CHAPTER - III
OEDIPUS ... OEDIPUS
OEDIPUS THE KING
I mean painful; because every thing is irrevocable
Because the past is irremediable
Because the future can be built upon the real past.
T.S. Eliot - The Family Reunion.
Oedipus the Kino is Sophocles’s master piece and considered by
many, the greatest of Greek tragedies. Aristotle referred to it continually
in his Poetics, pointing out the features of an ideal tragic poem. “Often
since Aristotle’s Poetics. Oedipus Tvrannus has been cited as an epitome
of tragedy” (Taplin
26).
This play is one of the three plays of a group
known as the Theban plays since they relate to destinies of the Theban
family of Oedipus and his children. The other two plays are Antigone
and Oedipus at Colonus. Although the three plays are connected by
theme and subject, they do not form a trilogy in the usual sense of the
term.
Antigone is written first, although the events which are its subject,
are later than those which take place in the other two plays. Oedipus the
King, which is also called Oedipus Tvrannus or Oedipus Rex, is written
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next. The date of the first production is probably about
425
B.C. “The
argument that the play is an extensive image of Athens under the
leadership of Pericles, is strong enough to support the provisional dating
of
429
B.C., just before Pericles’ death” (Walton
119).
Its tragic effect is
seen in the contrast between the supreme will of the gods and the futile
attempts of mankind to escape the evil. Friderick Nietzche, commenting
on Oedipus in his masterpiece, “The Birth of Tragedy,” remarks:
The most sorrowful figure of the Greek stage, the
hapless Oedipus was understood by Sophocles as the
noble man, who inspite of his wisdom was destined to
error and misery, but nevertheless through his
extraordinary sufferings ultimately exerted a magical
wholesome influence on all around him which
constitutes even after the death (qtd in Perspectives).
The central idea of this tragedy is that through suffering a man learns
modesty before the gods.
The play seems to have been written with the purpose of
inculcating the doctrine of fate. Sophocles makes the people realise, by
means of most elaborate and striking example, what the meaning of fate
is. As in the case of Philoctetes, the fate of Oedipus is defined in
strength and weakness. A man is destined to commit the most appalling
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crimes; of all the precaution taken by his parents at his birth and those
which he takes himself later on, only serve to bring about the fulfillment
of the Oracles. He is drawn as man of contrasting qualities, all of which
are pinpointed in the title of the play. Literally, the term turannos
means no more than an unconstitutional ruler. The very same fate drags
him at last to the discovery of those crimes of which he has been
ignorant for so long. In consequence, he is plunged from the heights of
a glorious and seemingly spotless life to the depths of infamy and
horrible despair. The play’s theme is the shattering of Oedipus’s illusion
through knowledge, rejected when first offered, accepted only after all
illusory alternatives have been exhausted:
He has fled from his destiny, has tried frantically elude
his Pursuer, only to find, like a coarsed hare, that his
every move has been counted, and that every exist has
been cunningly blocked (Waldock
152).
Oedipus is a phenomenon in his suffering. He is a man selected
out of millions to undergo this staggering fate, and that is why his story
is so fascinating. Aristotle is right in choosing Kina Oedipus as the
understanding example of Sophocles’s artistry, quite apart from the fact
that it provides a splendid role for the protagonist.
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When the play opens, the city Thebes has been struck by plague.
The citizens request the King Oedipus to deliver them from its horror.
Oedipus has come to represent the only hope of salvation. He sends his
wife Jocasta’s brother, Creon, to consult the Oracle of Apollo. He
returns and discloses that the plague is the punishment for the murder of
King Laius, immediate predecessor of Oedipus. Oedipus swears to
discover the criminal and punish him. Immediately he commences his
enquiry. Ultimately, his investigation leads him to realize that it was he,
who killed Laius. He learns from Jocasta that a prophecy was made to
Laius that he could be killed by his own child, and, therefore, when a son
was born to them, its feet pierced with the metal pins and was taken to
the mountain to be killed. Oedipus finally comes to know that the
Shepherd, who was ordered to abandon the child took pity on it and
handed it to another Shepherd, belonging to the King of Corinth,
Polybus. This Shepherd took the child to Polybus and Merope. They
adopted it for they were childless. They named the child Oedipus (the
name suggests, in Greek, “Swell-foot.”)The child was without doubt,
Oedipus himself.
When Oedipus was a grown up man, a drunken guest told him
that he was not the true son of the royal house. His foster-parents tried
to reassure him, but he went to Delphi to consult Apollo. There he was
told that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He resolved
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never to return to Corinth. On the outskirt of Thebes he quarrelled with
a stranger, who in fact was his true father Laius whom he killed in selfdefence. Then he came to Thebes and had become the new king by
answering the riddle of the Sphinx. As a reward, he married the Queen
who was actually his mother.
In this manner the Oracle is fulfilled and at this point, Sophocles
opens the play, and step by step one sees how Oedipus learns the
horrible truth about the fulfillment of the oracle. At the end Jocasta kills
herself and Oedipus, who has blinded himself, accepts full responsibility
for his deeds and prepares to leave the city.
The opening scene shows a deputation of suppliants appealing to
Oedipus for help against plague. They approach him almost as a god,
and he is honoured as a saviour. He, however, neither understands the
meaning of the plague nor sees in the delegation anything defective. E.T.
Owen commenting on the personality of Oedipus, remarks, “we see him
as a grand figure towering god like above the affiliated city, stooping
down in gracious pity to share in and alleviated the sufferings of his
subjects” (Twentieth
30).
The Priest of Zeus calls him, “their saviour and
deliverer from the pest” (Oedipus 100). Oedipus replies them that he
knows their suffering,but the intensity of his suffering is more than theirs
as his heart is heavy with the city’s pain and his soul mourns at once for
the city, for himself and for them. He sheds tears at their plight and
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ponders deeply over the problem. “Nothing can be nobler and more
natural than the opening dialogue of Oedipus and the priest” (History
74).
He might have left the plague to take its course; but pity for the
sufferings of his people forces him to consult Delphi. When he heard
Apollo’s words, he might have left the murder of Laius investigated. But
piety and justice require him to act. The play, therefore, moves from the
question of who killed Laius to that of who generated Oedipus. It moves
from a political to a family crime.
As in Antigone, the Chorus are the representative citizens of
Thebes. They are held in honour. They love and trust their king. Their
complete loyalty to Oedipus, “the first of men” (Oedipus
99),
to save
Thebes is directed precisely at the man who is unknowingly the cause of
the plague. “In his desire to do what the gods require he brings on
himself a heavier punishment” (Bowra, Sophoclean
172).
He curses the
murderer with a double authority, sacred and profane. The god is the
Delphian Apollo who has commanded the punishment of the murderer.
As he acts as his agent, his curse is formidable and irresistible. It is both
defensive and offensive. It protects the city from pollution, and it
imposes penalties on the murderer. He orders that the murderer shall
not be addressed nor received by anyone nor be allowed to take part in
prayer or sacrifice. This injunction by Oedipus, defends his people. From
it, he advances to the offensive against the murderer and demands only
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vengeance, and therefore, “in doing right to Laius”(Oedipus 104), he
serves himself.
