Sophocles: Antigone
There was an important figure in Œdipus the King whom we only glanced at in passing when we were considering the story of Jocasta. He was the queen’s own brother, Creon; a man who knew better than to covet kingly honours, and who had a soul for friendship. It was he who said, answering the rash accusation which Œdipus made against him:
“This I tell thee. He who plucks a friend
Out from his heart hath lost a treasured thing
Dear as his own dear life.“[[23]]
Thus, when the great king’s downfall came, Creon knew how to be a friend. He was gentle to Œdipus; and forgetting his own wrongs, he took upon himself the care of the king’s young daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
But Creon said once, at another crowded moment of his career:
“Hard it is to learn
The mind of any mortal or the heart,
Till he be tried in chief authority.