it is on her own, by her own law, she is going to die” (Goldhill 103). Ahrensdorf also notices that the word that Creon and the chorus use to characterize Antigone's behavior is “daring” rather than manliness or courage. A fearless willingness to transgress or transcend all limits is implied here. Daring, together with thoughtfulness is the central characteristic of human nature. Knox doesn't spare his praise for such personality trait. In his opinion, it is through this refusal to accept human limitations that humanity achieves its true greatness. Without the help or encouragement from the god, such greatness is achieved through the hero's loyalty to his nature (Knox 24). Unlike Knox's optimism, Ahrensdorf takes caution for the prices paid for audacity. It prompts men to overcome the limits imposed on them by human society, to violate the laws and destroy cities, and even to transgress the “justice sworn by the gods”. Antigone's nature does bring her a glorious end yet at the same time expels her to the isolated tomb, abandoned by both the city and the god.

Antigone has no sense of proportion, no capacity for moderation and acts in an outsized, extraordinary way. The sharp conflict between her fierce personality and the wisdom required to maintain a family shows to the audience that rather than the result of a sum of personal will, the family achieves its subtle balance in conflict and more importantly, compromise from each side.

2.2The Quality of Piety

West defines the quality of “pious” as that which is allocated by the gods to men. It can be further divided into two aspects: 1. That which is prescribed by the gods to men, both concerning men's proper dealing with one another and also concerning men's proper conduct toward the gods; 2. That which is permitted or given by the gods to men, in contrast to the sacred which the gods reserve to themselves (25). From this perspective, the deed of both Creon and Antigone is transgressive.

2.2.1Contested Burial Rights

Sophocles' personal priest career possibly influences his writing when he centers the main conflict of the Antigone on the religious practice, to be more precise, burial rights. Burial is of no small significance in Greek life both in the realm of politics and religion. Funerals are occasions for a clan to demonstrate its might and to reinforce solidarity. As Rehm describes, participants at the funeral are dressed in black as a means of self-denial. In this way, they identify themselves with the deceased. It is a sign of honor to those who have been lost to the family. At the funeral, women play the most important role. Their responsibilities include washing, anointing, dressing, crowning, and covering the body after adorning it with flower (Rehm 22).

Antigone: Yet as I go I nourish a strong hope that my coming will be welcome to my father, welcome to you, my mother, welcome to you, my own brother. For, when you died, with my own hands I washed and dressed you and poured libations at your graves. But now, Polynices, for shrouding your body, this is my reward (Antigone 896).

When Antigone laments her fate, she recalls how she has buried her parents Oedipus and Jocasta. When it comes to Polynices, however, she is prevented from

shrouding the body by Creon. She grieves over the fact that her identity as a woman, bride and mother is deprived at the same time. The maintenance of oikos is indispensable to women's participation in funerals, which guarantees its centrality. Creon both destroys her and her household.

Creon, from his typically male-centered point of view, never fully understands what it means for Antigone to fulfill her funeral duties. In line 204, he proclaims to forbid citizens to give Polynices burial honors or lament him, and that instead his body shall be left unburied to be devoured by birds and dogs. He uses “x^xuoai” to refer to women's ceremonial mourning. This wording possibly suggests Creon assumes that women's participation in the funeral is nothing but ritual practice. They will only take their parts as mourners when they are urged by man. In the fifth century, mourning is generally taken as a ceremonial practice rather than the expression of one's inner feelings. Thus it is difficult for Creon to imagine that a woman should voluntarily plot a funeral against his edict at the risk of her life. The motivation is crudely misconceived by him as political sedition. That the affection to siblings should conquer the fear of death is hardly comprehensible on Creon's part.

The rite of burial marks the passage from life to death. The attempt to leave the body dispossessed, which means denying it the due portion, both causes pollution in the city-state and invites ruins. Oudemans regards the corpse as a preeminent representative of marginality which is neither human nor has been reduced to natural matter. “It hovers between nature and culture, between life and death, between belonging to the family and being separated from it” (Oudemans 75). On the one hand, the Olympian gods are offended by the exposure of the corpse. It is outrageous for Zeus's eagle to pry on the corpse and bring the carrion to his throne. On the other hand, all human cosmologies have certain fundamental boundaries, between man and beast, life and death. An unburied corpse disturbs the distinction between life and death that Greeks are cautious to separate apart. Hesiod, for example, warns: “do not beget children on your return from a funeral where ill words were spoken,

but after a festival of the immortal god” (Hesiod 735-36).

Human political affairs also have its boundary that Creon ignores. He tries to subordinate oikos to polis in the same way as he subordinates women to men. His logic is that once announced as the city's enemy, one is deprived of the right to be buried decently at the same time. In this sense, the burial right descends from the divine realm and is reduced to a political tool. Sophocles presents to his audience the disastrous result arising from the city's intrusion into the realm of the god, or Hades in the play. Since Eteocles and Polynices have slain each other on the same day, they are both supposed to be polluting. The city-state owes respect to neither one unless it is assumed that the fact that they are both dead remits their sins. If it is true then Creon's edict to abuse Polynices' corpse turns out to be invalid because the sin he has committed hardly matters after his death. The god of the oikos will receive two corpses without distinction and so will the chorus. As to the chorus, it is composed of the elders in the city-state who have pledged their loyalty to Laius's family and its descendants. Oedipus is also included, the “Oedipus” who has solved the riddle and saved Thebes from Sphinx, not the “Oedipus” who has slain his father and married his mother. Oedipus' complex ethical dilemma fundamentally erodes the legal basis of Creon's regime and his appeal to gain the chorus' support. As a result, throughout the play, Creon avoids the scandal within hie family but talks about the danger of disobedience at great length.