He must be shut out from human life and perish miserably. When
Oedipus curses the killer of Laius, who according to the oracle has
brought plague to Thebes, the audience knows that the curse will fall on
his own head. But Oedipus does not know that he has killed his father
and married his mother. In this sense the idea of hamartia is not
applicable to him. He seems pious. When he hears the dire Oracle, he
regards it seriously, and immediately leaves his foster-parents. He sends
Creon to Apollo’s temple to relieve the city from the suffering. He is
wise to send for help from Teiresias. His attitude to the prophet is
reverence. His anger at the Seer’s riddling silence originates not out of
rage or egotism but rather out of concern for his people. His error is an
error of judgement. He misunderstands the original prophecy and goes
out to meet disaster.
As the play progresses, “Oedipus’ personal tragedy tends
increasingly to overshadow the disaster of plague that threatens to doom
the city” (Burton 139), so does the interest of the Chorus become more
and more concentrated upon the King and his fortunes. The King greets
the Prophet with appropriate reverence, acknowledging his supernatural
wisdom. As a seer, he guides, controls, and distributes everything
relating to earth and heaven. Oedipus speaks to the Prophet as the city’s
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mouthpiece and utterly humbles himself before him. He requests the
Seer, “to rescue thyself and the State, rescue me” (Oedipus 102). When
the Chorus calls Oedipus “the only Saviour” (102), Oedipus transfers the
epithet completely to the greater figure of the Prophet who possesses
divine authority; “For we are in thy hand” (102). But at the same time,
Oedipus indicates that Teiresias does not escape the general pollution.
Hovhannes I. Pilikian’s opinion about Teiresias is different. He argues
that the Prophet is not a saintly figure. “He is a nasty old man, with a
personal grudge against Oedipus, who out did his bid for power by
finding the right answer to the Sphinx’s riddle”
(31-32).
There is hatred
between the two. Early in the play, Teiresias enters to reveal all about
Oedipus. But the moment was after Oedipus’s “television speech”
(31-32),
to the people.
Teiresias’s refusal to speak out at first must bear a dramatic point.
His response to the King’s passionate and moving appeal is unexpected
and shocking. Such knowledge is terrible, profitless and painful as he
repeatedly remarks in his conversation with Oedipus. When Oedipus
progresses from request to reproach, he bursts into rage and accuses
him to be the “basest of the base” (Oedipus 102). Abuse has no effect.
The accusations are absurd and even childish, but they work. As he is
furious with Teiresias, he is unable to grasp the Seer’s message and fails
to see that he himself has killed Laius. As a result, the revelation of the
Ill
truth is postponed., and comes with all the greater effect when it finally
breaks on him.
Oedipus is threatened with danger and temptation. He is on the
verge of tyranny. The scene with Creon reveals this with full clarity, and
the likeness between Oedipus and Creon of Antigone becomes very
close. Like Creon, Oedipus mistrusts the venerable Seer and suspects
him of being bribed. Irritated by the Seer’s reluctance to speak, Oedipus
is prompt to assign the worst motives to him. He is possessed by a kind
of overweening confidence in the power of human reason, in this case,
his own reason. He proceeds to brag that his own knowledge is superior
to the Prophet’s. He recalls how he had saved Thebes from the Sphinx.
He calls himself
‘the Saviour’. Such honours, as Greek knew, are
dangerous, for they may lead to hubris.
Self-confident pride in his own wisdom is a seminal feature of
Oedipus’s character from the beginning. His hostility is roused first by
Teiresias’s silence. It is increased afterwards by the charge that he, the
great king and the defender of the State is in fact the sinner, who
pollutes and destroys it. Oedipus’s charge against the Prophet is thus a
reflection of his want of judgement. His anger forces Teiresias to speak.
Teiresias knows that Oedipus is doomed, that he is polluted and
accursed. He cannot feel well disposed to him; for he is an object of
hatred to the gods. Oedipus on the other hand, lives in his illusory world
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and fails to make anything of the Prophet’s words. In this regard, G.T.
Watson comments:
When we compare the emotional brutality of King
Lear to his favourite daughter, or Macbeth’s full
awareness of the enormity of his deed in murdering
his king who is also his guest, these spurts of anger in
Oedipus seems minor indeed (Introduction 25).
The very first outburst of Oedipus’s rage shows that this is rooted
in his ignorance. Towards the end of the scene, there is a subtle and
most revealing display of Oedipus’s egotism. His high position has been
given to him by the gods, and what the gods have given, they can take
away. He is not aware of this fact. In his view, he answered the Sphinx
by his own unprompted intelligence. His royal gifts are a source of
danger to him.
Creon’s conserving role is more direct. As a politician he has acted
practically and in accordance with both, family and national loyalties for
Oedipus’s political good. He obeys the command in journeying to the
oracles, summoning Teiresias and generally sharing the political authority
and rule. “Without Creon’s support, the young and inexperienced
Oedipus could not have gained the throne or having gained it, could not
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have held it long (Schroeter, Four 188). When Creon enters, Oedipus
shouts at him in rage:
Now is not thine attempts foolish, to seek, without
followers or friends, a throne, and a prize which
followers and wealth must win? (Oedipus 104).
But Creon has none of Oedipus’s irrationality. He is a typical
conservative and moderate. He does not commit himself to any course of
action until he has examined every side of it, and seen whether it is
desirable and worthwhile. A perfect picture of Creon is delineated when
he states, “I have no yearning in my nature to be a king/rather than to
do kingly deeds” (104). He assures the King that he already enjoys virtual
royalty an account of being the kinsman of the King, and is not tempted
by the throne. His reasonable and patient pleas are to be contrasted with
the sacral rage of the Prophet. His role is to stress, by his unfailing
modesty and calm, the extravagance of speech and the self-reliance
displayed by Oedipus. In contrast to Oedipus, with his wild suspicions
and guesses, Creon is a model of caution. He pleads Oedipus only for a
fair hearing. When Oedipus inquires him why the Prophet did not speak
about the murderer, he replies calmly, “It is not right to ad/judge bad
men good at random, or good men bad” (104).
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The Chorus warn Oedipus against any hasty decision, but in selfrighteousness of delusion, he answers that he is dealing with the traitor.
“Oedipus’s hasty temper robs him of capacity to think cooly” (Bowra,
Sophoclean
195).
Oedipus is incapable of a truly balanced or rational
Judgement. He opposes the Seer’s prophecy with arguments of his own
reasoning. Self-confident pride induces him to hate prophecy and to feel
almost superior to the gods. He addresses the people, who pray for
deliverance from the plague, “For whoever was the slayer of Laius might
wish to take vengeance on me also/with a hand as fierce” (Oedipus 100).
He is “over-confident in his abilities, especially in self-esteem for his
knowledge and intelligence” (Watson
23).
Oedipus’s scornful refusal to both
Creon’s advice and Teiresias’s prophecy corresponds to Creon’s attitude
towards his son Haemon and Teiresias in the play Antigone. All these do
not make him morally guilty. He is not an example of hubris, but a truly
great man, far superior to Creon. He suffers because he has done
unknowingly what is against the laws of the gods. He, who has murdered
his father and married his own mother can never be called innocent. It has
rightly been said that conception such as guilt and innocence have no
meaning here. Therefore, the terrible deeds have been committed
according to divine power. This human greatness comes out as the result of
the proud self-reliance of a man in power. But Bowra declares, “proud he
may be, but pride is not the direct cause of his fate” (Sophoclean 116).
