"Bury him I will; I will lie in death with the brother I love,
sinning in a righteous cause. Far longer is the time in which I
must please the dead than men on earth, for among the former I
shall dwell for ever. Do thou, if it please thee, hold in dishonour
what is honoured by Heaven."
Here is the source of the tragedy, the will of the individual in conflict with established authority.
A chorus of Theban elders enters, singing an ode of deliverance and joy; they have been summoned by Creon, the new King, uncle of Oedipus' children. Full of the sense of his own importance Creon states the official view. Polyneices is to remain unburied.
"Any man who considers private friendship to be more important than
the State is a man of naught. In the name of all-seeing Zeus I would
not hold my tongue if I saw ruin coming to the citizens instead of
safety, nor would I make a friend of my country's enemy. Sure am I
that it is the State that saves us; she is the ship that carries us;
we make our friendships without overturning her."
The elders promise obedience, but grave news is reported by a guard who has been set to watch the corpse. Someone had scattered dust lightly over the dead and departed without leaving any trace; neither he nor his companions had done the deed.
When the Chorus suggest that it is the work of some deity, Creon answers in great impatience:
"Cease, lest thou be proved a fool as well as old. Thy words are
intolerable when thou sayest that the gods can have a care of this
corpse. What, have they buried him in honour for his services to them?
Did he not come to burn their pillared temples and offerings and
precincts and shatter our laws?"
He angrily thrusts the watchman forth, threatening to hang him and his companions alive unless they find the culprit.
"There are many marvels, but none greater than Man. He crosses the
wintry sea, he wears away the hard earth with his plough, ensnareth
the light-hearted race of birds, catcheth the wild beasts, trappeth
the things of the deep, yoketh the horse and the unwearying ox. He
hath taught himself speech and thought swift as the wind, hath learnt
the moods of a city life and can avoid the shafts of the frost; he
hath a device for every problem save Death—though disease he can
escape. Sometimes he moveth to ill, again to good; his cities rear
their heads when they reverence the laws and the gods; he wrecketh
his city when he boldly forsakes the good. May an evil-doer never
share my hearth or heart."
Such is the ordinary man's view of the action of Polyneices, for in Sophocles the Chorus certainly represents average public opinion. It is quickly challenged by the entry of Antigone with the Watchman, whose story Creon hastens out to hear. With no little self-satisfaction the Watchman tells how they caught the girl in the very act of replacing the dust they had removed and pouring libations over the dead. Antigone admits the deed. When asked how she dare defy the official ordinance, she replies—