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Antigone, in Greek mythology, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta. In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, she and her sister Ismene follow their father into exile at Colonus. When her brothers Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in the war of the Seven against Thebes, Creon, King of Thebes, forbade the burial of the rebel Polynices. Antigone defied him and performed the funeral service. She hanged herself in the cave where Creon ordered her buried alive. In addition to Sophocles' Antigone, plays and operas that rework her legend have been written by Anouilh, Brecht, Cocteau, Honegger, and Orff.

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Antigone

In Greek legend, the daughter born of the incestuous relationship between Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta. After Oedipus had blinded himself in self-punishment, Antigone and her sister Ismene served as his guides, following him into exile. When he died, Antigone returned to Thebes, where her brothers Eteocles and Polyneices were at war. Both were killed, and Creon, the new king, declared that because Polyneices was a traitor, his corpse should remain unburied. Unwilling to let the body be defiled, Antigone buried him; when Creon condemned her to death, she hanged herself. Her story was dramatized by Sophocles and Euripides (in Euripides' version she escapes and joins her beloved, Haemon).

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