Michel Fustier
ANTIGONE
Antigone is a heroine of Greek legend, famous for having opposed the injustice
of tyrannical laws. She is the prototype of one who resists, whose memory was
particularly evoked in Europe during the German occupation of 1940-44. Sophocles,
a Greek playwright of the fifth century before Christ, told the story of Antigone
in one of the theatrical masterpieces of the world's literature: we could not
do better than to take inspiration directly from him.
CHARACTERS
Creon the king of Thebes, Antigone his niece, the guard,
a child, Tiresias the seer, Hemon the son of Creon..
1 - (in the public square)
GUARD - (dragging Antigone behind himself and speaking to the audience as if
they were the people of Thebes) This time, I've got hold of her. There she is,
the criminal! We caught her in the very act… Ô King, come and see.
CREON - (arriving) What is the matter?
GUARD - Look, she is the guilty one.
CREON - Antigone?
GUARD - Yes… We, your guards, were observing… the "thing".
We were staying some hundred yards away, so as not to have to bear the nauseating
smell it's now giving off, since it has already been gnawed to pieces by dogs…
And we saw this girl arriving who, scraped the ground to cover the remnants
of the body with earth and offered a libation on the improvised grave …
CREON - That's exactly what I was afraid of. You, Antigone, did you know of
the ban on burial that I had proclaimed?
ANTIGONE - I wasn't in a position to ignore it.
CREON - Your two brothers have killed one another. But one of them, Eteocles,
was fighting legitimately for Thebes, his country, and we buried him with all
official honours. As to the other, the hated Polynice, who came back from exile
to bring sword and fire to his country, we condemned his body to remain unburied
on the battle field until it was completely devoured by wild beasts.
GUARD - My King, that's a good decision and we agree with it.
CREON – You there, the guard, now that you have found the criminal, go
back to where you came from. (the guard stays)
2 - ( same place)
CREON - So you acted in full knowledge in violating the law I had promulgated.
ANTIGONE - Yes, since there are eternal and unwavering laws which surpass all
the others, the laws that the Gods have given to Man. Among which is the obligation
to bury the dead with honour. They are not laws from today or yesterday, but
from the beginning of time and I respect them more than yours, which are only
the laws of a tyrant. Should I, by fear of the tyrant you are, expose myself
to the vengeance of the Gods?
CREON - You are the only one who thinks that way. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
ANTIGONE - There is no shame in honouring one's brother.
CREON - The good one can't be compared to the bad one. Even dead, an enemy can't
be likened to a friend.
ANTIGONE - Both of them are dear to my heart. I was born for love not for hatred.
CREON - Well then, go rejoin them… (he draws his sword)
ANTIGONE - What are you waiting for… I'm not afraid of your sword.
CREON - (putting his sword back in his scabbard) I will not lay hands on you,
who are my niece and my son's fiancée, but I'll have you enclosed in
an obscure grave until you die a natural death. And my guard, you who stayed
here to satisfy your curiosity, take her yourself to her death (the guard takes
Antigone away)
3 - (same place)
HEMON - (rushing in) Father, certainly your orders are just, there is no doubt
about it. But…
CREON - Let that girl find a husband in Hell. I caught her in the very act of
rebelling against my authority. There is nothing worse than disobedience, it
destroys states. One must always support the means taken to defend order and
anyhow never give in to a woman. Don't you think so?
HEMON - Father… yes… Certainly reason is a gift of the Gods to men.
But are you certain, when you speak as you do, to speak according to reason?
CREON - Should we learn truth from a young fool?
HEMON - You answer me as if you were yourself a child. Truth is not a matter
of age.
CREON - Unworthy son who is judging his father!
HEMON - Unworthy father whom I see offending justice!
