Gods and Money

LEADER: O king, my thoughts have long been whispering, can this deed, perchance, be e’en the work of gods?

CREON: Stop, before you make me choke with anger—the gods! You, you’re senile, must you be insane? You say—why it’s intolerable—say the gods could have the slightest concern for that corpse? Tell me, was it for meritorious service they proceeded to bury him, prized him so? The hero who came to burn their temples ringed with pillars, their golden treasures—scorch their hallowed earth and fling their laws to the winds. Exactly when did you see the gods celebrating traitors? Inconceivable!

No, from the first there were certain citizens who could hardly stand the spirit of my regime, grumbling against me in the dark, heads together, tossing wildly, never keeping their necks beneath the yoke, loyally submitting to their king. These are the instigators, I’m convinced—they’ve perverted my own guard, bribed them to do their work.

Money! Nothing worse in our lives, so current, rampant, so corrupting. Money—you demolish cities, root men from their homes, you train and twist good minds and set them on to the most atrocious schemes. No limit, you make them adept at every kind of outrage, every godless crime—money!

Everyone—the whole crew bribed to commit this crime, they’ve made one thing sure at least: sooner or later they will pay the price.

I thought this monologue from Antigone would be quite good for discussion, even though I don’t like Creon very much so far. He is quickly showing the signs of the paranoid ruler, assuming that his underlings are insubordinate abominations. Although he is jumping to false conclusions about the integrity of his own guards, he still produces a pretty good speech worthy of the Sophoclean soap box.

In his speech he identifies an evil that is still current: currency. He recognizes the destructive facilities of money, that it brings down cities, households, and persons of the purest intentions. People will do surprising and contemptible things for a profit. He says that money is the source of “ever godless crime” and that it is so pervasive that it has “no limit.” Dude. What Creon is talking about is completely relevant to today’s society. It is universal AND timeless! We frequently hear people say that money is the source of all evil.

I also think it should be taken into account that the whole reason why he blames money as the culprit of Polynices’ burial is because one of Creon’s men suggests that perhaps the gods played a part in this seemingly paranormal occurrence. Creon is very perturbed by this proposition and… cue tirade. The thing is, Creon completely and aggressively dismisses the idea that the gods would favor a man that—to him—is a traitor to their god-worshipping city of Thebes. Here is yet another universal concept: when the people say, “There is no way that the gods favor this person because they clearly favor me! If I don’t like this person then neither would my gods.” The issue here is that both sides always think that the gods are on their side. Just a few pages earlier we have Antigone telling Ismene that she plans to bury their brother because she believes that it is what the gods want. She believes the gods are upset that Polynices isn’t being buried. Meanwhile, Creon believes that the gods agree that leaving a traitor to rot without funeral protocol is the just thing to do.

The thing about us humans is that we are constantly trying to figure out what our gods want us to do, if they agree with us, and whether or not they are on our side. The whole reason why we have the crusades, the continuing conflict in Jerusalem, and the September 11 attacks is because both parties think that the gods favor them and not the other. Each group is certain that what they are doing is right by their own religious perspective. Now, as for the War in Iraq… that isn’t because of our gods… that’s because of the money thing discussed earlier.

Look at it this way: Creon would rather think that every single one of the guards that were watching over Polynices’ body (you know, the guards trained to be loyal to their king?) would be crooked enough to be bought out by an outsider (improbable) than even consider the possibility that the gods were screwing with the humans (again). Really? When HAVEN’T the gods done something to “fling their laws to the winds?!?” Creon likely doesn’t fully know his gods’ in the way we know about them since we’ve studied their (mis)doings years and years later. I should probably give Creon the benefit of the doubt. But I won’t. Even back then he should probably recognize that the gods don’t have anything better to do other than screw eachother, screw mortals, and then screw with the mortals. They have consistently shown the tendency to mess with the human’s lives, just for their mere enjoyment. It is definitely NOT more likely that ALL of Creon’s loyal guards on duty would sell out for a little quick cash when the gods historically do not remain loyal to the interests of the humans. C’mon, man!