TFBT: Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles

At Hour 25, the book club that just finished reading The Orestia continued on with the “Oedipus at Colonus” by Sophocles.  As with The Orestia, I concentrated on the appearances of the Erinyes, the goddesses of revenge, rather than the human plot. 

If you don’t know the story, elderly, blind Oedipus accompanied by his daughter arrive at a beautiful garden on the outskirts of Athens seeking sanctuary and a place to be laid to rest.  The locales are aghast to discover who he is, because everyone in Greece knows he killed his father and married his mother.  Anyone who shelters this outcast is asking to have their land cursed by the Erinyes.  (As they threatened to do near the end of the Oresteia.)  The catch is that apparently Oedipus accidently sought sanctuary, that is, became  a suppliant at the very altar of the Erinyes themselves.  Oedipus relatives show up to claim his body. (He’s still not dead yet, by the way.)  Apollo told them that if Oedipus is laid to rest in Athens that Thebes will someday be defeated in battle by the Athenians. Not that they want to bury him at home, because then the fated curse falls on them, again.  They just don’t want him buried in Athens.  He double curses them and strolls off with King Theseus to the mysterious secret  spot where he will pass to the other world.  The last anyone sees, Oedipus disappeared into "the sacred tomb where tis my portion to be buried" and Theseus is left mumbling silent praise to the gods below and the gods above. The end. 

In The Orestia, the Eumenides are called everything, but “goddesses” until three quarters of the way through the third play.  Here they are addressed as the goddesses “The all-seeing Eumenides the people here would call them…”  around line 40

At line 85, Oedipus lets it slip out that the seeming accident of his arrival  at this “inviolable” spot, was contrived by Apollo.  Line 665 suggests that Apollo“ has been your escort here.”  In retrospect, just like in “The Oresteia” Apollo was the god that started this whole disaster by his enigmatic response to the Corinthian prince’s question about his paternity.  Just as in the Oresteia the “sweet daughters of primeval Darkness” don’t drink wine (don’t require wine libations) because Apollo tricked the sisters the Fates once by getting them drunk on wine.   We might wonder here was Loriax is up to.

The locales initiate Oedipus into the rituals to placate the dread goddesses at Lines 125 & 480; “a wanderer, not a dweller in the land; otherwise he never would have advanced into this untrodden grove of the maidens with whom none may strive. Their name we tremble to speak, we pass them by with eyes turned away, mouthing the words, without sound or word,”

Another daughter arrives and the audience and chorus are told the situation in Thebes.  “At first it was their decision that the throne should be left to Creon, and the city spared pollution, when they thought calmly about the ancient blight on our family, 370“  Creon is the once and forever regent of Thebes generation after generation cleaning up the messes made by the royal family.  The “ancient blight on our family” was caused by the crime of their ancestor Laius.  As Oedipus admits at Line 530, he has two blessing; his daughters and two curses; Laius’ and his own.  However, when things calmed down the royal family designed to retain the throne  “And the younger son has stripped the elder, Polyneikes, of the throne, (375)"   Per primordial law as mentioned in Homer, the erinyes will support the elder brother in the fratricidal war to come.

Creon arrives around line 760 and say, “Oedipus, in the name of your ancestral gods, listen to me!”  Sort of ironic and ineffectual calling upon the very gods that laid this curse on his family and chased him to Athens.  “… consent to return to the city and the house of your ancestors, … since it was she that nurtured you long ago.”  In point of fact it was the city of Corinth that nurtured and raised Oedipus.  Creon  is driven by his need to save his people from the grief to come. His heartless stern actions reek of desperation. He is wrong. But at the same time Oedipus is just as heartless and stern. For all his whining and begging, Oedipus is not giving in to Creon’s demands. Oedipus, as "implacable, inexorable" as the Erinyes. He is willing to curse his sons and sacrifice his daughters to get his revenge. This is a battle of titans on a cosmic scale for the sanctity of human life

Next up is his Oedipus’ son who did nothing to save his father from exile, who comes for his father’s blessing in the approving war for the throne called “The Seven Against Thebes”.  Oedipus’ response is to re-double the family curse with all the power latent in his polluted self.  He is as unforgiving and unmovable as the Erinyes themselves.  His doomed son saying  “This path now will be my destiny, ill-fated and evil, because of my father here and his Furies.”  Oedipus can summon the Erinyes just like Clytemnestra did in the “Libation Bearers” of the Oresteia

