Interview with Creon
The Creon-ologue
Hello out there, Internet surfers. Greetings from Elysium, the city of the blessed dead. That's right, despite the negative image that's been spread about me over the years, I reside with all the great heroes and heroines of history. How 'bout them apples? Maybe I'm not so bad after all, huh? Maybe all you people out there shouldn't base your impression of me only on the works of hack writers like Sophocles or on that idiotic blog of Antigone's.
Reasons Why Antigone Is a Stubborn Little Twit
I suppose most of you have heard of the famous disagreement between my troublesome niece, Antigone, and me. In case you were unaware, the argument came about after I decreed that the corpse of her brother, Polyneices, was not allowed to be buried. I made it very clear to all that the penalty for breaking this law was death. Still, Antigone directly defied me. And I've been painted as a villain ever since because I carried out the promised death sentence by burying her alive.
Below, you will find all the reasons why Antigone should immediately desist in posting all this slanderous rhetoric about yours truly:
- Certainly Eteocles wronged Polyneices when he went back on his word and didn't share the throne of Thebes. But how much could Polyneices possibly have loved Thebes if he was so determined to destroy it with an army of Argives? Obviously the man was a traitor and deserved no proper burial.
- Antigone constantly accuses me of being hard-hearted, but I did bury her brother Eteocles with all the proper rites, even though, if I'm being truly honest with myself, he did in fact bring a lot of damage down on Athens with his power-hungry ways.
- Okay sure, I did shut Antigone inside of a tomb to suffocate to death. Hate me for that if you want, but she had it coming. For the record, though, I'm not the one who killed the girl. In fact, I had generously decided to pardon her, despite her terrible crime. But when my men opened the tomb to release her, she'd hanged herself.
- I'm one of the sanest rulers Thebes has ever seen. Cadmus turned into a snake. Pentheus got on the bad side of Dionysus and had his head ripped off by his own mother. Laius had a kid who was destined to kill him despite a prophecy that warned him against it. Oedipus killed Laius, his father, and slept with his mother/my sister, bringing an awful plague on the city. I mean, come on. Was I really that terrible compared to some of these guys?!
Comments:
beatthesphinx65: Creon, do you seriously think that your pitiful blog can compete with Antigone's?
KingCre999: This blog is thorough and informative, Oedipus.
beatthesphinx65: Yeah, but it's got no spunk, no pizzazz.
KingCre999: Your side of the family always had a bit too much "pizzazz" if you ask me.
beatthesphinx65: You seriously were always a stick in the mud. Just a boring bureaucrat posing as a king.
KingCre999: I wish your reign had been a bit more boring. The worst mistake I made wasn't walling your daughter up in a tomb; it was giving you the throne of Thebes and the hand of my sister. I should have kept the throne! Found another way to beat the Sphinx!
beatthesphinx65: Yeah, you kind of messed up there.
KingCre999: Are you joking about all this tragedy?
beatthesphinx65: Look, I'll forever be remembered as the guy who killed his father, slept with his mother, and gouged out his own eyes. If I don't find things to laugh about, I'll go totally crazy.
KingCre999: I can't believe we're related.
beatthesphinx65: You know what, Creon? Maybe your tragic flaw was that you took life way too seriously.
Antitothegone: :-)