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Now it is perfectly true that Oedipus kills Laius according to the
will of God. Me acts in ignorance, and this is the beginning of his
downfall. For it leads to the plague, the curse, the discovery of the truth
and Oedipus’s blinding of himself. Oedipus changes from good to bad
fortune because of his mistake. This is Aristotle’s view. But he misses
one important element in this play. According to Aristotle,
nothing is
said about the part taken by the gods in the rise and fall of Oedipus. As
he is not interested in this aspect of tragedy, he does not discuss it in his
Poetics. For though Oedipus’s mistake in killing his father leads to other
disasters, it is foreordained by the gods. The tragic career of Oedipus
does not begin with it, and his doom is fixed before his birth.
The action of the gods is an essential part of this play. Oedipus is
their victim. They have ordained a life of horror for him, and they see
that he gets it. He acts as an instrument by which their plans are
fulfilled. He cannot escape from the prophecy that he will kill his father
and marry his mother. In this respect, he is like Heracles in the Women
of Trachiniae. Both do what has been foretold, and cannot do otherwise.
The difference between them is in the Oracles that concern them. For
Heracles, the Oracle pertains only to his death. But Oedipus’s Oracle is
not even ambiguous. It has only one meaning. That is why he tries to
avoid its fulfillment by leaving Corinth. Nor is it concerned merely with
his end. It shapes his whole life. Jocasta tries to have him exposed his
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infancy, and later he himself leaves Corinth, to come so disastrously, to
Thebes. At both stages, an effort is made to avoid what has been
foretold, but these efforts are useless. The fate of Oedipus is more
insistent than that of Heracles. The foreordained death of Heracles is
not so closely interwoven with his life as that of the foreordained
sufferings of Oedipus. He laments when Creon stops him leaving the
city, “to the gods I have become more hateful!”
(113).
Sophocles regards
the gods to be all powerful but not willfully malignant.
Apart from its dramatic and tragic possibilities, the story of
Oedipus appealed to poets as it raised dark questions about the
treatment of men by the gods. Aeschylus had devoted to it the second
play of a trilogy on the House of Laius. For him, the whole tragedy
followed a divine play. It appealed to Euripides, who wrote on Oedipus’s
and dramatized related themes in his Antigone and Phoenician Women.
For him, fate determined Oedipus’s life from the beginning. Aeschylus
explained the fall of Oedipus due to
hereditary guilt. The sin of the
father visited upon the son. Bowra observes, “Laius begot a child in
defiance of the Delphic Oracle, and the son paid for the father’s fault”
(Soohoclean
162).
As a punishment for this sin, Apollo forbade Laius to
have any children. But he disobeyed the command, and so the god
cursed him and the descendants with a terrible fate. Oedipus’s sufferings
are simply the punishment for the sins of the father. But Sophocles must
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have felt that for Oedipus, the theory of inherited doom was
unsatisfactory. He makes Oedipus see himself as accursed, but he does
not put blame on Laius.
Sophocles begins his version with the birth of Oedipus, and the
prediction of the Oracle that he will grow up to kill his father. The
Oracle is unconditional. Oedipus is simply told that he will kill his father
and marry his mother. Of course, in the event, he gets Laius out of the
way first but in complete ignorance of his identity. He kills Laius in selfdefence, and is legally innocent of murder as he is morally innocent of
anything that can be called insolence in the encounter. The actions
initiated by him, stem from his own decisions. Brian Vickers makes a
comment on the action of Oedipus as “an action not only of a free agent
but also the cause for the events of the play” (Towards
497),
It is Oedipus
who has sent Creon to the Pythian house of Phoebus to learn by what
deed or word he can deliver the city. It is he who decides to start “afresh
and once more make dark things plain”
(99).
Without knowing his identity, he proceeds to work out his
appointed end. He arrives at self-knowledge through stages of hope. It
has been his implicit claim by which he has achieved power and
happiness too. On the contrary, Teiresias associates knowledge with
suffering. “The play’s theme”, declares Amal Bhattacharya," is the
shattering of Oedipus’ illusion through knowledge, rejected when first
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offered, accepted only after all illusory alternatives have been exhausted”
(10). When the discovery of the reality arrives, it will strike Oedipus blind
as such knowledge will be his punishment. There is no suggestion that
anybody will punish him. It is the curse that the knowledge punishes him.
Jocasta’s love and anxiety are always at Oedipus’s side. The
characteristics of her, are mostly those of a wife and a queen. She is a
warm-hearted woman whose love does not blind her; she tries to calm
Oedipus, to mediate between him and her brother Creon. She grows into
a complete tragic figure. She seems to be a foil to the fiery impetuosity
of Oedipus. She always keeps her personal emotion in check, except at
the end, when she cries out hysterically, “Alas, Alas, miserable! - that
word alone can I/say unto thee, and no other word henceforth/for ever”
(Oedipus
109).
When Oedipus tells her about Creon, and charges him of
the guilty of the blood of Laius, she reveals the secret about the Oracle
of Delphi. She coaxes him not to believe in oracles, “hearken to me, and
learn for thy/comfort that nothing of mortal birth is a sharer in/the
science of the seer”
(105).
Jocasta illustrates her generalization by pointing out the complete
failure of the oracle which had stated that Laius would be killed by a
highway man. Then she describes the place where Laius was killed.
Oedipus remembers too well that he had killed a man of about Laius’s
age at this spot and about the same time that Laius died. She “tries to
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discourage him from seeking additional information” (Brooks and Robert
Heilman
578).
But Oedipus grows restless and anxious to know whether
he is guilty or not. She argues that Oedipus need not pay attention to
the Oracles^and believes that fate can be out-witted. Now, for the first
time Oedipus exhibits a certain fear. He learns that the time and place of
the murder of Laius correspond to his own killing of an oldman. The
only thing that can set Oedipus free from his fear is the evidence of the
one survivor from Laius’s party. Though he praises Jocasta that “she
judges well”
(107),
he insists her to send some one to fetch the peasant.
In this connection, G.M. Kirkwood observes:
Her scepticism springs from her own immediate
situation, from her desire to protect Oedipus and keep
peace; not self-confidence, but love governs her
attitude. Three times she speaks out against the
validity of Oracles, twice drawing Oedipus after her
(Twentieth
17).
Oedipus now discloses her the story of his past, informing her she
is the first person to whom he is mentioning it. He is ready to believe
that he might have killed Laius. Teiresias’s prophecy might be true in this
respect. But he is not prepared to think that he would have committed
incest. If it happens that the murdered man turns out to have been
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Laius, then he must accept the punishment of excommunication and
banishment. He assures that even in exile he must not go to see his
parents in Corinth.
After this confession, Jocasta comes out carrying a garland and
incense. She intends visiting the holy temple because her husband is
greatly disturbed in mind. Her account of the death of Laius, “intended
to soothe Oedipus, so is framed as to stir up his deepest mind with
agitation” (Mahaffy
76).
The result is now plain before Oedipus’s mind,
yet he and Jocasta cling to the faint hopes arising from false details of
the murder. Then a Shepherd from Corinth brings a message that
Polybus, the King of Corinth is dead. Jocasta feels happy and excited.
She mocks at the gods:
O ye Oracles of the gods, where stand
You now! this is the man whom Oedipus long feared
and shunned, lest he should slay him and now this
man hath died in the course of destiny, not by his hand (Oedipus 107).
