The Theban Plays
The tragic life of Oedipus is the subject of The Theban Plays by Sophocles. The horrors of its plot has captivated audiences for nearly 2,500 years.
Questions related to fate and free will were at the center of the tragic dramas of Ancient Greece.
In many cases, the gods had virtually assured a certain outcome for unfortunate individuals who were nearly incapable of altering their fate. But even in the most dire of situations, there remained a glimmer of hope that the characters involved might be able to swerve away from imminent disaster. A situation governed purely by fate lacks drama since the outcome is absolutely certain, but human beings always have some agency even if it is highly circumscribed by the situation they find themselves in.
Sophocles was a master of tragic drama and won more awards in competitions than any other playwright in the fifth century B.C. He wrote 123 plays but only seven have survived fully intact. Three of the plays are about a series of tragic circumstances that plagued Thebes, but these plays are not a trilogy like The Oresteia by Aeschylus. Sophocles wrote his plays about Thebes as stand-alone dramas on a subject that was well known to an audience steeped in Greek mythology.
Over the past year, I have been on a mission to read the greatest books of western civilization in an effort to understand our intellectual heritage. My original intent was to write about my journey frequently and I have published many articles. However, all too often, I find it intimidating to write about the great books because they have been thoroughly dissected by centuries of scholars who have spent their lifetimes studying the classics. I am not a trained classicist, just an ordinary person embarking on an intellectual journey.
A healthy approach is to simply write my impressions about these books without attempting to pretend that I have done more than scratch the surface of their deeper meanings. In that spirit, this article presents my thoughts on the tragic life of Oedipus, as told by Sophocles and Aeschylus. I spend more time describing Oedipus the King, the most famous of the plays, while filling out the rest of the storyline as much as possible for an article of reasonable length. This exercise is more for my own benefit than for readers, although perhaps some people will find my thoughts worth reading as well.
The Oracle Speaks
It is impossible to understand the culture of Ancient Greece without being familiar with its mythology. This was a polytheistic world of multiple gods, many of whom maintained rivalries with each other, and they interacted with humans in many ways. Shrines were built to honor the gods and to seek their guidance. The most important such shrine was located at Delphi where the oracle of Apollo prophesied about future events. These prophesies were certainly taken seriously by many individuals, including several kings, including Croesus who tragically misinterpreted a prophesy and lost his kingdom as a result.
There was little ambiguity when King Laius of Thebes approached the oracle at Delphi. His son was destined to eventually kill him. It is not clear whether Laius learned of this prophesy before or after he married Queen Jocasta, but it is clear that when Oedipus was born, the couple knew that they had a problem. The solution, repugnant to modern readers, was that Oedipus was to be killed by exposure on Mt. Cithaeron. The king and queen delegated this task to a shepherd who was ordered to leave the baby on a mountainside, but the shepherd could not do it. He gave the infant to another shepherd from Corinth instead.
King Polybus and Queen Merope or Corinth were childless and the Corinthian shepherd presented the infant to Polybus who decided to raise the child as his own. Oedipus had no knowledge of his adoption and thought that he was the biological child of Polybus and Merope and destined to one day rule Corinth. However, rumors of his adoption were apparently circulating in the community and, when Oedipus grew up, a drunken man told him that he was not the natural heir to the throne. Seeking divine guidance, Oedipus consulted the oracle at Delphi and was given the horrific news that he was destined to kill his father. But it got worse. He was also destined to marry his own mother!
Naturally, Oedipus wanted very much to avoid this cursed fate so he fled from Corinth thinking that if he was no longer present in the city, there is no way the prophesy could come true. The problem is that Polybus and Merope were not his biological parents, so abandoning Corinth did nothing to improve his situation. Instead, fate took him to a crossroads where he encountered King Laius and his small entourage. A dispute ensued and Oedipus killed Laius and his entire entourage except for one man who escaped. Half of the prophesy had come true, even though Oedipus had no idea that the man he killed was his biological father. Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come.
