SOPHOCLES' ANTIGONE AND MARULIC'S JUDITH REBORN IN MILA GOJSALIĆ
Hello dear readers and fellow bloggers! In this post, I'll review a known classic, Antigone, a play by Sophocles. I'll also reflect on Judith, a heroic female character from the Book of Judith and a Croatian Renaissance epic poem Judita that Judith help inspire. 22nd of April is the Day of Croatian Book, and it is celebrated a day before the World Book Day. As I'm sure you know, World Book Day is celebrated on 23rd of April. World Book Day was first celebrated in Spain on the date of Miguel Cervantes birth, and then moved to the date of his death (23rd April) that coincides with Saint George's Day. The Spanish people have turned it into quite an event, and the world took notice. UNESCO must have decided to borrow this idea from the Spanish people, because in 1995, UNESCO proclaimed 23rd of April -World Book Day. Interestingly, besides Miguel Cervantes, William Shakespeare and a number of notable writers also died on the same day. Nowadays, World Book Day is celebrated worldwide. There is another annual event worldwide happening today and it is Earth Day. So, today we will talk a little bit about the environment as well. Books, environment and art are all on the menu on my blog today. So, business as usual you might say- just with a bit more festive feel. Happy Croatian Book Day! Happy World Book Day! Happy Earth Day!
*This blog post was written in English. Therefore, I'm not responsible for any mistakes in translation that might happen if you use machine translation to translate it or read it any other language.
The location for the outfit and travel photographs I'll be sharing today is Jelsa, a charming little town (technically it is a municipality and does not have an official status of a town but you get my drift). Jelsa is gorgeous and like every place on island Hvar, it is rich in history. Island Hvar is full of ancient, medieval and Renaissance churches, buildings and fortresses. Speaking of history, Hvar is known for a number of prominent Renaissance writers such as Petar Hektorović (also known as Pietro (H)ettoreo) and Hanibal Lucić (aka Annibale Lucio). My hometown Split is also known for Renaissance writers, one of them being the author of Judith, an epic poem written to bost morale in difficult times.
Judith has had a profound impact on Croatian literature. Croatian Book Day is a nice way to reflect on Croatian literature and tie it up with Croatian culture. It is nice that there is a official day dedicated to Croatian Book. Not that I need any prompting to read Croatian books or any books for that matter. It is sort of my job. Not just reading Croatian books, but books in general. It is also my job getting others to read, so reading my blog might have that effect on you. Perhaps my blog should come with a warning- Beware, you might want to pick up a book after reading my blog. I'm sort of joking, but since in some ways we do live in Fahrenheit 451 kind of society, this might not be a joke in close future. My blog might actually come with a warming- ' the author is trying to get you to read'.
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| My art (acrylic paintings) inspired by Jelsa! |
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| A night seascape inspired by Jelsa |
There is a reason why this ancient Greek play continues to haunt our imagination centuries after it was written. How many centuries exactly? Well, Antigone was written approximately five centuries BC. So, that makes it twenty five centuries old. Imagine that! So many generations have been born and died, without this play losing its relevance. It is truly timeless. Will there be people reading and performing plays written today twenty four centuries from now? What will make them relevant? What makes a work of art stand the test of time? I would answer: it's ability to capture the spiritual reality in material form. Every true work of art, be it a play, a painting or a photograph, captures a higher reality, shows us what is we humans carry within ourselves, in our hearts and minds.
On a more serious note, why do we need to read?
Why do we need to read? We need to read because we are human. We need to think, ponder and ask questions. We need to appreciate art in order to appreciate life. Life is complex and complicated always. Life is difficult always. Art helps us with it. Not in the most obvious of ways because it is so subtle, but art helps. Art can help heal us. It can help us become more emotionally aware. Literature often gives us insight into the human soul. It is something that is being lost when we lose reading. Recently I saw an example online of someone using AI to answer someone's text about their parent dying. It was a frightening sight because people do not realize what they are doing. Imagine how that person that received that AI text must have felt like. People are throwing away their humanity this way. By not reading, by not writing, and letting the machines decide things for them. New generations are being brought up dependent on AI. Sometimes even the school system does not see the fault in it, seeing AI like some kind of progress. Seeing young generations being reliant on AI as something good. It is hard to explain to someone who does not have any general education and culture, why AI when applied to art, literature and cultural studies is such a horrible idea, but we must try. So, I do, and I have written on this topic on my blog more than once.
