THE PIOUS HEROISM OF ANTIGONE

The story of the Antigone is the tale of a conflict between a king and a girl over a corpse. The new king of Thebes, Creon, seeks to punish the corpse of Polyneices by leaving it unburied, on the grounds that he was an enemy to his city, to its gods, and, as the killer of his brother, to his family.

Indeed, to begin with, no one, not even Creon, can believe that Antigone did this deed knowingly (see 376—83, 403, 406, 441—3, 446—7, 449). Creon and Ismene both wonder whether Antigone has not lost her mind (561—4, 98—9). Although it seems understandable that Antigone would wish to see her brother buried, it is amazing that she simply acts on her own and tries to bury the body herself — twice — in flagrant defiance of the king, rather than, for example, taking the less dangerous course of begging the king for pity, as Priam begs Achilles for pity in the final book of the Iliad; or of trying to persuade the king to be magnanimous toward his vanquished enemy, as, for example, Odysseus and Ajax's brother Teucer try to persuade Menelaus and Agamemnon to permit the burial of the corpse of Ajax in the Ajax (1047—1162, 1223—1373); or even of trying to persuade Creon to

1⁰1 think Winnington-Ingram is too quick to dismiss this character as an “ordinary man of little insight” (1980, 112, 127). bury the corpse by appealing to his piety, as Teiresias does later in the play (see Antigone 992—1114).

Furthermore, Antigone defies Creon all by herself. She has no allies who might pressure Creon to relax his edict or to spare her, none who might overthrow him, and little hope of winning such allies among her fellow Thebans, since the man whose corpse she is burying has just led an Argive army to conquer and destroy Thebes, has killed the king of Thebes, and may well be responsible for the deaths of other Thebans, including relatives of the chorus (see 100—54, especially 117—26).11 Creon takes it for granted that whoever attempted to bury Polyneices was part of a broad and powerful conspiracy — perhaps a fifth column within Thebes — with sufficient resources to bribe the soldiers guarding the corpse and, perhaps, to bribe the soothsayer Teiresias as well.1² When Creon discovers that Antigone is the one who buried the corpse, he assumes that at least her sister must have helped her (484—96, 53 1—5, 561—2, 577—81, 769—71).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Antigone’s defiance of Creon is astonishing because she is a girl, a very young woman, about to be married, who is most widely referred to in the play as a “maiden joqg]” or “child [ πaiς∖.^,,1³ Everyone in the play assumes that only a man would

¹¹ One might object that Antigone has the very important ally of her fiance Haemon, the king’s son. Yet, according to our manuscripts, Antigone never refers to Haemon in the play, and hence, it would seem, never regards him as a potential ally in the play, perhaps assuming that he will be as absolutely loyal to his father as she is to her brother.

¹² 289—326. See 1033—63, as well as 22i-2. See also Reinhardt 1979, 69—71; Knox 1964, 88.

¹³ Antigone is referred to in the play four times as “maiden [êîðä]” (395, 769, 889, 1100) and seven times as “child [παzςf^, (378, 423, 561, 654, 693, 949, 987). It is true that she is also referred to eleven times as “woman [ytvg],” but nine of these references are by Creon and may reflect his eagerness to dissuade the chorus and Haemon from pitying her (525, 579, 649, 651, 678, 680, 740, 746, 756; 61, 694). Consider, for example, Creon’s remark to his son: “Do not now — ever — child, cast out your wits for the sake of the pleasure of a woman, since you know that this embrace becomes cold, when an dare to challenge the king since, it is presumed, only a man would have the strength to confront Creon’s soldiers or face the torture with which Creon threatens those who oppose him (248, 332—75, especially 347; consider as well 218—22, 268—77, 304-14, 432—40; 931—2). Ismene suggests that, since they are women and hence naturally weaker than men, they cannot win in an open, violent conflict with the mighty king (61—4).

evil woman shares your bed and your home” (648-51 - emphases added). The chorus and the guard only refer to Antigone as “maiden” (395, 1100) or “child” (378, 423, 949, 987), never as “woman.” Haemon refers to Antigone once as a child and once as a woman, when he tells his father: “It is possible for me to hear these things under darkness, that the city mourns for this very child, since she is dying most undeservedly of all women and most evilly, for the most glorious deeds” (692-5). Even Creon refers to Antigone twice as “maiden” (769, 889) and twice as “child” (561, 654). For Antigone’s im­minent marriage to Haemon, see, for example, 568, 627-30, 1223-5).