In the Parodos, the war between Thebes and Argive is recalled. Jebb claims that “the first ode [the Parodos] shows how strongly they [the chorus] condemn Polyneices, as having led a hostile army against his country” (Jebb xxvi). However, as can be seen from the description, praise for the mighty power of the gods composes the main body. The adjective they adopt is neutral, which is translated by Jebb as “the vexed claim of Polynices” while Brown uses “the quarrelsome disputes of Polynices” to describe him. Brown further points out that it is merely a play on the name, which suggests “man of much strife” (143). The triumph of Thebes is attributed to the participation of Zeus and Ares, in which case men and their deeds

are trivial. When it comes to Eteocles and Polynices, the chorus describe them as “two unhappy men, who, born of one father and one mother, set their two conquering spears against one another”. Eteocles and Polynices are generally addressed as “two unhappy men”. It suggests that the chorus have no intention to distinguish between the one who betrays his homeland and the one who offends it. On the chorus' part, the dead are dead and it is no longer necessary to sanction one and honor the other. They are more interested in celebration for the present triumph as well as the future development of the city-state. They suggest forgetfulness after the war and visiting all the temples of the gods with night-long dances. On the contrary, Creon manipulates the body for his personal interest. He makes use of the corpse of Oedipus' son, branding it as the enemy of the city-state (rather the enemy of the Oedipus family) in order to educate its citizens. He arouses fear for the new king in their hearts with the lesson of death and imposes on them the importance of obedience.

2.2.2Piety and Fate

Tiresias makes his accusation by reproaching Creon that he usurps the power of Hades and as a result, he must endure the due punishment.

Tiresias: Because you have thrust below one of those above, arrogantly lodging a living creature in a tomb, and have kept here one of those below, a corpse dispossessed, dishonored, impure. These are not your concern, nor that of the gods above; you do them violence in treating them thus. For this there are savage spirits of punishment lying in wait for you, the Furies of Hades and of the gods, to see you caught up in these same evils (Antigone 1075).

As can be seen from above, Creon's crime is twofold. Firstly, he throws a person belonging to the upper world into the underworld, because he cunningly deprives Antigone of her life by imprisoning her in a stone tomb; Secondly, he detains a corpse in the upper world which is supposed to belong to Hades because 34

he does not allow Polynices to receive a proper funeral. By committing the double transgression, Creon both violates the strict separation between the realm of the divine and the realm of the worldly, and that between the upper world and the underworld.

Tiresias hints at Haimon's death by telling Creon that “then be you fully sure that you will not accomplish many rapid cycles of the sun before you have rendered up an offspring from you own loins, a corpse in exchange” (Antigone 1065). Finally, it is the threat of losing his only son that changes Creon's mind. Creon can't bear to lose Haimon because Haimon is the one who makes the continuation of his blood possible. Nussbaum points out that “Haimon” means “blood” while “Creon” means “ruler” (56). Creon indeed regards Haimon as the extension of his personal will. Haimon's first words on the stage are “father, I am yours” (Antigone 634). Creon demands absolute obedience from his son. For his part, a son is supposed to requite the father's enemy and honor his friends the same way his father does.

In the third Stasimon, the chorus praises the mighty power of eros over both deities and the mortal. Love is unconquerable, irresistible and wholly destructive. Strife among the kindred is incurred by Eros. Ahrensdorf notices the intimate connection between eros and mortality. He defines eros as “the longing of mortal human beings for immortality”. In Creon's case, his paternal love is motivated by such eros. Hoping to live on through his offspring after death, Creon's concern for the family is rooted in her fear of death. His longing for immortality is most powerfully expressed in his preservation of his family. Even in the case when Haimon threatens to kill the king, he is remitted from the death penalty. However, one needs to bear in mind that immortality is not supposed to be within the reach of human beings in Greek cosmology.

Jebb gives his compliment to Antigone by saying that “she is fulfilling one of the most sacred and the most imperative duties known to Greek religion” (Jebb xxv). Though Antigone is ostensibly devoted to her oikos and obligation towards Hades, in line 875, the chorus possibly suggests that her piety is only “a sort of piety”,

because completely piety would require loyalty to “one in whom authority resides”. Besides, like Creon, she desires something that is allocated by the god and is unable to accept her fate until the last moment in her life. In line 37-38, Antigone asks Ismene to join her in the burial. She regards it as a testimony to try if her sister is the noble or the base child of a lofty family. The word “KaKq” can refer either to the moral character or to social class, combing “bad”, “cowardly” with “low-born”. The exploit of this word suggests Antigone sticks to her assumption that there exists possibility for them sisters to attain a noble fame. As a reply, Ismene addresses her as “Ta九ai申pev”，poor sister. Ismene must have realized that Antigone's struggle for nobility is doomed and her desperate revolt against destiny comes to no avail. Only being confronted with the approaching death, does Antigone realize that she has never been able to accept her fortune.