The reality is that you and me, all of us, we need to build relationships in our lives. We have to be able to navigate through them in times of loss. We have to make our own decisions if we are to be more than a bot. Like it or not, people in your life will die. You will have to deal with it. AI is not going to help you with it. People in your life will lose their family members. You will have to be there for them. If you want to call yourself a human being, you will have to face death and help others face it. You will have to mourn and grieve. We are all going to die. It is just a matter of decades. This culture we live in likes to pretend we won't, but the reality is something else.
So, read. Read real books written by real people. Read works of art written two, three or four thousand years ago to understand that the human conditions does not change that much. We are built by the choices we make. Leave those choices to AI, and you lose your humanity. Turn your life into a pursuit of material interest, and lose your soul. You can choose. To became less than Sophocles and the others were, to know less than our ancestors knew. You can also chose to be like them, to think critically and to reflect on the world around you. Read. Write. Think. Read the books that enrich your mind. Write in a way that will help you develop your own critical thinking. Think about your life and your duties. Ask questions. Do not ask AI. Ask yourself. If your mind does not have answers, ask those who know more. Ask them with humility. Be ready to learn. Or accept that you have already lost your humanity.
A little break for sustainable fashion and fashion talk, and we'll get back to book reviewing.
Besides, discussing early works of literature, I'll also show you some sustainable transitional outfits and take you for a walk around Jelsa on island Hvar, a destination you have gotten to know over the years. Firstly, my Jelsa posts were travel posts because sustainable travel means I revisit locations and all that. Secondly, I posted a lot about Jelsa because I got a job there in 2019. Now, I got a job here again, but I also have other jobs off the island. The life on blog continues as usual. Life's been busy lately, and Spring has brough on its challenges. Moreover, my blog posts sometimes take a long time to prepare and tend to be quite long. There is a lot to pack in, from my love for art and literature to locations, fashion and all that.
I will return to add sustainable fashion links tomorrow.
Based on the myth of Oedipus, Antigone is a play that puts into focus the strength of love. The protagonist of this play is a young woman, and the antagonist is her uncle. The ways Sophocles portrays Antigone is simply ingenious, both in this play and in the other plays where her character appears. The Oedipus myth was there, but Sophocles genius is in making all the characters from the myth truly come to life. Sophocles' plays show us the psychological development of its characters. This is especially the case in his Antigone play. Antigone declares herself 'born for love' in contrast to the antagonist Creon who chooses the path of hate. The exact translation varies from edition to edition, but Antigone's love for her family is always stressed in these lines.
The play is simply ingenious in every way. It opens with a scene of two sisters conversing. The sisters are contrasted one to another, Antigone the brave, and Ismene the more timid one.
Antigone.
My own, my sister, O beloved face,
Tell me—of all the curses of our race,
What curse shall God not heap on thee and me?
Surely there is no pain, no misery,
No vileness or dishonour, that we two
Have not already seen; and now this new
Edict, proclaimed by our new Prince's word
On all our people . . . knowst thou? Hast thou heard?
Or is it hid from thee? There comes a fate
On one we love meet for the worst we hate.
Ismene.
No word, Antigone, of tidings new
Touching our house, hath reached me, since we two
Were left deserted, and our brothers twain
Both in one day in mutual fury slain.
Last night, I know, the Argives fled; I know
Nought further that hath passed for weal or woe.
Antigone.
I knew it; and for that I summoned thee
Beyond the gate alone, to speak with me.
Ismene.
What is it? Some dark cloud is o'er thy thought.
Antigone.