CREON - That's enough: you will never marry that girl alive…
HEMON - Then she will die, but she will not be the only one to die… I
will have warned you! (leaves)
CREON - He threatens me with killing himself. I'll prevent him from doing so…
(leaves)
4 - (same place)
ANTIGONE - (crossing the stage, led by the guard) See what has become of me
and what laws strike me when, deprived of the honours due to the dead, I'm going
to that prison of a new sort which, under the piled-up earth, will become my
grave. How unfortunate I am, who already can no longer be reckoned among the
living but who is not yet acceptable among the dead… Nor will I ever have
the joy of contemplating above my head the sacred light of the sun! O grave,
my nuptial chamber for ever! (leaves)
5 - (same place)
CHILD - (to the audience) Listen to me, all of you! Here I am taking to you
the seer Tiresias. I am his guide. He is blind but in these troubled circumstances
his sight is better than ours.
TIRESIAS - O people of Thebes, your King is about to perpetrate a terrible sin
and all of us are going to be soiled by the corpse offered to birds and dogs.
Man is liable to make mistakes and we must not hold it against anybody for having
been mistaken. But the mortal who persists in his mistake is a criminal. Can
anybody boast about bringing death a second time to one who is already dead?
Child, go and fetch our King, I want to speak to him.
CREON - (arrives) I have been hearing, you stubborn old man, that you are daring
enough to rise against me.
TIRESIAS - Ô my King I'm speaking in your interest. Wisdom is the first
of all goods…
CREON - In my opinion, unreason is the worst of evils. I will not flinch, you
should know that.
TIRESIAS - The rites of death belong to the Gods and it is not for you to interfere
with them. If you persist in your wilful intentions you must know that before
sunset there will be another victim in your family. Such is the price to be
paid for having cast a living person among the dead and kept on earth a dead
one who belongs to the Gods. I hope you have heard me! (pause) Child, take me
back…
CREON - (to the audience) My mind is deeply troubled… The seer's words
are terrible… What must I do? I'd hate having to cancel my decisions!
Should I go and remove that girl myself from her cell? But is it possible to
resist the will of the Gods? (pause) Hurry up, my servants, take axes and pickaxes
and let us run… I am seized with fright! I was the one who locked her
up but I myself will free her… (leaves)
6 - (same place)
GUARD - Alas, alas, here is a terrible story to tell… We went to the top
of the hill where the mangled body of Polynice was lying. Then we washed the
corpse with lustral water and beseeched the Goddess to forgive us… I was
very happy to see that the King had changed his mind, since I feared the Gods'
wrath… But alas! As we were approaching the cave where the girl was enclosed,
we heard a shriek in the distance… "Woe to me, said the King, it's
my son's voice!" Then we made haste to remove the stones which were enclosing
the grave and we had to behold a fearful sight: Antigone had hanged herself
with her scarf, and Hemon, our King's son, hugging her tightly, was groaning…
When he saw us, and without saying a single word, he spat at his father's face
and, turning his anger against himself thrust his sword into his chest …
And there they were, corpse intertwined with corpse, celebrating their wedding
in the world of the dead…. But here comes Creon… Will he have something
to add to this dreadful story?
7 - (same place)
CREON - Ô people of Thebes, my misfortune is still greater than what you
have been hearing… Listen to what you don't know as yet… Why have
I been impelled to sow death? Here I am, a three times miserable criminal, how
can I bear myself…?
GUARD - You are frightening us… What else has happened? We'll listen to
you. Speak.
CREON - Hardly had I come back from the funeral cave where two members of my
family were still lying dead than I discovered that a new corpse was waiting
for me. In despair at the death of her son, my wife Eurydice, my queen, cursing
me for ever, had cut the thread of her life. When I arrived she was lying at
the foot of the altar with her side pierced by a sharp blade and her white eyes
opened to the darkness of death.
GUARD - Alas, I am frozen in place by fear. Did the Gods really want the story
to have that outcome?
CREON - I beseech you, people of Thebes, the mad one who devastated his own
family, let him flee far from here… Everything is shaking in his hands!
The burden that the Gods have imposed on him is too heavy. May death come to
him, that is the only good he can now desire. (leaves)
GUARD - Truly, wisdom and justice are the first conditions of happiness. Man
must not show impiety to the Gods if he does not want to be exposed to their
vengeance.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
All civilizations have attached a great importance to the manner of treating
the dead. Some burn them solemnly, others display them on high places to allow
birds to carry them to the sky, others lay them to rest in tombs, magnificent
sometimes, with all that is necessary to continue living after death, others
bury them more simply in the ground, with or without coffins… Human societies
are based on their funeral rites.
