THE POWER OF FAMILIAL PIETY: THE FALL OF CREON

The demise of Antigone might seem to vindicate Creon. After all, Antigone dies persuaded by Creon that it is at least doubtful that justice consists of devotion to one's family, and hence doubtful that the divine law commanding devotion to one's family is truly divine.

⁴¹ Of the six suicides that take place within the seven extant plays of Sophocles, three are reported within the space of just over a hundred lines at the end understanding of justice as devotion to the city over the family at the end of the play, and returns to the divine law that commands devotion to one's family. While Antigone comes to question her attachment to the divine law in the course of the play, Creon returns to the divine law and condemns himself by it. Antigone kills herself out of despair of the gods; Creon condemns himself out of fear of the gods.

Creon's return to the divine law, however, precedes rather than follows the deaths of his son and wife. Those deaths occur after Creon has buried the corpse of Polyneices and has resolved to free Antigone from all punishment. It is not grief over the deaths of his loved ones that prompts him to return to the divine law and its elevation of the family over the city. Indeed, the death of his other son, Megareus, evidently did not inspire any change of heart in Creon at all (1301—5). As long as Creon is confident that justice means devotion to the city rather than to the family, he is not shaken by deaths within his family. What, then, causes him to lose his confidence in his own understanding of justice?

Creon begins to abandon his understanding of justice and to return to the divine law even before Teiresias declares that he must bury Polyneices or suffer punishment from the gods.

of the Antigone (1175—1283). The other three are those of Jocasta, Ajax, and Deianira (Knox 1964, 42).

even to those family members who have violated the laws of the city. He also expresses concern that the gods may punish him and his city for shedding the blood of his niece. Finally, he acknowledges the possi­bility that the gods will intervene to save her from death as a reward for having buried her brother as required by divine law and hence, pre­sumably, the possibility that they may punish him for having attempted to thwart her. Accordingly, when Teiresias later demands that Creon bury Polyneices as required by divine law and free Antigone, it is not altogether surprising that Creon yields fairly quickly. For his dispute with Haemon has already prompted him to embrace the belief that justice and piety require devotion to family members who are disloyal to the city, and to wonder whether the gods may not deem Antigone's burial of her brother wholly just and pious.^[97]

How does the debate with Haemon undermine Creon's conviction that justice means devotion to the city over the family? Until this scene, Creon has appeared adamant in this belief.

However, when Creon actually comes face to face with one even “nearer in blood” than his nieces — his own son Haemon — he appeals to his son's filial loyalty as well as to his concern for the well-being of Thebes. Indeed, Creon appeals first to his son's love for him as his father. He first asks: “Child, can it be that you come here to rave to your father, after hearing the final resolution concerning your bride-to-be? Or are we loved by you, whatever we may do?” (632—4). Then, when Haemon reassures him of his love, Creon sets forth a vision of the family strikingly different from what he has said until now. “For, thus, child, you ought to be able in your heart to stand behind your father's judgment in all things. Indeed it is for the sake of this that men pray to have obedient offspring born in their homes: that they may retaliate against their father's enemy with evils and honor his loved one equally to what their father would do.

Creon depicts the family here as a community based on love. Sons should benefit their fathers by punishing their enemies and protecting their loved ones. In return, sons benefit both from the judgment and the love of their fathers and of the rest of their family. Creon suggests here that the family is a more genuine community than the city. For the city is based on fear: the citizens' fear that they and their loved ones will sink with the ship of state if the city is destroyed, and the citizens' fear of their rulers, who must punish most terribly those who threaten the city with destruction. But the family, as Creon describes it here, is based on the positive desire to belong to such a community and to enjoy the love, the guidance, and the protection of one's kin. The only “punishment” Creon mentions here for a disloyal or disobedient son is inflicted, not by the father, but by the son himself, who must suffer the greatest evil: a cold, loveless life with an evil “loved one.” Creon seems to suggest here that happiness is to be found primarily within one's family and that one should devote oneself to one's city above all because the security of one's family depends on the city.^[98] The question arises, however, if one is devoted to one's city for the sake of one's family, does it make sense to sacrifice one's family for the sake of one's city?

The family, Creon hints, is also more of a sacred community than the city. For even though the gods are, in his view, angry with those who threaten the city, Creon never suggests that men pray, or should pray, to the gods to protect the city (see 282—9).

