[78] In this same play, the reader must be careful not to misunderstand the motives of Haemon’s suicide. He does not kill himself out of grief for Antigone, but out of shame (αὑτῷ χολωθείς) at having attacked his father. That love for a woman should have made him so far forget himself was a disgrace not to be borne.
[79] The words of l. 144 seqq. at once suggest Catullus lxii. esp. 39 seqq. But this poem of Catullus is generally admitted to be, if not an actual translation, at least a paraphrase of Sappho; hence it is far more probable that Sophocles copied Sappho here, than that Catullus copied Sophocles there.
Another instance in which a tragedian copied an Epithalamium of Sappho is furnished by Aesch. Suppl. 998. Cp. Sappho Fr. 91, Longus Past. 3, 33, and my Apospasmata Critica (Oxford, Blackwell, 1892), p. 5.
[80] A great deal of light would be thrown on all this intricate subject if only one could find out how far, if at all, Sophocles was influenced by Euripides. Euripides, as we shall see later, was always ready to sympathise with women who suffered from the unreasonable treatment of the time, but it does not seem prima facie probable that this particular trait should have had influence on anyone so Athenian as Sophocles. Anyhow, these two passages prove nothing.
[81] This is exactly the idea of the well-known Ἔρως chorus in the Antigone. (l. 781). There, too, love is unavoidable (καί σ’ οὔτ’ ἀθανάτων φύξιμος οὐδεὶς, οὔθ’ ἁμερίων σέ γ’ ἀνθρώπων), it results in madness (ὁ δ’ ἔχων μέμηνεν, “the stricken one is mad,” as the Romans said “habet” of their gladiators), and the chief damage it does is to property (ὃς ἐν κτήμασι, πίπτεις). Like Eresichthon’s father, what the Chorus most object to is the expense.
[83] Vide [Excursus B].
[84] This feature is of course by no means peculiar to Sophocles; it is prominent both in Aeschylus and Euripides (e.g. the pathetic passage in Orest. 1041 seqq.), and doubtless for the same reason. In Sophocles, however, perhaps owing merely to the chance which has preserved certain plays while others have been lost, it plays a particularly important part. Not only are the Antigone and the Electra almost entirely devoted to it, but the one ray of light in the 1800 lines of the Oedipus Coloneus is the farewell of Polynices to his sister. (l. 1414 seqq.)
[85] Soph. Ant. 909 seqq. This seems the natural and obvious way of taking these words, but whichever way one takes them they do not imply any very great respect for matrimony.
Whether the lines are Sophocles’ or not is of course indifferent in this connection, as everyone is agreed that, if an interpolation, they are a very early one.