sympathy exprest by the people with Antigone: and in relying on this, he tacitly admits that the same action would have deserved punishment in any other person. His general warnings against excessive pertinacity are intended to induce his father to give up his private judgement to the popular opinion. Creon on the other hand is bent on vindicating and maintaining the majesty of the throne and of the laws. No state can subsist, if that which has been enacted by the magistrate, on mature deliberation, is to be set aside because it thwarts a woman's wishes, (672—678) or because it is condemned by the multitude (734). Obedience on the part of the governed, firmness on the part of the ruler, are essential to the good of the commonwealth. These sentiments appear to be adopted by the Chorus. Notwithstanding its good will toward Antigone, and its pity for her fate, it considers her as having incurred the penalty that had been inflicted on her by an act, which, though sufficiently fair and specious to attract the praises of men and to render her death glorious, was still a violation of duty, and brought her into a fatal conflict with eternal Justice; a headstrong defiance of the soverain power, sure to end in her destruction[1]. It has appeared to several learned men, not without a considerable show of probability, that the numerous passages in this play which inculcate the necessity of order, and submission to established authority, may have had great weight in disposing the Athenians to reward the poet with the dignity of strategus, which we know did not necessarily involve any military duties, though Sophocles happened to be so employed, but which would still have been a singular recompense for mere poetical merit[2].
Nevertheless the right is not wholly on the side of Creon. So far indeed as Polynices is concerned, he has only shewn a just severity sanctioned by public opinion, and perhaps required by the interest of the state. Early however in the action we
- ↑ The Chorus first attempts to console Antigone by reminding her of her fame (817): οὐκοῦὴ κλεινὴ καὶ ἔπαινον ἔχουσ᾽ Ἐς τόδ᾽ ἀπέρχῃ κεῦθος νεκύων: and then answers her complaints by suggesting her fault (853): προβᾶσ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἔσχατον θράσους ὑψηλὸν ἐς Δίκας βάθρον προσέπεσες, ὦ τέκνον, πολύ· and again (872) σέβειν μὲν εὐσέβειά τις· κράτος δ᾽ ὅτῳ κράτος μέλει, παραβατὸν οὐδαμῃ πέλει, σὲ δ᾽ αὐτόγνωτος ὤλεσ᾽ ὀργά.
- ↑ Mr Campbell very needlessly and groundlessly conjectures that Sophocles possessed considerable military experience when he was elected to the office.