Oedipus Rises to Power
The question of human agency is at the center of this tragedy. Oedipus had unknowingly fulfilled half of the prophesy by taking the life of another man, but could he have avoided taking anyone’s life? Perhaps not, since the legends claim that he acted in self-defense. Fate took Oedipus to the crossroads where he met his biological father and killed him, and free will seemed to have little to do with it. Oedipus could have taken a vow to never kill, but his own life would have ended at the crossroads. Future events would turn out so badly that he probably wished that he had been killed.
Oedipus rose to power in Thebes after he solved the riddle of a monster known as the Sphinx, a creature that was part-human, part-lion, and part-bird. The Sphinx had been oppressing the people of Thebes for a long period of time and promised to relent only when someone managed to solve a riddle: What creature travels on four feet, three feet, and two feet, and is most vulnerable when it goes on four feet? Oedipus solved the riddle by answering than the creature was a man. A baby travels on four feet and soon learns to walk on two feet, but in old age, a man needs a cane and therefore walks on three feet! This caused the Sphinx to commit suicide and Oedipus became the hero of the Theban people … who just happened to be looking for leadership because their king had been killed on the road.
Queen Jocasta must have been a child bride when she married Laius and bore Oedipus, perhaps fifteen years of age or even younger. This is why it is plausible that Oedipus, who was a young man at the time, was considered a potential husband for the queen. Horrifically, Oedipus married Jocasta who might have been in her early to mid-thirties at the time, and the couple had two sons, followed several years later by two daughters. This incestuous relationship was entered into due to total ignorance but the terrible truth is that Oedipus’ children were also his siblings. This state of affairs continued for a couple of decades until the sons were grown men charting their own course in the world. Then, with two young daughters still at home, Oedipus discovered the truth.
The Plague of Oedipus
“Our city — look around you, see with your own eyes — our ship pitches wildly, cannot lift her head from the depths, the red waves of death … Thebes is dying.”
— Oedipus the King (28-31)
A terrible plague was running rampant in Thebes and King Oedipus was at a loss for how to help his people. In desperation, he sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to consult with the oracle at Delphi. The oracle said that the plague would only abate once the killer of Laius was identified and punished. At this point, Laius had been dead for decades and it is not clear why the plague was deferred for so long, but Oedipus was a conscientious ruler and immediately began to seek out the truth about the former king’s murder. This part of the story is the subject of Oedipus the King by Sophocles.
Creon is presented as a somewhat shifty character and he was reluctant to relay the words of the oracle in a public setting, perhaps because he had an inkling of the scandal that was to come. He mentions that one witness survived the incident at the crossroads and Oedipus immediately wants to locate and interview this man. Not only is this necessary for justice and to remove the plague, but Oedipus reasoned that the killer of the former king might also be a threat to his own life.
Sophocles was a genius when it came to creating suspense and irony. The audience knew the story, but Oedipus was ignorant when he made these comments:
“I hold the throne that he [Laius] held then, possess his bed and a wife who shares our seed … why, our seed might be the same, children born of the same mother might have created blood-bonds between us if his hope of offspring had not met disaster — but fate swooped at his head and cut him short. So I will fight for him as if he were my father …”
— Oedipus the King (295-301)
If this isn’t cringeworthy, I don’t know what is! Oedipus gets within an inch of the truth at times in the play well before the truth is finally revealed, and the audience must have sensed the tension of the situation.
We progress to a “shoot the messenger” scenario when Tiresias, the blind prophet, is summoned to help Oedipus locate the killer of Laius. Tiresias clearly knows the entire story. After all, he is a prophet for a reason. But he is wise enough to not want to divulge the truth, knowing that it will cause total havoc in Thebes. So he is evasive and this infuriates Oedipus who accuses the old man of being bribed to remain silent. Oedipus even mocks the prophet’s blindness which will be quite ironic as the story progresses. Oedipus also turns on Creon, claiming that his brother-in-law and Tiresias are somehow in cahoots in a conspiracy to protect the killer.
