According to the chorus in the play 'Antigone', curses have staying power. Such a curse enters the house of the Labdacidae from which Antigone descends through her father, King Oedipus. The King commits the serious crime of parricide when he kills King Laius, who is his father albeit unknowingly. Likewise, in killing the king, he commits the equally serious offense of regicide. These crimes are compounded by his marrying King Laius' widow, Queen Jocasta, who is Oedipus' mother albeit unknowingly. For all of these unintentional offenses against god and nature, King Oedipus and Queen Jocasta are punished, to the anger and scorn of all those who know or hear of them. The insight from the Oedipus plays therefore is the inevitability of divine punishment and divine retribution for all human errors, be they unknowingly or knowingly committed. Any punishment and any settling of old scores therefore are guaranteed all the more, and ever more harshly and severely, for the knowing, deliberate and consensual human errors in the play 'Antigone'.
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