Antigone Poem Comparison
Antigone - Czeslaw Milosz
In the following poem by Czeslaw Milosz, Antigone and Ismene from Sophocles’ play reappear in Hungary in
1949. Hungary was one of the countries that suffered terribly during and after World War II. In March 1944,
Hitler seized Hungary, shipping more than 500,000 Hungarian Jews to concentration camps. Later that same
year, Stalin’s troops invaded the country. By 1949, a political takeover occurred in which communists fashioned
a new constitution patterned on that of the Soviet Union. This fragment, written in 1949, is in remembrance of
the Hungarian workers, students, and soldiers.
ANTIGONE:
ISMENE:
1 Accepting everything in this way, as one accepts
Summer after spring, winter after fall,
Accepting man’s lot in the same way
As one accepts the seasons, without thought?
5 As long as I live, I will cry out: no
Do you hear, Ismene? I cry out: no.
And I do not want any of your consolations,
Not flower of the spring night, nor the nightingale,
Sun nor clouds, nor pleasant rivers.
10 Nothing. May it persist unappeased
This, which remains and this, which will remain
Is the one thing worthy of memory: our hurt.
The rusted ruins, Ismene,
Know everything. With its black wing the raven
15 Death separated us from those years
When we thought that our country
Was like other countries, our people
The same as other people.
Fate’s curse demands a victim.
20 The victim returns fate’s curse.
When this happens, it is not the time
To preserve one’s own insignificant life
And it is not the time to weep for oneself.
There is time for nothing. May devastation
25 Engulf the entire pitiless world,
May those who laugh at our sorrow
Turn their own cities into ashes.
Creon’s law! And Creon’s command!
What is Creon, when the world is disappearing?
30 Yes, but our parents are dead
And our brothers are dead. And their revolution
And within this is a rhythm, believe me, a compelling
rhythm, Sorrow mingled with rapture—as though
Persephone
45 Were newly returned to the world.
ANTIGONE:
Fools believe that when they sacrifice
Memories of the past, they will live contentedly.
And fools believe: the death of one city
Is not a sentencing for other cities.
ISMENE:
50 Do not make light of the difficulty, Antigone,
With which we force our lips and hearts
Into silence. For this kind of triumph
Is also a triumph and gives hope.
ANTIGONE:
I do not need your hope.
55 For I saw the remains of Polynices
There, on the threshold of the crumbling cathedral.
This skull, small as a child’s,
With a strand of light hair. A handful of bones
Wrapped in crumbling, dark cloth
60 And the stench of a corpse. This then is our brother,
Whose heart beat like ours,
Who was happy and sang songs
And knew fear before death, because in him the same
voices
Called that call within us.
65 And he conquered the voices summoning him
To life’s bright, remote expanses,
And he went willingly to the sacrifice,
Faithful to his word and oath.
Compare “Antigone” (Sophocles) to Czeslaw Milosz’s poem “Antigone” in terms of attitudes toward the
sufferings of the past.
1. What picture of Antigone is created in this poem?
2. Whose attitude toward life do you think is more positive, Antigone’s or Ismene’s? Whose is more
realistic?
3. What points about the hardships and horrors experienced by Hungarians during the 1940s does Milosz
make in the poem?
4. Why do you think Milosz used the ancient legend about Antigone in a poem dedicated to Hungarian
workers, students, and soldiers in 1949?