What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us About Grief
Seeing works by Sophocles and Aeschylus in their native land imparts indelible lessons about pain and memory.
- December 20 – Jean Cocteau's Antigone appears at the reopened Théâtre de l'Atelier in the Montmartre district of Paris, with sets by Pablo Picasso, music by Arthur Honegger and costumes by Gabrielle Chanel. Génica Athanasiou plays the title rôle, with Charles Dullin as Créon and Antonin Artaud as Tiresias. There are Dadaist protests.[10]
Kreon [to Antigone]: you knew it was
against the law
Antigone: well if you call that law
Kreon: I do
Antigone: Zeus does not
Justice does not
the dead do not
what they call law did not begin
today or yesterday
when they say law they do not
mean a statute of
today or yesterday
they mean the unwritten unfailing
eternal ordinances
of the gods
that no human being can
ever outrun
The 2,500-Year-Old Greek Heroine Whose Story Never Gets Old
“Antigone,” Sophocles’ tragedy, seems like simple heroine stuff. A girl risks her life to give her brother a ceremonial burial after it has been expressly forbidden by their uncle, Creon, the king of Thebes. But the play and her conscientious-objector character keep finding new relevance: In the first few months of 2026, Antigone is visiting New York four times, in four different stage adaptations. (Her omnipresence is like a rush of white blood cells — there’s an infection somewhere in the body politic.)
Perhaps we return obsessively to “Antigone” because it still encompasses a mystery. Sophocles was writing when both theater and democracy were young; the secrets of each are embedded in the play. At its deepest point, the tragedy warns us not to obey only a single ethos. Things that appear antithetical — like Antigone and Creon — can be related. The world isn’t really made up of opposites. One word, Sophocles will show us, can contain it all.
查爾斯漢迪著《我自己和其他更重要的事》(2)
然而，他極具英國特色的職業生涯賦予了他獨特的視角來審視他所研究的主題。他在倫敦商學院的第一堂課上只佈置了兩本書：《公司帳目的意義》和索福克勒斯的《安提戈涅》。他不用空洞的術語，而是用從日常生活（或至少是他理解的日常生活）中汲取的例子來闡述自己的觀點：例如，他會指出，劇院會感謝所有參與製作的人員，而不僅僅是明星；或者牛津大學賽艇隊的八人艇通過解僱一名明星劃手提高了成績。
這種獨特的方法也讓他對管理有了深刻的理解。他提出了「組合式生活」的概念——在現代經濟中，越來越多的人最終會成為獨立工作者，將不同的工作、客戶和工作類型組合在一起。他進行了許多引人入勝的研究，探討了職業生涯中期的轉型如何能為人們帶來新的活力。（約西元前610—不詳）
＊古希臘詩人。教導萊斯博斯島的少女們在愛芙羅黛蒂的祭典上獻歌載舞。一般認為是同性戀者，「lesbian（女同性戀者）」一詞的語源即來自其居住地名稱。曾被柏拉圖譽為第十謬思。
宛如紅蘋果般的豔紅
高掛在枝頭
絲線，也高高地掛在林梢
高得連紡紗人都快看不見了
不，正因為他們看丟了
所以才沒發現
那顆紅蘋果
死亡是件壞事
神祇們也立下了如是規誡
否則，大家應當早就死去了吧
***
此名劇的中英文本都不難找到
安提戈涅是古希臘悲劇作家索福克勒斯公元前442年的一部作品，被公認為是戲劇史上最偉大的作品之一。該劇在劇情上是忒拜三部曲中的最後一部，但是最早寫就的。劇中描寫了伊底帕斯的女兒安提戈涅不顧國王克瑞翁的禁令，將自己的兄長，反叛城邦的波呂尼刻斯安葬，而被處死，而一意孤行的國王也遭致妻離子散的命運。劇中人物性格飽滿，劇情發展絲絲相扣。安提戈涅更是被塑造成維護神權/自然法，而不向世俗權勢低頭的偉大女英雄形象，激發了後世的許多思想家如黑格爾、克爾凱郭爾、德希達等的哲思。
The dilemma is at the heart of Antigone - a drama written by Sophocles nearly 2,500 years ago. Is it still relevant today?
