Antigone : daughter of Oedipus. She followed her father in banishment & disgrace. After her brothers, Eteocles & Polynices, were killed in the war of the Seven Against Thebes, Creon, regent of Thebes, forbade the burial of Polynices. Antigone, in spite of his command, performed the funeral service for her brother. Creon buried her alive. The story is told by Sophocles, the Athenian poet, in Oedipus at Colonus & Antigone.
... the opening line of Sophocles' famous play, Antigone, which happened to be the second book I studied while learning Greek. The first was Euripides' Medea, which is Media in Greek – note here the play on long vowels to which I have referred in my last talk. This is how Sophocles begins his play with the following words put in the mouth of Antigone: O koinon autadelphon Ismenes kara.... or sin in obeying the Laws of Heaven in disregard of the laws of men. Antigone would be courting death, a cruel death, at the hands of mortal man, in order to be true to a vow ordained by something higher than man, and she does so in the end. There is shown in this play another clash or conflict which takes place within Antigone herself, in the depths of her inner being. This concerns her intimate... common to both, born of the same self." What hidden depths of feeling are brought forth in these few Page 58 compact words! Very strange and peculiar is the character of this Antigone. Outwardly, there is in her nature a strength, a hardness that amounts almost to harshness. There seems to be no room there for any tender feelings or love, and any kind of softness. There is only ...
... shelter and food, but no one could give him back his sight. And who was to lead him from place to place? Who but his daughter Antigone? She guided his steps along the roads; she begged the strangers whom they met to take pity on him. She carried his messages. When Antigone left him for a moment, old Oedipus was sad. Great was his joy when she returned; and when he touched her hand again he said: ... alone to a valley surrounded by high rocks. There he took a bath and dressed himself in fine garments. A clap of thunder was heard. And old Oedipus disappeared from sight. He had joined the gods. Antigone wept at his departure: Oh, I was fond of misery with him: E'en what was most unlovely grew beloved When he was with me. He had indeed lived in misery, but how much more he would Page ...
... divinity. An exquisite instance of this almost divinised human element – this residuum of humanity raised and taken into Page 254 divinity is given by Sophocles in his Antigone.¹ The very first words that Antigone utters addressing her sister express wonderfully this feeling I am trying to express here – this feeling of union and compassion in an exquisite beauty of expression: it has a tone ...
... reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone. I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the state ...
... to their age and mental development. That is why, when I Page 62 took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone . I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the ...
... material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone. I began a translation of Antigone into Bengali and Sri Aurobindo offered to write a preface if I completed the translation, a preface where, he said, he would take up the question of the individual versus the ...
... learn. Foremost among them were Nolini and Moni, who had had to stop their college studies because of their revolutionary activities. He taught them French, Greek, Latin and Italian, L’Avare, Medea, Antigone, Vergil and Dante. Both Nolini and Moni would gain fame as writers in Bengali. They had to eat too. ‘We did the cooking ourselves and each of us developed a specialty,’ narrates Nolini. ‘I did ...
... during the religious festivals. Only seven of his tragedies have survived into modern times with their text completely known. The most famous of these are the three tragedies concerning Oedipus and Antigone: these are often known as the Theban plays or The Oedipus Cycle. Sophocles influenced the development of the drama, most importantly Page 34 by adding a third character and thereby reducing ...
... 28-9 Aeschylus, 86 Aesop, 258 Afghanistan, 284 Agni, 16, 19-20,22-3,28, 33-5, 45, 157 61, 164, 166, 180,214 America, 198,284 Ananda, 133 Andamans, 103 Ansars, 267 Antigone, 187, 273 -Aphrodite, 182 Apollo, 180, 182 Aragon, 88 Aristotle, 89, 248 Arjuna, 254 Arnold, Matthew, 71, 189,234 -Essays in Criticism, 234n Arya, the, 131,227-8 ...
... social life. The problem – Man versus Society, the individual and the collective-the private and the public sector in modern jargon – is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims to the demand of his people ...
