Antigone

This is what Antigone in Sophocles evidently means, when she declares that it is just, though forbidden, to bury Polynices, as being naturally just:

that equity is ever constant and never changes, even as the general law, which is based on nature, whereas the written laws often vary (this is why Antigone in Sophocles justifies herself for having buried Polynices contrary to the law of Creon, but not contrary to the unwritten law:

of this Sophocles gives an example, where his Antigone says that she cared more for her brother than for her husband or children;

Antigone, famous child in your father’s house, although your mother allowed you at your entreaty to leave your maiden chamber for the topmost story of the house, to see the Argive army, wait, so that I may first investigate the path, whether there be any of the citizens visible on the road, and reproach, a slight matter to a slave like me, should come to you, my royal mistress;

Exeunt Antigone and the old servant.

Antigone:

Antigone:

But you, Antigone, watch our father here.

Antigone:

No, sister, do not strip me of death’s honor, but let me die with you and make due consecration to the dead.

The power fails me to keep back my streaming tears any longer, when I see Antigone making her way to the chamber where all are laid to rest, now her bridal chamber.

Ismene, my sister, true child of my own mother, do you know any evil out of all the evils bequeathed by Oedipus that Zeus will not fulfil for the two of us in our lifetime?

The following antiphonal dirge is sung by the two sisters—Antigone standing by the bier of Polynices, Ismene by that of Eteocles.

Antigone:

Antigone:

For it was not Zeus who proclaimed these things to me;

And Antigone too, despising the proclamation of Creon, boldly says:

In the Tragedy of the Suppliants, Euripides calls it the law of the Gods, and in the Antigone of Sophocles, the heroine makes the following reply to Creon, who had forbidden any one under pain of death, to give the rites of burial to Polynices, “A prohibition, like this, was not revealed by the supreme will, nor by that heaven-born justice, which has established those laws of respect for the dead:

Perhaps there is nothing very surprising, gentlemen of the jury, in my having been taken in like this by Antigone, a woman who was, I am told, the most gifted courtesan of her time and who has continued to practise as a procuress has ruined the house of of the deme Chollidae which was equal to any.

At all events, to make a long story short, she finally sent for me again later and said that after a long talk with Athenogenes she had with difficulty managed to persuade him to release Midas and both his sons for me for forty minas.

Then must I, who was influenced by the mistress of Athenogenes, accept the contract and be ruined too, even though I can claim the very powerful help of the law, having been compelled by these people to conclude the agreement?

Now, Philotas was ignorant of the plot thus laid against him, and in his frequent interviews with Antigone would utter many angry and boastful speeches and many improper words against the king.

These words the woman would report to one of her acquaintances, and he, as was natural, to somebody else, until the story came round to Craterus, who took the girl and brought her secretly to Alexander.

her name was Antigone.

In order to enlarge his interests and power he married several wives after the death of Antigone.

He was adept at turning to his own advantage the favour of his superiors, just as he was inclined to look down upon his inferiors, and since he was orderly and restrained in his ways of living, he was selected from among many young princes as a husband for Antigone, one of the daughters of Berenicé, whom she had by Philip before her marriage with Ptolemy.