🦋🤖 Robo-Spun by IBF 🦋🤖

(All parts in English)

I would like today to try to speak to you about Antigone, specifically the play by SOPHOCLES written in 441 BCE, and the economy of this piece. I believe it is a text that deserves, in every way, to serve as an example for us—a cornerstone around which revolves what KANT presents to us as the foundation of this essential communication. This communication, as Kant proposes, is not only possible but even necessary within the category of the beautiful. In this context, only the example—and this is entirely different from the object—is what allows transmission in this category.

On the other hand, as you know, we are reexamining here the function and place of this category in relation to what we have sought to approach as the aim of desire. To put it succinctly, something about the function of the beautiful may, in our inquiry here, come to light once again. This is where we currently stand. It is but a point on our journey.

“Do not be surprised…” PLATO says at one point in the Phaedrus, which is precisely a dialogue about beauty:

“Do not be surprised by the length of the path, for such a detour is necessary.” [274a]
[Ὥστ᾽ εἰ μακρὰ ἡ περίοδος, μὴ θαυμάσῃς· μεγάλων γὰρ ἕνεκα περιιτέον, οὐχ ὡς σὺ δοκεῖς.]

So today, let us move forward in our commentary on Antigone insofar as it illustrates, in a truly admirable way—read this text to discover an unimaginable pinnacle of annihilating rigor which, I believe, finds its only equivalent in SOPHOCLES’ other work, Oedipus at Colonus, his final masterpiece written in 455 BCE.

Regarding the date I have placed on the board—441 BCE—I would like to draw you closer to this text so you can appreciate its extraordinary impact. Last time, we said:

• There is ANTIGONE,
• Something happens,
• There is the CHORUS.

Moreover, concerning the nature of tragedy, I referred you to a statement from ARISTOTLE about the laws and norms of tragedy. I left part of that statement unexplored, as we are not concerned here with the classification of literary genres. That passage ended with pity and fear achieving katharsis [κάθαρσις], the famous katharsis. At the conclusion of our discussion of Oedipus, we will attempt to determine the true meaning of this katharsis of passions of this kind.

Strangely, authors—specifically GOETHE—have attempted to locate the function of this fear and pity within the action itself. That is, they sought to see in the action a model of a kind of balance struck between fear and pity. However, this is undoubtedly not what ARISTOTLE tells us. As I mentioned, what ARISTOTLE says remains to us like a sealed path, due to the curious fate that left us with so few fragments of his own text, owing to gaps and losses over time.

Yet let me make one immediate observation: regarding the two protagonists—CRÉON and ANTIGONE—please note at first glance that neither of them appears to know fear or pity. This is a significant point. If you doubt it, it is because you have not read Antigone. Since we are about to read it together, I believe I can make this clear to you. On closer inspection, moreover, it is not merely “it seems” but rather “it is certain.” This is why, among other things, ANTIGONE is the true hero. It is certain that at least one of the two protagonists, until the very end, knows neither fear nor pity—and that is ANTIGONE. At the end, CRÉON—as you will see—is touched by fear, and if this is not the cause of his downfall, it is undoubtedly the signal of it.

Let us now return to the beginning. It is not even that CRÉON has, so to speak, the first word. The play, as constructed by SOPHOCLES, first presents us with ANTIGONE in her dialogue with ISMÈNE, affirming her intention and the reasons for it in her first lines. We will revisit the style of this intention shortly.

It is only subsequently that CRÉON appears. He is not merely a foil, but he is essential to our analysis. CRÉON, insofar as he serves to illustrate what we are proposing regarding the structure of tragic ethics—which is also that of psychoanalysis—CRÉON illustrates this: he seeks to do good. And after all, that is his role.

The leader is the one who guides the community. He exists for the good of all. What is his fault? ARISTOTLE tells us, using a term he promotes as essential to tragic action: ἁμαρτία [hamartia].

This term, we find some difficulty translating: error—occasionally inflected in the ethical direction, even moral at moments—error of judgment, as we come to interpret it. But perhaps it is not so simple. ARISTOTLE makes this error of judgment essential to the mechanics of tragedy.