... lose themselves in the general current. That is to say, a separate and separative growth of the individual consciousness had to proceed at the same time under whatever duress and compression. An Antigone stood alone in the inviolable sanctity of the individual conscience against the established order of a mighty State. Indeed, individualised individuals were more or less freaks in the social set-up ...
... teaching a new language was, not through primers and grammars, but to make the pupil plunge into the living waters of its great literature. Nolini began Greek with the Medea of Euripides and the Antigone of Sophocles. Latin with the Aeneid, and Italian with Dante.** This was also the period when they felt they might indulge a little in the luxury of buying books. With a lavish provision of Rs. ...
... which is the foundation of the law of universal love. Then, not seeking this at all but only poetic delight or, if you are so inclined, the criticism of life, we listen to Creon's fierce reproach to Antigone that in her refusal to hate the national enemy she stands unnaturally apart from the mind and heart of all her people and hear suddenly start out the high and proud reply of one lonely and doomed ...
... Sophocles, on becoming an octogenarian, heaved a sigh of relief, saying: "Now at last I am free from passion." A pretty good climax to the human drama - as notable an achievement as having penned Antigone or CEdipus Tyrannus. Goethe at the same age put the finishing touch to his Faust, the last lines of the great chorus with which it ends. In English they would read: The Eternal Feminine ...
... education the reading material must be adapted to their age and mental development. That is why, when I took up Greek, I began straightaway with Euripides' Medea, and my second book was Sophocles' Antigone.... I began my Latin with Virgil's Aeneid, and Italian with Dante.... I should tell you what one gains by this method, at least what has been my personal experience. One feels as if one took a ...
... Eumenides, the Alcestis, the Ion and Oedipus Coloneus in a contemporary context; Jean Anouilh Page 264 has likewise sought inspiration in the legendary or mythical stories of Antigone, Medea and Eurydice; other dramatists too—Andre Gide, Jean Giradoux, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Cocteau, Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Jack Richardson—have found the ancient Greek myths susceptible ...
... Seer Poets Index A Agni 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 31, 72 Aldous Huxley 33 Antigone 40 Aphrodite 34 Apollo 34 Aristotelian 49 Arnold 43 Arya 90, 92 Ashram 92 Asuras 5 Athens 47 Atri 8 Atul Gupta 102 Auchathya 8 Avatara 27 B Bacchus 34 Balaka 92 Bamardo ...
... outer social life. The problem—Man versus Society, the individual and the collective—the private and the public sector in modem jargon—is not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed Page 40 herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims ...
... the piles of Sanskrit, English, German and Italian books scattered about his room and right on his cot, for they were too poor to afford even a cupboard. Or else He taught Italian, Greek and Latin (Antigone, Medea, The Aeneid) to one of them who proved particularly interested in literature—this was Nolini, Sri Aurobindo’s oldest disciple, who would become the General Secretary of the Ashram. But the ...
... law for the crime of possessing a conscience". The issue had been whether Pal should obey the letter of the law requiring him to give evidence or whether he should rather obey (as many like Antigone had done) "the imperative command of his conscience" which he held to be a "more sacred and binding law than the Penal Code". But Pal and the country alike only stood to gain from his conviction: ...
... of self-determined action. Paramount in her eyes are the laws of humanity and pity: these only she will acknowledge, these alone will guide her actions. She is thus a heroine cast in the mould of Antigone, who dares to defy Kreon's might rather than submit to outrageous injustice, and is very different from the traditional Andromeda who is more akin to Iphigenia, the innocent maiden sacrificed by ...
... course. Now I see so clearly into the destiny of men and their hidden – and transparent – power. I hear in the distance Euripides' poignant voice: “A path is there, and none could see it.” I hear Antigone's tender voice: “Deprived of tears, of Page 123 my kin, what is this justice that sends me down into this dug dungeon, this unheard grave? Io! Unfortunate outcast, rejected by the living ...
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