Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 February 2009
1 Adams, S. M. (Sophocles the Playwright, Toronto 1957, 49 ff.Google Scholar, cf. C.R. xlv [1931], 110–11) suggests that Polynices' burial was not Antigone's work, but the result of a previous dust-storm similar to that described at 417 ff. But if this is so, it is difficult to see why, when the dust-storm recurs in the same area, it fails to cover the corpse once more. Moreover the language of 422 ff. seems against this. It is true enough that ‘Neither Antigone nor any other human being could accomplish such a burial as the guard describes’ at 249 ff. (Adams, p. 47); but the guard of course has good reason to invest the event with an aura of the supernatural, since this will remove any blame-worthiness from himself and his colleagues. It is part of his policy of ‘fencing himself round against blame’ (l. 241).