The Background To Polyneices' Disinterment and Reburial

Why should Antigone in Sophocles' play want to return to Polyneices' body, after apparently successfully burying it, if we may judge from the guard's report to Creon at lines 245ff.? Ever since it was first raised by Jebb in his note on Antigone 429, this question has given scholars almost as much trouble as the original burial gave Antigone herself. Basically, there are two opposed views on the problem. Firstly, that both burials were performed by Antigone and their duplication is to be explained primarily in terms of the play's dramatic organization. Secondly, that not only is it impossible within the framework of the play's chronology for Antigone to have performed the first burial but that, had she done so, there would have been no need for her to return to the body after sprinkling the symbolic dust. Therefore it was not Antigone, but the gods, who first buried Polyneices.

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