What is the story of Meng Hai's double suicide for antigone in ancient Greek mythology?

The story happened in Thebes, and Sophocles, an ancient Greek tragic writer, wrote the tragedy antigone. Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus, king of Thebes in Greek mythology. After his father proved that he killed his father and married his mother, he stabbed him in the eye and was exiled. She accompanied her blind father to da kronos. After returning home, he was imprisoned in the tomb for violating the ban of the new king Kerion and burying his dead brother. Meng Hai, the son of Creon, fell in love with her and rushed to the grave to save her. She saw that she hanged herself, which was also a double suicide.

Creon gained the throne after the fall of Oedipus. One of Oedipus' sons, Eteocles, gave his life to protect the polis, and another son, Polenkos, betrayed the polis and colluded with foreign countries to attack Thebes and died. After the war, Creon held a grand funeral for Eteocles, while Polenx was killed on the battlefield. Creon ordered that anyone who buried Polenkos should be put to death. Antigone, the elder sister of Polenx, resolutely buried her brother on the grounds of following dogma, so she was ordered to be put to death by Creon. At the same time, Creon met a fortune teller and said that he had offended the gods. Creon regretted it. When she went to save antigone, she was already dead. Antigone's fiance Hammond, Creon's son, stood up to attack Creon and committed suicide. Creon's wife heard that her son had died, blamed Creon and committed suicide. Creon realized that he had caused the tragedy himself.

Antigone is a classic of ancient Greek tragedy, and there have been different interpretations of its metaphorical meaning. In the play, when antigone confronts Creon, a sentence is often quoted by jurists: "The unwritten law made by the gods is eternal. Its existence is not limited to today and yesterday, but eternal. No one knows when it appeared." "I don't think your command is so powerful that you, a mortal, dare to go beyond God's unwritten eternal law. Not today, not yesterday, they exist forever, and no one knows their origin in time! " This has become a classic in the debate between natural law school and legal positivism.

In the west, antigone's complaint against city-state laws is called "antigone's resentment", but this tragic resentment has become one of the sources of constitutionalism, democracy and rule of law.

Relevant paragraphs of the original text:

Creon finally waited for his son Haimen. Seeing Haimen running nervously towards him, he knew that his son must have heard about his fiancee's arrest, so he asked his father for his fiancee's exemption. However, to Creon's surprise, Hammond was very respectful to his father. After he showed his loyalty to his father and patiently answered his father's questions, he boldly interceded for antigone.

"Dear father, do you know what the Thebes say about this?" Hammond said quietly, "You may not know what they are saying, because they certainly dare not say what you don't want to hear in front of you." But I can hear their comments clearly, so I'll tell you. Almost everyone sympathized with antigone and was indignant at her arrest. Everyone thinks that her behavior is not only disgraceful, but should be greatly praised. What is antigone's sin? She just buried her brother according to God's law and her own nature, so that his body would not be torn by mad dogs and birds and his soul would rest in peace. No one believes that instead of being rewarded, antigone is facing the dilemma of being executed. Dear father, please listen to the voice of the people. A good king should know how to conform to public opinion. The knife cuts bread and fingers. If a king acts against the will of the people, the consequences will be unimaginable. "

"Shut up! It's not your turn to teach me how to be king! What qualifications do you have to educate your father! " Creon said contemptuously, "Don't be so grandiose. You just want to protect a woman who has committed a crime, but you don't hesitate to oppose your own father. "

"I love my fiancee antigone, but what I just said was really for your own good, because I just said what everyone said behind your back in front of you." Meng Hai said excitedly.

"I know very well," Creon said angrily, "that blind love for that bold woman makes you lose your principles and even hesitate when defending criminals. Even if I don't execute her, you won't marry her. I will never allow such a woman to be the future queen of Thebes. I decided not to kill her, lest her blood defile Thebes! I'm going to send her to a remote cave in the distance, and only give her a little food, so that she can pray for freedom from the god of hell there! I want her to understand that it is better to obey the orders of the living than the orders of the dead. But now even if she understands, it's too late. My only son will defy me openly for her. I will never forgive her innocence! "

Say that finish, he won't let Hammond say another word, and then angrily turned and walked away, ordered the servants to immediately carry out his cruel decision. So, before the people of Thebes, antigone was taken away and put into a grave-like cave. Antigone showed no fear. She called for gods and relatives, hoping to live with them forever, and then calmly walked into the tomb-like cave.

The soil that antigone spilled on Polynices's body for the second time had already been swept away by Creon, so the body gradually rotted in the hot summer, and wild dogs and crows scrambled to devour the carrion on the body. Flies also come in droves. Soon, the corpse was covered with maggots, and the whole city of Thebes smelled of corpses. Thebes are getting more and more uneasy about this hellish smell, and Creon is the only one who doesn't take it seriously at all.

On this day, tiresias, an old prophet who revealed the secret of Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother, was taken to Creon by a boy. He told the king that he learned from the words of cigarettes and birds on the altar that disaster was coming to Thebes. He accused Creon in a trembling voice: "What did you do? The gods are angered by you! I heard birds chirping after eating carrion, and even the sacrifices offered on the altar were terrible in the smoke. How dare you violate the divine law and let a mortal's body not be buried after his death? The undead have nowhere to turn. Obviously, God is angry at what you have done. How inappropriate the way you treated Oedipus' dead son, king, you must stop sticking to your own opinions! What glory will it bring you to spoil a dead man's body so viciously? This inhuman order will only make people angry! "

Just as Oedipus didn't believe that he would be a sinner who killed his father and married his mother, Creon didn't believe the prophet's advice, and called tiresias nonsense, saying that he just wanted to cheat money. The prophet was angered. Seeing that Creon was so stubborn, he showed what was going to happen to him without scruple. He said sternly, "All right! If you are still stubborn, then I will tell you what you will see: before the sun goes down today, you will lose two close relatives because of this poisoned body, and heaven and earth will not tolerate it! Because you have committed a double crime: you don't let the dead go to hell and you don't let the living enjoy the sunshine on earth. Come on, my child, take me away from this evil place. I don't want this man's sin to infect my soul. Let fate punish him and let him slowly taste misfortune! " After that, the old prophet took the child by the hand and left Creon's palace on crutches.