In “Antigone,” Choragos symbolizes Creon’s counselors. They were supposedly meant to advise the monarch and represent the community complaints. In truth, his rage made them completely ineffective. The counselors should be held in the same regard by the monarch as Tiresias, the blind man. They are comprised of city leaders and essential residents. The Choragos appreciate both Antigone’s desire to preserve her relatives and Creon’s position as king, acting as a middle ground that adds complexity to the plot and gray areas to an otherwise black-and-white depiction.
Speaking of character status, Choragos is the chorus’s head and spokesman. The chorus first emerges in Antigone after the opening sequence. Antigone and Ismene begin the play by arranging the death of Polynices. Antigone has embarked on her dangerous expedition, and Ismene is concerned for her sister’s security and safety as she challenges the king. The first of Antigone’s chorus homages is a ceremony of gratitude for the triumphant Eteocles.
“Seven captains at seven gates
Yielded their clanging arms to the god
That bends the battle-line and breaks it.
These two only, brothers in blood,
Face to face in matchless rage,
Mirroring each the other’s death,
Clashed in long combat” (Sophocles).
In the first scene after Creon’s long monologue, their dialogue with Choragos reveals the age of these two characters.
“We are old men: let the younger ones carry it out” (Sophocles).
As an emotion, one can consider Horagus in the sense that he was the choir leader during the play in all scenes and explains the actions and the general atmosphere.
“Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the storm gray sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high;
Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions” (Sophocles).
Work Cited
Sophocles. Antigone. ReadHowYouWant.com, 2008.