Now Oedipus is worried only about the second part of the
prophecy, about marriage with his mother, for Merope, the wife of
Polybus is still alive. The Messenger who is a Shepherd consoles him for
Polybus and Merope are not the real parents of Oedipus. The Messenger
is the Shepherd, who took Oedipus from a servant of Laius on Cithaeron
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where the helpless infant was found with “ankles pinned together” (108).
Oedipus is very inquisitive and anxious to know the story about his real
parents. Jocasta, mentally disturbed, assures Oedipus that he need not
harbour any fear, for human lives are ruled by pure chance, Tyche.
Though he is still cautious about the second part of the oracle that he
will marry his mother, his mind is light with hope and confidence. In this
mood, he questions the Messenger from Corinth. He refuses to listen to
Jocasta’s warnings, “For God’s sake, if thou hast any care for/thine own
life, forbear this search! My anguish is/enough” (109).
Oedipus disregards her efforts to keep him from knowing the
whole truth. He is adamant in finding out the secret of his birth. She
begs him not to pay attention to these oracles. The play reaches its
climax in her realization. It is appropriate to quote C.M. Bowra in this
context, “This quest of the truth enthrals him and nothing unflinching
curiosity and courage” (Soohoclean 197). In the excited mood, he does
not notice Jocasta entering the palace with great sorrow.
“The greatest moment in the play, indeed in all Greek tragedy,”
according to C.M. Bowra, “is that when Jocasta realizes that she is
married to her own son, and goes into the palace to kill herself” (Ancient
100). Here the tragic interest grows intense. Being maddened, Oedipus is
raging for a sword with which to kill “the wife who/was no wife, but a
mother whose womb had borne/alike himself and his children” (Oedipus
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111). Meanwhile, Jocasta, overcome by the horror of revelation, dashes
open the door of the fatal bridal chamber and hangs herself from the
ceiling. This suicide of Jocasta enrages Oedipus and he, in his anguish
and frustration, blinds himself. This seeming physical distortion can be
seen in the face of the Theban Shepherd who tells Oedipus the heart­
breaking truth. Its final effect - the physical ugliness expressing the
spiritual distress, and evil is achieved when Oedipus staggers on in the
agony of his self-mutilation.
The day that brings Oedipus into the light, takes away his light. He
had abused Teiresias as blind, in his ears, his mind and his eyes; but he
himself now wants to hear and see nothing. Oedipus who has physical
sight is blind to the truth about himself, and puts out his eyes when he
learns it. Teiresias who is physically blind is the true seer. He had his boy
to lead him, his staff to support him. Oedipus has nothing. His children
are brought before him, and he can feel for them. At last^he is utterly
dependant on the other people. Only when physically blind does he
acquire full knowledge. Oedipus enters the stage lamenting, “Wretched
that I am why was I to see, when sight/could show me nothing sweet?”
(ill). When he discovers that he has committed parricide and incest, “the
foundation of his moral life is shattered, he loathes himself, he reacts
with rage and desperation” (Kekes
442).
The Chorus comment that
Oedipus’s suffering is a horror beyond expression. They wish they had
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never seen him, and their grief is beyond all other men’s. They express
sympathy for Oedipus. But “not one of the soldiers is ready to give his
hand” (Oedipus ill). Instead the Leader replies, “Fortunately here comes
Creon; he is a man to deal with your requests” (111). Creon commands
Oedipus that he must not pollute the Sun by staying out doors. When he
demands that Oedipus should go inside, the demand is right and proper.
But it contains no condemnation of Oedipus for blinding himself.
In the last episode or exodus, the blinded, suffering King bids
farewell to his children, and banishes himself from the city over which he
had ruled. Critics point out that Sophocles, by displaying his hero at the
extreme limits of suffering and pain, here completes the reversal - from
happiness to misery. They seldom point out that he also completes the
Catharsis of his play - purging of pity and fear by raising as well as
lowering his hero. Sophocles does not dramatize in this play that part of
Oedipus’s life following his exile in which he becomes a divinely-inspired
prophet living apart from the rest of mankind and possessed of oracular
wisdom; he deals with that part of the legend in the play Oedipus at
Colonus. But Sophocles presents a sufficiently complete set of clues
before the conclusion of Oedipus the King to indicate clearly a parallel
between Teiresias and the ‘resurrected’ Oedipus. Oedipus, like Teiresias,
is blind, having put out his own eyes in deeply symbolic gesture.Like
Teiresias, Oedipus is to live outside the Palis. Like Teiresias, he
124
possesses the oracular knowledge of a prophet, having painfully gained it
through his own unremitting search into matters which another kind of
man would have liked to leave unexplored. The Catharsis of the play
depends on the fact that Oedipus has completed full circle. No one can
be afraid of Teiresias or pitied, as he is above pity and fear. So Oedipus
morally sublime in his self-inflicted punishment and self-willed exile, is
too great figure for pity or fear.
The intelligence of Oedipus is at work even at the high-pitch of
semi-hysterical grief.
Even in his out-burst of lamentation, he
distinguishes what he regards as the god’s responsibility from his own.
He laments:
Now am I forsaken of the gods, son of a defiled
mother, successor to his bed who gave me mine own
wretched being (111).
The old confidence in his own intelligence and action is still there, but
the exaggerated and vaulting hopelessness has gone. Yet there is still a
kind of hope. “He becomes certain after his initial wish for death, that
he is destined to live, that he is in some sense indestructable” (Knox
98).
He visualises his future, “Howbeit of thus much am I sure - that neither
sickness nor aught else can destroy me” (Oedipus
112). He requests
Creon to allow him to see his children. All through this scene, he maps
125
out the future for himself and for his family. He gives Creon
“instructions for the burial of Jocasta, his own expulsion from Thebes
and the upbringing of his sons and daughters” (Bowra, Sophoclean
172).
He begs Creon to send him away from Thebes. By this suffering,
Oedipus and Jocasta are restored to the proper order of things - Jocasta
goes to her dead husband in Hades; Oedipus goes to face his life of
amends.
The last part of the play, so often criticized as anti-climatic or
unbearable, is on the contrary vital for the play. The last scene “shows
us the recovery of Oedipus, the reintegration of the hero, the
reconstitution of the imperious, dynamic, intelligent figure of the
opening scene” (Knox
98).
Through resignation and suffering, the rightful
harmony of things is restored. His humiliation is a lesson both to others
and to him. Sophocles, however, draws full-length portraits. Oedipus in
Oedipus the King, is more detailed than any character in the earlier
plays. He is a king^who like Odysseus, is kind as a father to his people.
At the beginning of the action, Oedipus sees himself as the doctor, but
he is finally revealed as the sick man, the cause of pollution. He is
detective, but he turns out to be the criminal.
Oedipus is religious in his efforts to fulfil the bidding of the gods.
So far he is a type. But in addition an individual. He is swift in thought
and swift in putting his thought into action. Just as he guessed the riddle
126
of the Sphinx, he immediately translates the command of the oracle into
a decree. He killed his father without inquiry. He suspects Teiresias of
bribery, Creon of treachery and Jocasta of pride. These are all the
defects of his brilliance. The Chorus are distressed by Oedipus and afraid
that he may prove to be a tyrant. They express their fear, when they
sing, “Insolence breeds the tyrant” (Oedipus
107).
