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...oath-band justice of the gods,/Then his city shall stand high/But no city for if he turns shameless out of daring” (Sophocles “Antigone” 18).

The above quote occurs in lines 369-372, which are spoken by the Chorus as the section labeled “Antistrophe b.” The “Strophe” and “Antistrophe” are terms that refer to the “stanzaic forms of the Greek choral ode” (“Greek Drama”). The chorus is reacting in these lines to the exchange that has just occurred between Creon and the Watchman who brought the news that someone had tried to bury Polynices, Antigone’s brother who rebelled against the state. A prominent interpretation of the central thematic issue of “Antigone” is that the “gods and womankind, in general” stand in opposition to “reason and human law” (Cimitile 221). In the quoted section, the chorus indicates this central dichotomy, which is that duty is owed both to human law, which is what allows society to exist, but also that duty is owed to the gods. By burying...