ARTicles vol. 2 i.4a: Opinion

Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus is a story about a man who tries to do what is right and in the process destroys himself. Oedipus had thought he was the son of Polybus, the king of Corinth, and his wife Merope. But when someone told him that that he was adopted, he went to the oracle at Delphi to ask the god Apollo who his true parents were. The oracle at Delphi, as was its custom, did not answer his question directly. Instead the god told Oedipus that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus was determined to keep the terrible prophecy from being fulfilled, so he did not return to his home in Corinth. But for all his good intentions, that decision ensured that the prophecy would come true. On his way from Delphi, Oedipus killed an old man who had pushed him out of the way and struck him with his staff. When he came to Thebes, Oedipus married a woman older than himself, the widow of the king of Thebes, who had been killed on his way to Delphi. The woman, though he did not realize it, was Jocasta, his real mother, and the man he killed was her husband Laius, Oedipus’ father. Why was Oedipus compelled to fulfill this terrible prophecy? The gods were using him to punish his parents for wrongs committed before he was born. His father Laius had angered the gods by causing the death of a young man, Chrysippus, with whose care he had been entrusted. Chrysippus killed himself because Laius had raped him. Apollo, through his oracle, advised Laius not to beget any children of his own. But Oedipus was born, and became the cause of both his parents’ deaths. The gods saw to it that justice was accomplished in the long run, but in the process they did not intervene to keep the innocent from suffering. This kind of divine justice may seem particularly cruel to those of us who expect God to care for humankind. But unlike the God of the Old Testament, Zeus and his family did not create human beings, and their relationship to them was sometimes hostile, and often uncaring. Their quest for justice ruined Oedipus’ life; it gives no pleasure to any mortal, as Sophocles’ Chorus learns, except the cold comfort that comes from understanding. At the end of the drama Oedipus is blind and penniless. He is about to be sent away from Thebes to wander and beg for his living. But at least he realizes that he cannot control everything in his life, and he knows that because he is a mortal, his understanding is limited. True knowledge of the present, and of what will happen in the future, belongs only to the gods. The play describes how Oedipus discovers that he has unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy that he was trying to avoid. Sophocles has arranged the narrative so that every question posed is quickly answered, and as one possibility after another is eliminated, inevitably Oedipus and the other characters discover the truth. As the play opens, the priest of Zeus and the people of Thebes come to Oedipus as suppliants, because the people and the crops are dying from a plague. They think Oedipus can help them. Years before they had made him their king because he had saved Thebes by answering the riddle of the Sphinx, the monster that had been terrorizing the city. Oedipus once again demonstrates that he knows what to do. He has already sent Creon, his wife’s brother, to the oracle at Delphi, to ask the god’s advice. Now Creon returns with the god’s message: whoever killed King Laius is living in Thebes and must be driven out. The old men of Thebes who comprise the Chorus are frightened, and they pray to Apollo to tell them what he plans to accomplish. We never see the god in person, but he is present throughout the play, working behind the scenes. Now the prophet Teiresias enters. At first he speaks only in riddles, like the god Apollo himself. Then reluctantly he predicts exactly what will happen: Oedipus will be revealed as the killer of his father, husband of his mother, brother and sister to his children; he will be blind and will be driven out of Thebes. When Teiresias says outright that Oedipus himself is the killer, Oedipus refuses to believe him. His quick and angry reactions show that he is the type of person who responds violently when insulted, as he did when he met the old man on the road to Delphi. Oedipus’ wife Jocasta claims that she can prove that there is no truth in prophecies. The oracle had said that her husband Laius would be killed by their son. But Laius was killed by robbers “at the place where three roads meet,” not by their son, who had been exposed to die on the mountainside three days after he was born. Oedipus is not reassured by Jocasta’s words, because he now suspects that the old man he killed long ago at the place where three roads meet was in fact King Laius. He wonders if Teiresias was not right after all. His only hope now is that the old slave who witnessed Laius’ death will repeat his statement that he was killed by robbers rather than a lone individual. Just at that moment a messenger arrives from Corinth to say that Polybus has just died and Oedipus has inherited that kingdom. Oedipus now supposes that the news has proved that Jocasta was right about the unreliability of oracles. Why, he exclaims, should one believe the oracle at Delphi, or the prophecies that said he was fated to kill his father? But Oedipus’ hopes are quickly dashed. When he expresses concern that he could still marry his mother, presuming her to be Merope, the Queen of Corinth, the messenger assures him that she is only his adoptive mother. The messenger explains that he himself had brought him to Corinth as a baby and given him to the king and queen. He had taken him from a Theban shepherd, and this shepherd proves to be the same old slave who witnessed Laius’ death. Jocasta now realizes what has happened and urges Oedipus not to inquire further, but he refuses to listen to her. He thinks that she is upset because he might turn out to be of low birth, the son of a slave. Jocasta leaves the stage with the warning: “ill-fated man, may you never find out who you are!” The old shepherd arrives, and with great reluctance reveals that the baby he gave to the man from Corinth was the king’s son; the king and his wife exposed it to the elements because they were afraid of the prophecies that it would kill its parents. More terrible revelations quickly follow. A messenger reports that Jocasta has killed herself, and that Oedipus has blinded himself with the golden pins from her dress. Oedipus comes out of the palace, blind, unsure of where he is and to whom he is speaking. When the Chorus asks which god has attacked him, he replies: “It was Apollo, Apollo, my friends, who caused these cruel, cruel sufferings of mine! But no other hand struck my eyes; in my misery I was the one who struck them! For why should I be able to see, when there was nothing I could see with pleasure?” So far, blinding himself is the first action he has undertaken that was not ordained by the god. Oedipus reflects that he is the mortal most hated by the gods; how much better it would have been if he had not been saved by the shepherd! Creon now urges him to go inside the house, so as not to expose his pollution to the Sun God. He refuses to let him leave until he has learned from Apollo what they should do. The Chorus speaks about the fragility of human accomplishment. Disaster has struck Oedipus, who had once been so powerful. No one should call a man fortunate until he has died, and lived his life without experiencing any sorrow. There is no need for the old men to say anything further about the accuracy of Apollo’s oracle, or the importance of prophecy, since it is all too clear that the god knew exactly what would happen. They do not blame Oedipus for the crimes he committed unintentionally. If Oedipus had what Aristotle called a “tragic flaw” (hamartia), it is not his pride so much as his mistaken notion that he could somehow have avoided the dreadful fate that was in store for him. The action of the drama leaves no doubt about the limitations of human wisdom. The Oedipus Tyrannus demonstrates to the audience that no matter how intelligent mortals are, and how hard they try to do what is right, they can accomplish nothing without the support of the gods. What did Sophocles want his audience to learn from his work? In the opening scene did he mean them to think about the terrible plague that had attacked their city in 430-29 B.C.? Or did he want them to think about the terrible plague sent by Apollo at the beginning of the Iliad? We do not know what Sophocles’ intentions were, or exactly when this drama was first performed. But whatever his purpose, we can be sure that he meant us to think about human ignorance. Virtually every Greek drama conveys this same message through its narrative of swift reversals of expectations and sudden revelations of the unexpected. The ancient audience was left to wonder why the characters were unable to see what the gods had in store for them, and to reflect, in retrospect, how little they themselves understood about their own fates, or about their own futures, or that of their city. For all his keen intelligence, Oedipus did not really know what he was doing. There is still a message here for all of us, even though, or perhaps because, we pride ourselves on living in the “Information Age.” Mary Lefkowitz is Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Wellesley College. Her most recent book is Greek Gods, Human Lives.