Oedipus may not be a full-fledged tyrant, but he shows the signs.
He himself, in the horror of humiliation, does not think that it is a
punishment for pride. He is fated to suffer. Like Heracles, another
analogue of his, he brings down the most horrible calamity upon himself
at the moment of his great triumph.
The play combines two apparently irreconcilable themes, the
greatness of the gods and the greatness of man. The combination of
these themes is inevitably tragic, for the greatness of the gods is more
clearly and powerfully demonstrated by man’s defeat. The god is
powerful in his laws. Unlike the gods, man exists in time. The gods who
know everything, are right. Nor may man complain of them. Bernard
Knox, while praising the character of Oedipus, comments:
Oedipus is symbolic of all human achievement; his hardwon magnificence, unlike the everlasting magnificence
127
of the divine, shines all the more brilliant against the
sombre background of its impermanency (99).
The horror of his fall is great because he is a superior being gifted with
great possibilities of nobility. The story of Oedipus, like the story of Job,
is of a man plunged suddenly from prosperity and power to ruin and
ignominy. They were at the height and the depth of their worldly
fortunes.
Oedipus is a superbly active personality. The Attic dramatist tired
to tell the audience that the fate works through the characters of the
victim. Sigmund Freud claims that Oedipus Rex is what is known as
“tragedy of destiny” (Schroeter 53). Destiny indeed finds a strong ally in
the man of courage, nobility, and excellent intentions whose failing is his
inflammable temper. Both his virtues and defects conspire with fate and
work against him. He is one of the greatest tragic figures of literature.
From the first, the tragic king who has to bear the weight of the whole
world’s sufferings is an almost a symbolic figure. He is suffering
humanity personified.
Though Oedipus is morally innocent and knows himself to be, the
objective horror of his actions, remains with him. So, he feels that he
has no place in human society. Jean-Pierre Vernant, in his article,
“Ambiguity and Reversal - Oedipus Rex,” brings Oedipus’s individualistic
tracts in the following lines:
128
Like his own discourse, like the word of the oracle,
Oedipus is double enigmatic. From the beginning to
the end of the play, he remains psychologically and
morally the same; a man of action and of decision,
with courage nothing can beat down, with conquering
intelligence, a man to whom one can impute no moral
fault, no deliberate oversight of justice (Oxford 193).
Oedipus is drawn as a man of contrasting qualities. In his search for
truth, he shows all those great qualities that one admires in him,
courage, intelligence, perseverance - the qualities which make human
being noble. Sophocles does indeed make one in Oedipus’s intense
experiences of fear, hope and pain.
The closing note of the tragedy is a renewed insistence on the
heroic nature of Oedipus; the play ends as it began, with the greatness
of the hero. But it is a different kind of greatness. It is now based on
knowledge, not as before on ignorance. This new knowledge is a
recognition of man’s ignorance.
To mention only recent works in English, the books of Whitman,
Waldock, Letter, Ehrenberg, Knox and Kirkwood, however much they
differ on other points, all agree in the essential moral innocence of
Oedipus. Oedipus is great in virtue of his inner strength, he accepts the
129
responsibility for all his acts, though subjectively innocent. After all,
Oedipus is a noble man who could find out the truth about himself,
mocked by an awful destiny. This play portrays with a terrible affirmation
of man’s subordinate position in the universe, and at the same time with
a heroic vision of man’s victory in defeat.
One can see the last hours of the same hero, Oedipus, twenty
years after he has blinded himself, in the next play, Oedipus at Colonus.
This is the only known play on the theme of Oedipus’s final hours.
OEDIPUS AT
COLONUS
Life is good, because it is painful.
- Friderick Nietzche.
Oedipus at Colonus is the longest extant Greek tragedy of
Sophocles. It
is the last play of the aged dramatist. “It was
produced posthumously in go 1 B.C. by his grandson Sophocles,
the younger
and won the first” (Shipley
739).
In thisplay the
dramatist was partly concerned with the angry passions as in
Philoctetes, but his treatment of them is entirely different. The
play presents the long slow reversal of Oedipus the King. This is
the only play on the theme of Oedipus’s final hours. Comparing
the
two
plays
Oedipus
the
Kino and
Waldock observes: The critic is right.
Oedipus
at
Colonus,
The Colonus is a richer
play than the Tvrannus. There are subtler movements in the
thought, the
speeches have more of sheer interest; and in
sublimity it stands alone” (220).
At the
very close of his life, Sophocles turned to
the
Oedipus's story showing the aged King as the self-appointed exile
for many years from his home in Thebes. The central theme is
the transformation of Oedipus into a hero. This play is written
with remarkable power and shows no sign of flagging inspiration.
131
To a startling degree, the Oedipus at Colonus seems to reflect
the formal design of the Oedipus Tvrannus and to reverse it in
mirror fashion. Sophocles saw the dramatic possibilities in the
subject. He was born at Colonus, where Oedipus died. He was
moved by deep devotion to his native city. In the last days of
his life, Sophocles turned in fond recollection to Colonus. He
praised
the
comments,
Attica
“The
that
golden
had
reared
words
him.
shimmer
in
Allardyce
the
Nicoll
sunlight
of
memory, and the present scene becomes tinged with the radiance
of eternity” (From Aeschylus
37).
Into this last play, Sophocles
has flung his unwithered love of his country.
By hints and
touches, by marvellous song and description, he shows what
Athens is, why it deserves and wins the favour of the gods.
It
is
a
religious
mystery
play
which
presents
the
transformation of Oedipus from human being to what Greeks
called heros. He, through great deeds and sufferings in life,
acquired after the death, power for good and evil over the living.
And more than any other Greek play, it touches the heart of
Greek religion with its belief in the existence of two worlds,
natural and supernatural.
Nearly
twenty
years
had
passed since
Oedipus
had
discovered to his horror that he committed the two horrible
132
crimes, parricide and incest. In Oedipus at Colonus. one sees
Oedipus:
now old and blind, improverished, banished, a
vagabond on the face of the earth-finding at last
a place of rest, where he is delivered from the
divine curse under which he has laboured so
long (Draper
106).
He is seen in his last moments exercising his paternal authority
over
an
unnatural
son,
and
surrounded
by
the
love
and
tenderness of his daughters, Antigone and Ismene. When internal
strife breaks out in Thebes, he thinks that he is the cause of
the trouble. As the curse of the god is upon his family, his sons
had to suffer.
Oedipus is blind and feeble, and is led from land to land
by Antigone. At last they come to an olive grove at Colonus.
Having undergone supreme mortal suffering, Oedipus decides to
stay there. The Chorus, the old men of Colonus are reluctant to
have Oedipus. But the presence of Oedipus shows the sign of a
great event. He himself is prepared for it; the gods have guided
him to the destined place. The Chorus react with horror when
they discover his identity, but he proclaims his innocence. Now
133
he reveals Apollo’s prophecy which he wishes to fulfil, and
whose fulfilment will constitute the action of the play. He has to
find rest at Athens, bringing profit by staying here, to those who
welcome him. But there will be doom for those who sent him
away.
ismene, the other daughter of Oedipus arrives at Colonus,
after searching through out Greece for her father and sister. She
has brought an unwelcome news that his two sons, Polyneices
and Eteocles had fought for supremacy in Thebes. She warns
him that Creon will come to take him home. But Oedipus curses
his sons, and chooses to die in Athens. Creon arrives to take
Oedipus back to Thebes, but Theseus, the King of Athens
supports Oedipus and arrests Creon. Polyneices begs Oedipus’s
presence. His answer is a terrifying curse that he will kill and
will be killed by his brother. He is still ambitious and arrogant.