'Tis for our brothers. Hath not Creon wrought
Honours for one, on the other foul despite?
'Tis told that, with all customary rite,
He layeth Eteocles in earth, full fed
With honours, like a prince among the dead;
But Polynices' corpse, cast out in shame,
No man in Thebes—so hath he made proclaim—
Shall give him tomb nor tear; there he shall lie
Unwept, unburied, lovely to the eye
Of staring vultures, hungry for their prey.
Such law on thee doth our good Creon lay,
Aye, and on me, on me! And soon, I hear,
He cometh hot-foot hither, to make clear
His will to them that know not. Nothing light
He counts it. Whoso disobeys ere night
Shall die the death . . . by stones, without the wall.
So runs his order. Now thou knowest all.
Now is the day to show thee nobly brave,
Or born a princess but at heart a slave.
Ismene.
If it has come to this, unhappy one,
What is there I can do or make undone?
Antigone.
Think. Wilt thou share my labour and my deed?.....
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| a little gif with my burgundy and yellow transitional styling! |
Sophocles' Antigone is an emotional rollercoaster and a testament to the genius of its writer. Every character that steps on the scene captures our hearts and makes us think.
Antigone. [Strophe 1
Behold, O Land of Thebes, O ye My countrymen; I go my last Journey; and never more shall see The sunlight. All is past. Hades, the Sleep-compeller, goes before[Pg 57 vv. 811-836] To guide me, living, to the lifeless shore; No chant of trooping comrades leads me here, No music for a human bridegroom's ear; The bride of Acheron I for evermore.
CHORUSTherefore in glory and high praise To yon dead vault thou goest thy ways; No wasting sickness shalt thou fear, No wages of the sword are here. Alone and mistress of thy fate Thou walkest living to the gate Of Death, from all men separate.ANTIGONE.....
I have heard how perished piteous
That Phrygian stranger, once our own, 'Gainst a high crag on Sipylus. As ivy climbs, the stone Climbed and subdued her, and there wasteth she— So still abides the ancient history— And the rains never leave her, nor the snow, And the dim crown weeps on the breast below; To stone go I, most like to Niobe.*
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*Cited from Gutenberg
When life gets hard, a stray cat appears to provide emotional support. This is my emotional support stray cat. I think I will name it Coco no.2. If you remember, there was a stray named Coco at my summer job.
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| I think she loves me. What do you guys think? |
Antigone. [Antistrophe 2
That stirs my bitterest thought, My thrice-told aching sorrow for the lot Of mine own father and all the travail-fraught Line of our ancient kings.[Pg 59 vv. 862-882] Alas, alway the memory clings Of evil to my mother's bed, Of ignorance sent from heaven, and infamy Wrought on her own son—and my father he . . . How can my thought endure it? . . . Am I not bred And born from them? Away to them I go, Childless, accurst, to share their homes below. O brother, not unloved but most ill-wed, Thou hast slain me, thou has reached me from the dead.*
*Cited from project Gutenberg
Author: Sophocles (ca. 496-406 B.C.)
Translator: Murray, George Gilbert Aimé (1866-1957)
Date of first publication [this translation]: 1941
Date of first performance [original play]: ca. 441 B.C.
INTRODUCTION
The Antigone, like other Greek plays, has suffered from being constantly interpreted and commented upon by critics whose main interests were not in the drama nor even in the poetry but in something quite different, such as grammar, history, philosophy, or the stemmata of MSS. Of course for any adequate understanding of the play much preliminary study of those subjects is necessary; but a time comes when all that scaffolding must be cleared away and attention concentrated on the two elements that matter most; on the poetry, with its severe form, its delicately exact metre, and its conventional poetic diction, quite different from the language of everyday prose, qualities which to the Greek artist seemed absolutely essential; and secondly, on the drama as drama, the play as an acting play.
