As is to be expected, each had strengths and weaknesses. I thought it might be interesting to briefly compare and contrast the four very different translations that I read. Antigone is thought to have been written around 441 BCE. I have just finished reading four different translations of Sophocles' classic tragedy Antigone, which was chronologically the first of his three great 'Theban Plays.' The other two, in the order written, include, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. In this outstanding new translation, commissioned by Ireland's renowned Abbey Theatre to commemorate its centenary, Seamus Heaney exposes the darkness and the humanity in Sophocles' masterpiece, and inks it with his own modern and masterly touch. While Creon eventually agrees to Antigone's release, it is too late: She takes her own life, initiating a tragic repetition of events in her family's history. Enraged, Creon condemns her to death, and his soldiers wall her up in a tomb. When Creon, king of Thebes, grants burial of one but not the "treacherous" other, Antigone defies his order, believing it her duty to bury all of her close kin. During the War of the Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, learns that her brothers have killed each other, having been forced onto opposing sides of the battle. Sophocles' play, first staged in the fifth century BC, stands as a timely exploration of the conflict between those who affirm the individual's human rights and those who must protect the state's security.
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