ANTICLIMAX (dim. and KX7.ti.ae), in rhetoric, is an Again, in assigning Antigone the tragic end of being buried abrupt declension on the part of a speaker or writer from alive, Sophocles differs from Euripides, in whose play that the dignity of idea which he has attained, as in the follow- calamity was averted by the intercession of Bacchus, and ing well-known distich was followed by the marriage of Antigone and Hnmon, the son of her persecutor Creon, who had succeeded to the " The great Dalhousie, he, the god of war, throne. In another version of the legend (Hyginus, Fab.

Lieutenant-colonel to the earl of Mar."

72), founded apparently (Heydemann, Ueber erne mach From its character it is plain that it can be intention- Euripideische Antigone, Berlin, 1868) on a tragedy by some ally employed only for a jocular or satiric purpose. It follower of Euripides, Antigone, on being handed over by frequently partakes of the nature of antithesis, as - Creon to her lover Hmmon to be slain, was instead secretly Die and endow a college or a eat." carried off by him, and concealed among herdsmen, where she " bore him a son Mason. The boy having grown up, went to From bathos it is distinguished by being much more de- the games at Thebes, and being there recognised by the cidedly a relative term. A whole speech may never rise mark of a dragon on his body, the secret was discovered. above the level of bathos ; but a climax of greater or less Hercules pleaded with Creon in vain for Hmmon, who now elevation is the necessary antecedent of an anticlimax. slew both Antigone and himself. On a painted vase