What Antigone desires deep in heart is an honor, for which she is even willing to die. “Yet how could I have won a more glorious reputation than by giving burial to my own brother” (Antigone 504). In her conversation with Ismene, Antigone claims that “but leave me and my folly to suffer this evil. For I shall suffer nothing as bad as an ignoble death” (Antigone 95). The opposite of an ignoble death doesn't necessarily have to be death with honor, rather the preservation of life. Antigone doesn't have no options, for she can either obey Creon's edict or fulfill her duty in secret. By rejecting both, Antigone shows a determination to death. It seems that, on her part, to be arrested is far more important than the success of burial.

Hesiod teaches that “whether the mortal can become famous and get honor depends on the will of the great Zeus” (Hesiod 4). In the same way as Creon, Antigone desires something which is not supposed to be attainable for a mortal. It is not until line 860 that Antigone exposes her most painful thought that is her mother's incestuous marriage with her father. Now, she slides into self-pity and regards herself as “Ta九ai申pev”，wretched and miserable.

2.3 Public and Private Life

The strict division between the public and private life is subverted by the outspokenness of female characters on the stage. Creon's idee fixe to preserve the oikos as an enclosed realm finally leads to the collapse of his own for Eurydice's committing suicide suggests that the destruction is bred from the inner spring.

2.3.1Subverted Binary Distinction

In fifth-century Greece, citizenship equals a sense of belonging that is to be defined at a fixed position within an interrelated web. Women are generally excluded from Greek political life. The men share the title “Athenians”, “men of Athens” or “citizens” exclusively while women are referred to as “women of Attica”. The identity of a citizen is defined by a sense of the other, which is provided not only by women but barbarians, gods and beasts. Within the polarization common to Greek cultural thinking, many customs and habits which deviate from the male Athenian norm are generally dismissed as barbarian behaviors, including being ruled by women.

The real scandal of Antigone's claim is that she dares to enter the political space reserved for men and speak the language of politics and sovereignty (Salzani 12). She asks Ismene to proclaim the burial aloud or she will hate her much more for her silence (Antigone 87). If Antigone's main purpose is to properly bury Polynices, she can and must fulfill it in secret. By publicizing her action, she turns the burial into a political event. Action needs to be publicized in order to have political valence, and public speech is the real political action (Salzani 15). By enabling a woman to speak in public, the stability of gender opposition is resisted by the tragic text. What's more, the strict distinction between the inside and the outside in the Greek world is spatially challenged. The very first conversation between Antigone and Ismene takes place outside the courtyard gate, a realm belonging to the outside. “I knew it well, and that is why I brought you outside the courtyard gates, so that you

37 alone might hear” (Antigone 18). It possibly suggests Antigone's identity as an intruder dangling between male and female from the very beginning of the play.

Antigone herself demonstrates an unusual mixture of instinct and reason. As a Sophoclean hero, she tends towards “the extremes of the uncertain realms beyond the boundaries and order of the city” (Goldhill 123). She is also the only suffering heroine without women chorus for her company and comfort in the existing Greek tragedies. Her unique greatness is highlighted by the chorus composed of the noble elderly. Ahrensdorf also gives her his highest compliment by saying that there is no parallel to Antigone in Greek tragedies. Neither Clytemnestra, Electra, Medea nor Praxagora is as courageous as her. She fights like a man. Indeed, she is more defiant of Creon than any man in the plat (Ahrensdorf 92).

To defend his masculinity, as a typical Greek male, Creon rejects reconciliation with the other gender in any way. He compares Antigone to the earth and wild animals. These tropes reflect an excessive desire for political control. Creon is excessively cautious about women's public influence if they are released from the oikos. They represent what is incompatible with his cognition and are believed to be potentially subversive and rebellious. Compelled by such anxiety, Creon demands they be taken inside without delay. The distinction between the outside and inside is preserved by him with every effort.

Creon: You who were lurking like a viper in the house and secretly draining my life-blood, while I had no idea that I was fostering two forces of destruction and deposition from my throne (Antigone 531).

Creon: Waste no more time, slaves. Take them inside. From now on they must be women, and not let loose (Antigone 580).

The only reason Creon can come up with is that Antigone and Ismene are involved in a political conspiracy to overthrow his regime. He is outraged by any possible challenge in case his authority in the city-state should be compromised. It is difficult for Creon to imagine people acting out of love for each other. He rejects

philia due to its intricate association with femininity and weakness.

The love Haimon bears in heart for Antigone, in Creon's crude understanding, is driven by sexual desires. He deems wives as merely bedfellows to their husbands and attempts to remind his son of the danger if he falls in love with a woman. “Never then, my son, for the sake of pleasure, discard your good sense on account of a woman. You should know that this is a cold object for a man embraces: an evil woman as bedfellow in his home” (Antigone 650). The most ironic part of Creon's tragedy is that the destruction is incurred neither by Haimon nor any woman but himself. It is bred from the inner-spring as suggested by the Messenger, in whose account the unnatural usage of one's hand is particularly stressed. “With her own hand she struck herself in the belly when she had learned of her son's lamentable fate” (Antigone 1315).

