Greek Poetry & Drama
Sophocles, Antigone 450–460 — The Unwritten Laws
After Antigone is caught giving burial rites to her brother Polynices, Creon asks whether she knew his public prohibition. She answers that she did — and then explains why she chose to disobey it. Her speech at lines 450–460 is the play's clearest statement of the conflict between a ruler's decree and what she calls the gods' unwritten and unfailing ordinances.
- Author
- Sophocles
- Work / Passage
- Antigone 450–460
- Language
- Ancient Greek (Attic)
- Genre
- Athenian tragedy
Sophocles, Antigone 450–460
οὐ γάρ τί μοι Ζεὺς ἦν ὁ κηρύξας τάδε, οὐδ᾽ ἡ ξύνοικος τῶν κάτω θεῶν Δίκη τοιούσδ᾽ ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ὥρισεν νόμους. οὐδὲ σθένειν τοσοῦτον ᾠόμην τὰ σὰ κηρύγμαθ᾽, ὥστ᾽ ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ θεῶν νόμιμα δύνασθαι θνητὸν ὄνθ᾽ ὑπερδραμεῖν. οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κἀχθές, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεί ποτε ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου ᾽φάνη. τούτων ἐγὼ οὐκ ἔμελλον, ἀνδρὸς οὐδενὸς φρόνημα δείσασ᾽, ἐν θεοῖσι τὴν δίκην δώσειν: θανουμένη γὰρ ἐξῄδη, τί δ᾽ οὔ;
English Translation
It was not Zeus who proclaimed this to me, nor did Justice, who dwells with the gods below, establish laws like these among humankind. Nor did I think your proclamations had such strength that you, a mortal, could overrun the gods’ unwritten and unfailing ordinances. For these live not now or yesterday, but always, and no one knows from when they first appeared. I was not about, through fear of any man’s will, to pay the penalty among the gods for violating them. That I would die I already knew — how could I not?
38th Scroll Translation
Translation Notes
κηρύξας / κηρύγματα — the language of proclamation and public decree. Antigone does not deny that Creon's order exists; she denies that it possesses authority sufficient to override the norms she invokes.
Δίκη — Justice, personified here as dwelling with the gods below. The reference ties burial obligation to a sacred order extending beyond the immediate commands of the polis.
ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ ... νόμιμα — “unwritten and unfailing ordinances.” The force of the phrase lies in the contrast between Creon's recently issued proclamation and norms Antigone presents as ancient, enduring, and not dependent on any one ruler.
θνητὸν ὄντα — “being mortal.” Antigone makes Creon's mortality part of the argument: his political power is real, but it is bounded.
δίκην δώσειν — literally to “pay the penalty” or “give satisfaction.” She fears divine accountability more than the penalty imposed by Creon.
Historical and Dramatic Context
At the opening of the play, the Theban civil war has just ended. Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus, have killed one another. Creon, now ruler of Thebes, orders honorable burial for Eteocles but forbids burial or mourning for Polynices, who attacked the city with an Argive force. The announced penalty for violating the order is death by public stoning.
Antigone nevertheless performs burial rites for Polynices and is caught. Lines 450–460 come not from the secret planning scene with Ismene but from Antigone's public confrontation with Creon after her arrest. She openly acknowledges the act and refuses to treat obedience to the edict as morally decisive.
Later in the play, Creon does not carry out the opening threat of stoning. He orders Antigone sealed alive in a rocky burial chamber with a token ration of food, an attempt to distance the city from direct ritual pollution while still enforcing his judgment.
Interpretation: Law Against Law
The scene is often summarized as “divine law versus human law,” and that captures an important part of Antigone's claim. But Sophocles makes the conflict less comfortable than a simple contest between a good law and a bad one. Creon speaks as a ruler responsible for a city just attacked by Polynices; Antigone speaks as a sister responsible for burial and as a mortal answerable to the gods.
“The gods' unwritten and unfailing ordinances.”
Her argument therefore concerns limits. A decree can be public, enforceable, and backed by death, yet still fail — in her judgment — to exhaust the demands of justice. Creon's error is not that political authority is unreal, but that he treats his authority as sufficient in a domain where religion, kinship, burial custom, and the dead also make claims.
The tragedy derives much of its force from the fact that neither side experiences the conflict as abstract philosophy. For Antigone, Polynices is her brother. For Creon, he is an enemy of the city. The collision between those descriptions drives the play toward its catastrophe.
From the Text to Sacred Mask
Sacred Mask takes Antigone's refusal to let political condemnation erase kinship and turns it into the dramatic center of the song. The “mask” is not a claim that Sophocles used that image in these lines; it is the composition's own metaphor for the public roles imposed by city, family, ruler, and ritual obligation.
The ancient passage provides the ethical pressure behind that interpretation: Creon can name Polynices an enemy and outlaw his burial, but Antigone insists that another order of obligation remains in force beneath the decree.
Explore Sacred MaskText and Edition
The Greek text follows the Perseus presentation of the Storr edition of Sophocles'Antigone, checked against the corresponding Scaife/Perseus passage. Line numbering follows the standard numbering of the play.
The English rendering is a new 38th Scroll translation intended to preserve the contrast between Creon's proclamations and the older, unwritten ordinances invoked by Antigone.
Selected Sources and Further Reading
- Sophocles. Antigone, Greek text in Francis Storr's edition, Perseus Digital Library / Scaife Viewer.
- Jebb, Richard C. Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, Part III: The Antigone. Cambridge University Press, 1891.
- Center for Hellenic Studies. Sophocles, Antigone, primary-source edition and translation.
Continue Exploring
More from the Ancient Texts Library
Browse the full Ancient Texts library or return to the composition archive to explore the music and historical commentary built from these sources.