The Burial at Thebes

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The Burial at Thebes is a play by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, based on the fifth century BC tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.

The title of the play recalls Antigone's punishment - to be walled up in a cave - and her crime. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus king of Thebes, learns that her brothers have killed each other fighting on different sides of a war. Creon, king of Thebes, buries one of the brothers, but refuses burial to the other 'traitor'. Antigone defies him, and as a punishment is walled up in a tomb. He eventually repents, but by then she has taken her own life.


See also

Antigone

Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus the King