After committing suicide over the household altar, Eurydice abruptly breaks into her husband's world with her body exposed outdoors. Her death gives a satiric slash to Creon. As a mother and wife to the king, throughout her lifetime, Eurydice is self-effacing and committed to domestic affairs. It is on her way to visit the Goddess Pallas temple with prayer and supplication that she overhears from the messenger her son's death. When she is about to unfasten the bolted gate to open it, Eurydice faints and falls back into the arms of her handmaids. Her death sharply challenges the civic virtue that has confined her to the private sector. The god doesn't spare their mercy for Creon either. When Creon tries to convince Haemon, in mockery, he disdains Antigone by saying that let her keep harping on the Zeus of the kindred. It is a recognized function of Zeus to watch over relations between relatives (Rehm 63). Eurydice's death marks the death of Creon's family and it ironically takes place on the very altar of Zeus.

It is Creon's idee fixe to preserve the oikos as an enclosed realm that leads to the collapse of his own. The women's voice which Creon suppresses demonstrates its destructive power in the end. Creon's efforts to prove that he is the maintainer of order and the embodiment of power have made him more determined to move

towards disorder and out of control.

2.3.2Absent Logos

Arendt points out the equal importance of speech to that of action. “Of all the activities necessary and present in human communities, only two were deemed to be political and to constitute what Aristotle called the bios politikos, namely action (praxis) and speech (lexis), out of which rises the realm of human affairs” (Arendt 25). To be political, to live in a polis, means that everything is decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence. Aristotle's definition of man as zoom politikon (political animal) can be fully understood only if one adds his second famous definition of man as a zoon logon ekhon (a living being capable of speech) (Aristotle, Politics 7). The arts of war and speech emerge as two principal subjects of education. The organism in operation in the family is totally different from that in the city-state. Although in the household, one can rule with uncontested, despotic powers, in the city-state it is deemed as barbarian. Arendt argues that in Greek self-understanding, to force people by violence, to command rather than persuade is dismissed as pre-political ways. It is a characteristic feature of people outside the polis to deal with things or associated with life in the barbarian empires of Asia, whose despotism is frequently likened to the organization of the household (Arendt 27).

For Creon, there exists no distinction between household and city-state. “If I am to foster indiscipline in my blood-relations, I shall certainly do so in those outside my family. For any man who acts rightly within his household will also be seen to do his duty in the city” (Antigone 660). In these lines, he appropriates the family power structure to justify his authority in the city-state. By cunningly relocating patriarchal sovereignty, the initially disputed bedrock of his regime is successfully disguised. Furthermore, Creon confines the ruling power exclusively to men and implicitly to an even more narrow sphere, to fathers. In this way, the distinction between the organization of the household and that of the city-state is 40

successfully blurred. As Goldhill puts it, “Creon adapts the vocabulary of generation and the household to the order of the city in a single hierarchical model” (Reading Greek Tragedy 105)

Logos, which is supposed to be aimed at reaching compromise and consensus, is absent throughout the play. Creon's wording, especially what he says to Antigone, is full of violence and distortion. Creon uses the iron and the horse metaphor to warn Antigone of the grave punishment on her if she is too stubborn to submit to his edict. The strongest iron, baked to great hardness in the fire, is more likely to be broken and shattered. The hot-tempered horses are easily tamed by a small bit. pay^VTa is here the stronger word, in so far as it pictures the fragments of the ruptured iron flying asunder, while 0paua08VTav merely says that the iron is broken into pieces. As Heinrich Schmidt observes, the foremost idea in pnYVVvai is that of the separation of the parts, -- the rent or rift being brought before us; in Qpavsiv, that of a whole being broken into small pieces (Jebb 94). By depicting how various objects are breaking into pieces, Creon shows Antigone what he is capable of and gives her a threat similar to death.

For Creon, justice resides in brute force. He justifies himself in ignoring others' demands when he treats them as mere objects. The tyrant's logos bears no room for any dissenting voice. The following sentence is even cruder when Creon says that “there is no room for pride in one who is her neighbor's slave” (Antigone 479). “It is only the worst type of tyrant who can regard freeborn subjects as his slaves” (Brown 73). When Ismene asks Creon if he is going to kill the bride of his own son, he replies that “others have furrows that can be ploughed”. It is perhaps the coarsest line in Greek tragedy.

Creon: For there is no greater evil than disobedience: it is this that destroys cities, this that makes houses desolate, this that breaks up allied ranks in rout. But when men succeed it is obedience that most often saves their lives. Thus the appointed rules must be upheld, and we must on no account be beaten by a woman. Better to fall

from power, if fall we must, before a man; and at least we would not be called women's inferiors (Antigone 672).

