Nobody can be sure they are always right. King Creon’s son Haemon asks the King to reconsider his order. If you obey King Creon, you disobey the gods. So the question is “Should you obey your King or should you obey the laws of the gods?” If you obey the laws of the Gods, you disobey the King. Anybody who was caught trying to bury the body would be sentenced to death. The other brother Polyneices fought against Thebes, and King Creon ordered that his body not be buried but left out in the open for the dogs and birds and other animals to feed on. One brother Eteocles fought for Thebes, and for him King Creon ordered an honorable burial. Two of the sons were killed in the war between Thebes and Argos that has just ended. For breaking the natural law of the gods, Oedipus’ entire family is doomed. Perhaps Heaney thought that this play is part of a trilogy of plays about Thebes, and thus Thebes should be in its title.Īntigone and Ismene are children of Oedipus, “daughters of the man who fathered us on his mother”. Perhaps Heaney thought that the focus of the play is not only the woman Antigone, but also King Creon.

About the only thing I can’t fully understand is why this book is given the downer title of “The Burial at Thebes” rather than the simpler “Antigone”. I had previously read Seamus Heaney’s version of Beowulf, so I already knew that he could do excellent work with a new version of an ancient script. It is no mere coincidence that these writers are all poets, poets whose writing is simple and direct and forceful.

When it comes to new editions of the great early Greek plays, I have my favorites – Anne Carson, Ted Hughes, and now Seamus Heaney. “The Burial at Thebes – A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone” translated by Seamus Heaney (2004) – 74 pages

Antigone translation