Parodos: the chorus enters
The elders of Thebes sing the dawn after the war. The Argive army is broken; the city is saved; the brothers are dead.
Summary
The chorus of Theban elders enters at sunrise. They sing the parodos, the entry-song, in praise of the dawn that has finally come over their seven-gated city. The night before, the Argive army of Polyneices had pressed its claim against Thebes, captain by captain, gate by gate — and Zeus, who hates a braggart's boast, struck them down with the forked blaze of his lightning. The image is of an eagle swooping low and being broken in mid-flight. Of the seven Argive captains at the seven Theban gates, every one fell.
Two of the dead are the brothers, named without being named — "that ill-starred pair, born of one mother to one father, who drove one against the other and both perished." The lines are stark. The double fratricide is the foundation of everything that will happen in the play, and the chorus already knows the morning's victory cannot be celebrated cleanly. The brothers will not be mourned the same way. One will be honored; the other left for the dogs. The seeds of the day's catastrophe are already in the song.
The song calls for feasting. Bacchus, shaker of the ground, is invoked to lead the round. Let us throng to the temples; let us dance and sing the whole night through. But the elders break off mid-rejoicing. Creon, the new king, has summoned them. They wonder why. What does our new lord ponder? Why this summons? Why call us, his elders, one and all, bidding us debate with him on some grave concern of state? The first scene of the play has shown what one sister will do; the second has shown the city she lives in; the third is about to show the man who will try to stop her.
- Scene 1Antigone summons Ismene outside the palace before dawn. Their two brothers killed each other in the war; Creon has forbidden...
- Scene 2The elders of Thebes sing the dawn after the battle. The Argive invaders have been driven back; the brothers killed each other...
- Scene 3Creon's first speech of state. He proclaims the edict — Eteocles honored, Polyneices left for the dogs — and the chorus accepts...
- Scene 4The chorus sings the most famous ode in Greek tragedy. Man is wondrous in everything — sailing, plowing, hunting, building...
- Scene 5Antigone is dragged before Creon. She admits the act and argues that the gods' unwritten laws preceded his decree. Creon condemns...
- Scene 6The chorus sings the curse on the house of Labdacus. Once a god curses a bloodline, the disease runs generation by generation....
- Scene 7Haemon, Creon's son, comes to warn his father. The city sees Antigone as noble; no man is wise enough to stand alone; the trees...
- Scene 8A short bitter ode to Eros. Love has set Haemon against his father; even the wisest heart falls to the god's dart. Then Creon...
- Scene 9Antigone gives her last speech — farewell to the sun, no marriage song will be sung for her, Death is the groom she weds — and is...
- Scene 10The chorus, for the first time, gives Creon direct counsel. Free the girl. Build the tomb. Now. Creon obeys, runs out himself with...
- Scene 11The messenger reports it all. Antigone hanged herself in the cave; Haemon, finding her body, lunged at his father with a sword...