As Oedipus leaves the stage to re-enter his palace, Tiresias tells the audience the truth:
“Revealed at last, brother and father both to the children he embraces, to his mother son and husband both — he sowed the loins his father sowed, he spilled his father’s blood!”
— Oedipus the King (520-524)
A dialogue between Oedipus and Jocasta slowly starts to unravel the mystery. Jocasta reveals details about the death of her husband that make Oedipus suspect that he was the killer, but at this point he has no clue that Laius was his father. In a later scene Jocasta prays to Apollo and is approached by a messenger from Corinth bringing news of the death of King Polybus. The people of Corinth sent the messenger to tell Oedipus that they want him to serve as their king. Oedipus is initially relieved to learn that Polybus has died of natural causes. Still thinking that he was the biological son of Polybus, he was relieved to “know” that he had not actually killed his “father.” But Oedipus still fears returning to Corinth due to the prophesy that he would marry his mother. At this point, Queen Merope is still alive in Corinth.
After some back-and-forth dialog, the Corinthian messenger reveals that Oedipus is not the biological child of Polybus and Merope. This messenger was the Corinthian shepherd who took Oedipus as an infant and gave him to Polybus to raise as his own child. The Corinthian messenger further reported that he received Oedipus from a Theban shepherd! At this point, Jocasta understands the full horror of the situation and begs Oedipus to drop the inquiry, but Oedipus simply cannot do so. He must know the truth!
Oedipus: “What — give up now, with a clue like this? Fail to solve the mystery of my birth? Not for all the world!”
Jocasta: “Stop — in the name of god, if you love your own life, call off this search! My suffering is enough.”
Oedipus: “Courage! Even if my mother turns out to be a slave, and I a slave, three generations back, you would not seem common.”
…
Jocasta: “Aieeeeee — man of agony — that is the only name I have for you, that no other — ever, ever, ever!”
— Oedipus the King (1160-1167, 1176-1179)
Jocasta rushes off the stage to go into the palace where she commits suicide. Meanwhile, Oedipus summons the Theban shepherd who saved his own life decades earlier. This poor shepherd does not want to reveal the truth and Oedipus threatens to torture him if he will not talk. Eventually, the shepherd is forced to say that he pitied the little boy and decided to save him by giving him to the Corinthian shepherd. At this point, Oedipus has finally learned the truth.
“I stand revealed — at last cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands!”
— Oedipus the King (1308-1310)
Oedipus rushes into the palace to find Jocasta who is already dead. Although Oedipus was, at certain points, suicidal, he chose to inflict upon himself an even more severe punishment. Using Jocasta’s brooches, which were long gold pins, Oedipus gouges out his own eyes so that he would never again have to look upon the world or the children of his cursed marriage — his children who were also his siblings.
“Now I’ve exposed my guilt, horrendous guilt, could I train a level glance on you, my countrymen? Impossible! No, if I could just block off my ears, the springs of hearing, I would stop at nothing — I’d wall up my loathsome body like a prison, blind to the sound of life, not just the sight. Oblivion —what a blessing … for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.”
— Oedipus the King (1516-1523)
Oedipus begs Creon for forgiveness, having wrongfully accused him of corruption earlier in the play, and asks to be exiled. At this point, Creon is apparently next in line to take power perhaps because Oedipus’ sons were not yet mature enough. However, Creon apparently did not exile Oedipus immediately, as we will soon discover. Instead, Oedipus continues to live in Thebes, albeit stripped of royal power and he grew dependent on his two young daughters due to his blindness.