The son’s parting words are “forgo your fierce mēnis against me, as I go forth to punish my brother, (1330)”  “Menis” is a Greek word for wrath and generally reserved for the gods.  It is anger of cosmic consequence.  In the Oresteia the god Apollo admits to fearing the menis of Orestes “And I will aid the suppliant and rescue him! For the mēnis of the suppliant would be awesome to mortals and gods, if I intentionally abandoned him” The menis of Orestes would have unravelled the divine plot to establish the rule of law amongst mankind.  Of what concern to the gods was the wrath of Oedipus at his sons?  The answer is what happens next in Greek mythology.  The banishment  of Oedipus ultimately ignited the Theban wars.  The Theban Wars, like the Trojan war were arranged by Zeus and Themis to lighten the load of the tribes of demi-gods upon Mother earth.  (Cypria and Works&Days ll. 156-169b)

Oedipus and Theseus go apart from the others.  Oedipus disappears and Theseus performs the required prayers “mouthing the words, without sound or word,”

 

 PS

 

A little something off topic hear I read in “Oedipus at Colonus”

 

“I say this because you, son of Kronos, lord Poseidon, have set the city on the throne of these words of praise by inventing, first of all on our own roadways, the bit that cures the rage of horses. Meanwhile the oar, well-shaped for rowing on the sea, is gliding past the land as it leaps to keep time with the singing and dancing of the hundred-footed Nereids.” 714

 

This is the clearest explantion I’ve seen as to how Poseidon could be the god of the horse and of the sea.  With horse and bit  he rules the roadway.  With boat and oar he rules the sea-ways.  He is master of horses;  the steeds of earth and ships; the steeds of the sea.  

TFBT: The Dragon Slayer, the Princess and the Dragoness

 

" Jaffa…is situated on a hill, and in front of it is a rock on which they point out the marks made by the chains with which Andromeda was fettered; here there is a cult of the legendary goddess Ceto (the Sea-Monster)."   Pliny the Elder, Natural History 5. 69 

 

We all know the princess and the dragon motif.  (Aarne-Thompson folktale type 300 – Dragon Slayer)  The knight errant runs across a damsel in distress of noble birth.  He saves her from the local evil monster or ogre and is rewarded with her hand in marriage.  Of course, in Greek Mythology it is a little more complicated than that.   

Bellephron -  Homer tells in  Iliad 6.   About “Bellerophontes the blameless. To Bellerophontes the gods granted beauty and desirable manhood”  As an honored guest “…the lord of wide Lykia King Iobates tendered him full-hearted honor. And “he sent him away with orders to kill the Chimaera” …The chimera was a fire-breathing three headed and daughter of Typhon and Echidna.   She was the pet of King Amisodarus, of neighboring Caria, who often used her to abuse his enemies.  With a little help from the gods Bellephron slew the beast and accomplished several other heroic quest.  “.. Then when the king knew him for the powerful stock of the god, he detained him there, and offered him the hand of his daughter,” and gave him half the  kingdom. 

 

Perseus - Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 64  "Cassiopea claimed that her daughter Andromeda’s beauty excelled the Nereids’. Because of this, [Poseidon] demanded that Andromeda, Cepheus’ daughter, be offered to a sea-monster. When she was offered, Perseus, flying on [Hermes] winged sandals, is said to have come there and freed her from danger.”  The story is that Andromeda was naked and wearing fancy jewelry.  Perseus fell in love instantly and wanted to marry her.  Andromeda did the math; Parents who just sacrificed her to Poseidon or a handsome young “god” (Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 224).  She accepted his proposal.  Her parents objected and violence ensued.  Unfortunately, Perseus carried Medusa’s head in a bag.  Pretty much everyone got turned to stone except him and his wife.  They flew away and lived happily ever after.  Too bad King Cepheus didn’t have a better pet sea-monster. 

 

 

Telamon’s story (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 103)  u=is real similar to Perseus    "Poseidon sent a cetos (Sea-Monster) which would come inland on a flood-tide and grab people on the plain. Oracles proclaimed that there would be release from these adversities if Laomedon were to set his daughter Hesione out as a meal for the cetos, so he fastened her to the rocks by the seaside.”  Telamon and his buddies happen by and promise to save her in exchange for some of the famous horses.  A deal is struck.  Hesione is requested and her father reneges on the deal.  He’s famous for this sort of things.  Telamon and company attack Troy.  Everyone there dies except for Telamon’s future brother-in-law Priam.  The baby is set on the throne and Hesione returns home with Telamon.  Again, too bad for the local people that the sea monster lost.

