By Anuksha Ram Madhan

 

Preface

Despite hailing from different backgrounds, Antigone and Socrates ultimately meet their ends in similar manners, claiming their places in classical history as some of its earliest depictions of civil disobedience. As it were, their motives and the actions that led to those moments are explored in the dialogue created below, as well as the similarities and differences in their approaches to religion, rebellion, duty, and death; thus, the purpose of this preface is not to re-discuss these notions in redundancy. 

Rather, this preface is intended to make certain clarifying notes. For one, it is important to note that this dialogue is between two highly-opinionated figures of literature — one written through the words of Plato and the other through Sophocles — and therefore reflects such opinionated takes, ultimately being somewhat dogmatic narrators if a discussion of their discourse is sought. That being said, it is also important to note that in her final moments, Antigone was dead and unaware of Creon’s doubt over his sentencing regarding Antigone, as well as Haimon’s and Ismene’s actions following her parting, nor was she aware of Creon’s return to free her from her tomb. She leaves to her death with a haunting back-and-forth with the Chorus in her mind, and the looming inevitability of being overcome by death, left alone to deal with her complex emotions of duty, grief, and regret. It is intended that this lack of omnipotence is evident in her dialogue and her opinions here. In her grief, Antigone in Antigone did not acknowledge the layers to Creon’s actions and intentions, and combined with the setting offered to this dialogue and the company of the equally opinionated and death-doomed Socrates, her words ideally reflect such. Similarly, Socrates, appearing as accepting of death in his conduct, nevertheless in the Apology in The Last Days of Socrates mentions his anguish, his ignominy regarding the state of his family, and his socio-economic state. Though, relative to Antigone, he appears calmer and conventionally “cooler” in the face of the end, he proves he is human time and time again throughout The Last Days, thus accounting for his words on death and legacy in the final aspects of this dialogue. 

Notwithstanding those notes, there are plentiful complexities embedded into the dialogues and portrayals of Antigone and Socrates, particularly as products of the minds of Sophocles and Plato, respectively. This dialogue is intended to critique or expound not upon all of these, but rather upon their takes on what appears most important to them in the face of their deaths — i.e., their moribund moments — and in many ways, what led them to it in the first place. 

 

Dialogue

 

Time & Scene: Antigone has been condemned to death by Creon for the crime of burying her brother against the decrees of mortal law in the name of following that of the divine. As she remains immured in the cave that is to be her final resting place, having come to a final verdict on her next (and final) actions, she finds that there is a tunnel in the wall — just big enough to speak through, but nothing else. On the other side, separated by a spatiotemporal divide, is Socrates. Preferring death to the loss of his moral convictions, Socrates has refused the numerous offers of escape that have come his way, and now awaits the morning, when he will willingly drink hemlock as per his sentence. 

 

ANTIGONE:

I am to stand trial soon once more — not at the hands of the unjust here, as I have already been convicted by these feeble mortal laws — but below, where my brothers have stood trial already, and our mother and father before them, and theirs before them, and where I shall remain for an eternity. This is the will of the Gods, and if it was meant to be otherwise, then the Three Judges will make it known to me with suffering. What will it be for you? 

 

SOCRATES: 

In that, we are the same. You say you meet death nobly? For the crime of piety?

 

ANTIGONE: 

Creon labelled it rebellion, but yes. In all of Thebes, it was only I, Antigone, who put the law of the Gods above that of the king’s. He finds the matters of the kingdom under his rule more grave than immortal verdict, but I have longer to please the dead and the divine than the living here. His ruling shall last only a lifetime, but if my brother had not had his final rites, the penalty would have been his for every lifetime to come. As for me — my Gods are just; it is dark in this cave, and I am wretchedly alone, but I will go to meet them with the knowledge that Creon’s transgressions of divine justice will be reckoned with. Do you not agree? 

 

SOCRATES: 

What is there to fear? It is as you said — my Gods are just, as well. You may have entered your tomb for treason, but I have entered mine for asebeia — for irreverence towards the Gods of Athens. In a manner, I suppose that is not entirely false; Athens claims its Gods to be human, to be flawed as we are, but what makes a God powerful if not wisdom? Real wisdom cannot be known by mere humans, but is it not my duty, as a pious man, to assist God by disavowing the men of Athens of their delusions of their wisdom? I have never claimed to be the wisest, but rather in service to the Gods. Meletus, he who called for the death penalty of Socrates, called me an atheist. But is there not a difference between godlessness and worshipping the Gods more than the law that only governs us when we are tied to the land of the living? Which of us does that make the sacrilegious man, then? Mere actions, offerings, and the like, will never suffice as piety when the pursuit of the mind remains as the other path. Be that as it may, it is as you said: my Gods are rational, and therefore their actions will be good and fair.

 

ANTIGONE: 

Your being here is the result of their fear and cowardice, not of any heresy on your part. The men of Thebes are the same, and therefore it is the same for me. I do not know much about knowledge in place of sacrifice, but if to you this service is righteous, then you will face the Gods knowing that their retribution will fall on the tyrants of your state. What knowledge is to you, that is what heeding the tradition of my ancestors is to me. When the rest of my cursed family was long gone, and the final remnant of my brother  — the last of them — on this worldly plane was being desecrated, there was nothing else for me to do.

 

SOCRATES:

Are you young, girl? 