As I mentioned last time, nearly a century separates the era of great tragic creation from its interpretation within philosophical thought. As HEGEL already noted, MINERVA only rises at dusk. After all, I am not entirely sure about this. However, we may recall this frequently cited remark to think that something indeed separates:

• the inherent teachings of tragic rites,
• from their later interpretation within the framework of ethics, which for ARISTOTLE is the science of happiness.

Nevertheless, we may observe the following—something I could readily demonstrate in other tragedies, particularly those of SOPHOCLES—that here ἁμαρτία (hamartia) does exist, is true, and is confessed. The term ἁμαρτήματα (hamartemata) appears in CRÉON’s own discourse [line 1261] when, at the end, under the blows of fate, he collapses.

Ἁμαρτία is not situated at the level of the true hero; it is at the level of CRÉON where this error of judgment occurs.

His error of judgment—and I believe we can grasp this more closely here than philosophical thought, “friendly to wisdom,” ever has—is precisely…
though certainly “before its time,” for let us not forget how old this is: 441 BCE…
the “Sovereign Good,” which our friend PLATO had not yet forged as a mirage.

For CRÉON, it lies in seeking to make this good into a boundless law, a sovereign law, a law that overflows, surpasses a certain limit. He does not even realize that he crosses this famous boundary, which we simplistically assume ANTIGONE defends. This boundary is said to concern the unwritten laws of δίκη (diké), this δίκη that represents justice, the voice of the gods. It is often thought that stating this is sufficient; in fact, it says very little.

Indeed, this is another domain—a field upon which CRÉON, like an innocent, stumbles. Through ἁμαρτία, not strictly in the sense of judgment error but as a broader fault, he oversteps. Observe, in light of the questions we may pose concerning the nature of moral law, that his language aligns perfectly with what KANT calls the Begriff, the concept, of the good. It is the language of Practical Reason. His command and his prohibition regarding the denial of burial to POLYNICES, deemed unworthy, a traitor, an enemy of the homeland, are based on the idea that one cannot honor equally those who defended the homeland and those who attacked it. From a Kantian perspective, this is indeed a maxim that can be proposed as a universal principle of reason.

Thus, even before its formalization—before the ethical progression from ARISTOTLE to KANT, which ultimately identifies Law and Reason as one—the tragic spectacle shows us the fundamental objection: the good cannot seek to reign over everything without an excess arising, one whose consequences, as tragedy warns us, will be fatal.

What is this infamous field that must not be overstepped? I mentioned it earlier. We are told: this is the realm of unwritten laws, the will, or better, the δίκη (diké) of the gods. Yet, here is the problem: we no longer know what the gods are. Let us not forget that for some time now, we have been living under Christian law. And to rediscover what the gods are, we must turn to ethnography. If you read that Phaedrus I mentioned earlier—a text that explores the nature of love, as it is titled—you will notice how much the axis of the words we use to target this concept has shifted.

What is this love?

• Is it what, after the oscillations of the Christian experience, we now call sublime love? You will see it is indeed very close to that, though reached by other paths.
• Is it desire?
• Is it what some believe I identify with this central field here, namely some natural evil inherent in man?
• Is it what CRÉON, at one point, calls anarchy?

Whatever it is, in the Phaedrus, you will notice, in a passage you can easily find, that the way lovers react to and enact love varies according to the epoptía (initiatory vision) in which they have participated. This refers to specific rites of initiation in the ancient world—precise ceremonies during which phenomena occur that, broadly speaking, resemble what, across ages and still today, can be found under the form of trances or possession. These are instances where a divine being manifests itself through the person who, so to speak, lends their presence to the phenomenon.

This is why PLATO tells us that those who have undergone the initiation of ZEUS do not react in love the same way as those who have undergone the initiation of ARES. Replace these names with those used in a particular region of Brazil to refer to certain spirits of the earth, of war, or a sovereign deity—we are not here to indulge in exoticism, but this is indeed what it concerns.

In other words, it pertains to something that is scarcely accessible to us anymore except from an external perspective—through science, objectification. For us Christians, shaped by Christianity, it does not belong to the text where the question of this domain is effectively raised, this domain that we Christians have swept clean of its gods, as everyone knows.

