From the Antigone
From the Antigone - meaning Summary
Bitter Sweetness Unleashed
The poem presents an intense, paradoxical emotion — "bitter sweetness" — that overwhelms human life and social order. The speaker imagines passion or grief powerful enough to overturn gods, separate families, and set cities at war. Despite a compulsion to pray and sing, the voice acknowledges tears and decline: the reference to "Oedipus' child" evokes tragic inheritance and a final descent into loveless dust, blending personal sorrow with communal catastrophe.
Read Complete AnalysesOvercome -- O bitter sweetness, Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl -- The rich man and his affairs, The fat flocks and the fields' fatness, Mariners, rough harvesters; Overcome Gods upon Parnassus; Overcome the Empyrean; hurl Heaven and Earth out of their places, That in the Same calamity Brother and brother, friend and friend, Family and family, City and city may contend, By that great glory driven wild. Pray I will and sing I must, And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child Descends into the loveless dust.
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