23 last-born of your children: the significance of this detail will become painfully clear, below p. 44.

  for Antigone: the Greek adds, ‘and for the disappointment with regards to his marriage’.

  24 to Sacred Kinship: the Greek actually says ‘to Zeus who presides over the family’.

  27 as will avert . . . a curse upon the city: Creon does not inflict the threatened punishment of stoning on Antigone, choosing starvation instead. The token supply of food with which she is to be imprisoned is intended to avert the pollution which the killing of a kinswoman would normally be supposed to incur, but may also be seen as an offering to the gods of the underworld.

  28 Love: the Greeks had several different words customarily translated as ‘love’. Here the Greek term is the personified force exclusively of sexual love, Eros, usually depicted as a boy.

  Aphrodite: goddess of sexual love, and mother of Eros.

  Hades: the Greek suggests that Antigone is going to a nuptial chamber, introducing the motif of the ‘bride of death’ which becomes prominent henceforward.

  29 Acheron: a river of the underworld, usually conceptualized as a stagnant lake, whose name was derived from a word meaning ‘lamentation’.

  alone among mortals: the translation omits the important point that Antigone goes to her death ‘autonomously’ (auto-nomos), i.e., of her own free will.

  Niobe: a princess from Phrygia in Asia Minor, the daughter of Tantalus. Niobe married Amphion, an early ruler of Thebes. She boasted that she had borne many beautiful children, whereas Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, had borne only two. The divine siblings killed Niobe’s sons and daughters in recompense. The bereaved mother was subsequently transformed into stone on Mount Sipylus back in her homeland, her tears symbolized in perpetuity by the rivers which course down the mountain side. Both Aeschylus and Sophocles dramatized her tragic story.

  a goddess, and born of the gods: the former is not strictly speaking true, but Niobe was of divine descent. Her paternal grandfather was Zeus.

  30 Dirke’s stream: see above, note to p. 6.

  Labdacus: Oedipus’ paternal grandfather.

  O brother: some have thought that this is a macabre address to Oedipus, simultaneously Antigone’s father and her brother. It is more likely, however, that it refers to Polyneices, whose armed assault on Thebes with an Argive army, and consequently both his death and Antigone’s, were precipitated by his marriage with Argeia, daughter of the Argive king Adrastus.

  31 Persephone: the daughter of Demeter and Zeus (Hesiod, Theogony 912–13), and, in her capacity as wife to Hades, goddess of the underworld.

  my brother: here Antigone means Eteocles.

  For when you died . . . : the ‘you’ here is plural, encompassing Oedipus, Iocasta, and Eteocles. As above, p. 4, Sophocles is supposing a version of the myth in which Oedipus died at Thebes, rather than, as in his Oedipus at Colonus, at Athens.

  31 Yet what I did: The authenticity of the whole of the remainder of this speech has been questioned. Some scholars have deleted it all, others various individual verses. But if the speech includes lines which were not written by Sophocles, they had been interpolated by the time Aristotle published his Rhetoric in the fourth century BC, because he quotes lines 911–12 (Rhet. 3. 16. 9), ‘But since my mother and my father | Have both gone to the grave, there can be none | Henceforth that I can ever call my brother.’ The main ground on which deletions have been suggested is ethical: it has been objected that Antigone’s declaration that she would not have contravened a civic edict to bury a husband or child is ‘unbecoming’ and inconsistent with her obedience to the ‘unwritten law’ pertaining to burial avowed elsewhere. But the lines can equally well be defended by their being seen as an extreme expression of Antigone’s obsessive fidelity to her natal family, and therefore entirely in keeping with her overall characterization.

  32 I fear these words . . . the verge of death: the manuscripts attribute these two lines to Antigone.

  33 Fair Danae: Danae was an Argive princess, daughter of King Acrisius. He received an oracle from Delphi informing him that he would be killed by a son of hers. To prevent her from conceiving he therefore imprisoned her in a room built for the purpose within his palace. Both Sophocles and Euripides composed plays about Acrisius and Danae. This choral ode provides several examples of mythical characters who, like Antigone, suffered from incarceration.

  divine seed: Acrisius’ plan was foiled because Zeus (named in the Greek here), taking the form of a shower of gold, visited Danae in her prison and impregnated her. She subsequently gave birth to Perseus (famous for slaying the Gorgon), who did eventually kill his grandfather.

