Good morning! Sorry to be off to such a late start, but we all woke up feeling that this was a pancake morning -- you know how it is.
Anyway. The first question to ask is how far everyone's gotten with the reading?
I am about halfway through the play. It's shorter than I'd realized -- about seventy pages in my edition -- about 1470 lines, which makes it roughly the length of two chapters of The Odyssey.
Anyway, Antigone has been caught giving her brother a symbolic burial, which "counts" so far as the gods and the dead are concerned. She doesn't have the time or the upper body strength to actually bury his body, so she has mourned and chanted over his body, sprinkled it with dirt, and poured libations. Her uncle, King Creon, is furious that his orders should be defied -- especially by a woman. (This isn't just me being my usual feminist hothead self; he makes a point more than once of saying words to this effect.)
Antigone's sister Ismene, who didn't participate in the "burial" and tried to talk her sister out of doing it, has now thrown in her lot with Antigone. It doesn't look as if anyone believes she is really guilty of doing anything, since it's pretty obvious that Antigone was alone and Antigone herself has said that her sister was too much of a coward to help. But Ismene may still be found guilty just because she insists that, as sisters, their fates must be joined. We'll see what happens to her!
Haemon, Creon's son, has been summoned forth to formally proclaim his loyalty to his father and disavow any bond with Antigone. He and Antigone were engaged to be married, and apparently their bond was that rarity in ancient Greece, a love match. It's nice not to have read this play in so long (and to have so bad a memory); I don't know for sure, but I have the feeling he's just mouthing words when he says, "Oh, of course, dad, I would never do anything to defy you. Really. No, really." I could be totally wrong, but I can't imagine Antigone being in love with a wimp.
So: Antigone's definitely in trouble; Ismene may or may not be following her to Hades; Haemon's moral state is (I think) undetermined; and Creon is as much caught up with the idea of making those women who defy his orders "act like women" as he is determined to protect the state from the possibility of another civil war. And what about Naomi???
As well as how far everyone's gotten with the reading, I'd love to hear what translation everyone's got. I have the Fagles. I would like to be able to compare it, poetry-wise, with another, and may swing by the library today or tomorrow. The introductory material and footnotes are very good.
I finished Antigone in short order, thanks in large part to my girls, who have been disappearing into the playroom quite a bit this week. (Well, they've been scampering by, too, but for some reason have let me read...so strange!)
Reading the Peter D. Arnott translation, printed 1960.
It's paired with Oedipus the King, so since I don't have the next book (not that I don't have a list going here, and a pile waiting there) I figured I'd read that, too, while the library allows me to fondle its pages for a few more days.
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Jen in Orcutt, Calif.
www.BestFamilyAdventures.com
How weird. I was coming on to say that I finished the play last night.
I have the Fagles as well. I had it in an old theatre book from college, translated by HDF Kitto and I can't tell when. It wasn't very good so I bought the Fagles' one to see if it were any better and it was. Loved it! The boys loved it too, but then again they will listen to me read anything out loud to extend the going to sleep part of their day. But my step-daughter reallly liked it. We read a lot of it out loud and made our own words for some of it.
They only bummer is that I don't have many questions about it. I read some commentary and I did get the whole tomb/bridal chamber thing. And I really enjoyed the play. I would love to see a real actor read it though. I'm not much to listen to! :))
