The chorus - or a single chorus member - starts to sing, then the chorus enters. Ismene refuses to help her, not believing that it will actually be possible to bury their brother, who is under guard, but she is unable to stop Antigone from going to bury her brother herself.

In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the palace gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polynices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polynices and Eteocles. The rebel brother's body will not be sanctified by holy rites and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like vultures and jackals, the harshest punishment at the time. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes and brother of the former Queen Jocasta, has decided that Eteocles will be honored and Polynices will be in public shame. Prior to the beginning of the play, the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, leading opposite sides in Thebes' civil war, died fighting each other for the throne. The choral odes have two main functions: they offer a reflection on the events unfolding, and they allow time for the three actors to change costumes. 'insertions') that separate choral song and dance. 5.2 Natural law and contemporary legal institutionsĪntigone is made up of a series of episodes (i.e.

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