It is precisely about what we have put in its place that the question arises here, illuminated by psychoanalysis. In other words, it concerns what remains in this domain as limits—limits that were undoubtedly always present but which now alone remain, marking their boundary in this field, deserted for us Christians. This is the question I dare to pose here. In this field, the boundary in question is essential because it allows, through reflection, the emergence of a certain phenomenon which, in an initial approximation, I have called the phenomenon of beauty. This is what I have begun to highlight and define as the boundary of the second death.

This boundary, as I first illustrated with SADE, is one that seeks to track nature down to the very principle of its formative power, the principle that governs the alternation of corruption and generation.

Beyond this order—which is already not so easy for us to comprehend or integrate into knowledge—SADE tells us, taken here as a reference point within a moment of Christian thought, that beyond this order, there exists something, a transgression is possible, which he calls crime. And the meaning of this crime, as I have shown you, can only be a derisory fantasy.

What is at issue here is what thought designates as crime in this sense, in the sense that—properly speaking, to use terms that lend weight to this notion—it does not respect the natural order. SADE’s thought goes so far as to forge this truly singular, unprecedented excess.
For, indeed, prior to SADE, such ideas seem not to have emerged—or at least not apparently so—at least in articulated thought, for we do not know what mystical sects may have formulated over time. But SADE could articulate and think that through crime, it is within the power of the man who assumes it to liberate nature from the chains of its own laws. For its own laws are chains. The reproduction of forms, which confines its harmonious yet irreconcilable possibilities in a dead-end of conflicts, must be swept aside to force nature, so to speak, to begin again from nothing.

Such is the aim of this crime, which is not coincidentally such a horizon in our exploration of desire, and which also explains why FREUD had to attempt to reconstruct the entire genealogy of law beginning from an original crime.

These boundaries of “beginning from nothing,” of ex nihilo, are, as I told you earlier this year, where a thought that seeks to be rigorously atheistic must necessarily stand. A rigorously atheistic thought positions itself within a perspective that is creationist, and no other.

Moreover, to illustrate that sadistic thought precisely resides at this boundary, nothing is more exemplary than the fundamental fantasy in SADE. I mean the fantasy that the exhausting array of images he provides of desire merely illustrates. This is precisely the fantasy of eternal suffering. Central to the image of suffering inflicted in the sadistic scenario is the fact that suffering cannot and does not bring the victim to the point of dissolution or annihilation. The tormented object must, in the fantasy, seem to retain the possibility of serving as an indestructible support.

Indeed, it is clearly a fantasy, as analysis reveals. The subject detaches a double of itself that is made inaccessible to annihilation, to bear what, in this context, must be called, borrowing a term from aesthetics, the “play of pain.” For this indeed belongs to the same domain as aesthetic phenomena—a certain free space. And in this lies the conjunction, never previously emphasized, between the “play of pain” and the phenomena of beauty.

This conjunction—as if some taboo, some prohibition akin to the difficulty we see in our patients to confess what truly belongs to the realm of fantasy—has rarely been noted. But it is evident in SADE’s text, where the victims are always adorned, not only with all forms of beauty but with grace itself, which is the ultimate flower of beauty.

How can we explain this necessity, if not by first rediscovering it hidden yet always imminent, regardless of how we approach the phenomenon:

• whether through the moving exposure of the victim,
• or through the unsettling perfection of beauty too well exposed, too well rendered, leaving one paralyzed before the image and its underlying shadow of menace.

But what is this menace? It is not annihilation.

I believe this is so essential that I intend to guide you once more through the texts of KANT in the Critique of Judgment. These are extraordinarily rigorous on the nature of beauty. I set them aside here, I mean, I place them in parentheses.

Nevertheless, this relationship to the object, which no doubt involves the same forces at play in knowledge but which, as KANT tells us, are engaged in the phenomenon of the beautiful without the object being truly involved—do you not perceive, do you not touch upon the analogy here with the sadistic fantasy itself? In this fantasy, the object exists only as the source of suffering, which in turn is merely the signifier of a boundary, the point at which suffering is conceived as a stasis, as something affirming that what exists cannot return to the annihilation from which it emerged.

And this boundary is precisely what Christianity has erected in place of all other gods, in the form of this exemplary image, secretly pulling all the threads of our desire: the image of the crucifixion. After all, if we dare—not to face it, for mystics have absorbed themselves in it for centuries, but to speak of it directly—it is undoubtedly more difficult to address directly. But if we dare, we might say this is something we can call—before the term existed—the apotheosis of sadism, the deification of all that remains in this domain: namely, the boundary where being subsists in suffering. It can do so only by means of a concept that represents the exclusion of all other concepts, precisely that of ex nihilo.

