CLAT 2010

Read the following passage carefully and answer question numbers 10 to 19

Antigone was one of the daughters of Oedipus, that tragic figure of male power who had been cursed by Gods for mistakenly killing his father and subsequently marrying his mother
and assuming the throne of Thebes. After the death of Oedipus civil war broke out and a battle was waged in front of the seventh gate of Thebes-his two sons led opposing factions
and at the height of the battle fought and killed each other. Oedipus' brother, Creon, uncle of Antigone, was now undisputed master of the city. Creon resolved to make an example of the
brother who had fought against him, Polynices, by refusing the right of honourable burial.

The penalty of death was promulgated against any who should defy this order.. Antigone was distraught. Polynices had been left unburied, unwept, a feast of flesh for keen
eyed carrion birds. Antigone asks her sister Ismene, for it was a challenge to her royal blood. "Now it is time to show whether or not you are worthy of your royal blood. Is he not
my brother and yours? Whether you like it or not? I shall never desert him-never!" But Ismene responds, "How could you dare - when Creon has expressly forbidden it? Antigone, we are women, it is not for us to fight against men" With a touch of bitterness, Antigone releases her sister from the obligation to help her, but argues she cannot shrug off the burden. "If I die for it what happiness! Live, if you will live, and defy the holiest of laws of heaven."

Select the meaning of the italicized idioms and phrases in sentences in questions 20 to 25