Burial at Thebes

Sophocles’ Antigone brings to the stage tragic expressions of human conflict. In the 2004 adaptation The Burial at Thebes, Seamus Heaney relates to contemporary conflicts. This essay will argue that the strongest case is given by Creon within the context of Ancient Greece. Creon’s stance would have been approved in Thebes; but, with the passage of time, perceptions change, and it could be argued that Antigone’s stance is nowadays favourably accepted. With a plethora of conflicting human relationships between Antigone and Creon, Creon’s argument is strong from the outset.

In the first choral song, the Theban elders introduce Creon as the defender of Thebes and a principled citizen, intoning ‘Glory be to the brightness, to the gleaming sun, shining guardian of our seven gates'(p.8). – The interchange of sibyllant ‘s’ and ‘g’ sounds stresses the glory and elevation of Creon. The parodos goes on to use imagery of shining metal in the battle against the enemies of Thebes to reach a frenzied climax (Hardwick, 2008, p.196) in ‘Let Bacchus lead us and burn away the dark! … King Creon. All hail to Creon.’ (Heaney, 2004, p.9).

King Oedipus and his sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, are dead. Supporting Eteocles over the rule of Thebes, Creon’s army defeated Polyneices and his alliance. Addressing the elders in his inaugural speech, the King uses the metaphor of a ship, a faithful crew and calmer seas, in an iambic beat (Hardwick, p.196). He adds: ‘So friends, well done.’ Importantly, with no male heirs in the Oedipus blood-line, Creon assumes power. ‘I’m next in line. The throne has come to me'(p.9). Greeks would have known the Oedipus story and the line of succession. Almost immediately Creon pronounces the pivotal statement which forms the basis of the argument in his favour,

Until a man has passed this test of office and proved himself in the exercise of power, He can’t be truly known – for what he is, I mean, In his heart and mind and capabilities. Worst is the man who has the good advice And, then because his nerve fails, fails to act In accordance with it, as a leader should. (pp.9-10)

This chiasmus of ideas on advice and failure enhances the King’s merit as a leader.

On Creon’s first day in government, he may expect civil unrest after the war; therefore, he accepts that no man’s true character can be known. He proceeds with a second cardinal point that loyalty to the city takes precedence over any family or private loyalty or obligation, an equally to blame is anyone who puts the personal above the overall thing, puts friend or family first. (p.10)

Creon then asserts that, … For the patriot personal loyalty always must give way to patriotic duty.(p.10)

The cognates of ‘patriot’ are repeated to emphasize the importance of the law, reinforcing Creon’s argument.

Thebans would have welcomed the idea of patriotism to safeguard the interests of the city after a blighted war. ‘A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who,…, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers everything to the common interest'(Johnson, 1774). As the ‘common interest’ is paramount, the King has engaged with his male audience. Moreover, Creon has a let-out clause for he has to pass the test of office and this makes his argument so compelling. Whether his actions will, at the end, vindicate him or not, whether he will rise or fall, is irrelevant as, only time will tell.

As King his first law is to deny the burial of his nephew Polyneices; this edict puts him in a collision course with Antigone. There are two conflicting aspects to the refusal of the burial: contravention of the unwritten law which would have protected the rights of the dead to be buried, and the role of women in the rituals of death. Furthermore, funerals may cause insurrection and unrest (Hall, 2008, p.xviii). In Ancient Greece, lament over the dead were the privilege of women. The first law would appear to target Antigone and Ismene as Oedipus’ female survivors; Antigone tells Ismene, and right you are to be scared.

Creon has made a law. Eteocles has been buried as a soldier, with full honours; So he’s gone home to the dead. But not Polyneices. Polyneices is denied any burial at all. (p.2)

The clash between the antagonists relates to family relationships. In the Prologue, Antigone asks Ismene what has come to them and why they are always ‘the ones’. ‘Because of what we are – daughters of Oedipus’ (p.1) and alluding to Polyneices ‘the ones we love are enemies of the state’ (p.1) She implies conspiracy in the personification of the walls, ‘the walls in there have ears’ (p.2) and in an act of defiance, Antigone declares,

I will bury him myself.

And if death comes, so be it.

There will be glory in it.

I’ll go down to the underworld. (pp.5-6)

Understanding of the consequences, Antigone proclaims,

If Creon has me killed,

Where’s the disgrace in that?

The disgrace would be to avoid it. (p.7)

On discovering that the body has been buried, the Chorus questions such action against the King in ‘who would choose to be dead?’ (p.12). Two points arise: disobedience which will lead to a death sentence and implied fear. Creon is attempting to establish law and order and the elders would prefer a path to normality, but fear is another matter -perhaps, it is not fear for themselves but for the society’s future. However, Creon’s firm hand is defensible because war has caused family and other social fractures (Hall, p.xvii).