To illustrate this point, let me remind you, analysts, of what you can readily observe: namely, the extent to which the image of Christ on the cross, promoted in this way, can literally poison the fantasies guiding feminine desire—from the daydreams of pure young girls to the unions of matrons. Should I go further? Should I say that Christianity, sanctimoniously, has crucified man through this image for centuries? Sanctimoniously!

Recently, we have discovered that administrators are saints. Could we not invert this, and say that saints are administrators? Saints are indeed administrators of access to desire. For Christianity’s operation upon humanity unfolds at a collective level. The gods, dead in the hearts of Christians, are hunted across the world by Christian missions. The central image of the Christian deity absorbs all other images of human desire, with some consequences. Perhaps this is the edge of history where we now stand. This is what, in administrative jargon, is referred to in our time as the cultural problems of underdeveloped countries.

I am not here to promise you any particular surprise—good or bad—arising from this; as they say in Antigone, those will come soon enough.

Now, let us turn to Antigone: Antigone is the heroine, the one who carries the voice of the gods. She is the one—translated from the Greek—who is said to be made more for love than for hate. In short, she is truly a tender and charming young woman, if we believe the kind of sentimental commentary that characterizes what certain “good authors” say about her. I would like simply to make a few observations to introduce her.

To get straight to the point, let me tell you the term around which Antigone’s drama revolves. This term, which you will find repeated twenty times in the text—an extraordinary frequency for such a short piece—rings like a bell. Yet it can still go unnoticed. This term is ἄτῃ (Até). [ἄτης, ἄτερ (4), ἄτιμόν (5), ἄταϕον (29), ἄτιμα (78), ἄτην (185), ἄτα (533), ἄτερ (566), ἄτας (583), ἄτας (614), ἄταν (623), ἄτας (625), ἄτῃ (1097), ἄτην (1260)]

It is irreplaceable. It is precisely the term that designates the boundary human life cannot cross for long. The CHORUS’ lines on this point are significant and insistent: ἐκτὸς ἄτας [614, 625].

Beyond this ἄτῃ (Até): that is where one can remain only for a very short time, and that is where Antigone seeks to go. This is not a sentimental expedition, particularly because Antigone herself leaves no ambiguity about her situation. Literally, she hides nothing about her predicament: she has had enough! Her life is no longer worth living. She exists in the shadow of the intolerable drama from which arose the lineage that has just annihilated itself in the figures of her two brothers. She lives under Creon’s roof, subjected to his law, and this she cannot endure.

She cannot endure being dependent—you might say—on someone she detests. That she detests. But why, after all? She is housed, fed—and unlike Electra in Giraudoux’s version (and let us not forget, Giraudoux didn’t invent this; it comes from EURIPIDES’ Electra)—she is not married off to a gardener. Nevertheless, she cannot tolerate it. And this plays its role well. Not only does it play its role well, but in the text, it carries significant weight in explaining, so to speak, her resolution—a resolution declared from the outset in her dialogue with Ismène.

Her dialogue with Ismène is something that, from the start, is exceptionally cruel. For when Ismène points out:

“Listen, truly, in the situation we’re in, we’re already not very free—let’s not add to it.”

Antigone immediately seizes upon this:

“Above all, now, do not take back what you’ve just said, because even if you wanted to, I no longer want you.”

The terms ἐχθαρεῖ (echtarei), ἐχθρὰ (echtra) [93-94], denoting enmity, concerning Antigone’s relationship with her sister and what she will find beyond when she reunites with her dead brother, are introduced immediately.

The same person who will later declare, “I am made to share love, not hate,” begins her presence in the text with words of enmity. As the events progress, when her sister attempts to join her in her fate—despite not having committed the forbidden act—Antigone rejects her with a cruelty that surpasses all boundaries of refinement. She tells her:

“Stay with CREON, whom you love so much.”

