Antigone

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For other uses, see Antigone (disambiguation).

Antigone (Eng. /æn'tɪɡəni/ Greek: Αντιγόνη, Αντι-γόνη, Counter-Generation, meaning The opposite of her ancestors) is the name of two different women in Greek mythology.

1 Daughter of Oedipus
2 Daughter of Eurytion
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Daughter of Oedipus

See main article Antigone (play). Antigone is the best-known daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, or, according to the older story, of Euryganeia. However, due to the incestuous nature of their relationship, Antigone is also Oedipus's half-sister and Jocasta's granddaughter.

Antigone's character and the incidents in her life present an attractive subject to the Greek tragic poets. Sophocles included, in the Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus, the details of her life and death. Euripides, who wrote another play also named Antigone, though now lost, is partly known from extracts incidentally preserved by later writers, and from passages in his Phoenissae.

In the order of the events, at least, Sophocles departed from the original legend: According to the original, the burial of Polynices took place while Oedipus was yet in Thebes, not after he had died at Colonus. Again, in regard to Antigone's tragic end, Sophocles differs from Euripides, according to whom the calamity was averted by the intercession of Dionysus and was followed by the marriage of Antigone and Haemon.

In Hyginus's version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Haemon to be slain, was secretly carried off by him and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bore him a son, Maeon. When the boy grew up, he went to some funeral games at Thebes, and was recognized by the mark of a dragon on his body. This led to the discovery that Antigone was still alive. Heracles pleaded in vain with Creon for Haemon, who slew both Antigone and himself to escape his father's vengeance.

On a painted vase, the scene of the intercession of Heracles is represented (Heydermann, Über eine nacheuripideische Antigone, 1868). Antigone placing the body of Polynices on the funeral pile occurs on a sarcophagus in the villa Pamfili in Rome, and is mentioned in the description of an ancient painting by Philostratus (Imag. ii. 29), who states that the flames consuming the two brothers burnt apart, indicating their unalterable hatred, even in death.

The story of Antigone has been a popular subject for books, plays, and other works, including:

Antigone, one of the three Theban plays by Sophocles
Antigone, opera by Carl Orff
Antigone, opera by Mikis Theodorakis
Antigone, play by Jean Anouilh
"The Island", play by Athol Fugard
Antigone, play by Jean Cocteau
Antigone, comic book by David Hopkins (writer)
Antigone, adaptation of Sophocles' play by Peruvian poet José Watanabe, directed by Miguel Rubio and performed by Teresa Ralli, both founding members of the theatre company Yuyachkani.
La Pasión Según Antígona Pérez (The Passion of Antigone Pérez [Pérez is a common last name in Spanish), adaptation of the Sophocles' play by the Puerto Rican writer Luis Rafael Sánchez, updated into Latin America of the 20th Century.
Tegonni, An African Antigone by Femi Osofisan

[edit] Daughter of Eurytion

A different Antigone was the daughter of Eurytion and wife of Peleus.

Peleus and Telamon, his brother, killed their half-brother Phocus and fled Aegina to escape punishment. In Phthia, Peleus was purified by Eurytion and married Antigone, Eurytion's daughter. Peleus accidentally killed Eurytion during the hunt for the Calydonian Boar and fled Phthia.

Peleus was purifed of the murder of Eurytion in Iolcus by Acastus. Also in Iolcus, Peleus lost a wrestling match in the funeral games of Pelias, Acastus' father, to Atalanta. Astydameia, Acastus' wife, fell in love with Peleus but he scorned her. Bitter, she sent a messenger to Antigone to falsely tell her that Peleus was to marry Acastus' daughter; Antigone hanged herself. (Apollodorus, iii. 13).

Astydameia then told Acastus that Peleus had tried to rape her. Acastus took Peleus on a hunting trip and hid his sword, then abandoned him right before a group of centaurs attacked. Chiron, the wise centaur, returned Peleus' sword and Peleus managed to escape. He pillaged Iolcus and dismembered Astydameia, then marched his army between the pieces.