city (or Desert)/ 3.

the pious crime by Antigone between psychoanalysis and politics.

“(Ismene): …To act beyond one's limits is absolute unbalanced.

(Antigone): I will no longer seek your help, and even if you decide to act in the future, I will not welcome your cooperation. Be whatever you wish to be: it is a beautiful thing for me to die in this undertaking. Dear to him who is dear to me I shall lie, for a pious crime.” [1]

By attributing to herself what she calls a 'crime', Antigone uses a verb which in ancient Greek indicates deceiving, trivializing, or being too smart: and in the text's oxymoron, 'pious' is an attribute of the gods who make no mistakes, unlike humans who must continuously repent. Creon himself, though ruler of Thebes, will ultimately have to painfully repent.

As for Antigone—"this so terribly voluntary victim”, as Jacques Lacan[2] defines her—Antigone goes so far to make attractive (even desirable!) the perversion that she herself introduces into the city."

Marina Bilotta Membretti/ Cernusco sul Naviglio – August 12, 2026 

TutorSalus.net - Freudian journalism

[1] ‘Sofocle. Antigone’, Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli RCS Libri Spa (2000) vv.68-74, p.65

[2] ‘Jacques Lacan. Il seminario. Libro VII. L’etica della psicoanalisi 1959 – 1960’. Testo stabilito da Jacques-Alain Miller. Traduzione di Maria Delia Contri. Edizione italiana a cura di Antonio Di Ciaccia/ p. 290