  Lycurgus: king of the Edonians in Thrace, Lycurgus rejected the worship of the god Dionysus. As a result, he was driven mad, committed various crimes, and was eventually imprisoned in a cave on Mount Pangaeum. This story was dramatized by Aeschylus.

  the tuneful Muses: although more usually connected with the god Apollo, the Muses are sometimes imagined as forming part of Dionysus’ entourage.

  Salmydessus: a town lying about 60 miles up the western coast of the Black Sea from the Bosphorus. The Greek adds that it was the domain of Ares, the god of war.

  a wife . . . bitter constraint: Cleopatra, the wife of Phineus, king of Salmydessus. She was imprisoned after he had put her aside in favour of a new wife, Idaea or Eidothea.

  34 a darkness that cried for vengeance: the translation of this whole strophe is a loose paraphrase of the Greek, which refers elliptically to a myth undoubtedly familiar to its original audience (Sophocles himself composed at least two tragedies on the theme). The stepmother, jealous of her rival Cleopatra’s two sons by Phineus, blinded them with a shuttle.

  a race of ancient kings: the descendants of the early Athenian king Erechtheus. Cleopatra’s mother Oreithyia was Erechtheus’ daughter.

  Her sire the offspring of gods: Cleopatra’s father was Boreas, the god of the north wind, himself the son of Eos, goddess of the Dawn.

  in a distant country: Thrace. Boreas abducted Oreithyia from Athens to his northern home, where their children were reared.

  the lofty Mountains: the translation omits the important point made in the original that, unlike Antigone, Cleopatra was ‘a child of the gods’.

  35 my ancient seat | Of augury: Teiresias’ ‘bird-watching shrine’ could still be seen at Thebes by tourists in the second century AD(Pausanias 9. 16. 1).

  offered sacrifice: Teiresias, baffled by the ominous clamour of the birds, attempts another form of divination, by setting alight an offering of bones wrapped in fat. The auspice was deduced from the manner in which the offering did or did not burn when set alight.

  from him who guides me: his boy attendant (not Apollo).

  Lydian silver: Lydia in Asia Minor was famous for its metal ore, and believed to be the country where money had been invented.

  36 Zeus’ own eagles: in the Iliad the eagle is described as Zeus’ ‘swift messenger’, because, as the strongest of all birds, it is his favourite (24. 310–11).

  36 the land I saved from mortal danger: this probably alludes to Teiresias’ advice, given earlier to Creon and Eteocles when Polyneices was besieging Thebes. A version of the story is given in Euripides’ Phoenician Women (930-1018). Teiresias had explained that Ares was angry with the city because Cadmus had long ago killed a child of the god, the dragon from whose teeth, when sown in the earth, the Theban aristocracy had sprung. If the city were to be saved from Polyneices, one of the descendants of the ‘sown men’ must die in order to propitiate Ares. As a result, Creon’s elder son, called Menoeceus by Euripides, but Megareus in Antigone (below, line 1302), had patriotically committed suicide.

  37 One who should walk upon it: the translation does not make it entirely clear that both this and the subsequent phrase refer to Antigone.

  Their sure avengers: the Erinyes (singular: Erinys), often translated into English as ‘Furies’, divinities whose special responsibility was to avenge crimes of blood, especially within the family. They were the agents of Dikē, ’Justice’ or ‘Retribution’.

  Whose mangled sons: there has been no previous suggestion that funeral rites were to be denied to any of the enemy corpses except that of Polyneices. The recovery and burial of the remaining bodies, at the instigation of the Athenian king Theseus, was a familiar story, dramatized by Euripides in his Suppliant Women.

  I have lived long: the Greek actually says that Teiresias has never been wrong either when the chorus had dark hair or since it has become grey—that is, in all their lifetime.