In these lines, Creon heavily stresses two points: the importance of obedience and the danger of being worsted by women. He argues that since obedience is necessary to defend both one's household and the city-state, citizens should submit to his power. If citizens are to obey him, they should watch out for women in case they are inferior to them. The deficiency in his argument lies in that women are branded as potential enemies to all male citizens and even the city-state. By arousing their senses of dignity and shame, he incites the public to engage in gender antagonism stirred by his personal hatred. It is a total betrayal of politics when the common good of the city-state is reduced to a rhetorical device usurped by the tyrant in his seek of personal revenge.

Chapter Three

Chorus: Wisdom in the Overtone

Vernant regards the chorus as an anonymous and collective being. It expresses the feelings of the spectators who make up the civic community. On the contrary, the individualized figure is seen as a hero from another age, alien to the ordinary condition of a citizen (Vernant 24). But Vernant's observation is not readily applicable to the chorus in the Antigone who constantly swing between public opinions and sympathy for the alienated heroine. Especially in the second and fourth Stasimon, it is hard to determine if they are addressing Antigone or Creon. Benardete suggests avoiding limiting the chorus' reference to a single individual or his household, but in a larger scope generalizing it as dealing with human beings as a whole. The chorus enable the audience to see the division among various qualities required in the public life and the price for defending them. They present on the stage the enormous capacity of human beings as well as their vulnerability in the world susceptible to the divine law.

The complexity in public affairs requires a prudent attitude from each individual. One should be aware that most qualities are not one-dimensional. Progress can come into conflict with piety and private eros turns out to be destructive if not moderately confined. The chorus in Antigone are more like the mouthpiece of Sophocles who conveys his meditation on human affairs in a prudent way. His wisdom is diffused in the text yet without traces for the chorus rarely offers direct statements but more often tends to give evaluative suggestions. It's more about a matter of tone than dramatic argument.

3.1Law and Justice

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle clarifies the criteria for issues concerning justice. He puts it forward that whether a man acts unjustly or justly depends on if he does such act voluntarily (Aristotle 1135 a20 - 25). To be more specific, Aristotle uses “by the voluntary” to refer to the situation when a man resorts to his own power and he does it with knowledge. He is not in ignorance either of the person acted on or of the instrument used or of the end that will be attained. His act should be done neither incidentally nor under compulsion.

Chorus: Happy are they whose life has no taste of evils [aT8]. For, when the gods make a house to tremble, all manner of disaster attends its members. ...Wisely has the famous saying been revealed from some source, that one day the bad seems good to a man when a god is leading his mind to disaster [aT8]. For the briefest time does he live without disaster (Antigone 620).

In the second Stasimon, aT8 is mentioned several times. She is the goddess of harm in Greek mythology who specializes in luring and confusing people, distracting them, making them blinded in obsessions, and further do stupid things that will eventually harm themselves. It [ate] can mean either the “ruin, disaster” which the gods visit on men's lives or the “infatuation, mental blindness” by which ruin is often said to be caused (Brown 177). But that's not Antigone's case. Fully aware of the death penalty for her deed against Creon, Antigone goes beyond aT8 for she voluntarily undertakes a somber death. If Aristotle's criterion are taken into consideration, Antigone does act justly yet she is not justly rewarded.

The explanation can only be that justice in Sophoclean tragic world is never a one-dimensional concept. For Sophocles, dike means not only “justice” but “the order of the universe,” and from the human point of view that order often seems to impose a natural rather than a moral law (Lloyd 128). Not long before she is led off to be buried alive, Antigone denounces the unfair treatment imposed on her. With indignation, she feels being abandoned and betrayed by the god. Since she sticks to

her responsibility, why does the god deliver her sanctions without distinction? Antigone assumes that if the god affirms her justice, he should intervene in affairs in the city-state. The paradox is that when she measures if the deed is just or not according to the result it brings, her piety is contaminated by practical ethics. Apparently, the god won't buy it.

For several times, the chorus attempts to remind Antigone not to go too far. They persuade her by teaching that “piety is piety, perhaps; but breach of authority cannot be tolerated by one in whom authority resides. Your self-willed temper has destroyed you” (Antigone 872). In these lines, the chorus associates her piety with a self-willed temper which induces her offense to authority. They suggest that the authority in the city-state also involves certain divinity. The due respect for it then must be an indispensable part of the pursuit of justice. Uncompromising piety is invalid for piety never demands anyone sacrifice oneself to protect it.

Similarly, the chorus attempts to teach Creon that justice does not reside in force. In the first Stasimon, “the law of the land” and “the divine justice” are mentioned as two measurements to determine whether a man can live a good life or not. “When he weaves together the laws of the land and the divine Justice that binds men's oaths, high is his city. No city has he who in daring takes to evil” (Antigone 367). Brown argues that the emphasis lays on the law of the land. He puts it clear that the chorus takes Creon's side for the thought seems more secular than religious despite its mentioning of the god. If the city is to prosper, it is practically necessary for its people to obey the law, to keep their oaths and to pledge their allegiance to the community. Brown goes even further in saying that “the chorus shares Creon's assumption that whoever broke the edict is an enemy to Thebes” (Brown 157). Ahrensdorf shares a similar point of view by saying that Creon is evidently devoted to both Thebes and the gods, and as a result, the chorus supports him throughout most of the play (Ahrensdorf 88). Contrary to Brown's assumption, Goheen warns his readers about viewing the ode as a simple extended piece of general moralization working only to support Creon's views (Goheen 56). The reason is that the central

conception of the ode is dual or paradoxical. A sharp contrast is formed between line 354-6 which praises the self-taught human control to tame animals and Creon's preceding images which compare citizens of the state to the animal. The chorus attitude towards Creon seems less firm considering the following lines. “It is your pleasure, son of Menoeceus, so to treat the city's enemy and friends. You doubtless have the power to apply any law, both for the dead and for us who live” (Antigone 214).