She caps her disdain with utter contempt. Thus, we have sketched, at least partially, what we might call the “enigma” of Antigone. This enigma is that of an inhuman being. We cannot place her within the bounds of monstrosity—what would that even mean for us? The CHORUS, however, represents this perspective throughout the narrative. At one moment, in response to one of Antigone’s breathtakingly sharp replies, the CHORUS exclaims that she is ἐμός (émos). This term is often translated loosely as “inflexible,” but its literal meaning is harsher: something raw, uncivilized. It aligns best with the term for those who eat raw flesh. This is the CHORUS’s perspective—they understand nothing of her. In their view, she is as ἐμός (émos) as her father. That is their judgment.

For us, the issue is this: What does Antigone’s crossing of human limits signify if not that her desire aims directly at what lies beyond ἄτῃ (Até)? The same word, ἄτῃ, gives rise to the term “atrocious.” That is what is at stake here.

The CHORUS emphasizes this repeatedly and insistently in a specific intervention that I will point out to you, using a technical insistence. This is what it means: one approaches or does not approach ἄτῃ, and when one does, it is due to something tied to an origin, a chain linked to the misfortune of the LABDACID family.

Once someone begins to approach this, events unfold in a cascading sequence. At the root of everything happening within this lineage lies something, the text tells us, determined by a μέριμνα (merimna). This word is almost identical to μνήμη (mnēmē), with a hint of resentment. However, it would be highly inaccurate to translate it as “resentment,” as that is a psychological concept, while μέριμνα is one of those ambiguous terms, hovering between the subjective and the objective. It belongs, properly speaking, to the realm of signifying articulation. The μέριμνα of the LABDACIDS is what drives Antigone to these boundaries of ἄτῃ, which can, of course, be translated as misfortune.

But this has nothing to do with misfortune in the ordinary sense. It is the meaning imposed, perhaps by the gods—undoubtedly implacable—that renders her devoid of pity or fear and that, for us, creates the figure of Antigone as she appears at the moment of her act. This is what compels SOPHOCLES, the poet, to craft such a fascinating image: for the first time, in the shadows, she goes to cover her brother’s body with a fine layer of dust, a light dust sufficient to veil him from view. Because that is the issue: this decay, with dogs and birds tearing off pieces to carry them—so the text tells us—to altars at the heart of the cities, where they spread both horror and plague, cannot be left exposed to the world.

Antigone has performed this act once. What occurs beyond a certain boundary must not be seen. A messenger reports what has happened, saying, “We found no trace; we cannot know who did this.” The order is given to scatter the dust again, and this time, Antigone is caught.

The messenger returns and describes what happened in the following terms: they first cleaned the corpse of what covered it, then positioned themselves downwind because of the stench. At the very least, they had to avoid the unbearable emanations from the corpse.

But then a strong wind began to blow, and the dust this time filled the atmosphere, even reaching, as the text says, the great ether. In this moment, as everyone took refuge however they could, huddling into their own arms, shielding themselves from this transformation of nature’s face, from this approach of total obscurity, of cataclysm—this is where little Antigone appears. She reemerges beside the corpse, emitting, as the text tells us, the cries of a bird whose young have been stolen. A striking image, and even more so because it is repeated by other authors.

I have extracted the four lines from The Phoenician Women by EURIPIDES, where she is similarly compared to a mother bereft of her brood, crying out with pitiful cries. These lines vividly convey what, in ancient poetry, always symbolizes this evocation of the bird. Let us not forget how closely pagan myths align with the idea of metamorphosis. This is, properly speaking, akin to the transformation of PHILEMON and BAUCIS.

It is the nightingale that, at least in EURIPIDES’ text, emerges without ambiguity as the image in which the human being seems to transform through this lament. The boundary we encounter here is precisely the one where the possibility of metamorphosis resides—a concept carried through the centuries, hidden within OVID’s works, regaining its vigor and virulence during the Renaissance, that pivotal moment of European sensibility. We see it reemerge, even explode, in SHAKESPEARE’s theater.

This is who Antigone is. From this point, the progression of the play should become accessible to you. First, we have the dialogue between Antigone and Ismène. I must clear the way for this, although it is impossible to pass over certain lines in silence. Lines 48, 70, and 73, where an idiomatic peculiarity bursts forth in Antigone’s speech, marked by the placement of the word μέτα (meta) at the end of the sentence. Μέτα means “with” and also “after.”