¹⁴ Tyrrell and Bennett go so far as to suggest that the play implicitly compares Antigone to an Amazon warrior woman (1998, 42, 72, 103, 109).

The word that Creon and the chorus use to characterize Antigone’s act is not, however, manliness or courage (avδpεia) but daring (τoλμa-248, 449; see also 370—I, 913-5)- The word daring in the play seems to denote a fearless willingness to transgress or transcend all limits. In order to grasp the significance of Antigone’s daring, let us consider the chorus’s famous second ode, whose theme is daring, and which suggests that daring, together with thoughtfulness (πεpiφpaδης-347), is the central characteristic of human nature (see Jebb 1979, 100, xii). For while the chorus in Antigone generally represents the conventional, and fluctuating, perspective of the Theban elders, the second and fourth choral odes in particular present insights that transcend that perspective. 1⁵

After the chorus hears that someone has buried the corpse of Poly- neices in defiance of the edict of the king, it sings an ode on the singularly terrible or uncanny (δεiX0ζ) character of man (avθpωπ0ζ).1⁶ The ode suggests that man is the most remarkable and dangerous being of all because, alone among the natural beings, he does not simply follow nature but dares to challenge the limits of his natural condition. This daring takes three forms. First, man seeks to master the natural world by, for example, building ships to cross the sea, inventing instruments to extract food from the earth, ensnaring and taming animals for his use, and curing diseases (332—53, 363—4). Further­more, man strives to overcome the harshness of his natural condition by altering his own nature. For man teaches himself speech and thought, he civilizes himself by making himself a law-abiding, urbane, political animal, and he thereby creates civilized life out of anarchy (354—70).

¹⁵ As Ehrenberg observes, “Although we can perhaps understand this song as the expression of a weak and frightened chorus of ordinary old men, it gains its full significance only when we realize that the poet, by way of his famous ‘irony,’ made the chorus say things of a far wider and deeper meaning” (1954, 65; see also Reinhardt 1979, 252).

¹⁶ For a valuable account of the word δειvoζ, see Nussbaum 1986, 52—3, as well as Knox 1964, 23—4. Heidegger’s famous analysis of this ode centers on a discussion of the word δεiV0ζ, a word that “encompasses the extreme limits and the abrupt abysses of [man’s] being” (1980, 149; see 148—65). According to his account, man is δειvoζ above all because he is “one who uses power, who not only disposes of power but is violent insofar as the use of power is the basic trait not only of his action but also of his being-there” (149—50).

Yet, finally, he strives to overcome the limits imposed on him by human society, to violate the laws and destroy cities, and even to transgress the “justice sworn by the gods” (369; 365—71). Daring, then, is a profoundly ambiguous human trait, because it leads humans toward good or evil, betterment or misery, civilization or anarchy.

The ode suggests that the two defining characteristics of human beings are daring and thoughtfulness. Yet the relation between these two characteristics seems paradoxical. On the one hand, what makes daring possible is the surpassing inventiveness of human beings. Only humans can devise means to navigate, farm, hunt, heal, legislate, and rebel. On the other hand, the ode might seem to suggest that daring is a sign of human folly rather than reason. For the conclusion of the ode stresses the absolute limits of human daring: “He is resourceful in every way. He faces nothing that is to come without resource. Against Hades alone will he bring forth no escape. But escapes against incurable diseases he has contrived. Possessing a certain wise, artful capacity to devise, beyond hope, he reaches sometimes toward evil, at other times toward good. When he strings together laws of the earth and justice sworn by the gods, the city is high. But without any city is he who is not noble, on account of daring” (360—71). At first glance, the ode seems to stress most emphatically that what limits man is death.