Oedipus - Myriad sources tell the story of this hero.  The old king was dead, another monstrous daughter of Typhon and Echidna, the Sphinx, plagued Thebes.  The once and forever Regent Creon offers the hand  of his sister and crown to whoever can slay the beast.  Oedipus accomplishes the task with his wits and marries Jocasta.  The only complication to this happy ending is several attempts by writers to equate Jocasta and the Sphinx, as though the Sphinx was the darker side of the Queen of Thebes.  (Sorry I have no scholarly reference at hand and can only offer, “ The Identity of Jocasta and the Sphinx” in Approaches to Greek Myth”, Lowell Edmunds page 373   and “the Sphinx and Jocasta synonymous “   Reviewing British Cinema, 1900-1992 Essay and Interviews. )   It is almost as if the Sphinx might be protecting Creon and Jocasta’s rule.

In summary even with complications some Greek myths seem to conform to  folktale  type 300 – Dragon Slayer.  The Hero wanders by, slays the female sea-monster or daughter of Echidna, rescues the Princess and weds here.  It is always a win/win for the Hero and Princess, no so much for her family if they don’t honor the agreement.


image courtesy of NYPL Digital Collection

TFBT; Oedipus Tyrannos and 19.CB22.1x

                     
                         “Why was I to see, when eyesight showed me nothing sweet?"
                                                           Oedipus in Oedipus Tyrannos

 

With great joy, I continue my on-line class from Harvard; The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty-Four Hours”.  Even on the second reading I still enjoy the textbook by the same name. This session we studied Oedipus Tyrannos composed by the great Athenian playwright Sophocles.  

The play opens with the priest announcing to King Oedipus that something has descended on the buds of the fruit trees, upon on the herds of cattle grazing in the pastures and upon the pregnant women, producing lifelessness.   The god of Delphi, Apollo has swooped down. He is the hateful plague-god afflicting the city.   

According to Nagy’s translation,  the citizens say to their beloved king of the last twenty years or so, “Come, best   among mortals, resurrect our city. Come! And do be careful, since now this land here calls you a savior.”  Doesn’t this line just set-up Oedipus for failure?  Calling a person the “best among mortals” and “savior” will doom any subsequence effort on their part as substandard.  This is particularly true in the Ancient world where the gods were petty, jealous and intolerant of excessive pride (hubris) in mortals.  

Oedipus sent his brother-in-law to Delphi to ask of the god what the problem was.  Ends up Oedipus’ predecessor on the throne was murdered and the city is accidently sheltering the murder or murders.  They either have to kill or exile them.  Oedipus asks, “Where on earth are they? Where will this thing be found, this dim trail of an ancient guilt?”     

As you probably know or can guess by now the murderer is Oedipus himself.  The play reveals that the god at Delphi (him again?) predicted that baby Oedipus would grow up to kill his father Laius.  So, King Laius and his wife maimed the baby and left him for the wolves.  Oedipus survives and grows into a strong, lame, young man.  The two men, unknown to one another, meet and have words.  Laius dies.  Oedipus continues on his way, destroys as lion-bodied siren devouring the youth of Thebes.  Consequently they happy citizens give the hero the crown and the hand of the queen.  Unknown to everyone the queen is his mother!  Ugh!  She hangs herself when she realizes she’d bedded her own son and produced four more from that polluted bed.  Our studies raced to the end of the story as rapidly as Oedipus rushed to his doom.   

There is no way to describe this better than Sophocles did and Nagy translated;  

"Oedipus tore from her clothing, those gold-worked brooches of hers, with which she had ornamented herself, and, holding them high with raised hand, he struck his own eyeballs."  

Sophocles adds some pretty gory details after the above line and if that isn’t enough, Professor Nagy adds in lecture “I should tell you that, in Euripides' version of this primal scene, the brooch that she's wearing in her hair had also being used to pierce the feet of (Baby) Oedipus.” 

Naturally the good citizens freak out at the site of their king’s gouged out eyeballs and beg to know what daemon¹ convinced him to do it.

Oedipus responds, “It was Apollo, dear ones Apollo who brought to fulfillment these evil, experiences of mine. But no one with his own hand did the striking. I myself did that, wretch that I am! Why was I to see, when eyesight showed me nothing sweet?"  

That is pretty much the end of the sad story.  Professor Nagy adds in lecture that, “…people have thought that Oedipus, in the sense that he will eventually be expelled from his native city of Thebes…in the sense that he becomes the scapegoat, who, in this case, isn't killed, but expelled from the community.” 