 

ANTIGONE:

I shall never be anything but. 

 

SOCRATES:

Of high station? 

 

ANTIGONE:

The last of a dynasty of great kings. 

 

SOCRATES:

Then you would’ve been evidence in their hands during my trial. A daughter of kings, an inheritor of the world. There is a devotion to the Gods, and a rebellion to the state, in your actions that would’ve left you heralded as proof of my corruption of the youth. You stood before the king —

 

ANTIGONE:

The same man as my would-be husband’s father. 

 

SOCRATES:

— even more so, then. You stood before that proud man and openly defied his law, shouting for all the world to hear that the divine, who stand superior to him, speak their will in your actions, and not his. In Athens, mere rumours of my education in such rebellion led to my trial. 

 

ANTIGONE: 

Never. My actions are no one’s but my own. 

 

SOCRATES:

Naturally, and I am no one’s teacher in that sense. If there is one who wishes to hear my conversation, then I am prepared to converse with them regardless of their age or station. You yourself said it: your treason, your alleged impiety to the state, it was all of your own volition. I can corrupt none without risking corruption myself, and that is an untenable synchrony to risk. Thus, the tribunal of justice fell prey to such rumours, and I was condemned — not without opportunity to live at the cost of my conviction, mind you. Yet, I am here now, waiting away the hours until the final daybreak I shall see. Despite your youth and the promise of this tomb, you now speak with me likewise, a failure in the eyes of these tyrants regardless. I am not young, and have experienced much. My being here is the will of the Gods, and my time as their boon to this world has come to an end. It is not that way for you. Thus and thus, I laud you for your noble stand for your truth.

 

ANTIGONE:

I do not care for dying for my principles, not as you do, sir. If anything, I am a woeful creature of regrets, and agony, and grief. I am a lamentable woman who has neither a wedding song nor weeping libations at my funeral. I descend to Death alone and deserted. I have left Haimon and Ismene behind, and if this injustice had been done to any but my brother, I would have stood by them in the world of the living, too. 

 

SOCRATES:

We are all creatures of regrets and agony and grief, Antigone. 

 

ANTIGONE:

You suppose death should be a blessing to us all, then?

 

SOCRATES:

Perhaps to I, who has lived many of your lifetimes, meeting it is far less daunting. I would not be human if I did not need to endure the humiliation of poverty and neglecting my family to serve God, for no enjoyment nor pay of my own. To not need to endure that, I would not be human. By nature, we are all such woeful creatures. Death is only the next residence for our souls — nothing of escape or blessings to it. Whether you intended it not, in this residence, you have left an emblem of rebellion, and of a tenacious stand against the state with your rage and your grief. Whatever you may have intended, they will make a symbol of you. 

 

ANTIGONE:

Let them, then. I am no one’s martyr, no one’s apostate. I am only a loyal servant to the Gods and I have only done the duty anyone should have. If Death is our next residence, then I ask that it not render my family as cursed as we were in this one: parents who made a profane bed together, brothers who fell to each other’s swords, a sister who would sooner kneel shamelessly before a despot than honour her blood, and I, doomed to this destiny from the beginning. What does it matter what they make of me, when I will be long gone? I only hope they remember me for what I was: dutiful, god-fearing, and loyal. I leave that consequence to Haimon, and to Ismene, if she is willing to dirty her hands with at least this task, for she will have no familial traditions to uphold after she has dealt with my legacy. 

 

SOCRATES:

Is that all you are? 

 

ANTIGONE:

I am my parents’ daughter, my brother’s sister, and the brood of my bloodline. 

 

SOCRATES:

You suggest that Thebes is losing nothing in losing you?

 

ANTIGONE:

As little as you do for Athens. If you imply that Athens is facing the biggest defeat in losing you when your actions have done nothing but benefit it, then I denounce Thebes in my wake. As I said before, if the will of the Gods is counter to my actions, then I shall embrace my fated suffering with open arms. But, if it is otherwise as I suspect, then the edict of this dead woman walking is that they are subject to what I have been subjected to. I am no grand symbol of rebellion, but I remain the same believer of true justice I have always been. 

 

SOCRATES:

Then, finally, in this manner we differ. You will have died for a crime that, had it been for anyone else, you would’ve never transgressed to. I, however, will have died knowing that my death will circulate through the demos, and supersede the politics that I could not. Neither of us chose death, but one of us goes to it with less despair than the other. 

 

ANTIGONE: 

You do not know what they will make of you, either. 

 

SOCRATES:

Some will make of me what they have always made of me. Others will remember my death for what it was. 

 

The sun has risen. There is clamour on Socrates’s end of the tunnel. 

 

ANTIGONE:

You are leaving. 

 

SOCRATES:

I am. 

 

ANTIGONE:

Very well. Despairing or not, we will stand beside each other as equals soon, sir, upon the forked roads of Asphodel. 

 

SOCRATES:

Indeed, we will, Antigone. 

 

Anuksha Ram Madhan is a fourth-year at U.C. Berkeley majoring in Classics (Ancient Greek & Roman Studies) and Environmental Sciences.

 

References

Plato. The Last Days of Socrates. Translated by Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant. London: Penguin Books, 1993. 

Sophocles. Antigone. Translated by Robert Fagles. Great Britain: Penguin Books, 2015.