¹⁷ I am inclined to disagree with Segal’s claim that this ode “reflects much of the optimistic rationalism of Sophocles’ time” (1966, 71; see also 1981, 155). Segal contends that the ode “with its rationalistic confidence, is the only ode in

The ode suggests that man is the being who strives to overcome his limits because, unlike the other beings, he is a reflective being. Because he is thoughtful, he is aware of death. But because he is thoughtful, he wonders whether death truly is the end of his existence or perhaps a path to another, possibly higher life. Above all, this awareness of death gives rise to the longing for a deathless existence, a longing to escape all the limits imposed on us by our nature, including our mortality. The ode suggests, then, that daring is at heart a reflection of the human longing for immortality, a longing later described by the chorus as erotic (781—90; see also 90, 220). We dare to transgress the limits of our seemingly mortal nature because we long for immortality.¹⁸

Daring is, according to the ode, a broadly human characteristic. For example, by devising his edict to refuse burial to traitors, Creon dares to reform the traditional laws concerning the dead in order to overcome

the play without mythical allusions” (165). Yet he goes on to discuss the ode's reference to “Ga, ‘imperishable, timeless, highest of gods' (338—9)” (169). Moreover, he states: “‘Hades is the only thing that man cannot escape,' said the chorus in the Ode on Man (361—2). This sentence haunts the tragic action of the play” (178).

¹⁸ Heidegger understands the choral ode as one that portrays man as a funda­mentally “violent, creative” being who imposes order on the world around him, and as one that celebrates such creative violence (1980, 163; see also 152—3, 161). “In the unique need of their being-there” the Greeks “alone responded solely with violence, thus not doing away with the need but aug­menting it; and in this way they won for themselves the fundamental condition of true human greatness” (164). But Heidegger's treatment of the ode entirely apart from the rest of the play, especially apart from the fourth choral ode on eros, leads him to overlook the second choral ode's identification of human daring, not only with an impulse to impose order, but also with a passionate, erotic, hopeful, and sometimes anarchic longing for immortality. Moreover, Heidegger mistranslates the word “Hades” as “death” in 361: “All violence shatters against one thing. That is death [Das ist der Tod — 1998, 121]. It is an end beyond all consummation, a limit beyond all limits” (1980, 158; see 147). But precisely through its use of the word “Hades,” the ode, like the play, points to a fundamental question of human life: is death truly the limit of our existence? This error leads Heidegger to slight the importance of pious hope as well as longing in the account of the human condition set forth by the ode. See too Nussbaum 1986, 73.

the anarchy that has hitherto plagued Thebes. 1⁹ Yet, inasmuch as the chorus concludes the ode by emphasizing that daring leads human beings to rebel against the limits imposed both by nature and by human society, and hence to place themselves outside the political community (aπoλiς-370), it is Antigone who exhibits most vividly the daring spoken of in the choral ode.²⁰ By burying her treasonous brother's corpse, Antigone dares to step beyond the laws of her king. Moreover, by stepping outside the private sphere of the household to challenge pub­licly the authority of her king and uncle, Antigone dares to step beyond the restraints on women, especially young women, imposed by con­vention and tradition. Indeed, following Ismene, we may say that, by directly and openly challenging the full might of Creon — by choosing to fight, so to speak, like a man — Antigone dares to step beyond her female nature and so defies nature itself, as well as convention.²¹

What seems in the first instance to inspire such a supernatural daring in Antigone to act, all alone, against all odds, against convention and nature both, is her conviction that she is in the right. From the beginning, she is absolutely convinced that it is just for her to bury her brother's corpse and that it is simply outrageous for the king or the city to stand in her way. For Antigone, justice self-evidently means devo­tion to one's family. Although she never denies that Polyneices was a

¹⁹ On this point, see Saxonhouse (1992, 66).

²⁰ See Segal 1981, 153. Creon and the chorus seem to use the word “daring” primarily to express their amazement at Antigone's fearless willingness to transgress her king's edict. When he wishes simply to condemn Antigone for her lawlessness, Creon uses the word “hubris [t>βpiζY (compare 449 with 480—3; see also 309).