Of the first I will not speak; I happen to like the Greek convention, and the method of my translation is a dutiful attempt to represent it. On the second some comment may be useful to English readers. Sophocles, as compared with the other two tragedians, was more of a dramatist and less of a prophet. He loved the clash of characters and the clash of moods inside a character. Also he had a wonderful gift for the coup de théâtre, the sudden flashing line that transforms a situation. One may think of the ironic answer to Jocasta's prayer in the Oedipus (l. 924), or to Clytemnestra's prayer in[Pg 6] the Electra (l. 660); of the announcement in the Electra of Orestes' death to the two women, to whom it means respectively deliverance and despair (El. ll. 674, 675); or in this play of Ismene's unexpected "Yes, I did it" (l. 536). Such effects remind one not of Aeschylus nor even of Shakespeare, but of the great French dramatists. The very first scene of The Antigone, with its secret hurried opening, and the eager trust of Antigone in her sister, followed by its swift reversal, plunge us into the heart of the drama with an impetus quite foreign to the stately exposition scenes of Aeschylus and Euripides.
Again, Sophocles always keeps in his tragedies the atmosphere of a dark heroic past. He likes to have themes with a touch of the mysterious and unearthly about them. In The Antigone the plot centres upon a point where, according to tradition, the Theban custom roused horror in the rest of Greece. The other Greeks after a battle always allowed the enemy to collect and bury their dead. If necessary they even buried the enemy dead themselves. The Thebans buried their own dead, but if they were masters of the field, deliberately prevented the burial of their enemies. In The Antigone, Creon proclaims Polynices an enemy, and follows the barbarous Theban custom in leaving his body to dogs and birds. What happened to the other dead is not directly mentioned in the play (see, however, l. 1080), but in Euripides' Suppliant Women we hear that Theseus first interceded with the Thebans and at last made war on them in order to[Pg 7] recover the bodies of the Seven and give them religious burial in Attic soil.
Any ill treatment of the dead rouses strong feeling even now. It certainly did so among Sophocles' contemporaries. But the horror was far graver and more awful in earlier ages, which attached superstitious sanctity to these last rites. The natural human horror at a barbarity is projected, as it were, on to Zeus or the Gods of the Underworld. It is they, it is the powers beyond death, who condemn and abhor such impiety. When Creon accuses Antigone of wasting her pains in "thinking always of the dead," it does not mean that she likes thinking about graves and corpses. She is caring for things beyond this world.
The character drawing is admirable. Critics have complained that both Creon and Antigone behave with some inconsistency. The answer is that all real people do, and the good dramatist likes them for it. As for Creon, it was of course preposterous of Hegel to suggest that he was as much in the right as Antigone and that our sympathies should be evenly divided. Creon is a tyrant; but a good playwright makes even his tyrants intelligible and Creon has a case. His first speech is excellent on the sacredness of public duty, but he shows the tyrant's temper in his interpretation of it. Polynices is an enemy and, though a king and Creon's own nephew, must be treated as an enemy. Anyone disobeying this order is a rebel and shall be treated as a rebel. So far so good: but the exposure of the body and the punishment of death for anyone who attempts to[Pg 8] remedy that outrage are "tyrannic." Yet as soon as Creon has pronounced this judgement he is trapped. He cannot unsay it merely because the rebel proves to be his own niece. His rage and threats are in character; so is his obstinacy; but I think one can see more than once that he would escape from the necessity of carrying out his sentence if he could do so without loss of face. Perhaps if Antigone were contrite and begged for pardon there might be an opportunity; but she is utterly defiant and hostile. At one moment he thinks he has pledged himself to put Ismene to death also; and shows undisguised relief at finding that he has not. He will spare Ismene; but even so everyone is against him; unless possibly his son, always so dutiful, and now so urgently wanted, will stand at his side? But Haemon, after a would-be tactful opening, leaves the stage threatening either murder or suicide. Creon can never yield after that, but his inward trouble increases. Perhaps at the last moment, when death actually stares her in the face, this insane girl may give way. She was to have been stoned; but that can be changed. She shall be left in a rock chamber, with a little food and drink, to die, no doubt, in the long run, but not immediately. That will give her a chance to think again.
