Chapter 1
Antigone, daughter of Oedipus, defies King Creon’s decree forbidding the burial of the traitor Polyneices. She clandestinely performs burial rites for Polyneices, but Creon’s watchmen discover her and bring her before the king. Antigone argues that divine law obliges her to honor her brother, surpassing human law. Creon, unmoved, condemns her to be sealed alive in a rock-hewn chamber. Haemon, Creon’s son and Antigone’s betrothed, pleads with his father to spare her and threatens to die alongside her. The blind seer Teiresias warns Creon that the gods disapprove of his harshness, predicting disaster if he does not relent. Creon, shaken, rushes to the tomb to release Antigone, but arrives too late: he finds Antigone hanging herself and Haemon dead by his own hand. Returning to the palace, Creon discovers his wife Eurydice, who, upon learning of her son’s death, has stabbed herself in the heart. The tragedy culminates in the deaths of Antigone, Haemon, and Eurydice, and Creon’s ultimate remorse.