²¹ See Saxonhouse 1985, 29; 1992, 69—70, 76. Segal contends that the “conflict between Creon and Antigone is not only between city and house, but also between man and woman,” that Creon represents both “masculine rationality” and “male-centered political rationalism,” and, together with Teiresias, embodies “patriarchal authority,” whereas Antigone stands, with Eurydice, for “female procreative power” and “emotionality” (1981, 183—4, 200—1, 194— 5, 186; see also 1966, 69—70; 1995, 125—7, 134—6). Yet this thesis, while somewhat plausible regarding Creon in particular, leads Segal to downplay crucial features of the play: the public and heroic character of Antigone's defiance of Creon, the conflict between Antigone and Ismene, the piety of Creon, and the elements of rationalism in both Ismene and Antigone. deadly enemy of Thebes, her city and his, she never mentions his treason, or the Thebans' victory over him, as worthy of any consider­ation whatsoever. What is important about Polyneices is simply that he was Antigone's blood brother, offspring of her own mother and father (45-6; see also 466-8, 502-4, 511, 513, 517, 911-2). Only members of her family are “loved ones” (9-10, 73; see also 461-4). The most important common bond among human beings is the bond of flesh and blood (consider 37-8; Knox 1964, 79-82). The family is the principal human community and consequently the principal arena for just deeds (see line 1 of Antigone). By pleasing her family, she pleases “those whom I ought to please most” (89).^[80]

So confident is Antigone that it is just to bury her brother's corpse that she does not even bother to explain to her sister Ismene why she thinks Creon's edict is wrong.

“For does Creon not, regarding the grave of our two brothers, prefer one in honor and dishonor the other? Eteocles, as they say, with a just use of justice and law, he has hidden beneath the earth, honored by the corpses below. But the corpse of Polyneices, having died miserably, they say, he has proclaimed to the townsmen that no one may hide in a grave or lament, but they must leave him unwept for, unburied, sweet for birds, a treasure to behold for their food. These things they say that the good Creon proclaimed to you and to me - I say even to me! - and he comes here to proclaim these things clearly to those who do not know, and the affair is not without consequences. For whoever should do any of these things, murder is set forth by public stoning in the city. There you have it, and you will soon show if you are by nature noble or if you are an evil daughter of noble parents” (21—37). Antigone’s scathing sarcasm here — her references to the “justice” of the “good” Creon — reflect her visceral belief that arguments against Creon are superfluous inasmuch as any claim that his edict is just is self-evidently absurd.^[81]

Antigone’s strength here seems, at first sight, a purely moral strength. In this young girl with no physical strength at all, with no guile or calculation, no interest in gaining advantage through con­spiracy, deception, diplomacy, or even persuasion, indeed with no ap­parent self-interest at all, we seem to witness at its purest the strength of Justice herself (see 451, as well as 538). Antigone comes to sight as being wholly dedicated to justice, selflessly willing to sacrifice her life “to benefit the dead” (559—60), and hence “by nature noble” (38).

The opening of the play highlights Antigone’s heroism by con­trasting her with her unheroic sister Ismene. Ismene most obviously lacks the courage of her sister, for she refuses to defy the tyrannical Creon and bury her brother. Moreover, Ismene argues against Anti­gone’s noble and just intentions on the prudential, self-interested grounds of self-preservation. In contrast to her noble sister, Ismene seems all too quick to abandon her brother and to settle for survival at all costs, even if that means neglecting her duties to her family and the gods. Indeed, even by the standard of prudence, Ismene falls short, inasmuch as she fails to dissuade her sister, and Antigone does ulti­mately succeed in ensuring that her brother is buried.

Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that Ismene proves to be both sensible and even, in certain respects, quite loyal to her sister. She is, for example, the first person who dares to point out to Creon that, by killing Antigone, he will be killing his son’s fiancee (568—71, 574). Moreover, according to all the manuscripts, Ismene is the first and only character who urges Haemon to come to Antigone’s defense (572).^[82] Through these interventions, Ismene almost saves Antigone’s life (see 771—80, 1206—25). Furthermore, however ignoble and ineffective Ismene’s argument against defying Creon may be, it must be remembered that, later on in the play, Antigone herself expresses far- reaching doubts concerning the wisdom of her own defiance. Finally, and most importantly, through her seemingly ignoble argument, Ismene prompts Antigone to reveal the true nature of her nobility. Let us now consider the argument of Ismene more carefully.

