LEARNING
ROM ANTIGONE
In the Athenian tragic play “Antigone”
written by the Greek tragedian Sophocles and first performed around 441 BC. the Scottish American intellectual
critic Gilbert Highet (1906-1978) quotes the following poem .
Wonders
are many, but none
Is
more wondrous than man.
Man moves over the grey sea,
Using the wind and the storm.
Daring the depths and surges,
Even the eldest of all the gods---
Earth, inexhaustible earth.
Man masters her
With yearly ploughs that turn and return
And the steady step of the horse.
Language and thought
Light and rapid wind,
Man has thought himself as these, and has
learnt
The ways of living in town and city,
Shelter from inhospitable frost.
Escape from the arrows of rain.
Cunning, cunning is man.
WISE though his plans are,
Artful beyond all dreaming,
They carry him both to evil and to good.
“Antigone”
is the story of a young girl who learns that the body of her brother, denounced as a rebel and traitor, is rotting
in a desert, to be eaten by wolves and vultures. The government has announced
death punishment for anyone who disobeys and buries the dead body. “Antigone” does
not are for the consequences, follows her family tradition of burial, sacrifices
her happiness and life even when her own sister does not support her.
The
determined girl Antigone thus becomes a great tragic heroine in literature.
To conclude: this famous Gilbert Highet quote:
“The real duty of man is not to
extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and
enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul.
*****
G.R.Kanwal
20 December 2025
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