 

 

¹ “daemon” according to Webster’s New World Dic, 2^nd College edition is “any of the secondary divinities ranking between the gods and men”

TFBT; Oedipus at Colonus; A Tale of Old men

With great joy, I continue my on-line class from Harvard; The Ancient Greek Hero in Twenty-Four Hours”.  Even on the second reading I still enjoy the textbook by the same name. This session we studied Oedipus.  Professor Nagy describes the hero in “Oedipus at Colonus” by Sophocles as;

“seeking to be purified of the unholy pollution he has already experienced in his most wretched life.” ( HSH 18.9)

You know Oedipus.  He killed the Sphinx with the answer to a riddle.  He killed his dad and married his mother.  Things went downhill from there.  Considering the unthinkable crimes and tragedy that hounded Oedipus,  Professor Nagy’s description above kindly sidesteps the issue of how much Oedipus knew or not of what he did.  For at this point in the cycle of myths surrounding Oedipus, he is “blind old man”, “care worn”, exiled by his sons, cast out by his city of Thebes, doomed  to “wander, an outcast and a beggar evermore” in “filthy clothing.”  He arrives at Colonus a suburb of Athens hoping to make peace with the goddesses of vengeance who have hounded him these many years and to find a resting place.  The place he came to is described   as;

this land of fine horses you have come to earth’s fairest home, the shining Colonus. Here the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note under the trees of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god’s inviolate foliage, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by the wind of any storm. Here the reveler Dionysus ever walks the ground,  companion of  the nymphs that nursed him. And, fed on heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms day by day with its fair clusters; it is the ancient garland of the Great Goddesses.  And the crocus blooms with a golden gleam. Nor do the ever- flowing springs diminish, from which the waters of Cephisus wander, and each day with pure  current it moves over the plains of the land’s swelling bosom, making things fertile. Nor have the choruses of the Muses shunned this place, nor Aphrodite of the golden rein. 

In addition to the shrine to the Hero Colonus, this is the home of the same goddess of vengeance Oedipus is trying to escape; the Eumenides. 

The lame old man explains to the local ruler,  King Theseus; “ I come to donate this wretched body of mine   as a gift to you   - a gift that seems not to be important when you look at it. But it has   benefits coming out from it that have more power than any form of beauty.”  Professor Nagy continual leads us in discussions about how a peaceful fallen Hero is connected to the fertility of the land in which he lays.

All the ancient tragedies were performed at a festival in Athens.  Now Sophocles is no fool.  He and his fellow playwrights wrote for the mob.  In their plays, Athens is the ideal city state, often set during the reign of the most ideal of King, Theseus.  Theseus in the plays is portrayed as heroic, righteous and almost saintly. 

The King quickly assures Oedipus of proper burial ceremonies.  So the purification ceremonies begin.  Then Oedipus’ maternal uncle (and brother-in-law) arrives;

Gentlemen, noble dwellers in this land, I see from your eyes that a sudden fear has troubled you at my coming;   but do not shrink back from me, and let no bad utterance   escape you. I am here with no thought of force; I am old, and I know that the  to which I have come is mighty, if any in Hellas has might.   No, I have been sent, aged as I am, to plead with this man to return with me to the land of Kadmos ( He means Thebes.  Cadmus is the founder of Thebes). 

To which Oedipus knowingly replies “You have come to get me, not to bring me to my home but to plant me near your borders, so that your city might escape uninjured by evils from this land”. 

At which point, the “old”, “aged” perpetual regent of Thebes makes it clear, that he is taking Oedipus home dead or alive.   How old is Creon at this point?  He is clearly a generation older than “blind old”, “care worn” Oedipus.  Creon  saw all his sister’s grandchildren grow to maturity and will shortly be the regent for his sister’s great-grandson!

Theseus saves the day, the ceremony continues, most of the celebrants (and the audience)  are sent away, “ He of the Earth Below made a thunderclap.” and theoretically Mother Earth opens and  with loving arms welcomes the weary hero home.  A messenger appears on stage shortly thereafter to tell the citizens of Athens what happen.  In describing the death scene the messenger says of Oedipus,

 “he stopped still at one place where paths were leading in many directions, ₁₅₉₃ near the Hollow Crater, which was where Theseus and Peirithoos had made their faithful covenant lasting forever.”   