In ancient Greece burial rites were absolutely necessary for the dead person,
who would otherwise be exposed to the wrath of the gods and condemned to endless
wandering in their after life. Such rites are equally important for those who
live on: as long as a corpse has not been burned or buried, it carries a fearsome
stain capable of contaminating a whole city. For these reasons, it is easy to
understand how great was Creon's crime in refusing to bury Polynice and how
great Antigone's piety was by endeavoring by all means to disregard that refusal.
However, the main subject of the play is not the burial of the dead but the
obligation for the just person to disobey unjust laws. Creon is the prototype
of the tyrant who enacts laws contrary to the fundamental universal laws while
Antigone represents the one who refuses to apply laws that go against conscience.
Examples of such tyrannies and such refusals are numerous in all times. A soldier
who refuses to massacre innocents, a police officer who refuses to torture suspects,
a civil officer who refuses to apply racist laws or to dismiss somebody unjustly,
all these share Antigone's attitude. In the world in which we live the Creons
are pullulating and never have tyrants and their unjust laws been so numerous
as today. But alas, it is not enough to write or perform plays to put an end
to them: there must be true Antigones, real "resistance fighters".
Antigone and Creon are not historical but mythical characters of the beginning
of Greek civilization whose poets frequently used the story as a framework of
their poems. In the fifth century B.C., at the peak of that Greek civilization
Sophocles once more used that legend and drew out of it his Antigone, which
was performed in 441. Sophocles was a contemporary of Pericles, Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Thucydides… that is of most of the writers and thinkers on
whom our civilization is founded.
Non commercial use allowed. Reg. SACD - Michel Fustier, 4 Chambfort, 69 100
Villeurbanne, France. Tel: 00 33 (0)4 78 84 25 28.
Michel Fustier
ANTIGONE
Antigone is a heroine of Greek legend, famous for having opposed the injustice
of tyrannical laws. She is the prototype of one who resists, whose memory was
particularly evoked in Europe during the German occupation of 1940-44. Sophocles,
a Greek playwright of the fifth century before Christ, told the story of Antigone
in one of the theatrical masterpieces of the world's literature: we could not
do better than to take inspiration directly from him.
CHARACTERS
Creon the king of Thebes, Antigone his niece, the guard,
a child, Tiresias the seer, Hemon the son of Creon..
1 - (in the public square)
GUARD - (dragging Antigone behind himself and speaking to the audience as if
they were the people of Thebes) This time, I've got hold of her. There she is,
the criminal! We caught her in the very act… Ô King, come and see.
CREON - (arriving) What is the matter?
GUARD - Look, she is the guilty one.
CREON - Antigone?
GUARD - Yes… We, your guards, were observing… the "thing".
We were staying some hundred yards away, so as not to have to bear the nauseating
smell it's now giving off, since it has already been gnawed to pieces by dogs…
And we saw this girl arriving who, scraped the ground to cover the remnants
of the body with earth and offered a libation on the improvised grave …
CREON - That's exactly what I was afraid of. You, Antigone, did you know of
the ban on burial that I had proclaimed?
ANTIGONE - I wasn't in a position to ignore it.
CREON - Your two brothers have killed one another. But one of them, Eteocles,
was fighting legitimately for Thebes, his country, and we buried him with all
official honours. As to the other, the hated Polynice, who came back from exile
to bring sword and fire to his country, we condemned his body to remain unburied
on the battle field until it was completely devoured by wild beasts.
GUARD - My King, that's a good decision and we agree with it.
CREON – You there, the guard, now that you have found the criminal, go
back to where you came from. (the guard stays)
2 - ( same place)
CREON - So you acted in full knowledge in violating the law I had promulgated.