In these lines, the chorus distinguish among “pleasure”, “power” and “law”. They do admit that Creon certainly has the power to dispose of the bodies of both Polynices and Eteocles at his will. But what is implied here is that his “pleasure” is not at the same level as the “law”. His legitimacy to apply the “law” comes from nothing but the “power” he holds. The chorus' reply here preludes Creon's apparently traditional and rational support of obedience and order will develop gradually towards the tyrannical egoism and continual self-assertion. An echo can be found in line 381. “It cannot be that they are bringing you here because you are disobedient to the king's laws and have been caught in an act of folly?” (Antigone 381) The chorus partly acknowledges the fact that the law is released by the king. They further imply that Creon's law for the city-state is nothing but a demonstration of his personal will.

3.2Piety and Progress

In the first Stasimon, Nussbaum notices that beneath the optimistic surface which compliments human resourcefulness, it casts doubt on attempts to create harmony through synthesis. The interconnected images like the ship and the sea, earth and plowing further lead readers to reflect upon the moral conflicts in this play (74). Segal comments that “if his astonishing power frees man from the constraints that nature imposes on other creatures, it also makes him capable of greater extremes of violence” (153). If the first Stasimon highly praises humankind for their capacity, the second one presents a totally different picture. Yet to comprehend the first and

second Stasimon, one must consider both in their intertextuality with each other. Then he will see chaos and order are both profound components in civilization and in most cases, they are interwoven in such a subtle manner.

Creon exploits the ship trope to reinforce the importance of community. He compares the relationship between citizens and the city-state to the one between the ship and its crew based on the fact that the safety of the latter relies on the former's protection. “And it is only while she remains upright, as we sail upon her, that we make our friends” (Antigone 190). Ironically, his all-powerful tyrannical confidence in the “ship”, as an artifact, is confronted by the second Stasimon. In the second Stasimon, the chorus reminds the audience of the vulnerability of human beings who are fundamentally at the mercy of the god. The chorus sings that happy are they whose life has no taste of evils. All manners of disaster attend members of a family when the gods make a house to tremble just as the swell of the open sea. Even the sturdiest ship can hardly survive in the sea storm. When a natural being strives to conquer nature with his inventions, he exposes himself to the danger of total destruction by the overwhelmingly divine force at the same time.

In the very first Stasimon, Sophocles conveys his worries via the ambiguous juxtaposition in his wording mixed with the tone of awe, praise and warning. Deinon is used to describe human beings with connotations of both wonderful and strange.

Chorus: Wonders [deinon] are many, and none more wonderful than man.... And the oldest of the gods, Earth the immortal, the untiring, he wears away, turning the soil with the brood of horses, as year after year the ploughs move to and fro.. He taught himself speech and windlike thought and the spirit of civic order (Antigone 336).

Piety can come into conflict with progress in human art. The origin of the city-state is related to the myth of autochthony. Ancestors of Greeks are believed to be earthborn. In Thebes, Spartoi spring up from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus. According to the Theogony of Hesiod (Hesiod 117), Gaea, the goddess of the earth,

is the first being that springs from Chaos, and the rest heavenly gods are descendants of her through her union with Sky. Gaea will with no doubt invoke the remote mythical world where the god legislates for the human being and everything is placed in the natural order. Demeter bestows on mankind crops as well as agricultural skills. Prometheus delivers fire to alleviates their blindness and helplessness that for centuries has enveloped mankind. However, things have totally changed since men with their inventions try to create civilization by themselves. They are capable of seafaring, ploughing, speech, thought and building houses. They even submit the mythical mighty power with their brood of horses when they make use of the soil. A sharp contrast is thus formed with the disruption in the relationship between man and the divine.

The difference between Sophocles and the Sophist Protagoras lies in that Sophocles does not believe problems of justice and injustice can be solved by cunning devices (Oudemans 127). In Protagoras' myth, Zeus sends Hermes to give men aidos (reverence) and dike (justice) to secure their protection. “The crafts had been distributed among men in the same way as the powers among the animals, namely different crafts to different people. But aidos and dike are to be given to all men, and all men are to share in them” (Kerferd 134). In Protagoras' narration, justice is a skill evenly allocated. However, it should be noticed that, in the fourth strophe, the chorus implies that the institution of order can only be maintained if man makes distinction between justice and injustice. In other words, justice serves as the bedrock of the skill. To maintain justice includes two parts: not only the laws of the land should be respected but also the justice sworn by the god. To impose order on nature turns out to be dangerous considering its possible offence to the god. In the same way, the use of power is always on the verge of transgression.

