Allusions in Antigone

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Allusions in Antigone

• The Background for Act IV Ode IV

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Tantalos and Niobe

• How often I have heard the story of Niobe,
  Tantalos wretched daughter, how the stone clung
  fast about her, ivy-close and they say the rain
  falls endlessly and sifting soft snow her tears
  never done. I feel the loneliness of her death in
  mine.
• --Antigone, Scene IV, p. 225

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Tantalos and Niobe

• Tantalos was a son of Zeus
• He was a favorite of the gods
• Tantalos did the unthinkable
• He killed his son Pelops
• He chopped up Pelops and cooked him
• He served Pelops to the gods
• The gods were not amused.

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Tantalos and Niobe

• Tantalos was punished forced to stand in a pool
  in Hades
• Unable to lower his face to the water to drink
• Unable to reach the copious fruit over his head
• His punishment is the source of the word
  tantalize

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Tantalos and Niobe

• Niobe was Tantalos daughter
• She was married to a king of Thebes and became
  very wealthy
• She was also the mother of seven beautiful
  daughters and seven handsome sons
• She demanded to be worshipped by the people of
  Thebes

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Tantalos and Niobe

• The people of Thebes worshipped Leto, mother of
  Apollo and Artemis
• Leto was not pleased with Niobes pride, and so
  she sent her children to kill all of Niobes
  children

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Tantalos and Niobe

• Niobe was so anguished that she sat very still,
  like a stone, with tears
• She eventually turned into a stone, motionless,
  but still wet with tears

11
Persephone

• O tomb, vaulted bride-bed in eternal rock, soon
  I shall be with my own again where Persephone
  welcomes the thin ghosts underground.
• --Antigone, Scene IV, page 227

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Persephone

• Persephone was the daughter of Ceres, goddess of
  grain
• Hades, god of the Underworld, had kidnapped
  Persephone to marry her
• Ceres spent months searching for her daughter
  instead of making grain grow

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Persephone

• Ceres heard that Persephone was in the Underworld
  and asked for her daughter to be returned
• Zeus agreed to order Persephones return as long
  as Persephone did not eat the food of the
  Underworld
• Persephone, in hunger, had eaten a few
  pomegranate seeds

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Persephone

• A compromise was reached
• For each seed she ate (some say six, some say
  four) Persephone would stay one month with Hades
  out of the year
• Ceres, during those months, mourns her daughters
  time away and refuses to help grain grow

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Danae

• All Danaes beauty was locked away in a brazen
  cell where sunlight could not come A small room,
  still as any grave, enclosed her. Yet she was a
  princess too, and Zeus in a rain of gold poured
  love upon her.
• --Chorus, Ode IV, p.228-229

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Danae

• Danae was the beautiful daughter of Acrisius,
  king of Argos
• Acrisius was told the Oracle of Delphi that he
  would have no sons, but Danae would have a son
  who would kill him
• Acrisius would not kill his daughter for love and
  fear of the gods

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Danae

• He built a house of bronze for Danae and sunk it
  into the ground with a tiny window for some light
  and air
• Zeus visited Danae in the form of a golden rain
• Danae secretly gave birth to a son, Perseus

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Danae

• Acrisius placed Danae and Perseus in a box and
  dropped it in the sea
• The two were rescued.
• Perseus later became the killer of Gorgons

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Dryas Son and Dionysos

• And Dryas son also, that furious king, bore the
  gods prisoning anger for his pride Sealed up by
  Dionysos in deaf stone, his madness died among
  the echoes. So at last he learned what dreadful
  power his tongue had mocked for he had profaned
  revels, and fired the wrath of the nine
  Implacable sisters that love the sound of the
  flute. Chorus, Ode IV, p. 229

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Dryas Son and Dionysos

• What can we infer from this excerpt?
• Who is Dionysos?
• What was Dryas son guilty of?
• How does this relate to Antigone?