He ignores Antigone’s pleas to spare their native city. Three rolls
of thunder and lightning announce that his end is near. After he
has requested Theseus to protect his daughters, he leaves them.
Theseus
alone
accompanies
Oedipus,
and
suddenly
Oedipus
disappears. The play ends with the daughters’ lamentations for
their father.
134
In the opening of the play, Oedipus tells Antigone about
his suffering, “Patience is the lesson of suffering, and of the
years/in
(Oedipus
our long fellowship,
114).
The Prologue,
and lastly for a noble mind”
like all
Sophoclean
prologues,
introduces not only the matter but also the spirit of the play.
Alone, outcast like Lear, Oedipus is wandering alone. He enters
the outskirts of Athens, and asks Antigone where he is. Not
recognising
the
“Athens I know,
place,
Antigone gazes
about her
but not this place”
(114).
and says,
Commenting on
Oedipus’s choice of Athens to be his resting place Bowra
declares, “the fate of Oedipus concerns Athens because the gods
wish to help here and choose to combine this
him for hissuffering” (Sophoclean
tells
117).
with amends to
As soon as the stranger
him that he is at Colonus, Oedipus knows that he has
reached his goal. A.J. Waldock on analysing the importance of
the
opening scene, comments,
“It
is an
opening unique in
Sophocles full of a strange hush and a special kind of suspense”
(222). Oedipus is no longer an outcast, for divine powers work
with him. So, between this beginning and end, Sophocles has set
a series of violent and excited episodes.
In this play, Oedipus is shown as an innocent victim, so
that
one cannot askabout his early acts.
Now he is revealed
135
apparently more and more helpless until the moment when Creon
is about to capture him. From then on, his power is growing.
“The action proceeds from night-blindness of eye and of spirit to
a blindness caused by exceeding light” (Steiner, Death 31). There
is a sense of power about him from the beginning. When he
reaches the grove of the Eumenides, he knows that he has come
to the end of his travels. It is clear that Oedipus is in no sense
to blame for his crimes. His end is the atonement for his
sufferings. In it Sophocles saw the solution of the question which
had troubled him all his life: through suffering, even through the
injustice done to him, the great man becomes a god. But the
play treats of deeper problems even than this.
When the Chorus notice Oedipus’s blindness, they recognise
him. They order him to leave the city as he may bring his guilt
and pollution on their city; “Out with you! forth from the land”
(Oedipus 116). But Oedipus tells them in utter despair, “I cannot
go: for I am disabled by lack of/strength and lack of sight,
evils twain” (118). The Chorus is suspicious of him from the first.
Their reaction shows clearly how they have formulated their
feelings about him. He must be guilty, for if his murder of Laius
had been the moral equivalent of mere murderer in self-defence,
the gods would not have punished him. They blame Oedipus for
136
his sufferings, “No man is visited by fate if he requites deeds/
which were first done to himself”
(116).
They have mistakenly
concluded that Oedipus set foot within the sacred grove in a
spirit of calculated outrage. Concentration upon the OedipusColonus relationship is thus maintained. Antigone requests them
to instruct him in the ceremony he must follow. Their leader
proceeds to tell him about his rituals.
A lyric scene follows, in which Oedipus makes his peace
with
Eumenides for having trespassed
in their grove.
What
matters is that Oedipus who was at enmity with Apollo and the
Erinyes, is
the
grove
now at peace with them. When Oedipus hears that
is
theirs,
he
prays
that
they
will
receive
him
graciously. The peace which he makes with the Dread Goddesses
is marked by ritual act. At the suggestion of the Chorus, Ismene
carries out rites to please the Goddess. The result is to bring
the
reconciliation between gods and Oedipus.
The elaborate
ceremony concludes with a prayer to the Eumenides, “give me at
last some way to accomplish and close my course”
(115).
The Chorus are asked to welcome and protect Oedipus
because he
is asuppliant. The rite shows that he makes his
peace with
them in the correct form, and they will accept him.
Now he knows that with his body he brings a gift to Athens
137
that will help it, and hurt Thebes which has driven him out. The
scenes between Oedipus’s arrival at Colonus and his death, show
the hero’s character. He is not the man who is seen in Oedipus
the King, though he is not entirely different from him.
Theseus’s reaction to Oedipus, is in pointed contrast to that
of the Chorus’ fear at the prospect of religious pollution. He
comes straight to meet Oedipus, and immediately offers to help
him not only out of pity, but on the basis of personal sympathy
with his sufferings. He shows his essential nobility in his greeting
to Oedipus. The King’s address is notable for its humanism, “for
well know I know that I am a man, and/that in the morrow my
portion is no greater than/thine”
(119).
He stands by loyal friends
and is eager to make and defend new ones.
By accepting
Oedipus’s supplication and friendship, he implicitly accepts his
self-justification, which he does not even heed to hear. Not only
does he feel a personal love and kinship for Oedipus; he gives
him the full right of a citizen. “Like Creon in Antigone and
Odysseus
in
understands
Introduction
Ajax,
the
71).
Thesesus
fragility
of
pities
human
human
misfortunes
existence”
and
(Webster,
He believes in the principle of equal rights in
the state. Theseus’s character is summed up in a line of the
Messenger’s speech: “And he, like a man/of noble spirit, without
138
making
(Oedipus
lament,
sware
to/keep that
promise to
his
friend”
129).
Theseus offers him to take his own house, thereby he
denies the danger of pollution.
It is at this
juncture,
Ismene
arrives with the news that the Oracle of Delphi had prophesied
that Thebes is going to be doomed, if
Oedipus’s body is
not
buried in the city. Ismene states that Oedipus will be useful in
the war,
threatening
Eteocles
and
Polyneices.
Now Oedipus
prophesies that his body will be useful in the forthcoming war
between Thebes and Athens.
When Theseus prepares to leave, Oedipus falls into what
may fairly be described a panic. He is attacked by feverish
anxieties about the measures to be taken for his safety. Now,
like Odysseus in Philoctetes. Creon and
Polyneices wish to
use
the great man’s power without accepting the man himself.
The
Oracle told that they would conquer if they would get him back,
but there is some questions of how a
Creon claims to
the community.
be acting under Oracles as a representative of
He is a man of the tongue who
persuade Oedipus. Otherwise,
heartless towards
hero must be received.
his
he resorts to violence.
victim. He
considers
a
tries to
He is
prophecy
as
something to be manipulated by fair means or foul, without any
139
idea about God’s plan. His departure, with the kidnapped girls
recalls Odysseus’s abandonment of Philoctetes after stealing his
bow. Odysseus is cool and rational where as Creon is impulsive.
Creon is staggered by Oedipus’s replies, states that an oldman in
such misery ought to have learned to be mild and acknowledge
his own weaknesses. But time teaches everyman what he really
is, and in Oedipus’s case it has rather confirmed his high spirit
and strength.
Creon’s claim that he would not have acted as he did, had
he not provoked by Oedipus’s curses on himself and his family.