3.3Private Eros

In the second Stasimon, the chorus firstly praises the mighty power of the gods and their heavy punishment on the family and its descendent who has committed 48

evil. Then the unfortunate fate in the house of the children of Labdacus is mentioned in specific. Zeus, as a potentate unaged in time, upholds the principle and delivers due punishment. As what is cautioned in the Stasimon, it does not come upon men's lives in its greatest force without disaster. Hope is delusively luring for those who are deceived by it come to a disastrous ending in blindness.

The chorus seems to address Antigone for her previous deeds have gone far against the demand of prudence. However, one thing that should be noticed is that Antigone does not act in blindness. Rather she commits her violation deliberately and throughout the play, she is somberly aware of the punishment about to come. The one who is punished by Zeus in an unexpected way for the lack of prudence is Creon. Then the second Stasimon, especially its last strophe, serves as an ironic prelude to Creon's tragic suffering. He assumes that he is the heir to the house “by closeness of kinship to the dead” (Antigone 174). And at the end of the play, he destroys his family with his own hand.

What Creon fails to see is the power of eros. He is never able to realize its tremendous influence and private attribute. In the third Stasimon, the chorus particularly stresses the destructiveness of love. It is both unconquerable and inescapable.

Chorus: Love unconquered in battle. Love, despoiler of wealth; you who pass your nights on a girl's soft cheeks, who range across the seas and through shepherds' lonely dwellings; no immortal can escape you, nor any among short-lived man; and your possessor runs mad (Antigone 784).

The domain of the erotic is believed by Socrates to be mainly composed of women, family and philosophy (Bloom 380). He proceeds to try to make public or common everything that remains private. The reason is that if the highest activity of the city is identical to that of man, the rebellion in heart or deed than can be removed. With the diminishment of family, Antigone's problem will not exist at all. The paradox lies in that the public virtue ultimately aims at preserving the city-state itself

and the common good, even at the expense of interests of each individual. For example, justice concerns achieving harmonious relationships with others, which essentially conflicts with people's natural pursuit for happiness.

Socrates proposes a total revolution to replace family with the city-state. The family is abolished unless one considers the city as one family (Bloom 126). One thing that can't be made public is the body. Everyone's body is his own. The body is what stands in the way of devotion to the common good; it is the source of the desire and the need for privacy. The pursuit of the physical destruction of the body is in the same way driven by the demon of private, selfish interest as the preservation of it.

The most “deinon” part of Antigone is that what impels her is an inner desire for a glorious death. Men naturally care more about the profit of the present life in the upper world. Only driven by the fear of death will he consider his obligation towards gods. She represents eros in an extreme form. In line 1336, Ismene reproaches her, saying that “you are in love with the impossible”. Antigone is possessed by eros which turns out to be a primitive force and undermines order. When eros is involved in the contradiction between public life and private life, Creon's response is denying, ignoring, stigmatizing, and rejecting it. His conviction that brute force is even able to subdue eros finally leads him to destroy himself. The unrestraint eros has fused the houses both of the Labdacids and of Creon.

3.4Caution for Tyranny

In the fourth Stasimon, the strange, incontestable power of fate serves as the theme to group the three mythological characters: Danae, Lycurgus and Cleopatra. The first strophe gives honor to the innocent Danae confined to a brass-bound chamber, which is favorable to Antigone. Bowra's analysis suggests that Danae possibly leaves readers an impression that Antigone's imprisonment is a part of a divine plan to glorify her. The two characters are similar in many ways. They are both from a noble lineage and dead in glory. The divergence is in the second strophe 50

for Lycurgus' suffering has little to do with fate. In the second strophe, Lycurgus in his frenzy insults the god and is destroyed for his impious deed. Beneath only surface parallel to Antigone, the deed and suffering of Lycurgus as described in the ode echoes Creon. The case of Lycurgus and its inconsistency creates a kind of general ambiguity. It further suggests that different levels of meaning are woven into the text.

Goheen points out that the fourth Stasimon bears intimate references to the immediate dramatic situation and the total context of the play (65). It occurs immediately after Antigone's being led to her tomb and just before Teiresias gives caution of the ominous token on his alter. Ignatius Errandoea in “Sophoclei Chori Persona Tragica” seeks to associate the ode with the storyline, holding that Danae represents Antigone, Lycurgus reference suggests Haimon's death, and Cleoparta forebodes Eurydice's suicide. The three deaths to come are predicted here. Goheen points out that the insufficiency in such exact correspondence in terms of character and action lies in that it insists too much on too close a dramatic working out of the ode. The point-for-point relationship between forebodings of events cannot be adequately supported. The connection of Cleopatra with Eurydice is vaguely supported by the loss of two sons. What's more, Eurydice's appearance is remote in the following scenes which makes it unlikely for the chorus to predict her death. The Chorus' attitude seems less certain in Bowra's interpretation. From his point of view, the Chorus has begun to waver and cannot make up the mind. Such interpretation represents an attempt to accept the multiple implications of the ode.

