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Article Evaluation

It seems to all be relevant and up to date. It starting paragraph is a bit long for just the intro, but all of the information in it is important.

The article is neutral and informative.

The links to the cites work. Most of them are from academic journals that look to be more focuses on historical fact than opinion.

The article was last edited earlier this month. The conversions I looked over are from 2018. It appears to be up to date. It's part of WikiProjects and rated C-Class. Most of the talk page is by one user, so it might not be as unbiased as I first thought


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Rhea

-The article is part of wikiprojects

-There are already conversations in the talk page

-The article contains eights sections, most are less than a paragraph long

-As she appears in generally all telling of Greek creation myths, there should be several sources on her for further research


Sita

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-There are already conversations in the talk page

-The article is rated start-class

-There is more content in this one than the last, including a detailed summary of her role in the myth


Rainbow Serpent

-The article is part of wikiprojects

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-The article is rated start-class

-There are only seven paragraph containing sections

-Twenty-four sources are used so far

-The citations seem to be placed where they are needed


Ismene

-There is only a summary and one other section on her

-There are only three sources

-There are only three pictures

-It is part of wiki projects

-It is rated start class


Citation practise

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Ismene is seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as her father/brother laments the "shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving her and her sister to. Oedipus begs Creon to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is lead away. Creon prevents him from bring his daughters out of the city with him.


Article drafting: Iseme

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Ismene (/ɪsˈmn/; Ancient Greek: Ἰσμήνη, Ismēnē) is the name of the daughter and half-sister of Oedipus, daughter and granddaughter of Jocasta, and sister of Antigone, Eteocles, and Polynices. She appears in several plays of Sophocles: at the end of Oedipus Rex, in Oedipus at Colonus and in Antigone. She also appears at the end of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes.

Mythology

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Family tree

relations: with Antigone, with Oedipus

In Sophocles

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Oedipus Rex

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Ismene is not named, but is seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as her father/brother laments the "shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving her and her sister to. Oedipus begs Creon to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is lead away. Creon prevents him from bring his daughters out of the city with him.[1]

Oedipus at Colonus

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Ismene appears in Oedipus and Colonus to tell her father of the station in Thebes and rivalry of his sons. She explains that Eteocles has taken the throne from Polynices, and driven him out of the city. As a result of this, Polynices gathered his own army to either take back the city "or to die there with honor." According to the Oracle of Delphi, the location where Oedipus is buried will determine the result of the war between the brothers. Ismene tells her father that Creon plans to have hum buried on the border of Thebes so that they will have the desirable outcome. Hearing this, Oedipus curses his sons and refuses to leave Colonus.

The chorus (in this play the elders of Colonus) tell him that because he has walked on the sacred ground of the Eumenides, he has to "preform rites of purification." Due to his blindness and age, Oedipus is unable to fulfill this task and asks one of his daughters to instead. Ismene agrees and exits to do so.

Later in the play, in an attempt to force Oedipus to return to Thebes Creon tells him that he has seized Ismene and takes Antigone away as well. However, Theseus and the Athenians overpower them and exit to free the girls.

Ismene appears again at the end of the play with her sister as they mourn the death of their father and lament that they cannot join him. Theseus tells them that Oedipus has been buried but the location is kept secret, and he has forbidden that they be told of it. Antigone resolves to return too Thebes, and Ismene goes with her.

Antigone

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In the opening scene of the play when Antigone tells Ismene of her plans to bury their brother Polynices, and asks her to join her. While Ismene laments the fate of Polynices' corpse, she refuses to defy the laws of the city. She advises her sister to be secretive if she is determined to take this corse of action, and says she will do the same. Antigone, however, tells her not to keep silent but to tell everyone in the city. Ismene does not stop her sister, but makes her opinion of her foolishness clear.

Once Antigone is caught, in spite of her betrothal to his son Haemon, Creon decreed that she was to be buried alive. Ismene then declared she has aided Antigone and wants to share her fate, though she did not participate in the crime. Antigone refuses to let her be martyred for a cause she did not stand up for, telling her to live. Antigone expresses that while Ismene's "choice seemed right to some--others agreed with [hers]," but Iseme tells her that the both of them were "equally wrong."

Thus, it is apparent that Ismene serves as a foil for Antigone; she is the "compliant citizen" to her sister's "conscientious objector."[2]While she is loyal and willing to die at her sister's side, she does not make the same bold, defiant stand that Antigone does. Like Haemon, she is a reasonable, sympathetic person whose fate is tied to the far more fanatical Antigone and Creon.[2]

Seven Against Thebes

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Aeschylus' play, Seven Against Thebes, depicts the war and demise of Eteocles and Polynices. At the end of the play the Chorus narrates Ismene and Antigone entering to sing a funeral dirge together for both of their brothers. While Antigone exists with the First Semichorus, escorting the body of Polynices, Iseme and the Second Semichorus exit with the body of Eteocles.

