ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by noting three examples of the death of an unmarried girl which is clearly associated with her imminent wedding (Antigone, lphigeneia, Glauke). The death of Antigone is presented by Sophokles in a manner suggestive of a wedding, in part with Hades or Acheron, in part with her betrothed Haimon. The arrival of the Greeks to take Iphigeneia to her death produces the prospect of a scene familiar from certain descriptions of the wedding, the bride torn from the embrace of her mother. The association with death, one of the negative tendencies which in a normal wedding would be overcome in the rituals of transition and incorporation, has in the tragedy emerged as a triumphant reality. The sinister epiphanic role of Aphrodite, expressing the destructive carnality of this union, is given special point by her (silent) presence even at a normal wedding.
