ANTIGONE, (I)

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 125 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ANC-APO

ANTIGONE, (I) in Greek legend, daughter of

Oedipus

OEDIPUS (OiSiirovs, O16tir63i7s, Wines, from Gr. ot&eiv swell, and gobs foot, i.e. " the swollen-footed ")

and Iocaste (Jocasta), or, according to the older story, of Euryganeia. When her father, on discovering that Iocaste, the mother of his children, was also his own mother, put his eyes out and resigned the throne of Thebes, she accompanied him into

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

at Colonus. After his death she returned to Thebes, where Haemon, the son of Creon, king of Thebes, became enamoured of her. When her brothers Eteocles and Polyneices had slain each other in single combat, she buried Polyneices, although Creon had forbidden it. As a

punishment

PUNISHMENT (from Lat. punire, to punish, from poena, punishment, Gr. 7rocvil)

she was sentenced to be buried alive in a vault, where she hanged herself, and Haemon killed himself in despair. Her character and these incidents of her life presented an attractive subject to the Greek tragic poets, especially Sophocles in the Antigone and

Oedipus

OEDIPUS (OiSiirovs, O16tir63i7s, Wines, from Gr. ot&eiv swell, and gobs foot, i.e. " the swollen-footed ")

at Colonus, and Euripides, whose Antigone, though now lost, is partly known from extracts incidentally preserved in later writers, and from passages in his Phoenissae. In the order of the events, at least, Sophocles departed from the

original

ORIGINAL

legend, according to which the burial of Polyneices took place while Oedipus was yet in Thebes, not after he had died at Colonus. Again, in regard to Antigone's tragic end Sophocles differs from Euripides, according to whom the calamity was averted by the intercession of Dionysus and was followed by the

marriage

MARRIAGE

of Antigone and Haemon. In Hyginus's version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Haemon to be slain, was secretly carried off by him, and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bore him a son

Macon

MACON
MACON, NATHANIEL (1758-1837)

. When the boy grew up, he went to some funeral games at Thebes, and was recognized by the mark of a

dragon

DRAGON (Fr. dragon, through Lat. draco, from the Greek; connected with SEpeoľay " see," and interpreted as " sharp-sighted "; O.H. Ger. tracho, dracho, M.H.G. trache, Mod. Ger. Drachen; A.S. draca, hence the equivalent English form " drake," " fire-drake,

on his

body

BODY

. This led to the discovery that Antigone was still alive. Heracles pleaded in vain with Creon for Haemon, who slew both Antigone and himself, to escape his father's vengeance. On a painted vase the scene of the intercession of Heracles is represented (Heydermann, Uber eine nacheuripideische Antigone, 1868). Antigone placing the

body

BODY

of Polyneices on the funeral

pile

PILE

occurs on a sarcophagus in the villa Pamfili in Rome; and is mentioned in the description of an' ancient painting by Philostratus (Imag. ii. 29), who states that the flames consuming the two brothers burnt apart, indicating their unalterable hatred, even in death.
(2) A second Antigone was the daughter of Eurytion, king of Phthia, and wife of Peleus. Her husband, having accidentally killed Eurytion in the Calydonian boar hunt, fled and obtained expiation from Acastus, whose wife made advances to Peleus. Finding that her affection was not returned, she falsely accused Peleus of infidelity to his wife, who thereupon hanged herself (Apollodorus, iii. 13).

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