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Mythic Figure

Ismene

Ἰσμήνη

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Antigone’s gentler sister — willing to share the death, refused the deed.

Ismene counsels submission — “we are women, not made to war with men” — yet when the deed is discovered she claims a share of the guilt and is refused: Antigone will not let her die on borrowed credit. She survives the play as the house’s last, quietest member, the measure by which her sister’s extremity is taken.

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