Humanity In Sophocles Antigone

This poem conveys, through parody of the second choral ode of Antigone, a sardonic commentary on what it views as humanity’s illusions of grandeur. The poem starts by showing how little man truly is. The image of “footsteps [passing] so perilously soft across the sea” creates the idea that humanity is no giant, leaving indelible marks on the Earth, but instead a small creature leaving no trace in the long term. The “unastonishable” earth will not notice the small traces left upon it by humanity, just as the “stiff blue waves” make no special note of the boats riding upon them. Humanity is also shown to be petty. In the original ode, the elders boast about how man may snare “all breeds [...] in his woven nets”. However, in this poem, “[Shattering] [...] the cheeks of birds” and capturing “salty silvers” are portrayed as the main things humans take from the world. This change in phrasing, and the focus on how small the accomplishments are, the gory picture of shattering cheekbones, makes humanity seem little more than a schoolyard bully.

In the poem, death is more absolute. The poem’s line “Death he cannot doom.” leaves very little ambiguity. Though the original ode trumpets ethics and the civic virtues as hallmarks of humanity’s greatness, the poem snarkily calls them fabrications. The list that the poem makes, of all things that humans hold dear for morals, creates a dramatic effect by spacing them out with a line each. By giving each one a line to itself, the poem clearly emphasizes the lack of true meaning in each concept, further mocking ethics as these concepts are the basis for the ethical concerns that the original ode claims will make mankind