Other Representations

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The 7th-century BC poet Mimnermus accounts that Ismene was murdered by Tydeus, one of the Seven. In this account, Ismene and her lover Theoclymenus met outside of the city during the siege. Tydeus had been told their whereabouts by Athena, and apprehended Ismene while Theoclymenus escaped. While she begged for sympathy, Tydeus was unaffected by her pleas and killed her.[3]

This is mentioned in no other extant Classical writing, but the scene is represented on a 6th-century Corinthian black-figure amphora now housed in the Louvre.[4]



References

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Theban plays: translated by Ruth Fainlight and Robert J. Litman

  1. ^ Thury, Devinney, Eva M., Margret K. (2017). Introduction to Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths. New York: Oxford. pp. 436, 437. ISBN 978-0-19-026298-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ a b Sophocles. Drama Classics: Antigone. McDonald, Marianne, trans. London: Nick Hern Books, 2004.
  3. ^ Grimal, Pierre, 1912-1996. (1991). The Penguin dictionary of classical mythology. Kershaw, Stephen. ([Abridged ed.] ed.). London, England: Penguin Books. ISBN 0140512357. OCLC 25246340.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Easterling, P. E.; Knox, B. M. W. (1989). Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Early Greek Poetry. Vol. vol. 1, part 1. Cambridge University Press. p. 95. ISBN 0-521-35981-3. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)



Antigone

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In Greek mythology, Antigone (/ænˈtɪɡəni/ ann-TIG-ə-nee; Ancient Greek: Ἀντιγόνη) is the daughter of Oedipus and his mother Jocasta. The meaning of the name is, as in the case of the masculine equivalent Antigonus, "worthy of one's parents" or "in place of one's parents".

In Sophocles

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Oedipus Rex

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Antigone and her sister Ismene are seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as Oedipus laments the "shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving his daughters to. He then begs Creon to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is lead away. Creon prevents him from taking the girls out of the city with them. Neither of them are named in the play.

Oedipus at Colonus

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Antigone serves as her father's guide in Oedipus and Colonus, as she leads him into the city where the play takes place. She stays with her father for the majority of the play, until she is taken away by Creon in an attempt to blackmail Oedipus into returning to Thebes. However, Theseus defends Oedipus and rescues both Antigone and her sister who was also taken prisoner.

At the end of the play both Antigone and her sister mourn the death of their father. Theseus offers them the comfort of knowing that Oedipus has received a proper burial, but by his wishes they cannot go to the site. Antigone then decides to return to Thebes.

Antigone

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Antigone is the subject of a story in which she attempts to secure a respectable burial for her brother Polynices. Oedipus's sons, Eteocles and Polynices, had shared the rule jointly until they quarrelled, and Eteocles expelled his brother. In Sophocles' account, the two brothers agreed to alternate rule each year, but Eteocles decided not to share power with his brother after his tenure expired. Polynices left the kingdom, gathered an army and attacked the city of Thebes in a conflict called the Seven Against Thebes. Both brothers were killed in the battle.

King Creon, who has ascended to the throne of Thebes after the death of the brothers, decrees that Polynices is not to be buried or even mourned, on pain of death by stoning. Antigone, Polynices' sister, defies the king's order but is caught.

Antigone is brought before Creon, and admits that she knew of Creon's law forbidding mourning for Polynices but chose to break it, claiming the superiority of divine over human law, and she defies Creon's cruelty with courage, passion and determination. Creon orders Antigone buried alive in a tomb. Although Creon has a change of heart and tries to release Antigone, he finds she has hanged herself. Creon's son Haemon, who was in love with Antigone commits suicide with a knife, and his mother Queen Eurydice, also kills herself in despair over her son's death. She has been forced to weave throughout the entire story, and her death alludes to The Fates.

Antigone is a typical Greek tragedy, in which inherent flaws of the acting characters lead to irrevocable disaster. Antigone and Creon are prototypical tragic figures in an Aristoteliansense, as they struggle towards their fore-doomed ends, forsaken by the gods.

Other Representations

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In the oldest version of Antigone's story, the burial of Polynices takes place during Oedipus' reign in Thebes, before Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta. However, in other versions such as Sophocles' tragedies Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, it occurs in the years after the banishment and death of Oedipus and Antigone's struggles against Creon.

Euripides' lost story

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The dramatist Euripides also wrote a play called Antigone, which is lost, but some of the text was preserved by later writers and in passages in his Phoenissae. In Euripides, the calamity is averted by the intercession of Dionysus and is followed by the marriage of Antigone and Hæmon.[1] Antigone also plays a role in the Phoenissae.

Appearance elsewhere

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Different elements of the legend appear in other places. A description of an ancient painting by Philostratus (Imagines ii. 29) refers to Antigone placing the body of Polynices on the funeral pyre, and this is also depicted on a sarcophagus in the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome. And in Hyginus' version of the legend, founded apparently on a tragedy by some follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by Creon to her lover Hæmon to be slain, is secretly carried off by him and concealed in a shepherd's hut, where she bears him a son, Maeon. When the boy grows up, he attends some funeral games at Thebes, and is recognized by the mark of a dragon on his body. This leads to the discovery that Antigone is still alive.[1] The demi-god Heracles then intercedes and pleads with Creon to forgive Hæmon, but in vain. Hæmon then kills Antigone and himself.[2] The intercession by Heracles is also represented on a painted vase (circa 380–300 BC).[3][4]

Seven Against Thebes

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Antigone appears briefly in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes. Both Antigone and her sister Ismene sing a funeral dirge for the loss of their brothers. As the play ends, Antigone exists with part of the chorus to escort the body of Polynices.