Creon proceeds to argue that Haemon should also accept his fiancee's death because it is necessary to the well-being of Thebes. Creon stresses here that, if he were to spare Antigone after she has violated his laws, he would seem to be a weak ruler, the citizens would lose their fear of him, and chaos would ensue. “There is no greater evil than anarchy. This destroys cities and overturns households. This shatters the spear of an ally and routs him. But of those who act rightly, obedience to rulers saves most bodies. So we must defend those who are orderly, and we must never be worsted by a woman. For it is better, if indeed one must fall, to fall at the hands of a man, and we would not be called less than women” (672—80). Creon here returns to his earlier argument that the city alone can save us and our loved ones from death, that the city's ruler must be strong and fearsome in order to protect the city from destruction, and hence that, as a ruler, he must punish remorselessly those like Polyneices and Antigone who defy the laws of the city and thereby threaten to plunge the city into anarchy.

Haemon responds to his father by arguing that, precisely insofar as Creon is a fearsome ruler, he runs the risk of ignoring potentially dan­gerous currents in public opinion. For his subjects are too afraid to reveal to him what they truly think and feel.

Yet Haemon's argument here is unconvincing. There is simply no evidence in the play that the people of Thebes are so devoted to Antigone that they will rebel against Creon's rule to save her or avenge her death. The chorus of Theban elders expresses sympathy for what Haemons says here and also for Antigone in her last scene, but they also suggest that she has acted unjustly (724—5, 800—5; 853—6, 872—5). Antigone herself certainly feels as though she is dying unloved by all (839—52, 876—82, 923). Furthermore, Haemon's argument seems inconsistent in its por­trayal of the Thebans. If they are too frightened of Creon to criticize him, will they not be too frightened to revolt against him (see 220)? Finally, Haemon offers only his own testimony to the popular support for Antigone. But is Haemon not under the sway of Eros and therefore a wholly unreliable witness in the case of his beloved bride-to-be?^[99] Indeed, is Haemon not merely repeating here his beloved Antigone’s own earlier assertion that her actions have been most glorious and that the Thebans are hiding their overwhelming support for her because they fear Creon (compare 692—9 with 502—9)?

Whether or not the Thebans support Antigone, but in secret, out of fear of Creon, it is increasingly clear in this scene that Haemon himself openly and fearlessly supports Antigone in defiance of his father and king. When Creon calls his son “all-evil” for publicly quarreling with his own father, Haemon drops all pretense of concern about the public’s support for Antigone and publicly declares in his own name that his father is both unjust and impious: “For I see you mistakenly doing unjust things” and “For you are not pious but tread on the honors of gods” (742—3, 745). Through this public accusation of injustice and impiety, Haemon suggests that his father deserves to be challenged by his son, overthrown by the Thebans, and punished by the gods. And when Creon insists that Antigone will be executed, Haemon responds: “Then this one will die and, dying, will destroy another” (751). In this way, Haemon appears to threaten to kill his own father and king, a threat he later attempts to carry out (1220-39).

Creon’s first response to Haemon’s accusation of injustice and impiety and threat to kill his father and king is to announce his intention to execute Antigone before his son’s eyes, either in order to punish him or in order to terrify him into submission with an act of sensational cruelty. Yet, after Haemon departs, Creon immediately begins to yield, as his son had argued he should. He spares Ismene altogether and he imprisons Antigone rather than executing her directly, lest he be deemed polluted by the gods for shedding the blood of his niece. Why does Creon yield, even in part, to his son, given that he is not persuaded by his son’s arguments, given his own belief that yielding will plunge Thebes into a destructive anarchy, and given that his son has just publicly accused him of injustice and impiety and has apparently threatened to kill him?

therefore cannot agree with the claim that the city of Thebes speaks to Creon “in the person of Haemon” (Knox 1964, 108, 114; see also Reinhardt 1979, 85; Meier 1993, 196, 200; Carter 2007, 110).

In order to understand why Creon begins to abandon his belief here that justice means devotion to the city over the family, one must consider what that belief would demand of him here. Haemon has publicly attacked his king as an unjust and impious ruler and has apparently threatened to kill him. By doing so, he has threatened the well-being of Thebes at least as much as Polyneices, who killed his brother the king, and certainly more than Antigone, who attempted to bury her brother in defiance of the king. Must the king not punish such dangerous lawlessness? Just as Creon was willing to punish his own niece with death in order to demonstrate his justice and strength and thereby save the city from a deadly anarchy, must he not punish his own son, even with death? The logic of Creon’s own understanding of justice would seem to require him to execute his son for threatening to commit regicide.