Oedipus at Colonus
Although Oedipus was wrong to accuse Creon of corruption during the plague, there was clearly a side of Creon predisposed to cruelty. After several years of allowing Oedipus to remain in Thebes with his daughters, Creon eventually cast Oedipus out of the city. Blind and old, Oedipus relied entirely on Antigone, his loyal daughter, as he wandered around the countryside, destitute and begging for sustenance. We must assume that about a decade has passed since the scandal was revealed since Antigone and Ismene, her sister, were small children in Oedipus the King and are young women in Oedipus at Colonus.
A power struggle has taken place in Thebes since the fall of Oedipus. Creon initially took over as a caretaker King, but eventually the sons of Oedipus came into conflict over who would inherit the throne. Polynices was the firstborn son and logical heir to the throne, but Eteocles somehow gained power and Polynices fled Thebes. Determined to overthrow his brother, Polynices sought an alliance with Argos where he conspired with six other “champions” who would help him defeat Eteocles. This story is told by Aeschylus in more detail in Seven Against Thebes, which describes the actual battle and its aftermath. However, the tension between the sons is a backdrop for Oedipus during the final hours of his life at Colonus, a small village near Athens.
Oedipus and Antigone stumble across a rocky high point near some woods on the outskirts of Colonus. The area was considered to be holy ground because it was the dwelling place for the Furies, the same spirits that haunted Orestes, as I described in my article on The Oresteia. Oedipus is initially mistaken for a vagrant and the local citizens try to chase him away. Their fear grows when Oedipus reveals who he is. His reputation is apparently well known throughout Greece and his arrival is seen as a bad omen. However, Oedipus actually has something to offer that will greatly benefit Athens.
Once Oedipus’ identity is known, the King of Athens, Theseus, arrives and treats Oedipus with considerable kindness under the circumstances. He ends up being a protector of both the blind old man and his daughters when Creon arrives with the intent of bringing Oedipus back to Thebes. However, Creon really intends to continue Oedipus’ exile outside the gates of the city. What could motivate Creon’s action? The oracle at Delphi has revealed that the location of Oedipus’ grave would be the site of a great victory for the city where he is buried. Creon was not interested in restoring any honor for Oedipus, just on a potential military victory for Thebes. When his wicked scheme becomes clear, he abducts Antigone and Ismene and threatens to abduct Oedipus, but Theseus saves them all.
After an unpleasant encounter with his son, Polynices, who Oedipus curses vehemently, presumably due to how his sons treated him in his old age, Oedipus goes to his death accompanied by Theseus who learns the location of the grave and a future Athenian military victory. This is obviously a devastating loss for Antigone and Ismene who reject offers from Theseus to seek refuge in Athens. They opt to return to Thebes because they know that Polynices is on the way to attempt to reclaim the throne from Eteocles. Antigone in particular sees disaster ahead and wishes to avert it if possible.
Antigone’s Misery
Aeschylus tells the story of how Polynices and Eteocles end up killing each other in his play, Seven Against Thebes. Although Thebes successfully repels the attack, the city does not escape further misery due to the desire of Creon to punish Polynices by refusing to grant him proper burial rites. In Antigone by Sophocles, we read about a battle of wills between Creon and Antigone who insists on attempting to bury Polynices even at the risk of her own life. Creon seems blind to the fact that allowing for burial of both brothers might begin to heal the divisions within the city. Even though Polynices was his nephew, Creon is determined to see the young man’s body consumed by birds and dogs, the ultimate insult for any Greek warrior.
When Creon discovers that Antigone is responsible for attempting to provide some limited burial rites for Polynices, he is furious and accuses both Antigone and Ismene of treason, even though Ismene had no role whatsoever in the “crime,” having refused Antigone’s request for assistance. The tragedy of sentencing the women to death is amplified by the fact that Creon’s own son is engaged to Antigone, an apparent match of first cousins. While Ismene is eventually spared from the death penalty, Antigone is sent to a cave to be slowly starved to death. Even the appeal of Haemon, Creon’s son, is insufficient to get the stubborn old man to reconsider.