In Bowra's opinion, the hint given by the chorus in Lycurgus' case points to Antigone. (87) His imprisonment is too light to punish one who has insulted the god. In the same way, Antigone might have been punished more severely. The defect in such argument lies in that Antigone has never been accused of impiety, not even on Creon's part. Antigone's motivation is to adhere to her obligation towards the god and to give her brother a proper burial. Before the fourth Stasimon, the chorus has given Antigone their recognition and compliment by saying that “reverent action

claims a certain praise for reverence; but an offense against power cannot be brooked by him who hath power in his keeping. Thy self-willed temper hath wrought thy ruin” (Antigone 872).

The association between Lycurgus and Creon can be further strengthened by the fact that while being maddened by the god, Lycurgus kills his son. When the messenger reports Haimon's death to the Chorus, one thing they are particularly concerned about is if he is killed by his own hand or by his father's. Teiresias foresees the calamity awaiting Creon. In 996 he gives his warning and informs Creon that he is treading on a knife-edge of fortune. Creon yields to Teiresias and realizes it is vain to wage a war with destiny. Destiny, as a recurrent notion, plays an important role to change Creon's mind. Goheen mentions Dionysus as a piece of evidence to show the parallel between Creon and Lycurgus. He claims that the conflict between Lycurgus and Dionysus parallels Creon for in the fifth Stasimon, it is Dionysus who is invoked to purify the city of the malady brought about by Creon's impiety.

If the overtone of Lycurgus' story is a prediction to Creon's misery, the story of Cleopatra's sons can be regarded as a more explicit warning. The almighty power of fate subdues even such a person as Cleopatra, daughter of the wind god (Goheen 72). In 985, she is described as hamippos, which is translated by Jebb as “swift as horses”. The supernatural agencies impose on her their dominance in the same way as yokes control horses. The same animal imagery is used by Creon. In 292, he suspects that certain men in the city-state mutter against him and will not keep their necks duly under the yoke. A tension is established by the repetition of yoke which suggests Creon rules in an unjust way. As Goheen points out that “[Creon] seeks to subdue others without regard to human rights and higher divine agencies” (72).

The hypothesis can be confirmed in what the chorus says to give Antigone their compassion. “Reverent action claims a certain praise for reverence; but an offense against power (kratos) cannot be brooked by him who hath power in his keeping. Thy self-willed temper hath wrought thy ruin” (Antigone 871). The distinction

between to rule (archein) and to have power (kratein) should be noticed. As a ruler, his prime concern when releasing an edict should be the benefit of the ruled. His law is supposed to educate people for their own benefits. On the other hand, to have power is to lead submissive subjects by force, ignoring their needs and rights. In this sense, Creon's law is fundamentally misleading.

Conclusion

In The Republic, Plato employs the ship and its crew as metaphors to reveal the tension between the virtue required by the state and that of private life.

There's the shipowner, larger and stronger than everyone in the ship, but deaf and rather short-sighted, with a knowledge of sailing to match his eyesight. The sailors are quarrelling among themselves over captaincy of the ship, each one thinking that he ought to be captain. . They immobilize their worthy shipowner with drugs or drink or by some other means, and take control of the ship, helping themselves to what it is carrying (Plato 488b).

The shipowner connotates citizens while the ship connotates the city-state. Creon, as the triumphant sailor, is finally wrecked by his narrow scope in approaching political affairs. On his part, dictatorial rhetoric prevails over logos that aims at consensus. The skill to size control over the “ship” prevails over the wisdom to steer it. He gives his abusive edict, replacing “to educate” with “to punish”, mistaking “for the benefit of the ruled” for “consolidation of his own power”, confusing “law” with “personal hatred”. Assuming himself as an advocate of rationalism, in fact, Creon turns into a hopelessly whimsical tyrant due to his refusal to compromise and yielding. Excessive political control turns out to be both luring and destructive. Imprudence invites punishment both in the household and the citystate.

Antigone and Creon represent distinct qualities but they subtly echo each other. Antigone incarnates the Homeric heroism whose personality trait transgresses the limit necessarily imposed on human beings for the stability of the community in which they are placed. With neither sense of proportion nor capacity for moderation, in a frenzy, her deeds motivated by love for family members backwardly destroys the household. Like Creon, she fails to escape the due punishment for such imprudence.

The two characters bring out the mutability of fate in Sophoclean tragic world.

It is alien to a modern mindset in that it is a cosmology interwoven with gods, earth and nature. As Oudemans puts it, this cosmology is characterized by a logic of ambiguity, of contagious pollution, of insoluble paradox, in a universe governed by maleficent gods, in which human transgressions may cause upheavals of the entire cosmic order (1). The gods who maintain the world order and demand reverence of piety from humans in Sophocles' tragedies are neither predictable nor necessarily intelligible to mortals.

Though it resists a logical understanding, the Antigone is not unapproachable. In the dual or paradoxical articulations, Sophocles' voice can be detected from the overtones. The main battlefield where antithetical opinions confront each other is thus of significance to be further explored. From several aspects, including contested burial rights, the quality of piety, subverted binary distinction as well as problematic justice, this thesis attempts to approach prudence as a political virtue in Sophocles' political teaching in the Antigone. The abundant ambiguity, paradox, oxymoron both serves the dramatic theme and its art form.

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