Fated Shores, Forbidden Burials: Divine Will vs. Choice in Vergil and Sophocles

The painting draws us in with its shadows. In "Antigone in Front of the Dead Polynices" (1865), Nikiforos Lytras, a leading exponent of the Munich School in nineteenth-century Greek painting, allows darkness to nearly engulf the scene. On one side, Polynices lies still, his pale skin bright against the rough ground. On the other, Antigone stands in mourning, her hand to her face, her form partly lost in gloom. Lytras offers no clear lines or heroic poses. Instead, he shows the raw emotion of defiance and grief.

Born in 1832, Lytras painted at a time when Greece was still shaping its identity. His brush does more than retell myth; it evokes the ongoing struggle between law and love, between decree and conscience. The canvas feels like a quiet night, as if history hides in shadows lit only by a faint Athenian glow, where tragedy first began. Yet even in darkness, Antigone remains firm, bound by duty to the dead and the gods, her stance pressing back against the gloom.

This image does not simply portray grief. It raises the same questions that Sophocles’ play forces upon us: What drives human action—rules, conscience, or the will of the gods? Here, the comparison with Vergil becomes useful. Lytras shows Antigone pushing against darkness, while Vergil’s Aeneas is compelled from within it. In one tradition, divine will presses down on human life. In the other, it works in human life. These contrasts set the stage for a deeper question that guides both poem and play.

Vergil’s Aeneid and Sophocles’ tragedies both explore how divine will and free choice shape the life of man. In Vergil, divine will functions as an adjudicating force in the life of man, while in Sophocles, divine will operates as an overarching force on the life of man. Thus, the operative prepositions are in and on.

The question of the agency of the gods in and on the life of man is ever present. This issue is far more complex than can be argued in a short persuasive essay. Thus, the arguments made within this essay are designed to look at only a select number of items to examine the matter.

However, the assumption is made that “gods” are actual deities rather than mythological characters. If the gods have true existence then the parallel existence is beyond that of fictional characters within a poem. All writing is the exposition of the mind of man. Vergil’s belief in deity was certainly influenced by the theological norms of the day.[1]

Divine Will in Vergil’s Aeneid

The Adjudicating Force of Fate

The poet Vergil, in his character design for Aeneid, portrays the divine as an adjudicating force in human life. This sharply restricts human agency.[1] Jove ruled by requiring that Aeneas fulfill his desired end, his fate (Latin, fatum).

Vergil opens with the programmatic line:

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora (Aen. 1.1–3).

As translated by Sarah Ruden:

Arms and a man I sing, the first from Troy,
A fated exile to Lavinian shores
In Italy. On land and sea, divine will—
And Juno’s unforgetting rage—harassed him.
War racked him too, until he set his city
And gods in Latium. There his Latin race rose,
With Alban patriarchs, and high Rome’s walls.[1]

The opening line of the poem sets the tone of man and his fate.

Man’s will scarcely enters the equation in this mythology.[2] Divine will predominates in human life, even though Vergil still stages moments of hesitation and deliberation in Aeneas. The gods orchestrate events. At times, they make humans appear puppet-like, leading to the desired results. Vergil presents the gods as orchestrating the symphony of human life, granting humanity only negligible freedom to choose its part. Whatever Vergil’s actual viewpoint, his poem clearly displays the strength of divine will in human life.

Omnipresence of the Gods

Vergil portrays the omnipresence of the gods by depicting divine will as operative both on land and at sea. The poem opens,

"On land and sea, divine will and Juno's unforgiving rage harassed him."[3] Even Juno, queen of the gods, acknowledges, "fate blocks me."[2] Aeneas consoles himself amid loss and suffering: "but God [17] will end this too."[4] "Fate's secret book" ordains the destruction of a "fierce race."[5]

Divine will, tempered by the emotions of the gods, determines human destiny. Yet the choices made by characters can intensify the suffering provoked by divine wrath. Some interpreters have drawn a modern analogy to the “health and wealth gospel,” which proposes that prosperity follows obedience and suffering follows disobedience. This analogy is purely illustrative; it should not be read as a claim about Greco-Roman religion itself.

Some interpreters compare this logic to the conversations in the book of Job, where suffering prompts the question, “why is God doing this to me?” In the same way, Aeneas might be imagined asking such a question of the gods. Thus, conformity to the will of the gods shapes the degree to which their fury is poured out on man.[5]

The Problem of Human Agency

The troublesome concern is the role of man within the designs of the gods. Given the dominance of divine will in the poem, it is difficult to sustain the notion of free moral agency in Aeneas’ decision to abandon the passion of the ruler of Carthage. Freedom of choice in moral decision-making cannot properly be considered, since Aeneas possesses no genuine autonomy within the divine course set for him. His was the decision of the gods.

