Antigone

In Greek mythology, the daughter of Jocasta by her son Oedipus. She is the subject of a tragedy by Sophocles.

Myth After Oedipus discovered that he had killed his father Laius, king of Thebes, and married his own mother, Jocasta hanged herself and Oedipus blinded himself with a pin from her gown. Antigone accompanied her father on his wanderings from Thebes, but returned after the Eumenides (the benevolent aspect of the punishing Furies) removed him from the Earth.

Her brothers Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in single combat over the throne of Thebes, and their successor, Jocasta's brother Creon, sentenced Antigone to death for burying Polynices against his orders. Walled up alive in a cave, she hanged herself; her lover Haemon, Creon's son, committed suicide in despair.

The story of the family is known as the Theban Legend.

Antigone

Tragedy by Sophocles, thought to have been written about 443 BC. Antigone buries her brother Polynices, in defiance of the Theban king Creon, who imprisons her in a cave. Persuaded by the visionary Tiresias to change his mind, Creon finds Antigone has hanged herself. He then learns of the suicide of his son, Haemon, who was to marry Antigone.

Antigone

Incidental music to Sophocles' tragedy by Mendelssohn, first produced at the New Palace, Potsdam, Germany, on 28 October 1841, and repeated at the Berlin Opera on 13 April 1842. The plot describes how the daughter of Oedipus attempts to bury her brother, against the wishes of King Creon.

It is also the title of an opera by Arthur Honegger (libretto by Jean Cocteau, after Sophocles), first produced at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium, on 28 December 1927. There is an earlier opera on the same subject by Niccolò Zingarelli (libretto by J-F Marmontel), first produced at the Paris Opéra, France, on 30 April 1790.