Lethal combat before

A Theban wailing wall.

Brother versus brother.

Polynices and his six

Against usurping Eteocles. 

A double fratricide. 

Not even zero-sum.

Mutual assured destruction

No longer a safety valve, 

But a cold, blooded fact.

 

The jigsaw of hubris

Won't be complete

Until noble Antigone

Clashes with the crown

Of Creon, and marches

To her Gethsemane.

 

The king's decree that

Polynices should be left

As carrion fodder

Acts as her clarion call

To defy state law,

Obey that of the gods. 

 

So her brother she buries

According to protocol,

But the cronies of Creon

See all, and the deadly

Edict won't be long:

The ill-conceived princess

To be immured till

Her breath ceases. 

 

Though Tiresias tells Creon

The gods find him in the wrong,

He is too late with his parenesis;

Antigone won't wait for Nemesis:

She writes her own conclusion,

Prior to divine retribution. 

 

A melée of incompatible allegiances

In a tragedy of grievances. 

So it's hard to dissent when

The Chorus contends that

Nothing is stranger than man;

Indeed, Jesus and Judas in one.