  38 Necessity: the divine personification of absolute and ineluctable destiny, the goddess Anankē was, like Zeus, a daughter of Cronus.

  whose names are many: the Greek gods had many different titles. Some were toponymics, referring to the different places in which they were worshipped, and some were descriptive of the particular capacity or function of the divinity in which he or she was being invoked. Dionysus had a large number of titles, including ‘Bacchus’ and ‘Iacchus’. This particular hymn meditates on the numerous places in which his cult was practised.

  thy Theban mother-nymph: Dionysus was the son by Zeus to Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia.

  Italy: some editors have doubted the manuscripts’ reference to Italia, substituting Icaria, a district north of Athens with an important local cult of Dionysus. But the Greeks had colonized southern Italy, taking their gods with them, and the reference to Italy emphasizes the universality of the worship of Dionysus which is the underlying theme of this ode.

  Where Demeter has her abode: Demeter, goddess of arable farming and mother of Persephone, the queen of the underworld, received at her shrine in the Attic town of Eleusis—the ‘abode’ mentioned here—a famous mystery cult in which Dionysus also played a prominent role.

  Ismenus’ flood: a river flowing to the east of Thebes, after which Ismene is named.

  the savage | Dragon’s teeth had offspring: see above, note to p. 7.

  39 Parnassus’ height: Parnassus is a mountain in Phokis with a steep face on which the Delphic oracle, sacred to Apollo, was built. Dionysus was believed to hold revels on the mountain (Euripides, Ion 716).

  the spring of Castaly: the Castalia is a stream flowing from the cliffs above Delphi.

  Asian hills: the translation departs considerably from the Greek, which names Nysa, a mountain traditionally associated with Dionysus, but located in many different places. Here the Mount Nysa of Euboea in mainland Greece is probably meant.

  with swift healing: the Greek refers to Dionysus’ familiar function as katharsios, ’purifier’.

  Euripus: the straits between Euboea and Boeotia, the district in which the city of Thebes lay.

  40 Pallas: the goddess Athena, whose temples at Thebes are mentioned in Oedipus the King (line 19). In the aftermath of the siege Eurydice was presumably thanking Athena in her capacity as the goddess who protects citadels.

  41 no stranger to bad news: Sophocles again hints at the death, prior to the action of the play, of Creon and Eurydice’s elder son (see above, note to p. 23).

  41 Hecate and Pluto: it is important for Creon, having failed to send Polyneices’ corpse to the world below with due burial, to appease these gods’ wrath. Hecate was a wandering goddess of crossroads, but also the divine representative on earth of the underworld; Pluto was a ritual title of Hades.

  42 Inside the palace: excessive public displays of mourning were frowned upon in Sophocles’ time, and, indeed, at Athens actually outlawed.

  43 Enter MESSENGER: there is no indication in the Greek as to whether this messenger is male or female. The character is probably meant, however, to be the same (male) messenger who followed Eurydice into the palace after line 1255.

  a blade into her heart: it is comparatively rare for women in tragedy to stab themselves. Most females, for example Antigone and Iocasta, commit suicide by hanging themselves.

  44 Megareus: the elder son of Creon and Eurydice, to whose death oblique allusion has already been made (see above, note to p. 41), is finally named.

  45 a wife and a son: the translation reduces the pathos of the original, in which Creon addresses both characters vocatively in the second person singular.

  OEDIPUS THE KING

  49 My children: it is unusual for rulers in Greek tragedy to address their citizens in this way; it implies the ‘benevolent paternalism’ of Oedipus’ rule, but also his absolute power.

  Cadmus: the founder of Thebes and its royal dynasty.

  the boughs that mark the suppliant: branches of laurel or olive, entwined with wool.

  hymns and prayers: the Greek names explicitly the paian, the prayer to Apollo the Healer.

  before the altars: the altars in front of the palace, including certainly that of Apollo (see below, line 919).

  the shrine | Of fiery divination: the Greek makes it clear that the Theban temple of Apollo Ismenios is meant. Divination by means of burnt offerings was practised there.