When Antigone is reported by the Guard in ‘And now, sir, she is yours. It is up to you to judge her and convict her’ (p.18), in the agon that follows between Antigone and Creon, she does not deny her actions and stands accused. Creon’s argument is further strengthened when Antigone is questioned and admits that she knew the proclamation, and therefore the law,

Creon You then. Tell me

And be quick about it: did you or did you not know that the proclamation forbade all this?

Antigone I did know. How could I not? Didn’t everybody?

Creon And still you dared to disobey the law?

Antigone I disobeyed because the law was not

The law of Zeus nor the law ordained

By Justice, Justice dwelling deep

Among the gods of the dead. What they decree

Is immemorial and binding for us all.

I chose to disregard it. I abide

By statutes utter and immutable-

Unwritten, original, god-given laws. (p.20-21)

The Chorus interjects saying that the wildness in her comes from Oedipus and that she won’t relent (p.21). In the immediate stichomythia, Creon sentences Antigone, to which she retorts that she has never done a nobler thing than to bury her brother and seals her destiny adding ‘I have long gone over to the dead’ (p.23). This weakens her argument because she has given up on life. Today, her intransigency may seem heroic. In Ancient Greece however, she would have been seen as a disobedient citizen and worse, a disobedient woman. Ismene had tried to reason with Antigone in stating ‘Women defying Creon? I’ll be ruled by Creon’s word. Anything else is madness'(p.5). The Chorus adds with terminal undertones that ‘the family is going to feel the blow generation after generation … Hope for the house of Oedipus has died.’ (p.28).

Crucially, Antigone chose to disobey the (man-made) law but the reason she gave was religious abidance and tending to the dead, which was a role entrusted to women who were otherwise excluded from civic and political life. Alluding to Creon’s proclamation Antigone had said ‘this I cannot take’ (p.1) and ‘this death penalty is almost a relief’ (p.21) to which Creon retorted ‘Go and love your fill in the underworld.’ (p.24). Poignantly he declares ‘No woman will dictate the law to me’ (p.24) which corroborates the social structure of Thebes.

Antigone’s position is further diminished in ‘will it be enough to see me executed?’ (p.22), as she does not attempt to redeem her family by living but makes a choice by dying. As the young bride of Creon’s son, her inflexible actions have blinded her judgement and her future. Antigone has chosen the dead, and accepted her sentence in ‘You are the king and won’t be contradicted’ (p.23).

Haemon tells his father that ‘nobody can be sure they are right all the time’ (p.31) and blind prophet Tiresias foresees Creon’s downfall in ‘All men make mistakes … Pull back'(p.44). By the time Creon resolves to change, a cascade of inevitable events has unfolded: Antigone and Haemon have committed suicide and Eurydice, realising the loss of her son, kills herself and curses her husband, who is too late to save his family’s descent into the underworld. His wishes to hurry his own death in ‘all I pray for now is the dawn of my last day’ (p.55). Similarly, Dr Faustus is too late to escape his descent into hell. (Marlowe, 2008, p.111)

Creon and Dr Faustus possessed a hamartia or inherent character flaw such as pride or stubborness that had tragic consequences; Creon could have saved Antigone but instead became the catalyst to family catastrophe. For Dr Faustus, his erudition brought him academic acclaim but, tragically, also caused his downfall.

Creon made a strong case in defense of state law and proved himself in the exercise of power but fate had the upperhand.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Hardwick, L. (2008) ‘Seamus Heaney The Burial at Thebes’ in Danson Brown (ed.) Cultural Encounters (AA100 Book 3), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 191-235
• Heaney, S. (2004) The Burial at Thebes – Sophocles Antigone London, WC1B 3DA, Faber and Faber
• Marlowe, C.(2008) Dr Faustus – A-text (1604) in O’Connor (ed.), Harlow, Essex, Pearson-Longman pp. 111/112
• Sophocles (2008) Antigone, Oedipus the King and Electra in Hall (ed.) trans. HDF Kitto Oxford OX2 6DP, Oxford University Press

ON LINE RESOURCES

• Samuel Johnson’s quotes on patriotism available from http://www.samueljohnson.com/patrioti.html (accessed 2nd April, 2010)

RECORDED RESOURCES:

• The Burial at Thebes (2008) “Cultural Encounters” (AA100-Book3 Audio CDs CDA5936 and CDA5937), Milton Keynes, The Open University, Part 1, Part 2 and Interviews