United States or Libya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The auguries have been evil birds battle with each other in the air the flame will not mount from the sacrificial victim and the altars and hearths are full of birds and dogs, gathering to their feast on the corpse of Polynices. The soothsayer enjoins Creon not to war against the dead, and to accord the rites of burial to the prince's body.
With the entry of Creon and his guards both the dramatic and the picturesque demands of the situation were entirely satisfied.
They fought and fell by each other's hands. The armies then renewed the fight, and at last the invaders were forced to yield, and fled, leaving their dead unburied. Creon, the uncle of the fallen princes, now become king, caused Eteocles to be buried with distinguished honor, but suffered the body of Polynices to lie where it fell, forbidding every one, on pain of death, to give it burial.
Oedipus accuses Tiresias of abetting his kinsman, Creon, by whom he had been persuaded to send for the soothsayer, in a plot against his throne and the seer, who explains nothing and threatens all things, departs with a dim and fearful prophecy.
Menon leaped over men's heads and went running down the course calling for his son. But the guards caught him and forced him back upon the seats. Charmides sat down and wept for joy. And nobody saw him, for everybody was cheering and watching the victor. One of the judges stepped out and gave a torch to Creon. The boy touched the flame to the pile on the altar.
This legend was the basis of some of the finest of the Greek dramas, "Oedipus Tyrannus," and the "Oedipus at Colonus" of Sophocles, and "The Seven against Thebes" of Aeschylus. The curse of Oedipus still rested on his sons. The story of Antigone, defying the tyrant Creon, and burying her slain brother, Polynices, is the foundation of the drama of Sophocles, bearing her name.
We also find music for mysterious English horns; it is written as for clarinets in B flat and reaches heights which are impossible for the instrument we now know as the English horn. There is also a beautiful bass part. This has been provided with Latin words and is sung in churches. This aria was assigned to a Creon who does not appear in the other fragments.
It is shocking without being tragic, for no disaster follows. It is, therefore, never, or very rarely, found in poetry. One instance, however, is in the Antigone, where Haemon threatens to kill Creon. The next and better way is that the deed should be perpetrated. Still better, that it should be perpetrated in ignorance, and the discovery made afterwards.
The oracle has invested one, so fallen and so wretched in himself, with the power of a god the power to confer victory on the cause he adopts, prosperity on the land that becomes his tomb. With all the revenge of age, all the grand malignity of hatred, he clings to this shadow and relic of a sceptre. Creon, aware of the oracle, comes to recall him to Thebes.
He threw back his head and leaped out like a deer, skimming over the ground in long strides and leaving his dust to the others. He had the three games out of five and was winner of the pentathlon. Then there was no holding the crowd. They poured down off the seats and ran to Creon.
Word Of The Day