[351] As each poet had but three actors allowed him, the song of the chorus probably gave time for the representative of Theseus to change his dress, and reappear as Polynices.
[352] The imagery in the last two lines has been amplified from the original in order to bring before the reader what the representation would have brought before the spectator.
[353] Mercury.
[354] Proserpine.
[355] Autonamos.—Antig., 821.
[356] Ou toi synechthein, alla symphilein ephun. Antig., 523.
[357] Ceres.
[358] Hyper dilophon petras—viz., Parnassus. The Bacchanalian light on the double crest of Parnassus, which announced the god, is a favourite allusion with the Greek poets.
[359] His mother, Semele.
[360] Aristotle finds fault with the incident of the son attempting to strike his father, as being shocking, yet not tragic—that is, the violent action is episodical, since it is not carried into effect; yet, if we might connect the plot of the "Antigone" with the former plays of either "Oedipus," there is something of retribution in the attempted parricide when we remember the hypocritical and cruel severity of Creon to the involuntary parricide of Oedipus. The whole description of the son in that living tomb, glaring on his father with his drawn sword, the dead form of his betrothed, with the subsequent picture of the lovers joined in death, constitutes one of the most masterly combinations of pathos and terror in ancient or modern poetry.