After recounting the sufferings of their family, Ismene explains: “Now that, in our turn, the two of us, have been left alone, consider in what way most evilly we shall perish if by violence we transgress the vote of the law or the might of tyrants. But you need to keep this in mind, that we are women by nature, so that against men we will not battle and, then, that because we are ruled by the stronger, we are to heed both these things and things yet more painful. I, then, begging those below the earth to forgive me, since I am forced to do these things, I will obey those who hold office. For to do excessive things makes no sense at all” (58—68). Ismene here does not challenge Antigone’s contention that Creon’s edict is unjust. But she argues that, in this case at least, justice must yield to the natural necessity of the weak to bow to the strong. Ismene argues as follows. Because our family is dead and, more importantly, because it is “hateful and infamous” in the eyes of our fellow citizens (including, perhaps, Teiresias, she supposes) — having committed the base and unjust deeds of incest, suicide, and fratricide — we two are left all alone, without family to support us and without any reasonable expectation of support from anyone else. But we need allies in order to defy successfully the tyrannical might of Creon, since we are women and he is stronger, not only because he is a man, but also because he is a ruler, with guards and soldiers at his command. To violate the edict of Creon without the strength to succeed makes no sense, since all that we will achieve is our own destruction.

Ismene here challenges not only the prudence but also the nobility and justice of the action Antigone is contemplating. For she argues here not only that Antigone’s plan to attempt to bury her brother is dangerous, but that it is “excessive [πεpiσσoςY (68; see also 780). It is excessive because Antigone is incapable of executing her plan. She will not succeed in burying her brother. If she buries the body, Creon will simply order it unburied. It is therefore, as she later says twice, an “impossible” thing to bury Polyneices successfully (90, 92; see also 79). In this way, Ismene asks, how can this act be noble or just if it is futile, if it fails to benefit either themselves or their brother? Antigone had challenged Ismene to show that she is by nature noble. But Ismene answers that, in this case at least, one cannot be noble by nature unless one is strong by nature, unless one has the capacity to complete one's noble deed. And since neither of them is sufficiently strong, neither can act nobly or justly in this case. Ismene argues, then, that Antigone must face natural necessity, accept the limits placed by nature on her nobility and justice, and leave the corpse of their brother unburied, to be eaten by the birds.

Antigone responds to Ismene's argument by affirming, for the first time in the play, her belief in an afterlife in which the gods reward the noble and the just: “That one I shall bury. It is noble for me, doing this, to die. I will lie, dear, together with him who is dear, having committed a pious crime.2⁵ Since there is more time during which I ought to satisfy those below than those here. For there I will lie forever. But if you are resolved, dishonor the things honored by the gods” (71—7). Antigone insists here that it is not self-destructive for her to attempt to bury her brother. For even though she admits she will be executed by the naturally stronger Creon, there are supernatural beings — the gods — who will reward her for her noble and just deed with an eternal well-being after death. Here, we see that the basis of Antigone's daring and strength is not only her justice but also her piety, and specifically, her belief in an afterlife in which justice is rewarded. She is not selflessly but wisely devoted to justice, for she knows, she insists, that her justice will bring her an everlasting well-being. Antigone concedes that the unjust tri­umph in this world and hence that she will be foiled and killed by Creon, but she is convinced that there are gods who will reward her justice and nobility in another, nether world. As she later declares, she is convinced that Justice herself is a goddess (451). She is convinced that, notwith­standing Ismene's argument, she is not truly alone and she is not truly weak, even though she is by nature weaker than her enemies. For she has the supernatural gods on her side. Indeed, Antigone is convinced that she has no reason to fear the death threat of the naturally stronger Creon because she herself is not by nature mortal, but immortal.

²⁵ Benardete suggests translating this arresting phrase [ oσιa πavoopγ ησaσ}: “having stopped at nothing in the performance of holy things” (1999, 12). Consider as well Knox 1964, 93.

Antigone responds to her sister's argument in favor of yielding to natural necessity by denying that there is such a necessity. First, she denies that as a woman who is by nature weaker than a man she must yield to the naturally stronger, for the gods will more than make up for her weakness as long as she honors them by acting justly and nobly. But furthermore, and more importantly, Antigone denies that, as one who is by nature a mortal, human being, she must yield to those with the power to kill her, because she denies that she is mortal. As long as she satisfies the gods, she will enjoy immortal happiness. Antigone defends the wisdom of attempting to bury her brother by denying natural necessity and especially the natural necessity of mortality (see 469—70). Antigone most obviously rebels against the human laws and conven­tions of her city. But her deepest rebellion is against the sway not of Creon or Thebes but of nature itself.

