SOPHOCLES » OEDIPUS THEKING 75 Sophocles | of Athens as well asin the theater. He was treasurer for the Athenian imperial league, Jand served as one of ten generals who led a campaign against Samos, an island threatening to secede from the Athenian alliance. In 411 BCE, he was appointed to a com mittee called to examine Athens’ disastrous military campaign in Sicily. Sophocles’ great- est achievements, though, were in the theater. Sophocles was responsible for introducing a third actor into dramatic performance, an innovation rapidly imitated by other playwrights, including Aeschylus and Euripides. He also enlarged the size of the chorus ftom twelve to fifteen. Sophocles won his first victory, against Aeschylus, in 468 BCE; he was victori- ‘ous twenty-four times in his career and never finished lower than second in the dramatic competition. Of the 120 plays attributed to Sophocles, only seven survive: Ajax, Trachiniae, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus, Fragments of a satyr play, The Trackers, also rem ‘The three “Theban” plays—Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus—are thematically related, but, unlike The Oresteia of Aeschylus, were not composed as a trilogy. | Antigone, a play about Oedipus’ daughters after his banishment from Thebes, was composed about 441 cx; Oedipus the King was first produced sometime shortly after the declaration of war with Sparta in 431 cx; and Oedipus at Colonus was first produced after Sophocles) death and Athens defeat. I ike Aeschylus, Sophocles (c. 496-406 scr) had an important career in the civic life Oedipus the King's framed by two acts of identification, recognition, and acknowledgment. Oedipus the King ‘The action of the play is about the deepening and horrible understanding of what it means for the hero to recognize who he is—what it means to be Oedipus. In The Poetics, written nearly a century later (about 335 nce), Aristotle frequently refers to Oedipus the King as a definitive example of the form and purpose of tragedy., Modern. audiences, though, sometimes find the play baffling, in part because the prophecy delivered to Oedipus’ parents, Laius and Jocasta—that their son will murder his father and marry his mother—seems to rob Oedipus of the ability to act, to decide his fate through his own deeds. The tension between destiny and discovery is central to the play; to understand it, we should pay attention to the function of the oracle at Delphi both in the Greek world and in Oedipus the King, The Greeks consulted the oracle at Delphi on a variety of matters, rang- ing from personal decisions to problems of state. For example, in the play, Laius and Jocasta have consulted the oracle to learn the future of their child, and Oedipus turns to Delphi to find out whether Polybus is actually his father. At the same time, the oracle also speaks on. important public issues—about the cause of the plague afflicting ‘Thebes and about what should be done with Oedipus after his blinding. Sophocles lived in an era of increasing skepticism, when political conflict and the rise of rhetorical training raised questions about the nature and significance of truth—even the truth of oracular revelation. It is not surpris- ing that characters in Oedipus the King frequently question such prophecy or have difficulty learning how to accept and interpret it, as when Oedipus flees Corinth to avoid murdering his father. Critical as the prophecy is to Oedipus’ life, Oedipus’ deeds are really at issue in Oedipus the King. Sophocles chose to begin and end his drama on the day of Oedipus’ discovery of his own identity. The play focuses less on the prophecy than on the course and meaning of Oedipus’ actions, on how he comes to recognize himself as the criminal he seeks. Oedipus arrives at this recognition only through an extraordinary effort of action and decision: Oedipus cals for the exile of Laius’ murderer; he insults Tiresias when the prophet tries to ‘evade his questions; he accuses Creon; he threatens the old shepherd with torture in order to learn the truth of his birth. The oracle says that Oedipus will commit his terrible crimes76 UNIT» THETHEATER OF CLASSICAL EUROPE: ATHENS AND ROME of murder and incest, but Oedipus chooses the relentless, brutal pursuit of the truth him- self, even to the point of his own incrimination and destruction, The tragedy of Oedipus the King lies in the fearsome turn of events caused by Oedipus’ inflexible compulsion to discover the truth, Aristotle considers the hero of tragedy at some length, in terms that are at once com- pelling and confusing, particularly in the case of Oedipus. Aristotle suggests in The Poetics that the hero of tragedy should be “a man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake,” a description that leads some to look for the cause of this error within Oedipus’ character, ina so-called tragic flaw. But, in fact, when he says that the character's “mistake’—or HAMARTIA—is not the result of “any real badness or wickedness” Aristotle seems to deny that the heros downfall is the effect of any moral “law” at all. It might help 1us to remember that to his audience, Oedipus may have seemed to share some typically “Athenian” characteristics. Oedipus’ passion for inquiry, his abrupt decisiveness, and his impulsive desire to act were seen as the stereotypical traits of Athenian citizens and of Athens as a city. Far from being “flaws,” these are just the qualities that made Oedipus (and Athens) successful. What is “tragic” about Oedipns’ fate in Oedipus the King is the way that his own surest strengths—the aggressive, pragmatic qualities that enabled him to outwit the Sphinx—lead, on this one occasion, to his destruction. Oedipus’ “mistake” is neither a | ‘moral failing nor a deed that he might have avoided: itis simply that he is Oedipus and acts, like Oedipus—intelligent, masterful, assertive, impatient, impulsive. The tragedy lies in the ‘way that acting like Oedipus leads him, as it has always led him in the past, to the discovery of the truth he seeks, this time with ruinous consequences. This production of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King adapts the ritualized elements of Greek theater to a modern African setting |15 30 Oedipus The King Sophocles TRANSLATED BY ROBERT FAGLES ‘CHARACTERS OEDIPUS, king of Thebes Antesseoun from Corinth A pmizst of Zeus ASHEPHERD nso, brother of Jocasta A mssENGER from inside the AcHORUS of Thebar citizens palace and ther LEADER Antigone, ise, daughters rinestas, a blind prophet of Oedipus and Jocasta Jocasta, the queen, wife of (GUARDS and ATTENDANTS Oedipus priests of Thebes ‘TIME AND SCENE: The royal house of Thebes. Double doors dominate the fagade; a stone altar stands atthe canter of the stage, ‘Many years have passed since onpipus solved the riddle ofthe Sphinx and ascended the throne of Thebes, and now a plague has struck the city A procession of patests enters; suppliants, broken ‘and despondent, they carry branches wound in wool and ay them om the altar ‘The doors open. GUARDS assemble. orDiUS comes forward, majestic but fora teltale limp, and slowly views the condition of his people. ‘oxpiPus: Oh my children, the new blood of anclent Thebes, why are you here? Huddling at my altar, praying before me, your branches wound in wool ‘Our city reeks with the smoke of burning incense, ings with cries fr the Healer and wailing for the dead, [though it wrong, my childzen, to hear the truth from others, messengers. Here Iam myself youll know me, the world knows my fame Tam Oedipus. (Gelping a pares to his feet) Speakcup, old man. Your years, your dignity—you should speak for the athers ‘Why here and kneeling, what preys upon you so? Some sudden feat? some strong desire? You can teust me, Iam ready to help, 'lldo anything. I would be blind to misery not to pity my people kneeling at my feet. ainst: O Oedipus, king of the land, our greatest power! You see us before you now, men ofall ages clinging to your altars, Here are boys, stil oo weak to fly from the nest, and here the old, bowed down with the years, the holy ones-~a priest of Zeus myself—and here the picked, unmarried men, the young hope of Thebes, ‘And all the rest, your great family gathers now, branches wreathed, massing in the squares, kneeling before the two temples of queen Athena or the river-shrine where the embers glow and die and Apollo sees the future in the ashes. Our city, look around you, see with your own eyes ‘our ship pitches wildly, cannot lift her herd from the depths, the red waves of death ‘Thebes is dying, A blight on the fresh craps and the rich pastures, cattle sicken and die, and the women die in labor, childeen stillborn, and the plague, the fiery god of fever hurls down on the city, his lightning slashing through us raging plague inal te vengeance, devastating the house of Cadmus! And black Death Iuxuristes in the raw, wailing miseries of Thebes. [Nowe we pray ta you. You cannot equal the gods, your children know that, bending at your altar, But we do rate you fist of men, both in the common crises of ou lives and face-to-face encounters with the gods. ‘You freed us from the Sphinx, you came to Thebes and cut us loose from the bloody tribute we had paid that harsh, brutal singer. We taught you nothing, 1o skill, no extra knowledge, stil you triumphed, ‘A god was with you, so they say, and we believe it you lifted up out lives ‘So now again, edipus, king, we bend to you, your power: \we implore you, all of us on our knees find us strength, rescuel Pechaps you've heard the voice of god or something from other men, Oedipus... what do you know? ‘The man of experience—you see it every day- his plans will work in a crisis, his fist ofall, Act now-—we beg you, best of men, raise up our city! ‘Act, defend yourself, your former glory! Your country calls you savior nov for your zeal, your action years ago. Never let us remember of your reign: you helped us stand, only to fall once more, Ob raise up our city, set us on our feet, ‘The omens were good that day you brought us joy— be the same man today! Rule our land, you knov you have the power, Dut rule aland ofthe living, nota wasteland, Ship and towered city are nothing, stripped of men alive within it, living all as one. oxptrus: ‘My children, pity you. I see—how could I fail to see what longings bring you here? Well know you are sick to death, all of you, but sickas you are, not one is sick as 7 35 0 55 60 6 7