Μέτα is precisely—because prepositions in Greek do not function as they do in French, just as particles in English play a role unfamiliar to French—μέτα signifies, properly speaking, the notion of separation.

“But it has nothing to do with what concerns me,”
(ἀλλ᾽οὐδὲναὐτῷτῶνἐμῶνμ᾽εἴργεινμέτα) [48].

This is her reply regarding CREON’s edict forbidding contact with POLYNICES’ corpse.

At another moment, when she says to her sister:

“Even if you wanted to join me now to do this sacred work, I would no longer accept you,”
(εἰθέλοιςἔτιπράσσειν, ἐμοῦγ᾽ἂνἡδέωςδρῴηςμέτα) [70],

μέτα—“with”—appears at the end again. Or when she says to her brother:

“I will lie with you, dear friend, almost a lover, here beside you,”
(ϕίλημετ᾽αὐτοῦκείσομαι, ϕίλουμέτα) [73].

Here again, μέτα, meaning “with,” is placed at the end of the line. Normally, μέτα—like “with” in French—would appear before the word it modifies.

This unusual placement, in a way, conveys something sharp and significant about Antigone’s presence. I will not delve into the details of her dialogue with Ismène, as it would be an endless commentary, worthy of a year’s study. I regret that the extraordinary substance of its style and rhythm cannot be fully contained within the limits of this seminar. I move on.

After this dialogue with Ismène and the assurance she gives of her resolution, we encounter the CHORUS. This alternation between action and CHORUS recurs five times throughout the drama, I believe. What does the CHORUS say immediately after this opening sequence, which clearly shows us that the die is already cast?

We often say that tragedy is action. But consider this: is it ἄγειν (to lead), or is it πράττειν (to act)? One must decide. The signifier introduces two orders into the world: truth and event. But if one wishes to explore humanity’s relationship with the dimension of truth, one cannot simultaneously use it to punctuate events. In tragedy, there is generally no true event. The hero and their surrounding context are situated in relation to the focal point of desire.

What unfolds are what I would call “collapses” or “settlements” of the different layers of the hero’s presence in time. This remains indeterminate. Whether one layer collapses before another in this kind of “card-castle” structure that tragedy represents, or whether what one discovers at the end when everything is flipped over appears differently, depends on interpretation.

An illustration of this: CREON, after loudly proclaiming that he will never waver in his responsibilities, begins to falter once old TIRESIAS sufficiently rings his bell. At that point, he asks the CHORUS, “Should I yield or not?” I assure you, he poses this question in terms of extraordinary precision from the perspective I am offering you.

For ἄτῃ (Até) appears again here—I am not referring directly to the text to save time—with particular relevance: at this point, it is clear that if Creon had first gone to the tomb before belatedly performing the funeral rites for the corpse, which nonetheless takes time, perhaps the worst could have been avoided. However, it is likely not without reason that he begins with the corpse, wanting first to settle this matter, as they say, with his conscience. This is always, believe me, what leads to ruin for anyone on the path of reparation.

This is just a small illustration. For throughout the development of the drama, the question of temporality—of how the already-prepared threads converge—is crucial, essential, yet no more comparable to an action than what I earlier called a “settlement” or “collapse” of the premises.

So, here is the first dialogue between ANTIGONE and ISMÈNE. What comes next? Music. The CHORUS. It is the song of liberation. Thebes is freed from what can rightly be called the barbarians. The style of the poem, as rendered by the CHORUS, curiously depicts the troops of POLYNICES—and his shadow, one might say—as that of a great bird circling over the houses.

This image, reminiscent of modern warfare—something hovering above—is already made tangible in 441 BCE. However, once this initial musical entry is complete—and one senses the author’s irony here—it is over, which is to say, it begins. What do we see next?

We see the sequence where CREON delivers a lengthy speech to justify himself. In truth, his only audience is a compliant CHORUS, the proverbial “yes-men.” At this point, the dialogue is between CREON and the CHORUS. The CHORUS, while generally compliant, does harbor an inkling that there might be some excess in Creon’s words. However, the only moment this doubt is allowed to surface is when the messenger arrives to recount what has happened. At that point, the CHORUS—let me warn you—gets sharply rebuked.

