Antigone
Sophocles (-496–-406), -441
A young woman defies a new king to bury her brother, and discovers how much a city will sacrifice to enforce its own order. A tense, lyrical drama of grief and defiance, with formal speeches and a pace that tightens as the city closes in.
Feels like defiance and grief. About love, family and freedom.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy tragedy in verse, arguments about duty and family, and characters who speak their minds under pressure. The English translation uses archaic pronouns and constructions such as “thou” and “knoweth,” so expect to slow down for the speeches.
Why read it
It puts a single, stubborn act of loyalty against the claims of the state, and gives you language for both sides.
Pages from the book
The laws no king wrote and no king can repeal.
Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus,And she who sits enthroned with gods below,Justice, enacted not these human laws.Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man,Could’st by a breath annul and overrideThe immutable unwritten laws of Heaven.They were not born today nor yesterday;They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang.I was not like, who feared no mortal’s frown,To disobey these laws and so provokeThe wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die,E’en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if deathIs thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. What it sounds like to say goodbye to the sun.
Friends, countrymen, my last farewell I make;My journey’s done.One last fond, lingering, longing look I takeAt the bright sun.For Death who puts to sleep both young and oldHales my young life,And beckons me to Acheron’s dark fold,An unwed wife.No youths have sung the marriage song for me,My bridal bedNo maids have strewn with flowers from the lea,’Tis Death I wed. The moment conviction costs you your only ally.
I urge no more; nay, wert thou willing still,I would not welcome such a fellowship.Go thine own way; myself will bury him.How sweet to die in such employ, to rest—Sister and brother linked in love’s embrace—A sinless sinner, banned awhile on earth,But by the dead commended; and with themI shall abide for ever. As for thee,Scorn, if thou wilt, the eternal laws of Heaven. Sophocles.Sophocles was not only a playwright: he served as an Athenian general and state treasurer, and his plays were performed at civic religious festivals.
Books that feel like this
More by Sophocles
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles, -429
A plague-stricken city, a king who promises to find a murderer, and an investigation that keeps turning back on the investigator.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Antigone for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy tragedy in verse, arguments about duty and family, and characters who speak their minds under pressure. The English translation uses archaic pronouns and constructions such as “thou” and “knoweth,” so expect to slow down for the speeches.
- What is Antigone like?
- A tense, lyrical drama of grief and defiance, with formal speeches and a pace that tightens as the city closes in. Feels like defiance and grief. About love, family and freedom.
- What should I read after Antigone?
- If you liked Antigone, try Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare), The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) and Clotel (William Wells Brown).
A taste of the feed
The wish to make someone so bright the sun becomes an insult.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Romeo and Juliet · William Shakespeare
How the upper classes turn a bereavement into a background check.
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?
The Importance of Being Earnest · Oscar Wilde
The logic of a king who would rather rule a wasteland than bend the knee.
What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
Paradise Lost · John Milton
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