Tiresias, the same blind prophet who knew the truth about Oedipus and Jocasta, warns Creon that his action would cost him his own flesh and blood and Haemon clearly threatens suicide. Creon exhibits the same stubbornness that Oedipus displayed toward the old prophet, blaming the messenger of bad news for speaking the truth, but eventually Creon reconsiders. But it is too late. Creon goes to the cave where Antigone was sent, but she has already committed suicide. Haemon attempts to attack his father, but when he fails, he falls on his own sword. When Creon’s wife, Eurydice, learns about her son’s death, she also commits suicide. The play ends with Creon in misery, wondering why he should not also be run through with a “good sharp sword.”
The chorus concludes the play:
“Wisdom is by far the greatest part of joy, and reverence toward the gods must be safeguarded. The mighty words of the proud are paid in full with mighty blows of fate, and at long last these blows will teach us wisdom.”
— Antigone (1465-1470)
Conclusion
The tragedies of Ancient Greece were certainly meant to be entertaining for the large audiences they regularly attracted, but why were people, then and now, attracted to stories that ranged from sad to horrifying? The story of Oedipus and his family is about as awful as one can imagine, yet this is one of the great classics of literature and has enthralled audiences and readers for nearly 2,500 years.
I think that the answer is in the interplay between fate and free will. In particular, we are compelled to consider whether the tragedy was avoidable or if different decisions by the characters could have resulted in a better outcome. Were the oracle’s utterances truly fated to occur, or was human agency a possibility?
If King Laius learned of the oracle’s prophesy before he and Jocasta had children, which seems to be the predominant tradition, he could have taken preemptive action by never having children at all. However, this would deprive him of an heir to the throne and would also require celibacy, both of which were hardly norms in his society. As things stood, Laius and Jocasta decided to deal with the potential future threat posed by their infant son by murdering him, yet they did not do the deed personally and opened up the possibility that their servant would save the child, which ended up taking place.
When Oedipus learned of his fate, as told by the oracle, he thought he was taking preemptive action by fleeing Corinth so he would never be in the position of murdering his father and marrying his mother. At least these were the people who Oedipus thought were his parents. But Oedipus could have taken a step further and vowed a “monastic” life strictly adhering to nonviolence and celibacy in which case none of the disasters of his life could have possibly come true. Was this not a possibility within his control? It would have been a hard, unconventional path, but was it impossible?
Was Creon’s stubbornness regarding punishing the body of Polynices not a matter of free will? The tragedy of Antigone seems to be the one most likely to have been prevented by the exercise of human wisdom. A more charitable mindset toward his nephew would have spared Creon extreme agony and there is little excuse for his behavior. Or is there? There was a matter of principle at stake. Polynices had, in fact, committed treason by attacking his own city. Could Creon have acted more graciously toward Polynices without making it more likely that others would commit treason as well? Could he tolerate Antigone’s opposition and still maintain his authority once he had made his decision?
We should keep in mind that Ancient Greece was a polytheistic society steeped in their mythologies, and the Judeo-Christian values that most of us in the West take for granted did not exist. The will of the gods, many of whom were hardly moral exemplars, put questions of right and wrong in a different context than what we are used to. Additionally, cultural norms have changed dramatically, again due to religious enlightenment. Exposing an unwanted infant to die on a mountain is universally considered a grave crime and a sin today. That was not the case in ancient societies where death from exposure was far more common.
Despite the vast differences between our culture and the world Sophocles lived in, I found the moral questions raised in The Theban Plays endlessly fascinating. There is a reason these plays have stood the test of time and will still be read for as long as human civilization exists. These works make us question our humanity, consider important moral questions, and grapple with seemingly impossible situations where there is no good outcome. We live in a different world but most of us can relate well to dealing with situations where, no matter what we do, we cannot escape a bad outcome. Occasionally having to choose the “least bad” option is unfortunately a perennial part of the human condition.
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