We cannot let this pass unnoticed. What I want to highlight is this: the character of the messenger in this tragedy presents an extraordinary presence. The messenger arrives with all sorts of twists of tongue and posture to say:

“What I reflected upon along the way, and how many times I turned back to flee in panic—this is how a short path becomes a long journey.”

He is an impressive orator. At one point, he even says:

“I am sorry to see that you hold the opinion that I hold the opinion of believing lies.”
(ἦδεινὸνᾧδοκῇγεκαὶψευδῆδοκεῖν. 323)

In short, he claims to be suspected of being suspicious. This style, marked by the phrase δοκῇ…ψευδῆδοκεῖν, resonates with the rhetoric of the sophists themselves, as CREON immediately retorts:

“You are playing tricks with opinions.”
(κόμψευένυντὴνδόξαν. 324)

For an entire farcical scene, the messenger indulges in these reflections about what has occurred—concerns of safety, the panic among the guards that nearly led to mutual grappling—and the eventual agreement on the delegation sent to Creon. After much hesitation, the messenger delivers his report. Yet, even after “dropping his package,” he receives harsh threats from CREON, along with accusations so narrowly focused that they underscore the ruler’s lack of perspective. Creon declares that they will all suffer severely if the culprit is not swiftly found. The messenger departs with these words:

“I got off lightly, as they didn’t string me up right away. You won’t see me back here anytime soon.”
(ἐὰνδέτοιληϕθῇτεκαὶμή, τοῦτογὰρτύχηκρινεῖ, οὐκἔσθ᾽ὅπωςὄψεισὺδεῦρ᾽ἐλθόνταμε·καὶνῦνγὰρἐκτὸς
ἐλπίδοςγνώμηςτ᾽ἐμῆςσωθεὶςὀϕείλωτοῖςθεοῖςπολλὴνχάριν. 327–331)

What follows immediately is significant: the CHORUS bursts forth. And what does the CHORUS sing after this clown-like entrance—because, indeed, the dialogue between CREON and the messenger can be aptly described as such? This subtle messenger, with his refined wit, even says to CREON:

“What is offended right now—your heart or your ears?”

He literally says this, turning Creon in circles. CREON, despite himself, is forced to confront the matter. The messenger explains: if it is your heart, it is offended by the one who committed this act; if it is your ears, it is me who offends them. At this point, we are already at the height of cruelty, but the scene remains, in a sense, amusing.

Immediately after, what happens? A hymn to humanity. The CHORUS embarks on nothing less than an ode to mankind. I see that time limits me and that I cannot extend further today, so I will take up this hymn to humanity next time, analyzing its character in detail. For it is necessary to delve into the text to understand its full significance.

Once we examine it closely, I believe this hymn will reveal its full meaning if we explore its details. Since the text requires careful attention, I will have to return to it in the next session. Directly after this hymn—which you will see is an extraordinary piece of irony—what do we witness? The guard reappears, dragging ANTIGONE with him, without any concern for temporal plausibility.

The guard is both triumphant—it is a rare stroke of fortune to safeguard his own responsibility by apprehending the culprit in time—and exuberant. I cannot dwell too much on this moment if I wish to finish discussing the weight of what occurs during CREON’s interrogation. However, I want to draw attention to what the CHORUS says next, immediately following this moment.

At this point, the CHORUS delivers what can properly be called the song of ἄτῃ (Até). The intertwining of human words with ἄτῃ is precisely the theme of the CHORUS’s hymn at this moment. I hope to return to this as well next time.

What happens after the arrival of HÆMON, the son of CREON and the fiancé of ANTIGONE?

The dialogue between father and son—which reveals the dimension of what I have begun to discuss regarding humanity’s relationship to its good, and the kind of wavering or oscillation that emerges from this confrontation—is crucial for establishing CREON’s stature. It sets the stage for understanding what CREON ultimately represents: what all tyrants and executioners represent, human figures at their core. Only martyrs are devoid of pity or fear. But, believe me, the day of the martyrs’ triumph is the day of universal conflagration, and this is precisely what the play is crafted to demonstrate.

But what do we observe as the play intensifies?

• At this moment, CREON does not back down—far from it. He lets his son leave, of course, under the worst threats.
• What erupts anew at this point? The CHORUS. And what does it proclaim?

Ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν [784].

