Gideon Abramov05 November 2010
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 (she was condemned to be walled up in a cave) and her infamous crime. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus king of Thebes, Greece, learns that her beloved brothers, Eteocles and Polyneices, have killed each other while fighting on opposite sides during a war. Creon, then king of Thebes, buries one of the brothers, but refuses burial to the other, branding him a 'traitor'. Antigone defies him and as a punishment is walled up in a tomb. Creon eventually repents, but by then Antigone has killed herself. This is another great reinvention of a classic by Seamus Heaney (I would also recommend his Beowulf) and is a 'must read' for admirers of Greek tragedy.