Tiresias’ Ultimatum to Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone

Mackenzie (Mack) Zalin

Beta Psi at Rhodes College

From Homer to Statius, the seer Tiresias is a staple of any story set within the Theban Cycle, whose ubiquitous presence and uncanny foresight command the attention of the protagonists and inevitably yield predictions with godlike precision and reliability. These same elements culminate in a heated exchange between the Theban prophet and the tyrant Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone regarding the ruler’s decision, in flagrant disregard for prophesy and the will of the gods, to sentence the tragedy’s self-righteous namesake and heroine to death for treason. After a barrage of scathing stichomythia, Tiresias tries to reason with Creon using uncharacteristically concrete and simple language in an attempt to sway the leader from committing gross sacrilege in defiance of the gods’ wishes, conveyed through his prophetic medium. This ultimatum, tenuously placed amidst multiple cataclysmic peaks in the narration, serves as the focus of a rigorous study of language and allusion in a subtly momentous passage. Through careful analysis of Tiresias’ forceful yet genuinely empathetic plea, Sophocles makes it painfully clear that Creon’s subsequent ruin results directly from his tyrannical indifference to the deafening cry of reason.

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