Even those who do not know Greek may have encountered these three words at some point, carried through the centuries and accompanied by various melodies. They mean, literally: “Love unconquered in battle.” At the moment when CREON decrees the punishment ANTIGONE will face—entombment alive, a punishment far from pleasant—I assure you that even in SADE, this would rank at the seventh or eighth degree of trials inflicted upon heroes.

It may require these perspectives to fully grasp the weight of this act, but it is indeed something profound. At precisely this moment, and to this extent, the CHORUS declares something that effectively means: this story drives us mad; we lose control, we lose our minds. For this girl, we are seized by what the text calls, using a term whose specificity I ask you to note:

ἐναργὴς βλεϕάρων ἵμερος [795].

ἵμερος is the same term found in the Phaedrus, referring to what I am attempting to convey here as the reflection of desire—desire that even ensnares the gods. This term was used by JUPITER to describe his relationship with GANYMEDE. ἵμερος ἐναργὴς means, literally, desire made visible.

This is what emerges at the moment—correlatively—when the long scene of ANTIGONE’s ascent to her punishment unfolds. Here, ANTIGONE confronts the CHORUS. Following her hymn, which includes the passage discussed by GOETHE that I mentioned earlier, the CHORUS resumes with a mythological song. In three movements, this song presents three especially dramatic destinies, all orchestrated around the boundary between life and death, the realm of the animated corpse.

From ANTIGONE’s own lips comes the image of NIOBÉ, who is trapped in the constriction of the rock, destined to remain eternally exposed to the insults of rain and time. This ultimate image serves as the central axis around which the play revolves.

At the moment when Antigone ascends further and further toward what might be called an explosion of divine delirium, this is precisely when TIRÉSIAS, the blind seer, appears. And he does not speak merely to foretell the future; rather, the revelation of his prophecy plays a role in bringing that future into being. In his dialogue with CREON, he withholds his prophecy until CREON, whose mindset is shaped by his character as a man for whom everything is a matter of politics—of expediency—makes the mistake of speaking to TIRÉSIAS with sufficient insults. Only then does the seer unleash his prophecy, with the kind of weight that traditional lore accords to the words of an inspired figure, a weight decisive enough to mark the moment when CREON begins to waver. He resigns himself to reversing his orders, setting in motion the catastrophic conclusion.

An almost final entry by the CHORUS significantly erupts into a hymn to the most hidden, the most supreme god. The tension rises further. It is a hymn to DIONYSOS. Scholars often interpret this hymn as yet another celebration of liberation, as if relief has arrived, and all will now be resolved. But for those who understand what DIONYSOS and his ferocious retinue represent, it is precisely the opposite: this hymn signals that the boundaries of the conflagration have been breached.

What remains is the final twist of the drama: CREON, deluded, goes desperately to the tomb where ANTIGONE has hanged herself. HÆMON, embracing her, utters his last cries. Notably, as in the burial scene with HAMLET, we are left uncertain about what truly transpired.

After all, ANTIGONE had been entombed alive—CREON’s orders. She was pushed to the very limits of ἄτῃ (Até). If HÆMON is with her, one must rightly ask at what moment he entered. Just as the figures of the actors turn away from the place where ŒDIPUS disappears, we do not know what occurred in this tomb. However, when HÆMON emerges, he is overtaken by divine μανία (mania).

He shows all the signs of someone who, as the text says, is outside himself. He rushes at his father but misses, and then kills himself. And when CREON returns, he finds—having been preceded by the messenger—his wife dead. At that moment, the text, with precise language designed to remind us of the limits, shows CREON undone, begging to be carried away:

“Drag me by my feet.”

The CHORUS still has the strength to speak, to make puns, saying at this moment, “You’re quite right to say that; the values found in the feet are indeed the best—they’re the shortest.” It is not SOPHOCLES who inserts a schoolmaster’s pedantry here, but rather the pedants who translate him. Whatever the case, this marks the end of the tragedy: sweep the arena clean, as they say, remove the bull, and cut off whatever remains, if there is anything left. This is the tone—one might even say, almost the wording—that concludes Antigone.

Next time, I will take some time to highlight a few essential points that will allow me to anchor my interpretation firmly in SOPHOCLES’ own terms. I hope this will take half of the session, after which I will speak about what KANT articulates concerning the nature of the beautiful. You will then see the connection between what I have described here and what I aim to demonstrate.