  The withering god of fever: at this stage no particular god is named as responsible for the plague afflicting Thebes, although later it is unusually identified with Ares, the god of war (line 190).

  50 No god we count you: it is important to establish that although Oedipus is an autocrat (unlike the democratically-minded Athenian kings in tragedy), he does not sacrilegiously expect to be regarded by his citizens as divine.

  the cruel Sphinx: the Greek here does not actually name the Sphinx, but calls her simply ‘the cruel singer’.

  on our bended knees: i.e. assuming the traditional posture of supplication.

  51 in Phoebus’ house: in Apollo’s temple.

  for they Are signalling: presumably some of the suppliants attending the priest.

  There is pollution: the Greeks believed that homicides were afflicted by pollution, miasma, which could communicate itself to all who came in to contact with them.

  52 Laius: previous king of Thebes and husband of Iocasta. He was the son of Labdacus and a descendant of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.

  Where was he murdered? It is Aristotle’s only criticism of this, his favourite tragedy, that Oedipus is here implausibly characterized as totally ignorant of the circumstances surrounding his predecessor’s death (Poetics 1460a30).

  53 Her riddle: the Sphinx’s famous riddle asked what thing goes on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening. The answer to the riddle is ‘man’. It is noteworthy that Sophocles at no point in the play recounts the riddle explicitly, although tracing Oedipus’ own progress from a helpless baby to a man in his prime to a blinded cripple, who can walk only with the aid of his ‘third leg’—a walking-stick.

  the god: named in the Greek as Zeus.

  54 Apollo too, who shoots from afar: the chorus invokes three of Zeus’ Olympian children to assist them in their plight. Athena, goddess of cunning intelligence, Artemis, the goddess who presides over the Theban market-place (but is also responsible for childbirth), and Apollo ‘who shoots from afar’, the archer-god whose arrows can bring both disease and remission from it.

  to the dark realms of the dead: the Greek actually says ‘to the shore of the western god’, for the home of the shades of the dead was traditionally located towards the setting sun (e.g. Homer, Odyssey 12. 81).

  55 Daughter of Zeus: either Athena or Artemis may be meant here.

  god of War: Ares, named in the Greek, unusually in this play held responsible for physical afflictions resulting not from violence, but from plague.

  to his distant home: this is a reductive adaptation of the Greek, which graphically specifies ‘either to the great deep of Amphitrite [a sea-goddess, probably here to be associated with the Atlantic] or to the hostile waves of Thrace [a country bordering on northern Greece, probably here suggestive of the Black Sea] where it is difficult to anchor’.

  lord of the sacred dance: Dionysus, otherwise known as Bacchus, was the patron deity of dancing. See above, note to p. 8.

  The savage god: Ares once again. In the Iliad Zeus describes him as ‘the most hated of the gods to me’ (5. 890).

  56 lustral water: collective sacrifices made by a household included the sprinkling of its members with consecrated water. Denial of access to this ritual meant, effectively, excommunication.

  57 Agenor: a Phoenician king, whose son Cadmus came to Greece and founded Thebes. He was succeeded by his son Polydorus, his grandson Labdacus, and his great-grandson Laius. The enumeration of Laius’ ancestors adds weight and solemnity to the curse Oedipus is about to pronounce.

  Justice: Dike. See above, note to p. 17.

  58 or other form of divination: e.g. by fire, as attempted by Teiresias in Antigone, above, note to p. 35.

  62 Cithaeron: a mountain range sacred to Zeus lying near Thebes, and dividing Attica and Plataea. It was there that Oedipus was exposed in infancy.

  63 staff: it is impossible for any translation to convey the effect in the Greek attained by the use of the same word, skēptron, for the sceptre which grants Oedipus his royal authority, for the weapon with which he killed Laius, and for the staff on which he will lean, blinded, at the close of the play.

  64 The voice of god: here the oracular voice of Apollo at Delphi.

  the terrible god: Apollo, armed with his father Zeus’ lightning, is here envisaged as the executor of punishment.

  The Furies who punish crime: here the Greek names the Kēres, agents of divine vengeance, often identified with the Erinyes (see above, note to p. 37).