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have been put to death. Creon asks Antigone whether she was aware of his edict. Of course, she replies, but `that order did not come from God', and `I did not think your edicts strong enough to overrule the unwritten, unalterable laws of God and heaven, you being only a man'. She knows she will have to die as a result, and Creon had better just get on with killing her. She insists there could be no shame in honouring her brother by giving him proper burial. Creon insists that, on the contrary, to honour a traitor is to dishonour the brother who died to save his country; and that to give `equal honour to good and bad' is to insult the good. Antigone replies `my way is to share my love, not share my hate'. `Go then' says Creon, `and share your love among the dead. We'll have no woman's law here, while I live. It is one of several lines in the play where he makes clear that he stands for the stern values of `man' against those of `woman'.

Antigone's cause then finds, in succession, three allies. Firstly, Ismene enters, to be addressed by Creon as `you crawling viper'. He assumes she must have been a partner to her sister's crime. Ismene pleads guilty. `Yes, if she will let me say so, I am as much to blame as she is'. Antigone hotly protests: `you would not lend a hand ... you shall not die with me'. Ismene says `how can I bear to live, if you must die?' Creon's response is to order that Ismene should be arrested too.

Secondly, a more powerful voice is raised on Antigone's behalf. She is engaged to marry Haemon, Creon's own son. When he enters he begins by saying to his father: `by your wise decisions my life is ruled, and them I shall I always obey. I cannot value any marriage-tie above your own good guidance.' Creon is delighted. `Rightly said, your father's will should have your heart's first place. At length he extols the virtues of obedience. All fathers, he says, pray for sons who are obedient and loyal. `Do not be fooled, my son, by lust and the wiles of a woman. The important thing for a man is to be `the righteous master of his house'.

But then Haemon cleverly suggests how valuable it can sometimes be to listen to what other people are saying. Of course no one will have questioned his father's judgement to his face: `your frown is a sufficient silencer of any word that is not for your ears'. But he thinks Creon should know that, behind his back, `on every side I hear voices of pity for this poor girl, doomed to the cruellest death', and that `the secret talk about the town' is that, for an action so honourable as burying her brother she would have better deserved `a crown of gold'. Creon spits out his contempt for the people of Thebes. `Since when do I take my orders from the people of Thebes?' `Isn't that rather a childish thing to say?', his son bravely enquires. `No, I am king and responsible only to myself' says Creon. 'A one-man state? What sort of state is that?' asks Haemon. `Why' says Creon, `does not every state belong to its ruler?"You'd be an excellent king' says Haemon, ,on a desert island.

So incensed does Creon become at his son's questioning of his judgement that he finally loses patience and orders that Antigone should immediately be taken to a desert place, to be walled up in a cave. She should be left with enough food to acquit him of any `blood-guilt' in her death. We then see her brought out under guard, to take her `last leave of the light of day, going to my rest, where death shall take me alive across the silent river'.

When she has been led away, Creon is confronted by his third challenger: the old sage Teiresias, who tells him that, although `all men fall into sin', no one is forever lost who does not set his face against repentance. `Only a fool is governed by self-will: Creon reveals how completely he is now driven by his own ego, when he accuses Teiresias of only uttering these pious sentiments to make money. Like any real egotist he cannot imagine that others maybe motivated by anything higher than their own self-interest. Eventually Teiresias is goaded into delivering his real message: