Themes

Ancient Greek quotations are from H. Lloyd-Jones, Sophocles II: Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, Loeb Classical Library 21, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London 1994.

Quotations from Charalambides are from D. Connolly’s translation, Kyriakos Charalambides, Myths and History, Minneapolis 2010.

The poem deals with the fall of Creon, king of Thebes, after the deaths of Antigone and his son Haemon. 

Lines 1-3

Creon the king who reflects

that the light is more difficult

that the pain of darkness

For a possible allusion see Sophocles Antigone 1328-32:

Let it come, let it come! May it appear, the best of deaths

for me, bringing my final day, the best fate of all! Let it

come, let it come, so that I may never look upon another

day!

Lines 15-16

He recalls the moment when his head

started downhill.

Αn echo of Sophocles’ Antigone 1345-46:

for all that is in my hands has gone awry, and fate hard

to deal with has leapt upon my head.

Language  

Characters

Creon (Title, line 1)

Αntigone (line 17)

Haemon (line 17)

Bibliography