Dido’s Contrasting Experience

Dido, by contrast, carried within her “a grievous love wound.”[6] She thought of Aeneas constantly “an unseen flame gnawed at her hour by hour.”[7] Her conclusion was that “I think, it must be true, this is a god’s child.”[8] Although not a topic for this essay it would be an interesting study to consider that Aeneas was in fact “a god’s child.”

Does this influence whether he has free moral agency in choice? Is this unique to Aeneas since he is a god’s child? Is this common to all man? If Juno could have rage as a god then Aeneas can have emotion as a god’s child. She desired him deeply. Yet although Aeneas had won the love of a woman of her refinement and position, he suppressed emotion [9] and pursued his fated duty until “fortunes change” by divine will.[9]

From these passages, one may conclude that the underlying theological theme is that of adjudicating gods whose actions shape the destiny of man. Their will can appear capricious, partial, or inscrutable, depending on the episode and interpreter.

Divine Will in Sophocles’ Antigone

Overarching Force of the Gods

The playwright Sophocles, in his character design for the Theban play Antigone, presents the divine as an overarching force upon the life of man, permitting little variation in human action.[10] Sophocles’ character development reflects the conception of the gods as conducting the symphony of human existence, while still granting man a measure of privilege to choose his own part. Whatever Sophocles’ actual viewpoint, the play clearly displays the pervasive presence of divine will upon the life of man.

The Role of Creon

Sophocles portrays the omnipresence of the gods by showing divine will as operative in the decisions of King Creon. Creon decreed that anyone found guilty of performing ceremonial rites of burial for the outlaw Polynices would suffer the retribution of both king and gods.[11] In Antigone the gods ruled through the laws of the King who was a human agent. The same is true of Aeneas in the Aeneid. Yet, the interaction of the gods is different in the play and the poem.

Antigone and Ismene’s Dialogue

Early in the play, Ismene asked,

"What do you think we can possibly do now, you and I, to untie the difficult knot?" To which Antigone responded, "You must decide whether to share the risk. Will you help me?"[12]

The same logic applies to the choice set before Creon. Divine will, embodied in the ruler, shapes human destiny. Yet the choices of characters retain the capacity to alter its course. Thus, human conformity to the will of the gods determines the ultimate outcome of human action.

Free Will vs. Determinism

It seems a considerable leap to move from the free moral agency evident in Aeneid and Antigone to a theology of absolute determinism, albeit within a polytheistic framework as portrayed in both poem and play. Yet, in the dialogue between Antigone and Ismene, a genuine "choice" is at stake: whether or not to bury their brother Polynices.

To bury or not to bury? That is the question, and it delineates the sphere of choice. Either course lay open to them, and they were fully cognizant of the torment that might follow. The very fact that they weighed the consequences of the decision demonstrates their capacity to choose. From these passages one may conclude that the underlying theological theme is that the adjudicating gods influenced, but did not wholly dictate, the destiny of man.  

Conclusion

Concepts of such magnitude, when viewed through the lens of the Western mind, admit of no easy answer. Accordingly, the scholar must give careful consideration to every nuance in order to arrive at a reasonable working model.

As Schall observes, “If you read Plato only once, you have failed Plato. And if you fail Plato you have failed yourself.”[16] The role of divine will in Greek mythology likewise requires repeated readings for adequate understanding.[16]

Vergil and Sophocles allow for no independent choice in human action sufficient to alter what we might call man’s macro-destiny, while conceding only negligible privilege in matters of micro-destiny. These terms are used here as interpretive frames to distinguish large-scale fated outcomes from smaller personal decisions.

It remains an open question whether Greek mythological tradition admitted genuine freedom of choice. The capacity to choose to do or not to do constitutes freedom of will. Yet even when an individual judgment is exercised, this does not diminish the possibility that divine will has ordained another, superior course. Aeneas did not possess that freedom.[2]  

Editorial Note. This essay was written for a doctoral course, HU 8326, Understanding Humane Letters, in 2015. For the purposes of literary analysis, references to “the gods” are confined to their role within the mythological frameworks of Vergil and Sophocles, and should not be read as a statement of personal theological commitment.

Notes

1. Vergil, The Aeneid (2009), 1.1; Vergil, The Aeneid, trans. Sarah Ruden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 1.1–3.
2. Ibid., 1.39.
3. Ibid., 1.3–4.
4. Ibid., 1.199.
5. Ibid., 1.262–263.
6. Ibid., 4.1.
7. Ibid., 4.2.
8. Ibid., 4.12.
9. Ibid., 1.207.
10. Sophocles, Antigone, in The Theban Plays of Sophocles, trans. E. F. Watling (London: Penguin, 2009), ll. 1–99.
11. Ibid., ll. 194–214.
12. Ibid., 3.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Schall, Another Sort of Learning (1988), p. 60.
17. Capitalization of “God” in quoted passages follows the translator (Sarah Ruden). Elsewhere, “gods” is rendered in lowercase to reflect the polytheistic context of Vergil and Sophocles.