A Note on Sophocles, Antigone 2-6

What is it about?

Written in the 5th century BC, Sophocles’ Antigone remains relevant now and in the future for it deals with the threat of tyranny and sheds light on the need for an alternative to absolute rule. The paths, however, by which that text has travelled from ancient to modern times are uneven and rough. The intervention of individuals, and above all uncontrolled random accidents during the transcription process, determined errors and alterations in the numerous manuscripts of a work of which there is no original copy available. Antigone’s text is marred by many alterations from the very beginning. In particular, at line 5 the words ἄτης ἄτερ “without bane” have a meaning entirely at variance with the context.

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Photo by Emy Nguyen on Unsplash

Photo by Emy Nguyen on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Emendations hitherto proposed have all changed one or both of the words ἄτης ἄτερ based on the meaning that each scholar assumed it was suitable for the context. On the contrary, I assume that I don’t know what else the text is supposed to mean, while I only know that somewhere in the sentence something has gone wrong, with the awareness that small events may ultimately result in much larger consequences. Checking all the single words of that difficult passage showed that the seemingly trivial fact of writing a letter instead of another (namely t instead of s, οὔτ’ instead of οὖσ’) was the most likely origin of the problem. This allowed both to restore the natural flowing of the text and preserve the words ἄτης ἄτερ, that are doubtless genuine and dramatically relevant to the text. The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions proved to be correct.

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