ANTIGONE - Yes, since there are eternal and unwavering laws which surpass all
the others, the laws that the Gods have given to Man. Among which is the obligation
to bury the dead with honour. They are not laws from today or yesterday, but
from the beginning of time and I respect them more than yours, which are only
the laws of a tyrant. Should I, by fear of the tyrant you are, expose myself
to the vengeance of the Gods?
CREON - You are the only one who thinks that way. Aren't you ashamed of yourself?
ANTIGONE - There is no shame in honouring one's brother.
CREON - The good one can't be compared to the bad one. Even dead, an enemy can't
be likened to a friend.
ANTIGONE - Both of them are dear to my heart. I was born for love not for hatred.
CREON - Well then, go rejoin them… (he draws his sword)
ANTIGONE - What are you waiting for… I'm not afraid of your sword.
CREON - (putting his sword back in his scabbard) I will not lay hands on you,
who are my niece and my son's fiancée, but I'll have you enclosed in
an obscure grave until you die a natural death. And my guard, you who stayed
here to satisfy your curiosity, take her yourself to her death (the guard takes
Antigone away)
3 - (same place)
HEMON - (rushing in) Father, certainly your orders are just, there is no doubt
about it. But…
CREON - Let that girl find a husband in Hell. I caught her in the very act of
rebelling against my authority. There is nothing worse than disobedience, it
destroys states. One must always support the means taken to defend order and
anyhow never give in to a woman. Don't you think so?
HEMON - Father… yes… Certainly reason is a gift of the Gods to men.
But are you certain, when you speak as you do, to speak according to reason?
CREON - Should we learn truth from a young fool?
HEMON - You answer me as if you were yourself a child. Truth is not a matter
of age.
CREON - Unworthy son who is judging his father!
HEMON - Unworthy father whom I see offending justice!
CREON - That's enough: you will never marry that girl alive…
HEMON - Then she will die, but she will not be the only one to die… I
will have warned you! (leaves)
CREON - He threatens me with killing himself. I'll prevent him from doing so…
(leaves)
4 - (same place)
ANTIGONE - (crossing the stage, led by the guard) See what has become of me
and what laws strike me when, deprived of the honours due to the dead, I'm going
to that prison of a new sort which, under the piled-up earth, will become my
grave. How unfortunate I am, who already can no longer be reckoned among the
living but who is not yet acceptable among the dead… Nor will I ever have
the joy of contemplating above my head the sacred light of the sun! O grave,
my nuptial chamber for ever! (leaves)
5 - (same place)
CHILD - (to the audience) Listen to me, all of you! Here I am taking to you
the seer Tiresias. I am his guide. He is blind but in these troubled circumstances
his sight is better than ours.
TIRESIAS - O people of Thebes, your King is about to perpetrate a terrible sin
and all of us are going to be soiled by the corpse offered to birds and dogs.
Man is liable to make mistakes and we must not hold it against anybody for having
been mistaken. But the mortal who persists in his mistake is a criminal. Can
anybody boast about bringing death a second time to one who is already dead?
Child, go and fetch our King, I want to speak to him.
CREON - (arrives) I have been hearing, you stubborn old man, that you are daring
enough to rise against me.
TIRESIAS - Ô my King I'm speaking in your interest. Wisdom is the first
of all goods…
CREON - In my opinion, unreason is the worst of evils. I will not flinch, you
should know that.
TIRESIAS - The rites of death belong to the Gods and it is not for you to interfere
with them. If you persist in your wilful intentions you must know that before
sunset there will be another victim in your family. Such is the price to be
paid for having cast a living person among the dead and kept on earth a dead
one who belongs to the Gods. I hope you have heard me! (pause) Child, take me
back…
CREON - (to the audience) My mind is deeply troubled… The seer's words
are terrible… What must I do? I'd hate having to cancel my decisions!
