DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62134#0137
THE ANTIGONE.
129
performed. A screen rose between the two stages, and
when we entered the theatre hid the higher and farther
stage from sight. When the screen sank, we saw the front
of a Theban palace, which remained throughout the tragedy;
for there was no changing of scenery, and only one single
pause in the performance, when for a few moments this
screen again rose.
Until the orchestra breathed forth Mendelssohn’s fore-
boding strains, and whilst the musicians were tuning their
instruments, and the sole female performer was silently
passing her fingers over the strings of her harp, we beguiled
our impatience by reading the argument of the tragedy as
it stood in the programme.
According to historians, the epoch of the tragedy is
about 1230 before Christ. It has been prophesied to
Lagos, King of Thebes, that his future son shall be his
destroyer. Thus when his wife Jocasta bears him a son,
GEdipus, Lagos has him exposed upon a rock to perish.
The child, however, is saved, and grows up into a youth.
CEdipus, accidentally meeting his unknown father, slays
him, and having solved the enigma of the Sphynx, is raised
by the Theban people to the throne of his slain father, and
then marries Jocasta, his own mother. Four children are
born to them, Eteocles and Polynices sons, Antigone and
Ismene daughters. The soothsayer Teiresias, revealing
these fearful relationships to GEdipus, CEdipus puts out his
eyes, and wandering forth in his misery, dies. Jocasta
hangs herself; Eteocles and Polynices contend about the
government of Thebes. Civil war ensues—the brothers
slay each other, and the whole land is overwhelmed with a
great distress; Creon, brother to the dead Jocasta, seizes
upon the sceptre. At this point the drama of Sophocles
commences. Creon has issued a command that no one
shall inter the^ corpse of Polynices, the betrayer of his
VOL. II. K
129
performed. A screen rose between the two stages, and
when we entered the theatre hid the higher and farther
stage from sight. When the screen sank, we saw the front
of a Theban palace, which remained throughout the tragedy;
for there was no changing of scenery, and only one single
pause in the performance, when for a few moments this
screen again rose.
Until the orchestra breathed forth Mendelssohn’s fore-
boding strains, and whilst the musicians were tuning their
instruments, and the sole female performer was silently
passing her fingers over the strings of her harp, we beguiled
our impatience by reading the argument of the tragedy as
it stood in the programme.
According to historians, the epoch of the tragedy is
about 1230 before Christ. It has been prophesied to
Lagos, King of Thebes, that his future son shall be his
destroyer. Thus when his wife Jocasta bears him a son,
GEdipus, Lagos has him exposed upon a rock to perish.
The child, however, is saved, and grows up into a youth.
CEdipus, accidentally meeting his unknown father, slays
him, and having solved the enigma of the Sphynx, is raised
by the Theban people to the throne of his slain father, and
then marries Jocasta, his own mother. Four children are
born to them, Eteocles and Polynices sons, Antigone and
Ismene daughters. The soothsayer Teiresias, revealing
these fearful relationships to GEdipus, CEdipus puts out his
eyes, and wandering forth in his misery, dies. Jocasta
hangs herself; Eteocles and Polynices contend about the
government of Thebes. Civil war ensues—the brothers
slay each other, and the whole land is overwhelmed with a
great distress; Creon, brother to the dead Jocasta, seizes
upon the sceptre. At this point the drama of Sophocles
commences. Creon has issued a command that no one
shall inter the^ corpse of Polynices, the betrayer of his
VOL. II. K