Yet Creon recoils before such a conclusion. While he is perfectly capable of sacrificing his nieces, the daughters of his sister, one of whom is the bride-to-be of his son, for the sake of the city, he cannot bring himself to sacrifice his son Haemon. But why not? As we have seen, Creon has a vision of the family as a community based on love, in which fathers pray to the gods for obedient and loving sons who will protect the entire family. All his hopes for happiness appear to lie within his family. Yet, according to Eurydice, Creon has already sacrificed one son, Megareus, for the sake of the city (1301—5). Why, then, does Creon shrink from sacrificing his other son as well?

The key difference between Megareus and Haemon, in Creon’s eyes, is highlighted by the chorus: “Here is Haemon, latest and last of your offspring” (626—7). The loss of any child must always be hard, but the loss of one’s last remaining child is worse, insofar as it signifies the end of one’s lineage, of one’s flesh and blood, and therefore, in some sense, of one’s self (consider 905—12). As is stressed throughout the play, fathers instinctively view their children as extensions of themselves. Haemon says to Creon, in his first words in the play, “Father, I am yours” (635). Teiresias later describes Haemon as coming from Creon’s “inward parts (σπkαyχvωvy^, (1066). When the First Messenger announces, “Haemon has perished; with his very own hand (βOTθχεzp) his blood was slain,” the chorus asks whether it was his father or “his own hand” (θiκεiaζ χepaς) that killed him (1175—6; see also 55—7). In this way, the elders instinctively identify father and son together, as the same kin (εμφi)λloυς), in Creon's later words (1263—4), as the same flesh and blood.^[100] Accordingly, by begetting a son, a father extends his own self, even beyond his lifetime.

With this thought in mind, let us reconsider the remark of Creon we cited earlier: “Indeed it is for the sake of this that men pray to have obedient offspring born in their homes: that they may retaliate against their father's enemy with evils and honor his loved one equally to what their father would do” (641—4). Creon suggests here that men pray for sons who will act as they themselves would act — “equally to what their father would do” — while their fathers are still alive, to be sure, but also once they are dead. Fathers pray for sons because through their sons they hope, in some sense, to live on, through an extension of their own selves, through their other selves. Similarly, fathers are, as Haemon observes, delighted by the “flourishing glory” of their children, in part because they share in that glory and hope to live on through that glory once they are gone (701—4). They themselves “flourish,” as the First Messenger points out, with the birth of fine children because, through their children, they hope to continue to flourish even past their death (1164). As long as one has a child, the limit of one's self has been extended indefinitely past one's demise. For one's child lives on, as may one's child's children, and so on into the future. Having children, then, is a way for fathers and mothers to escape from inescapable Hades, to escape from mortality (361).

For Creon to kill his last remaining son would, in his view, be tantamount to annihilating himself, even more so than if he were simply to kill himself. One who kills himself, or dies in some other way, may still comfort himself with the thought that his child will live on. But to lose one's child, one's last child, is to lose all hope for the future. Hence Eurydice's suicide now, after the death of Haemon, but not after the death of Megareus, makes a certain sense. For the limit of her existence has been irrevocably fixed by the death of her last remaining child.

The Antigone raises far-reaching questions about the reasonableness of regarding one's family, and especially one's children, as an extension of oneself. Haemon, for example, is not only strikingly different from his father in his character, but even attempts to kill him. Nevertheless, the play also points to the family as a most powerful expression of the human longing — eros — for immortality. Indeed, the chorus responds to the bitter dispute between Haemon and Creon by singing an ode to Eros. Ostensibly, the chorus is commenting on the “unvanquished” power of eros to inspire a loving and obedient son to challenge and defy his father and king (781). But the words of the ode spotlight the intimate connection between eros and mortality. For while the ode notes that the immortal gods themselves cannot escape from the sway of eros, it focuses on the power of eros over humans, who “last but a day” (790). In this way, the ode suggests that eros is the longing of mortal human beings for immortality. Eros is the response of mortal man to his helplessness before death (see 90, 220, 361).^[101]

In this light, Creon's inability to sacrifice his last remaining son for the city reflects the invincible power of eros. By killing Haemon, he would destroy his hopes of living on through him after death and thereby thwart his own longing for immortality. This Creon evidently cannot do. And just as he recoils from shedding the blood of his own son, his own flesh and blood, so does he recoil from shedding the blood of his nieces, who are also his own flesh and blood.