Should I go and remove that girl myself from her cell? But is it possible to
resist the will of the Gods? (pause) Hurry up, my servants, take axes and pickaxes
and let us run… I am seized with fright! I was the one who locked her
up but I myself will free her… (leaves)
6 - (same place)
GUARD - Alas, alas, here is a terrible story to tell… We went to the top
of the hill where the mangled body of Polynice was lying. Then we washed the
corpse with lustral water and beseeched the Goddess to forgive us… I was
very happy to see that the King had changed his mind, since I feared the Gods'
wrath… But alas! As we were approaching the cave where the girl was enclosed,
we heard a shriek in the distance… "Woe to me, said the King, it's
my son's voice!" Then we made haste to remove the stones which were enclosing
the grave and we had to behold a fearful sight: Antigone had hanged herself
with her scarf, and Hemon, our King's son, hugging her tightly, was groaning…
When he saw us, and without saying a single word, he spat at his father's face
and, turning his anger against himself thrust his sword into his chest …
And there they were, corpse intertwined with corpse, celebrating their wedding
in the world of the dead…. But here comes Creon… Will he have something
to add to this dreadful story?
7 - (same place)
CREON - Ô people of Thebes, my misfortune is still greater than what you
have been hearing… Listen to what you don't know as yet… Why have
I been impelled to sow death? Here I am, a three times miserable criminal, how
can I bear myself…?
GUARD - You are frightening us… What else has happened? We'll listen to
you. Speak.
CREON - Hardly had I come back from the funeral cave where two members of my
family were still lying dead than I discovered that a new corpse was waiting
for me. In despair at the death of her son, my wife Eurydice, my queen, cursing
me for ever, had cut the thread of her life. When I arrived she was lying at
the foot of the altar with her side pierced by a sharp blade and her white eyes
opened to the darkness of death.
GUARD - Alas, I am frozen in place by fear. Did the Gods really want the story
to have that outcome?
CREON - I beseech you, people of Thebes, the mad one who devastated his own
family, let him flee far from here… Everything is shaking in his hands!
The burden that the Gods have imposed on him is too heavy. May death come to
him, that is the only good he can now desire. (leaves)
GUARD - Truly, wisdom and justice are the first conditions of happiness. Man
must not show impiety to the Gods if he does not want to be exposed to their
vengeance.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
All civilizations have attached a great importance to the manner of treating
the dead. Some burn them solemnly, others display them on high places to allow
birds to carry them to the sky, others lay them to rest in tombs, magnificent
sometimes, with all that is necessary to continue living after death, others
bury them more simply in the ground, with or without coffins… Human societies
are based on their funeral rites.
In ancient Greece burial rites were absolutely necessary for the dead person,
who would otherwise be exposed to the wrath of the gods and condemned to endless
wandering in their after life. Such rites are equally important for those who
live on: as long as a corpse has not been burned or buried, it carries a fearsome
stain capable of contaminating a whole city. For these reasons, it is easy to
understand how great was Creon's crime in refusing to bury Polynice and how
great Antigone's piety was by endeavoring by all means to disregard that refusal.
However, the main subject of the play is not the burial of the dead but the
obligation for the just person to disobey unjust laws. Creon is the prototype
of the tyrant who enacts laws contrary to the fundamental universal laws while
Antigone represents the one who refuses to apply laws that go against conscience.
Examples of such tyrannies and such refusals are numerous in all times. A soldier
who refuses to massacre innocents, a police officer who refuses to torture suspects,
a civil officer who refuses to apply racist laws or to dismiss somebody unjustly,
all these share Antigone's attitude. In the world in which we live the Creons
are pullulating and never have tyrants and their unjust laws been so numerous
as today. But alas, it is not enough to write or perform plays to put an end
to them: there must be true Antigones, real "resistance fighters".
Antigone and Creon are not historical but mythical characters of the beginning
of Greek civilization whose poets frequently used the story as a framework of
their poems. In the fifth century B.C., at the peak of that Greek civilization
Sophocles once more used that legend and drew out of it his Antigone, which
was performed in 441. Sophocles was a contemporary of Pericles, Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Thucydides… that is of most of the writers and thinkers on
whom our civilization is founded.
Non commercial use allowed. Reg. SACD - Michel Fustier, 4 Chambfort, 69 100
Villeurbanne, France. Tel: 00 33 (0)4 78 84 25 28.