It seems curious that he does not at once yield to Tiresias, whose counsels he had always followed. But Sophocles gets an added effect from the last flare of Creon's obstinacy and suspicion. These prophets! It is his unknown enemies at work again, bribing guards, bribing corrupt "medicine men." He must add to his[Pg 9] other offences this blasphemy against the Prophet, just as Oedipus did, before his cup is full. But his inner mistrust of himself has deepened. The surrender was bound to come, and when it comes it is as sudden and impulsive as his bursts of fury were. It is worth noticing that, if he had gone straight to Antigone's prison, he might still have saved her; but the prophet had said little about her. He was entirely occupied with the unburied corpse, the ritual pollution of altars, the sins against the Gods of Death. So naturally Creon goes first to remedy those.
Antigone herself is a very Sophoclean figure. We may compare her with Electra, the most ferocious of his heroines, and at the same time perhaps the most tenderly loving. Electra loses all self-restraint, and knows it. When Clytemnestra cries shame upon her, she answers (ll. 616 ff.): "Do you think I am not ashamed? Do I not know that I am behaving horribly and unlike myself?" And so she is. Sophocles cares more for the real and faulty human being than for the ideally sympathetic heroine. He has no character like some of Euripides' heroic virgin martyrs, such as Macaria or Polyxena.
Antigone is confident of her sister's love, and claims from her the same devotion as from herself, but at the first sign of refusal she turns fierce. She "hates" Ismene, and would not accept her help if she offered it. In the later scene, where Ismene only begs to be allowed to die with her, she is cruelly scornful except for one moment of softening and self-blame (l. 557). On Creon[Pg 10] she declares immediate war. She expects no mercy or understanding and will show none. She treats the Elders as mere enemies, since they are not clear and wholehearted friends. One is surprised by her verse (l. 523): "It is not my nature to join in hating, only to join in love." She had shown herself such a good hater. But Ismene thought much the same of her. She was τοῖς φίλοις ὀρθῶς φίλη, "A true friend to those she loved" (l. 99). It is that very quality that makes her so fierce. The loving, generous, but not quite heroic, Ismene forms a splendid foil to her.
Critics have suggested that she is very young. That would explain her vehemence and her changes of mood, from love to anger, from readiness to die to lamentation over all that she is losing. And certainly there seems to be some emphasis laid both upon her youth and upon Haemon's.
Acute characterization of this kind, if carried far, heightens the intellectual interest of any play at the expense of its emotional intensity. But the religious atmosphere of Greek tragedy is strong, and Sophocles' own inspiration overcomes his critical observation of character. In her greatest moment Antigone rises above her moods, above even her personal love for her brother, above mere rituals and taboos about dead bodies. She puts her faith simply in that eternal law of right of which Greek thought, from Aeschylus to Plato, is so abidingly conscious; a law whose ordinances are beyond death, beyond man and his anthropomorphic gods, unwritten and never failing. Through this scene[Pg 11] Antigone has become, almost against her creator's wish, the most famous ideal virgin martyr of Greek tragedy.
The Guard is admirable. A man of the people, racy and half comic, he reminds one of the Nurse in the Choëphoroe but of no other character in our extant Greek tragedies. The Chorus of Elders remains for the most part impersonal. Their lyrics are among the finest in Sophocles, often difficult and enigmatic, yet with a strange untranslatable magic of language and rhythm. Only through the spoken words of the Leader does the Chorus express itself as a character in the play, and then it is a somewhat characterless character. The Elders venture twice a tentative protest against Creon, but are promptly crushed, and afterwards are afraid to champion Antigone or Haemon. They think her ἄβουλος "unwise," as by ordinary standards she undoubtedly is. Their failure to give her open support adds to the dramatic value of her last appearance, innocent, friendless and alone against the world. I think, however, that in certain passages (particularly ll. 853 ff., 872 ff.) where their words seem intentionally obscure one is bound to choose the interpretation which favours the condemned prisoner; had they meant to support the tyrant there would have been no need for obscurity.
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