ANTIGONE (mythical daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta)

When the Argive army besieged Thebes, Antigone climbed to the topmost story of the house to observe the enemy beside the streams of Ismenus.³ She cursed Parthenopaeus and prayed to Nemesis and Zeus to silence the boasting of Capaneus, vowing she would never endure slavery to the women of Mycenae.¹⁴ The conflict ended in disaster when her brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, killed each other in a single day.^15,5 Jocasta, their mother, killed herself using a twisted noose, and Oedipus blinded himself after detecting his own crimes.^16,17 Antigone, more tearful in her appeal than her sister Ismene, found herself stripped of her home and led on an unavoidable journey in misery.^18,6,19

Antigone accompanied her blinded father Oedipus to Colonus in Attica, leaving her native land to share his exile and death.^20,21,22,23 As the only handmaid supporting him, she physically held his hand, guiding him from his bedchamber to a resting place on an unshaped stone.^24,25,26,27 She informed her father that his sons and wife had died, urging him to look at their corpses, and held him in her embrace before his death.^26,28,13,29 In the precinct of the Eumenides, she persuaded Oedipus to allow their brother to come, arguing against impious wrongs while supporting his blind footsteps.^20,21,30,26 She described Theseus as an excellent man who saved them with strong arms, expressing affection and willingness to embrace her father.³¹

Upon the death of Polyneices, Antigone defied the laws of Creon, who had ordered her brother's body to remain unburied.^17,11,2,32 She declared she would bury her brother despite the state's prohibition, arguing that the underworld gods required proper rites and that Creon had no right to prevent her from honoring her kin.^{15,32,11,33,17} Refusing to let Ismene share in the deed or her death, Antigone intended to secretly bury her brother alone, using her own hands to heap earth over his body in her linen robe.^11,34,35,36 She proudly celebrated this illegal act, asserting that she had not received the bridal songs or marriage crowning, and that the burial chamber would be her bridal chamber.^{11,33,37,38,39} Creon ordered her taken away to be entombed alive in a covered tomb as punishment for burying her brother.^2,32

She claimed she had no place among the living or the dead, describing herself as accursed and unwed, with Hades leading her alive to the shore of Acheron.^40,22,38,39 The Chorus anticipated her impending doom, noting that she would die without being mourned by loved ones, friends, or a marriage song.^10,41,40,19 Her wailings filled the air as she accepted her role as a wild offspring of a wild father, serving the dead in a foreign land.^42,11,10