The fact is that Oedipus did not formally curse Creon and his
family,
until his
daughters
have
been
kidnapped.
Moreover
Creon’s argument that he was provoked is severly weakened by
9
the fact
that Oedipus’s formal curse was itself an insurance of
retaliation provoked, by Creon’s own violence and threats.
Creon’s strongest hold is his appeal to the wishes and
interests of the Theban people. He uses the technique of flattery
by telling Oedipus that the entire people is summoning back
‘justly’. He is not “one man’s envoy” (121), but he belongs to
the city
and he has been charged by all the people to return
back to
their country. In his desire to take Oedipus, he has no
considerations of pity and decency. He acts on the principle that
140
in a just cause “the weak vanquishes the strong” (122). Even
when he fails, he does not admit that he has been wrong, but
leaves with a threat of more evil to come. Oedipus knows that
Creon’s generosity shown in the first speech is a mask, a cover
to make use of him. Oedipus has understood the evil plan of
Creon. So he curses him, and foresees evil to the country. He
speaks with a special knowledge which comes from the gods, “to
thy race may the Sun-god, the god who sees/All things, yet
grant an old age such as mine!” (122). This too is a gift of
heroes. The power to foresee future is with Oedipus as he is
already more than a man.
The personal motive of the dispute between Oedipus and
Creon may be seen especially when Creon tells Theseus that
Athens will never welcome a parricide. To this statement, Oedipus
answers with a long defence of his innocence. He adds that
there is no more god-fearing land than Athens. He knows that
the gods are on his side. They will help him and Athens. In
Oedipus the Kina the moral innocence of Oedipus is assumed,
though with far less emphasis. One can understand he is a
polluted being, a man hateful to the gods. It makes no difference
that he acted in ignorance, the pollution is on him and he must
get rid of himself of it. “So in Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles
141
must transcend the
(Bowra, Sophoclean
breach
between
Oedipus and
the gods”
317),
After Creon’s lies and violence, Polyneices, the son of
Oedipus
represents
a
challenge
of
a
different
kind.
The
subsequent arrival of Polyneices seems to exaggerate the episodic
nature of the play,
“but reinforces the point that,
except in
Athens, people are only interested in Oedipus for what they can
get out of him” (Walton 122).
Polyneices is not a mere politician
like Creon. He is drawn sympathetically. Oedipus begs Theseus
not to force him to go with his son. Theseus appeals to
his
piety, a crucial virtue for Oedipus. But declares that the gods
force human piety in general. Theseus treats Polyneices with
courtesy; Antigone with affection. Theseus as a king shows the
courtesy to a suppliant. He desires to show same consideration
as that he has shown to Oedipus.
Antigone acting as an affectionate and loving sister, wishes
to
save
her
brother
from
misfortune,
and tries
to
bring
reconcilement between tier father and brother. She, in her longest
speech of the play, adds to Theseus’s brief reproof, an eloquent
appeal to Oedipus that he should see his son. She requests him
humbly, “for thy daughter’s sake, allow our brother to come”
(Oedipus
125).
So far, she acts as a woman and a sister. She
142
does what is right in her own eyes. But her gentle feelings are
over-ridden by the higher authority of Oedipus. When trying to
give contrast between characters C.M. Bowra observes, “In vivid
contrast to Oedipus’s, love for his daughters, is his anger, even
hatred, against his sons” (Sophoclean
324).
Before Polyneices
appears, Oedipus has decided not to show mercy on his son.
But now he wishes to curse each
of his sons. The reason is
that they did not help him when he was driven out from
Thebes. He thinks if they had made an appeal on his behalf, he
would not have been sent out of Thebes but they did nothing.
They have sacrificed their father to their own lust for power.
Polyneices is so loathsome to Oedipus that his very voice brings
him the greatest pain.
Antigone encourages her brother to speak so that his words
may “touch to joy, perchance they glow with anger,
tenderness” (Oedipus
126).
or/ with
She tries to use persuasion, until she
sees that her efforts are helpless and gives them up. Polyneices
expresses pity for
his father. He
is right when he
requests
Oedipus for help in retaining his throne. He begs forgiveness
promising to do his best to make up for the past and reinstall
Oedipus in his own country. Yet Oedipus disowns
him and
condemns him like Creon. “When Oedipus curses Polyneices, it is
143
the
most
violent
curse
in
all
Greek tragedy”
(Aylen
103).
Polyneiccs entreats his father with a moving tale of misfortune,
“Be thy/ will
with me, and that boast may be mine; without/
thee, I cannot e’en return alive” (Oedipus 126).
But Oedipus is grimly silent. Then Polyneices tells him his long
dismal tale and begs his father for help. At the end of it, after
a word of commendation from the Chorus, Oedipus speaks. He
would not have spoken if Theseus had not sent Polyneices to
him. Polyneices like Neoptolemus in Philoctetes. promises to try
to make up for his faults. Oedipus has already found new philoi
and his fated resting place. There is nothing that his son can do
for him. Polyneices speaks truly when he laments, “Wretch that I
am! I learn all this too late” (125). Oedipus calls his son ‘the
most evil’ and the murderer. He goes to the extent of cursing
him and sending him away:
- begone,
abhorred of me, and unfathered!
-
begone, thou vilest ofthe vile and with thee take
these my curses which 1 call down on thee (126).
144
C.M. Bowra aptly comments on Oedipus’s curse as “an exhibition
of heroic wrath against wickedness” (Sophoclean
330).
As in the
play Antigone. Antigone’s nature is to join not in hate but in
love. Though she knows that he is in the wrong, she cares for
him. She is moved by sympathy for her brother.
Polyneices tries to make Oedipus abandon his wrath, but
when he fails, he is unwilling to give up his own. The epilogue
to his encounter with his father, where Antigone tries to dissuade
him in turn from his chosen course, is the final vindication of
Oedipus’s decision. Polyneices is bent on destruction. He feels
guilty. He himself admits when he says, “and I bear witness that
I am proved the vilest of men in/all that touches care for thee”
(Oedipus
125).
Polyneices must likewise bear full responsibility for the
violence against his brother and his native country. As Antigone
tells her brother, he brings the curse upon himself. His faults are
in his nature and in the nature of his will. He has put himself
where he cannot turn back; he has done so not because of any
moral
standard,
but
because
he
wants the
throne.
He
is,
therefore, in a tragic situation; but he is not a tragic character.
He is not without nobility of soul. One function of his touching
145
farewell scene is to arouse audiences sympathy for him especially
by the affection, he displays for his sisters:
I pray the gods
that ye never meet with ill; for in all men’s eye ye
are unworthy to suffer (127).
He prepares to meet the fate and the last request of his sisters,
that they will give his body proper burial.
He is willing to
sacrifice not only his own life, but the lives of allies to enmity
and personal honour.
He is as stubborn as Oedipus himself
rejecting any solution other than death. The role of Polyneices is
to show Oedipus’s power. Sophocles changed the myth so that
he should be the most guilty, and most deserve the curse. He
creates
the
opportunity
for
a
great
scene
of
pathos
Antigone:
He is undoubtedly a bad son; yet he is drawn in
touchingly human colours; in his parting from
Antigone,
in
his
rather
high
conception
of
generalship, and in his loneliness of his sorrow
as he bravely accepts his fate, he carries away a
good deal of our sympathy (Morris 107).
with
146
When Polyneices leaves the city, Oedipus’s earthly troubles
end. Now the kidnapped daughters are recovered. Oedipus hears
the thunder that announces the end, and he knows what they
The
mean.
gods
have
caused
Oedipus’s
immeasurable
and
undeserved suffering. He accuses, “Such a plight into which I
came, led/ by gods” (Oedipus
The
Chorus
suggest
123).
that
his strange death
is
a
just
compensation from the gods. They pray that he may have
a
painless death, for his sufferings were futile, but now ‘a just god
will lift him’
(128).