Creon's quarrel with his son reawakens his reverence for the family. Creon expresses outrage at Haemon and calls him “all evil” and “polluted,” not for openly quarreling with his king but for quarreling with his father (742, 746). The outrageous behavior of his son reminds Creon of his deep-seated belief — one that had been overshadowed in his heart by the political crisis provoked by Polyneices' invasion and near­destruction of Thebes — that it is all-evil and impious to be insolent to your father and, more generally, that it is evil and impious to be disloyal to your own flesh and blood. But would he not himself also run the risk of pollution and impiety by punishing his own nieces, the daughters of his sister, his own flesh and blood? Indeed, if disloyalty to one's family is “all-evil,” is not loyalty to one's family, even one's treasonous family members, all good? Might not Antigone, then, be deserving of honor rather than punishment?

Creon's original argument that justice means devotion to one's city over one's family was based on his thesis concerning the natural disunity of the family. As we have seen, that thesis draws considerable support from the play as a whole. That thesis undermines Antigone's confident belief in her own justice and piety and fills her with doubt and despair. But, ultimately, Creon cannot truly embrace that thesis himself. He cannot apply that thesis to his own family. When he sees his own son defy him and threaten to kill him, Creon retreats to the belief that the family is a sacred community, disloyalty to which is the greatest of evils.

Creon's concern for the city is rooted in his fear of instability and perhaps ultimately in his fear of death. But his concern for his family is rooted in his hopes for happiness in a community knit together by love — a happiness in this life that is the answer to his prayers, that is blessed by the immortal gods — and in his hopes for living on through his offspring after death. Creon's concern for his family, then, is ultimately rooted in his longing for immortality.

At the end of his dispute with Haemon, Creon agrees to spare Ismene altogether, and Antigone in part, in order to escape the pol­lution of shedding the blood of his own kin. Creon would rather risk plunging the city into destructive anarchy than provoke the wrath of the gods. To be sure, Creon claims here that he seeks to ensure that “the whole city may escape pollution” (776; see also 889). But it is hard to see why the city would be polluted if its king were to shed the blood of his own family. No one ever suggests that Thebes was polluted when king Eteocles shed the blood of his brother (141—6, 170—2). It would seem that only Creon would be polluted by killing his niece and hence that only he would be punished. By the end of his quarrel with Hae- mon, then, Creon's concern for the well-being of the city has been eclipsed by his fear that the gods may punish him for having acted disloyally toward his family.^[102]

It is therefore not surprising that, when the soothsayer Teiresias demands that Creon bury Polyneices lest he be punished by the gods, and implies that he should release Antigone as well, Creon gives in fairly quickly. Indeed, Creon has always been reverent toward Teiresias and toward the gods, the soothsayer reports. And Creon evidently remains reverent toward the soothsayer, for he is immediately terrified when Teiresias warns him of the danger of divine punishment (991—7; see also 1058). It is true that Creon angrily accuses Teiresias of injustice and greed when he first demands the burial of Polyneices. But it is also true that Teiresias is somewhat peremptory in his demand and his explanation of why Creon should yield — birds are “screaming in evil and unintelligible agony,” sacrifices are not burning properly, and “all” the city's altars and hearths are covered with Polyneices' flesh — may understandably strain credulity, especially since Teiresias is blind and relies entirely on his one slave for his entire report (1001—2, 1016, 1011—16). Moreover, even in the midst of his attacks on Teiresias, Creon concedes that the soothsayer is wise (1059). Finally, once Teiresias warns in detail that Creon will lose his son and will himself be punished and destroyed by the Furies, the avenging demons of Hades and the gods, Creon is overwhelmed by the pious fear that first began to emerge after his quarrel with Haemon, and he gives in completely (1064-79, 1095-7, 1113-4, and also 1199-1282; see 773-80, 885-90). He buries the dead Polyneices and then goes to release the imprisoned Antigone. Indeed, when Creon discovers that Antigone is dead, and his own son attempts to kill him, and then successfully kills himself, Creon is so convinced of his own guilt in having violated the divine law, acted unjustly to the family, and angered the gods - and perhaps also impressed by Teiresias’s prediction that, before long, the gods would punish him by killing his son - that he blames himself for his son’s attempted patricide (1177-8, 1261-76, 1339-41; consider as well 1206-20; but see also 1064-7, 762-5). After his wife curses him as a killer of children and then kills herself, Creon condemns his own actions against the family in the strongest possible terms, as unjust and impious, while expressing no concern at all for the well-being of the city (1283-1353). After his quarrel with his son, then, Creon’s return to traditional, familial piety is rapid and complete.

