ARTicles vol. 2 i.4a: Past History

The Greek tragic playwrights did not invent original stories, but shaped dramas from a vast wealth of mythological material. Sophocles’ audience would have been familiar with the essential narrative of Oedipus’ life; they would have come to the theatre knowing that they were to see a play about a man who killed his father and married his mother. The surprise lay not in the story itself, but in the way Sophocles presented it. The roots of Greek mythology lay in civilizations that flourished many hundreds of years before the fifth century B.C.E., when Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King. The corpus of legend is massive and contradictory; epic poets and dramatists freely chose which version of a story they would tell, embellishing it with new details or drawing in episodes from other myths. The beleaguered city of Thebes held a special fascination for the Athenian playwrights. Of the thirty-two tragedies that survive, almost a third take place in Thebes, or dramatize the exploits of its troubled dynasty. The myths of Thebes are rich in social and ethical taboos from incest to infanticide, and provide an ideal source for tragic drama. Oedipus himself appeared in tragedies by Aeschylus, Euripides, and presumably other playwrights, though only Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus still exist. What follows is a summary of some of the many conflicting legends available to Sophocles as he created the narrative for Oedipus the King. Origins The curse began with a rape. Laius, King of Thebes, fell in love with Chrysippus, a prince from a neighboring land. While teaching him how to drive a chariot, Laius abducted the boy and raped him. Chrysippus later killed himself from shame. Or: Chrysippus’ stepmother, wishing to prevent the boy from inheriting his father’s throne, crept into the bedroom he shared with Laius and stabbed him in the stomach as he slept. The goddess Hera loved Chrysippus. After his death, she cursed Laius and his offspring, and sent the Sphinx to punish Thebes for harboring Chrysippus’ murderer. Or we can look further back, and find that the curse began with a different rape. Zeus, disguised as a snow-white bull, abducted the nymph Europa. She rode on the god’s back across the water to Crete, where Zeus adopted the form of an eagle and raped her. Europa’s father sent his sons to find her. One of them, Kadmos, traveled to Apollo’s oracle at Delphi to seek the god’s help. Apollo advised him to abandon his search, and instead to found a city wherever a heifer collapsed from exhaustion. Kadmos bought a cow on the road from Delphi to Phokis. He drove her eastward for several days until she sank to the ground. Here he founded his city, Thebes. Intending to make a sacrifice to the gods, Kadmos ordered his followers to fetch water from a nearby stream. But the source belonged to Ares, the god of war, and was guarded by a serpent that killed most of Kadmos’ men. Kadmos crushed its skull with a rock and, following the orders of Athene, sowed its teeth in the ground. Suddenly a crop of armed warriors sprang from the soil and would have killed him, but Kadmos threw a stone among them and they instead attacked each other. When only five men were left, they called a truce and offered Kadmos their service. These, it is said, became the first citizens of Thebes. Ares never forgave Kadmos for the death of his dragon. He placed a curse on the Thebans, ensuring that their blighted descendants would never find peace. Ares was Kadmos’ father-in-law. Kadmos was Laius’ great grandfather. The curse The curse ensured that Laius would be killed by his own son. For many years Laius and his wife Jocasta had tried to have a child. At last Laius consulted the Delphic Oracle. The god told him it would be better for him to remain childless, since a son would grow up to murder him. From that day Laius refused to sleep with Jocasta, without telling her why. One night Jocasta made him drunk and took him to bed. The next morning she was pregnant. When their son was born, Laius took him from Jocasta. He pierced the boy’s feet together and left him to die on Kithaeron, the wild mountain range that stands between Thebes and Athens. But a shepherd found the baby, named him Oedipus – “swollen foot” – and brought him to Corinth, where King Polybus raised him as his own son. Or: Laius did not abandon the boy on the mountain, but locked him in a chest, which he cast out to sea. The chest drifted to Corinth, where a washerwoman found it and gave the baby to the childless king. When Oedipus grew up, he traveled to Delphi to consult the Oracle about his future. Apollo’s priestess threw him out of the temple. “You are unclean,” she screeched. “You will kill your father and marry your mother!” According to Plutarch, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was inscribed with the words, “Know thyself.” Oedipus determined not to return to Corinth, lest the priestess’ prediction should come true. Instead he set out for Thebes, where he met Laius at the crossroads in Phokis. The Sphinx The Sphinx had a woman’s head, a lion’s body, an eagle’s wings, and the tail of a serpent. This monstrous hybrid perched on a rock by the road to Thebes and asked every traveler a riddle: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?” Those who failed to answer she would strangle and eat. No one could enter the city without confronting the Sphinx and risking death. Eventually Laius set out for Delphi to ask the Oracle how to rid Thebes of the monster. Little did he know that the stranger he met on the road at Phokis was the only man who could answer the riddle of the Sphinx. Oedipus reached Thebes and quickly solved the puzzle: “The answer is man, who crawls on four legs as a child, walks on two legs as an adult, and hobbles with a cane in old age.” At once the Sphinx hurled herself from the rock to her death. Oedipus was appointed King of Thebes, and married Laius’ widow Jocasta. Some say that Jocasta was priestess to the Sphinx, and killed herself when the Sphinx died. According to this story, she never married Oedipus. Teiresias Many years before he acquired his powers of prophecy, Teiresias came upon two mating serpents. They attacked him, and Teiresias killed the female with his stick. Some god struck him in return, and Teiresias was immediately changed into a woman. Seven years later he found two more serpents mating in the same place. This time he killed the male, and was transformed back into a man. Years later, Hera and Zeus were arguing. Hera accused Zeus of countless infidelities; Zeus asked Hera to forgive him, since women have so much more pleasure than men during sex – a charge that Hera hotly denied. The gods decided to consult Teiresias, the only man on earth who had experienced both roles. Teiresias told them that women enjoyed ten times the pleasure of men. Hera, furious that her secret had been revealed, blinded Teiresias. Zeus rewarded him with a sevenfold lifespan and the gift of prophetic vision. Or: Teiresias was blinded by Athene for spying on her as she bathed. She later forgave him and granted him second sight. Aftermath The curse on Laius reached even his grandsons. When Oedipus left Thebes, his twin sons, Eteocles and Polynices, agreed to rule the city in alternate years. After one year, when Eteocles refused to relinquish the throne, Polynices stormed the city with seven armies. The brothers killed each other in single combat. Sophocles wrote three versions of Oedipus’ final days: In Oedipus at Colonus the blind man journeys with his daughter Antigone until they reach the outskirts of Athens. Here the Furies forgive Oedipus his sins, and his spirit travels in glory to the underworld. In Antigone, Oedipus has left Thebes without his daughter and died alone. Oedipus the King closes with Oedipus still in Thebes, awaiting the judgment of Apollo. According to Homer, Oedipus did not blind himself at all, but died a hero on the battlefield. Plague The plague that ravages Thebes in Oedipus the King must have had particular resonance for Sophocles’ audience. From 430 till 425 B.C.E., Athens was assailed by plague; by 425 B.C.E., the year in which many scholars believe Oedipus was written, almost a quarter of the population had perished. The historian Thucydides chronicled the plague with clinical precision: “The most terrifying aspect of the whole affliction was the despair which resulted when someone realized that he had the disease: people immediately lost hope, and so through their attitude of mind were much more likely to let themselves go and not hold out. In addition, one person caught the disease through caring for another, and so they died like sheep. This was the greatest cause of loss of life.” Gideon Lester is the A.R.T.’s Associate Artistic Director.