ANTIGONE

Summary :

After the exile of Oedipus, his twin sons, Étéocle and Polynice, fight for the throne of Thebes where they will reign alternately. Summerocles will temporarily retain power with the help of his uncle Creon and his mother Jocasta. But Polynices allied himself with the Argians to besiege Thebes. The two brothers then find death in the battle that opposes them. Creon became king of Thebes and refused Polynices any burial, even though he gave an official funeral to Étéocle.
The beginning of the play takes place on a square in Thebes in front of the palace of the Labdacids.

1. Prologue
   Ismene finds her sister Antigone, who has arranged to meet her outside the palace in the middle of the night so that she can talk to her in secret. Antigone tells Ismene of her plan to bury her brother Polynices herself, as she cannot bear to see him thus abandoned and fall into disgrace, whereas Étéocle had the honour of being buried according to the rite. Antigone expresses her determination, even if it amounts to going against the royal order of Creon, and asks Ismene to act with her to prove that she is still faithful to her race. But Ismene answers that she is incapable of going against the laws of the city and exposing herself to the death penalty. Ismene tries in vain to dissuade her sister, but for Antigone, divine laws are superior to human laws and the gods demand a burial for Polynices. Ismene therefore lets Antigone leave and fulfil her destiny: "Leave, since you have resolved it. This is madness, know this well; but you know how to love those you love. »
   This dialogue is followed by the entrance of the Choir, which goes back to the battle between Summerocles and Polynices for the throne of Thebes: "Alone, the cursed princes, the two German brothers, face to face spear against spear, each took their share of a common death. »

2. First episode
   King Creon describes to the old Theban choir, his advisers, the policy he wishes to implement now that sovereign power has returned to him: "Whoever assumes the leadership of a state, if he has other concerns than the public good and lets his tongue be nailed down by I don't know what timidity, I say - and I have always said - that he is the worst of cowards. "He claims that these are the principles that dictated the public edict forbidding any citizen to mourn the Polynesians and honour them from a grave.
   A guard intervened to announce to King Creon that his edict had been violated since the body of Polynices had been covered with earth in accordance with the rites. As the guard feared when he came to announce this news to the king, Creon, in his anger, suspected the guard of having buried the body himself. He ordered him to find a culprit who could exonerate him, on pain of being executed himself.
   The first episode ends with the Song of the Choir, which praises the intelligence and universal genius of this marvel that is man, but which, faced with its contradictions, is capable of good and evil.

3. Second episode
   The guard returns a little later to hand Antigone over to the king and explain that she is the culprit. After the guards have laid Polynices' body bare again, Antigone appears, shouting and moaning, and is caught burying the body again. Antigone has admitted her guilt before Creon. She supposes that she violated her public edict, of which she was perfectly aware, to respect the divine laws and the justice of the gods who dictated that she should bury her brother's body. Fearing only divine justice, Antigone is satisfied to have fulfilled her duty at the risk of being sentenced to death.
   Creon does not support Antigone's claim to be above the law. Out of pride, he doesn't want to give up punishing her and let her triumph: "As long as I live, it is not a woman who will make the law. "He suspects Ismène of having plotted this funeral with her sister and brings her h

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