Yet it is precisely Creon’s return to traditional, familial piety that destroys him. Once he resolves to yield entirely to Teiresias, Creon apparently decides, at the urging of the chorus, first to free the living Antigone and then to bury the dead Polyneices (1099-1112). How­ever, after affirming the importance of following divine law - “For I fear it may be best to complete one’s life preserving the established laws” (1113-15) - Creon evidently changes his mind and decides first to bury the dead Polyneices and then to free the living Antigone (1196-1282). This decision is disastrous, for he arrives too late to save Antigone. Had he arrived in time, the suicides of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice would not have taken place, Antigone and Haemon presumably would have gotten married, and Creon presumably would have continued to rule, albeit chastened by his experiences. Why, then, did Creon decide to bury the dead corpse before going to release the living girl? It would seem that he did so out of his devotion to the divine law and his fear of the gods’ wrath. For it is the divine law, it is piety itself, that emphasizes the importance of honoring the dead more than the living and the importance of the next life over this life.^[103] Teiresias, for example, had insisted that Creon bury the corpse of Polyneices, had not referred at all to Antigone initially, and later had only vaguely hinted that Creon should free Antigone (1015—20, 1029—30, 1064—71).^[104] Similarly, Antigone herself had insisted that, by sacrificing her life to bury the corpse of Polyneices, she was fulfilling the divine laws of Zeus and Justice (450—70). Creon’s actions here are exactly in the spirit of Teiresias and Antigone. And they lead to his destruction. Like Antigone, Creon places greater importance on the corpse than on the living. And like Antigone, he is destroyed. The play, then, bears witness not only to the tremendous power, but also to the destructive power, of piety.

Nonetheless, even though Creon is destroyed by his return to the divine law, it was clearly a mistake for him to defy the divine law by forbidding the burial of the corpse of Polyneices. Creon believed that, by terrifying the citizens with the cruel spectacle of the traitor's rotting corpse, he could inflame their fear of death and deter any of them from fomenting strife within the city. But this attempt to impress on the Thebans that they are mortal, and hence must faithfully obey their mighty ruler, backfires. It provokes a pious reaction in Antigone, in Teiresias, and ultimately, if not initially, in the rest of the city as well — a zealous insistence that death is not the end, that we are not limited by our natural mortality, and that there are supernatural gods who have it in their power to confer immortality upon us and to reward and punish us well beyond this life (consider 278—9, 1091—1107). And so powerful is this pious longing for immortality in the human heart that it finally engulfs Creon as well. The play suggests that rulers must never underestimate the power of the pious longing and hope for immortality and that they must generally accommodate such passion rather than defy it. Prudence dictates that Creon should have permitted the burial of Polyneices, even though he was a traitor.

More broadly, the play suggests that it is futile to hope, as Creon did, that the political community can ever be secured against the threat of anarchy. Precisely given the power of pious sentiment, anarchy is, in some measure, inevitable. For piety, while inevitable in the city, always threatens to undermine the city. Indeed, as the scene between Creon

and Haemon demonstrates, piety threatens to undermine the family as well. The belief that the gods reward and punish us in this life, as well as in the next, and hence that they are the true rulers of human beings, inevitably weakens the authority of all human rulers. Accordingly, Antigone invokes the gods to justify her defiance of her king and uncle Creon, and Haemon invokes the gods to justify his defiance of his king and father Creon. Indeed, the fact that Haemon proceeds to threaten and then attempt to kill his father suggests just how far piety may undermine the family. For when Creon states that it is “all-evil” of his son to fight with his father, Haemon responds that it is just to fight with an unjust and impious father (742—5). But if it is just to fight with an impious father, might it not be just to kill such a father (746—52, 1220—39)? More broadly, the belief in the gods empowers the naturally weak to rise up against the strong. It inspires subjects to rebel against rulers, women against men, sons against fathers, the blind against those with sight. While the play, then, stresses the need to accommodate piety, it also highlights the explosively anarchic power of piety.