The characteristic act of Antigone's heroism, the act that most clearly reveals the nature of her heroism, and the denial of human mortality, which is the basis of that heroism, is her insistence on burying the corpse of her brother. The insistence on disposing of the dead in one fashion or another seems to be a universal human phe­nomenon (see, for example, Herodotus 3.38). It was clearly important to the Greeks, as can be seen from their literature and their deeds. In the Iliad, for example, the Achaean warriors fight desperately to protect the corpse of Patroclus in order to keep it for burial, and the Trojan King Priam exposes himself to death and disgrace in order to recover the corpse of his son Hector for burial. In Sophocles' Ajax, Teucer runs great risks in order to ensure that the corpse of his half-brother Ajax will be buried. In Euripides' Suppliants, Theseus and the Athenians go so far as to wage war on Thebes in order to recover the corpses of non­Athenian, Argive soldiers for burial. Perhaps most spectacularly, the Athenians put to death the admirals who had just led them to one of their city's greatest naval victories — at Arginusae — because they had chosen not to recover for burial the corpses of the Athenians sailors during a dangerous storm after their victory.^[83] Antigone and eventu­ally Creon himself allude to eternal, divine “laws” that require the burial of the dead (449-70, 1108-10). These divine laws are referred to as well, for example, by the gods in the Iliad (16.453—7, 667—75), by Teucer and Odysseus in the Ajax (1129—32, 1342—5), and by Theseus and his mother in Euripides' Suppliants (18—19, 307—13, 5²4-63).

To be sure, there were Greeks who did not place such importance on the burial of the dead, as required by divine law. Most notably, the philosopher Socrates, on the day of his death, expresses utter indiffer­ence as to how, or even whether, he should be buried, on the grounds that, once he is dead, he will no longer exist in any way in his body. His body will simply become a lifeless thing (Plato Phaedo 115c2-116a1). Socrates goes so far as to suggest that the belief that the dead somehow live on in their corpses is an “evil” of the soul (115e4-6). Socrates also tried to prevent the Athenians from executing their victorious admirals who left the bodies of the dead sailors at sea in order to save the sailors who were still alive (Xenophon Hellenica 1.7.9—15; Plato Apology of Socrates 32a5-c4). Indeed, Fustel de Coulanges suggests that the admirals were themselves “students of the philosophers” (1900, 11). But it is also true that, like the admirals, Socrates was condemned to death and exe­cuted by his fellow citizens for impiety, and that all philosophers were, according to Socrates, believed to be atheists (Plato, Apology of Socrates 23c7-d7; see also Laws 966d9-967d2). The example of Socrates, then, only underscores the great importance the Greeks as a whole - the unphilosophic, pious Greeks - placed on the burial of the dead.

But why is it so important for human beings to bury their dead? Antigone suggests that, unburied, the corpse of her brother will be food for the birds (Antigone 29-30; see also Creon's statement at 198-206 and Haemon's at 696-8). The premise of Antigone's desire to bury her brother would seem to be that, contrary to the Socratic view, her brother is somehow still present, somehow still alive, in the corpse, even after he has died. What is so horrible about the spectacle of birds eating her brother's corpse is that they will be devouring and destroying her still living brother and not merely a lifeless corpse that was once his. Later, Haemon claims that the common people of Thebes admire Antigone because “she is one who would not leave her own brother, who fell in bloody conflict, unburied, to perish because of dogs who eat raw flesh or some bird” (696-8 - emphasis added). Haemon suggests that, in the common view, a dead human being has not truly perished and hence is not truly dead unless its corpse is destroyed, for example, by hungry dogs. What is so important about burying the corpse is that one thereby saves the dead from death and hence that one somehow allows the dead to live on after death. Viewed in this light, one buries the dead in order to benefit the dead, by conferring a kind of immortality on them (see 559—60).