The line strikes me strange because in the storyline, King Theseus and his best friend Peirithoos haven’t made this pact yet.  This is something King Theseus will do later, when he is an old man.  Many sources say around age fifty, both men found themselves bachelors again and determined that the only suitable wives would be Helen for Theseus and Persephone for Peirithoos.  Helen, not even a teenager was easily snatched up and left with Theseus’ mother for safe keeping.  Then off to Hades for Persephone.  Peirithoos never returned. By the time Theseus got home (thanks to Heracles)  the Spartans had rescued princess Helen, overthrown Theseus and sent the old man into exile.   (Fabulae 79 by Hyginus)

This is a lot of aged male characters in exile.  Oedipus at Colonus hit the stage, the year father Sophocles died.  Here is what Leonard Meullner and Gregory Nagy had to say about the playwright in lecture for 19.CD22.1x 

“ Sophocles dies in his nineties, he lives to a ripe old age -- he is so respected by his city, he did just about everything that you would ever want to be able to do in Athens. He realized all his ambitions. He was a general. He was a statesman, besides being a performer in tragedies, -the greatest master of tragedy and a performer in tragedy. He did everything. And then after he died, his people did transform him, so to speak, into a cult hero.  And he was worshipped as a cult hero.

Just as Oedipus was at Colonus.

 

 

 

 

 

TFBT: Over-reaching Oedipus

“Such was the burden of my song, when on a sudden Apollo appeared to me and touched with his fingers the chords of a golden lyre; in his hand he bore a branch of laurel; a laurel wreath encircled his brow.  Prophetic was his mien and prophetic the voice with which he bade me lead my disciples into his temple“

“There,” said he, “you will find this inscription famous throughout the whole world, ‘Man, know thyself.’”[i]

And so enters into the world of literature the maximum supposedly carved on the walls at the temple in Delphi: Know Thyself.  This bit of advice did not seem to work out too well for Oedipus.  As we shall see.

Polybus, King of Corinth, found the infant and brought it to his wife Periboea.  She adopted him and passed him off as her own and after she had healed his ankles she called him Oedipus, giving him that name on account of his swollen feet.[ii]

Eventually Oedipus following the Delphic Maximum approaches this parents on the matter of his heritage.  When the boy grew up and excelled his fellows in strength , they spitefully twitted him with being suppositious.  He inquired of Periboea, but could learn nothing.[iii] (This was his first hint to not question the sweet destiny that was his.)  Rather than revel in the love of his parents and countrymen, rather than sitting happily and appreciatively preparing for the crown of Corinth he would someday wear, he goes to Delphi, which sets the whole tragedy in motion.

After Oedipus, had come to manhood, he was courageous beyond the rest and through envy his companions taunted him with not being Polybus’ son since Polybus was so mild and he so assertive.  Oedipus felt that the taunt was true.  And so he set out for Delphi in inquire about his parents.[iv]

Perfidious Apollo[v] does not answer Oedipus’ question about his parentage.  (Hint #2) Instead;

To Delphi and Apollo sent me back

Baulked of the knowledge that I came to seek

But other grievous things he prophesied

Woes, lamentations, mourning, portents dire;

To wit, I should defile my mother’s bed

and raise up seed too loathsome to behold

And slay the father from whose loins I sprang [vi]

To avoid murdering Polybus and bedding Periboea, Oedipus heads for Thebes.   He defeats the Sphinx, marries Queen Jocasta, raises children, fights wars and another plague, less obvious than the four-footed Sphinx settles on the land.  In response to this new danger to Thebes Oedipus unknowingly ask Teiresais about himself.

 To which the blind seer replies; Let me go home; prevent me not; ‘twere best, that thou should’st bear thy burden and I mine[vii] (This is hint number three to drop his obsession with self-knowledge.)  Teiresais resists.  Oedipus insists.  Tragedy follows.

His wife, his mother, the queen, Jocasta can foresee the tragic end to his quest.  Yet humor me I pray thee: do not this[viii] But, he ignores hint number four.

The herdsmen, long ago directed to expose Jocasta’s first-born upon the slopes of Mt. Cithaeron, is brought forward to testify. He begs Oedipus; “Forebear of God’s sake, master, ask no more”[ix]  Hint number five goes unrecognized by Oedipus’ obsessive drive to doom.   

His quest for self knowledge brought him to “stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed, a parricide, incestuously, triply cursed[x]. 

---

[i]    Ovid, the Art of Love, Book II

[ii]   Book 3 of the Library of Apollodorus 5.7

[iii]  Book 3 of the Library of Apollodorus 5.7

[iv]  Hyginus, Fabulae 66-67

[v]  Apollo's Perfidy: Iliad ω 59-63, Ruth Scodel, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 81, (1977), pp. 55-57

[vi]  Oedipus Tyrannus Euripides

[vii] Oedipus Tyrannus Euripides

[viii] Oedipus Tyrannus Euripides

[ix]  Oedipus Tyrannus Euripides

[x]   Oedipus Tyrannus Euripides