Listening in Sophocles: The Sounds of Empathic Dialogue

One of the emotional climaxes of Sophocles's Antigone comes when the eponymous heroine is led to her death. In the original Greek composition, Antigone sings throughout this scene, lamenting her fate. The chorus, a group of Theban elders, at first offer their compassion, straightforwardly expressing their sorrow at Antigone's situation.1 But as the scene progresses, we hear the chorus by and large refusing to accept her interpretation of the situation. When she compares herself to Niobe, whose petrification she describes as a living entombment similar to her own, the chorus find it inappropriate that Antigone should put herself on par with a descendant of the gods. Even though the chorus do suggest a way in which the mythical comparison can be a source of consolation—namely, as a measure of Antigone's posthumous fame—they miss the mark entirely in their comment that Antigone is similar to Niobe “while living and later, after she died” (838). For Antigone, the horror of her situation is precisely the lack of clear and socially sanctioned separation between life and death, and she reacts violently to the chorus's misrepresentation: “Oimoi [a common tragic exclamation of grief and misery], I am mocked! By gods, why do you insult me?” (839-841).2 The verbal exchange here makes clear that, as far as Antigone is concerned, the chorus have flagrantly failed to listen to her. But the ethical and emotional separation between the two sides of the dialogue is also expressed by the chorus's consistent avoidance of musically participating in Antigone's song. While she sings, they use almost only spoken or chanted vocalizations. Indeed, the scene

ends with Antigone's solo song of loneliness: “unmourned, friendless … not one of my loved ones laments my uncriedfor fate,” she sings (876-877). She experiences her condition as abandonment-through-song.

I do not presume to have covered, within a single paragraph, the complex dynamics of admiration and criticism, compassio