Yet, one might still ask, even if burial prevents the corpse from being food for birds, will it not still be food for other living creatures — worms, for example — once the corpse is buried (consider Herodotus 3.16)? The play invites us to ask this question because it presents such a vivid account of how corpses naturally decay. One of the guards of Polyneices' corpse explains that, after returning to the corpse from informing Creon that someone had sprinkled dust on it, he and his fellow guards fulfilled the king's orders to exhume the body. “Once we brushed off all the dust laid on the corpse and stripped naked the damp body, we sat at the top of the rocky hill, away from the wind, fleeing the smell of the body upon us... These things were so for some time, until, in the midst of the sky, stood the shining circle of the sun and the heat was scorching” (409—12, 415—17). Through this description of touching and smelling the damp, stinking body, Sophocles indicates with stern clarity the fate of even the corpse that escapes being torn to pieces by dogs and birds and also, it would seem, the fate of the corpse that is buried. This description suggests that what makes an unburied corpse so terrible for us who remain alive is that, by seeing — and smelling — it, we witness a body, which was just alive and which may still seem alive, quickly and surely rot and decay. We see this body become visibly, evidently dead. And we are tempted, by the over­powering evidence of our senses, to conclude that the dead human being truly is no more. To fail to bury a corpse, to treat a corpse as a mere thing — to be used to feed animals, for example, or even to be left, as a fallen leaf, to wither away on the ground — is to affirm, in perhaps the most vivid manner possible, the mortality of human beings.

To bury a corpse, then, is to escape the vivid, sensual apprehension of the deadness of the dead, and hence of our own mortality as well. Viewed in this light, we bury the dead in order to benefit not only the dead but also ourselves, by hiding from ourselves the full, sensible manifestation of our natural, human mortality, and so enabling our­selves to affirm, notwithstanding the abstract awareness of the decay of dead human bodies, that human beings truly do, somehow, live on after death. To bury the dead, then, is to deny that we are by nature mortal beings. Accordingly, Antigone’s passionate insistence on burying the corpse of her brother reflects her passionate longing and hope for im­mortality.

The key to understanding Antigone’s uncanny, heroic daring is her piety. She dares to defy her king all by herself because she is convinced that she is not all by herself but is rather supported by gods. She dares to risk death to bury the corpse of her brother because she is convinced that, by doing so, she will not truly die but will rather enjoy the divine reward of eternal well-being. She dares to step beyond her female nature and even her mortal nature by defying the death threats of those who are naturally stronger because she denies the sway of nature and places her hopes in supernatural beings who enable the weak to overcome the strong, women to overcome men, and mortals to win the divine reward of immortality in another, nether world, after death. In Antigone, then, we witness above all the seemingly supernatural strength and daring of piety itself. For it is the pious hopes, convictions, and longings of this solitary, seemingly helpless young girl that give her the strength to defy, against all odds, her king, her city, and even nature itself.^[84]

We may view Antigone as a Greek version of the Bible’s pious hero, David. Like David, the young girl bravely opposes a mighty adversary, against overwhelming odds, convinced that the gods stand behind her (see, for example, I Samuel 17:45—7). Indeed Antigone appears even more daring and pious than David. For she is not only a youngster, like David, but a girl, challenging a male king in a man’s world, without any weapon in hand at all, without even the moral support of her fellow citizens or her surviving sibling. In Machiavellian language, she is a wholly unarmed princess. Antigone truly faces her Goliath alone, armed only by her faith in the gods. Hers is a pure heroism of faith.

Yet it is precisely her faith that buckles and collapses at the end. In the end, Antigone is not destroyed by the superior physical strength of her enemies. On the verge of being rescued from imprisonment by Haemon and released altogether by a contrite and frightened Creon, Antigone loses all hope that the gods will save her, and kills herself.

What undermines the piety of this pious heroine is not threats but arguments, arguments that challenge her wisdom, justice, and piety. Antigone appears in three scenes in the play, two of which are domin­ated by debates: one with Ismene about the wisdom of burying their brother and then one with Creon about the justice and piety of burying her brother. In her final scene Antigone expresses grave doubts about her justice and piety. In the play, then, Antigone’s faith is put to the test by reasoned arguments. While her faith is evidently not shaken by the challenge of Ismene, it is weakened and ultimately, it seems, destroyed by the challenge of Creon.