He sends for Theseus and with sure-footed
speed the blind man leads the way to the place of his death,
where,
one day
Athens’s enemies will
be defeated.
Where
Oedipus lies will be known only to the hereditary rulers of
Athens. Not even Antigone and Ismene know the place. “Oedipus
is primarily a national hero and his daughters are shut out from
the secret” (Bowra, Sophoclcan
341).
The Chorus see death as
a
deliverer of an increasing pain. The emphasis is on death as the
end. Oedipus looks forward to his own death not as a glorious
future, but as a terminus and rest from his sufferings. This is
not a reward for suffering or compensation a just divinity. His
death is amazing and fulfils his desires. Oedipus, like Philoctetes,
has suffered social death. He, too, is a man of no city. Ismene
147
remarks that the gods who destroyed him are now raising him
up. But he remains unimpressed answering, “’Tis little to lift age,
when youth was ruined” (Oedipus
117).
The only compensation is a painless death. In Theseus’s
words, he is one of those for whom death is a favour. This is
directed as a gentle rebuke to Antigone, who despite her father’s
miraculous
end,
still laments
that he
is
clothed
forever
in
underground darkness: Michael Walton, commenting on this scene,
states, “No moment in Greek drama more strongly suggests faith
in a divine purpose”
(123).
The end releases him from the
struggle of asserting himself and the suffering which pursued the
moral
activity
of his soul.
He
has exalted
himself by his
endurance.
Antigone and Ismene are in deep sorrow after their father’s
death. They weep when they accompany him on his last journey,
and when they say good-buy to him. “They fall at their father’s
knees and wept”
(128).
When
they hear the Messenger’s tale,
they lament in a kind of dirge. Now they are deserted, and wish
to join their father in death. Ismene mourns, “Woe is me! What
new fate thinks’t thou,/ awaits thee and me, my sister, thou
orphaned of our/ sire?” (Oedipus
129).
For Antigone^ the pain
caused by caring for her father was outweighed by the pleasure
148
of his presence. But Theseus has a clearer insight into the truth
and consoles the two maidens:
Weep no more maidens, for where the kindness
of the Dark powers is an abiding grace to the
quick and to the dead, there is no room for
mourning
129).
(
So in comforting the daughters, Theseus speaks with a quite
confidence after knowing that their mourning is really an occasion
for joy. When Antigone cannot understand why the secret place
of her father’s death is not revealed, he corrects her with the
voice of reason and piety.
Oedipus’s mind.
She accepts his explanations of
Thisrational control over the passions enable
him to functionas the moral
conscience of the other characters
when they become carried away by emotion.
In the end harmony and order prevail because the gods
wish it so and Oedipus accepts their will. C.M. Bowra states,
“The play ends
in asublime reconciliation not merely between
Oedipus and the gods but between all the warring elements in
the situation”
(Sophoclean
355).
The justice of the gods is
vindicated in their treatment of Oedipus and of Attica. Oedipus
buried in the soil of Attica, remains loyal to those who helped
149
him at the last. His end is a redemption for his sufferings.
George Steiner in observing the final effect of this great tragedy
states, “Man is ennobled by the vengeful spite or injustice of the
gods. It does not make him innocent but is hallows him as if he
had passed through the flame” (Death 10). Tragedy is irreparable.
It cannot lead to material compensation for past suffering. The
Biblical Job gets back double the number of she-asses. God has
enacted upon him a parable of justice. But Oedipus does not get
back his eyes or sceptre over Thebes. C.E. Vaughan, on dealing
with the types of tragic drama concludes “The Colonus is a
drama of suffering rather than action”
play with Shakespeare’s
(59).
One can compare this
King Lear. The words of Lear, those
words which sum up the role of his fate. “I am a man more
sinned against than sinning” are almost a verbal echo of the plea
of Oedipus - “My deeds are deeds of suffering rather than of
doing”
(59).
He assumes that his misfortunes were somehow
caused by the gods. Yet the justice he demands and foresees is
not divine compensation, but the power of vengeance on the
human beings who failed to support him in the midst of his
divinely inflicted sufferings.
Sophocles tries to assert that fate works through the
character of the victim. Both his virtues and defects conspire
150
with fate against him. It is apt to quote John Gassner who sums
up the character of Oedipus:
Without being ‘morally’ responsible, Oedipus is
‘psychologically’ responsible for his sufferings, he is
consequently a dynamic character and an active
sufferer: he is infact one of the tragic figures of
literature. The play is a marvel of suspense, pace
and mounting excitement. The experience provided
by this play has no parallel in the theatre except in
King Lear (Masters 53-54).
The last words of the Chorus form a fitting conclusion to this
great tragedy, “Come, cease lamentation, lift it up no more/ for
verily these things stand fast” (Oedipus 130). Here, against the
triumph of death, “Sophocles erects the dignity and the will of
man in one of the most beautiful and most exalting of all
drama” (Shipley 140).
In his acceptance of his fall and in his readiness to take
part in it, Oedipus shows a greatness nobler than when he read
the riddle of the Sphinx and became the King of Thebes.
“Though worn out with age and suffering, there is a splendid
dignity about him” (Mahaffy 79). His triumph does not come
151
without a struggle. His nobility in suffering shows his worthiness
to be a hero. He knows that he is a noble Theban. Nobility is
a standard to which he can appeal, and which he must observe.
His consciousness of nobility has enabled him to ensure his
misfortunes. His endurance in suffering entitles him to honour,
and ultimately to heroization. The superior strength is recognized
and rewarded by the gods, who prolong it in the grave and
make it a means to protect Athens.
“Attempts have been made to find a Christian tone here;
the vision of a sinner whom God pardons and a fate endured in
life but compensated with bliss in death” (Draper
117).
It is not
through terror and pity alone that Oedipus purges one of base
emotions: ultimately, it is in the weighing of man’s soul that one
finds release. Oedipus, the parricide, the lover of his mother, the
brother of his children, the over-proud ruler and the man blind
in his clearest visions, achieves magnificent stature. Greatness of
soul, despite his pride, and ambition, is the crowning attribute of
the Theban King.
The end releases Oedipus from the struggle of asserting
himself and the suffering which pursued the moral activity of his
soul. He had exalted himself by his endurance in that activity,
and the final scene shows only the universal of which the play
152
was the particular. That universal is important, but one must not
forget how it came about. It is the result of time, suffering and
his own nobility. How perfectly his last words to his daughters
sum up the trial of values by which he has proved himself to be
victorious, “O my children, ye must be nobly brave of/heart, and
depart from this place”
(129).
It shows how a life-time suffering
closes in peace and power. It shows the power of the gods to
exalt as Oedipus the Kino displayed their power to humble. He
gets exactly what he wants: revenge on his enemies, blessing for
his friends, and an end to his own sufferings by means of a
miraculous death that confirms his heroic powers.