'presently' on the union,-unless, indeed by apap the poet merely meant' suddenly.' § 3. Lost poems of Hesiod may have touched on the story of Oedipus; but in his extant work there is only a passing reference to the war at Thebes (between Polyneices and Eteocles), in which heroes fell, 'fighting for the flocks of Oedipus.' Hesiod knows the Sphinx as the daughter of Echidna and as the pest of Thebes1. But the story of Oedipus was fully treated in some of those lost epics which dealt with the Theban cycle of myths. One of these was the 'Oedipodeia,' Oidiñódeia (πn). According to this, the four children of Oedipus were not borne by Iocasta, but by a second wife, Euryganeia. Pausanias, who follows this account, does not know the author of the poem. It will be observed that this epic agrees with the Odyssey in not making Iocasta bear issue to Oedipus. It is by Attic writers, so far as we know, that she was first described as doing so. Poets or logographers who desired to preserve the favour of Dorians had a reason for avoiding that version. There were houses which traced their line from the children of Oedipus,-as Theron, tyrant of Acragas, claimed descent from Thersandros, son of Polyneices2. To represent these children as the offspring of an incestuous union would have been to declare the stream polluted at its source. We learn from Proclus that in the epic called the Cyprian Lays (Kumpia), which included the preparations for the Trojan war, Nestor related 'the story of Oedipus' (тà пeрì OidíπоvV) in the course of a digression (ἐν παρεκβάσει) which comprised also the madness of Heracles, as well as the story of Theseus and Ariadne. This was probably one of the sources used by the Attic dramatists. Another source, doubtless more fertile in detail, was the epic entitled the Thebaid (Onßats), and now usually designated as the 'Cyclic Thebaid,' to distinguish it from a later epic of the same name by Antimachus of Colophon, the contemporary of Euripides. Only about 20 verses remain from it. The chief fragment relates to the curse pronounced by Oedipus on his sons. They had broken his strict command by setting on his table the wine cups (eкπμатa) used by Laïus; and he invoked a curse upon them : 1 Hes. Op. 162: war slew the heroes, Tous μèv ed èπтаπúλw Orßŋ... μαρναμένους μήλων ἕνεκ' Οιδιπόδαο. The Sphinx: Theog. 326, (Echidna) ἄρα Φικ ̓ ὀλοὴν τέκε, Καδμείοισιν ὄλεθρον. The hill near Thebes on which the Sphinx sat was called Pixelov öpos. References in lost Hesiodic poems: schol. on Il. 23. 680. 2 Pind. Ol. 2. 35. αἶψα δὲ παισὶν ἑοῖσι μετ ̓ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπαρὰς δάσσαιντο, ἀμφοτέροισι δ ̓ ἔοι πόλεμός τε μάχαι τε. 'And straightway, while his two sons were by, he uttered dire curses, and the Avenging goddess failed not to hear them,-that they should divide their heritage in no kindly spirit, but that war and strife should be ever between them.' This Thebaid-tracing the operation of a curse through the whole history of the house-must have had an important share in moulding the conception of the Aeschylean trilogy. $ 4. Pindar touches on the story of Oedipus in Ol. 2. 35 ff. Destiny has often brought evil fortune after good, ἐξ οὗπερ ἔκτεινε Λᾷον μόριμος υἱὸς ἰδοῖσα δ ̓ ὀξεῖ' Εριννὺς ἔπεφνέ οἱ σὺν ἀλλαλοφονίᾳ γένος ἀρήιον— '-from the day when his doomed son met Laïus and killed him, and accomplished the word given aforetime at Pytho. But the swift Erinnys beheld it, and slew his warlike sons, each by the other's sword.' Here the Fury is represented as destroying the sons in direct retribution for the parricide, not in answer to the imprecation of Oedipus. A fragment of Pindar alludes to the riddle of the Sphinx, and he uses 'the wisdom of Oedipus' to denote counsel wrapped in dark sayings,—since the skill which solves riddling speech can weave it1. § 5. The logographers could not omit the story of Oedipus in a systematic treatment of the Theban myths. Hellanicus of Mitylene (circ. 450 B.C.) is mentioned by the scholiast on the Phoenissae (61) as agreeing with Euripides in regard to the selfblinding of Oedipus. The contemporary Pherecydes of Leros (usually called 'Athenian' since Athens was his home) treated the legends of Thebes in the fifth of ten books forming a comprehensive survey of Greek tradition. According to him, Iocasta bore two sons to Oedipus, who were slain by the Minyae: but, as in the Oedipodeia, his second wife Euryganeia bore Eteocles and Polyneices, Antigone and Ismene. This seems to be the earliest known version which ascribes issue to the marriage of Iocasta with Oedipus. 1 Pind. fr. 62 αἴνιγμα παρθένου | ἐξ ἀγριᾶν γνάθων: Pyth. 4. 263 τὰν Οιδιπόδα σοφίαν. II. The legend as handled by the dramatists. § I. However incomplete this sketch may be relatively to the materials which existed in the early part of the fifth century B.C., it may at least serve to suggest the general conditions under which Tragedy entered on the treatment of the subject. The story of Oedipus, defined in its main features by a tradition older than the Odyssey, had been elaborated in the epics of later poets and the prose of chroniclers. There were versions differing in detail, and allowing scope for selection. While the great outlines were constant, minor circumstances might be adapted to the dramatist's chosen view. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides agree in a trait which does not belong to any extant version before theirs. Iocasta, not Euryganeia, is the mother of Eteocles and Polyneices, Antigone and Ismene. They agree also in connecting the doom of the two brothers with a curse pronounced by Oedipus. Neither the scanty fragments which alone represent the Oedipus of Euripides, nor the hints in the Phoenissae, enable us to determine the distinctive features of his treatment. With regard to Aeschylus, though our knowledge is very meagre, it suffices at least to show the broad difference between his plan and that of Sophocles. § 2. Aeschylus treated the story of Oedipus as he treated the story of Agamemnon. Oedipus became the foremost figure of a trilogy which traced the action of an inherited curse in the house of Labdacus, even as the Oresteia traced the action of such a curse in the house of Pelops. That trilogy consisted of the Laius, the Oedipus, and the extant Seven against Thebes; the satyric drama being the Sphinx. From the Laïus only a few words remain; from the Oedipus, three verses; but some general idea of the Oedipus may be gathered from a passage in the Seven against Thebes (772-791). Oedipus had been pictured by Aeschylus, as he is pictured by Sophocles, at the height of fame and power. He who had delivered Thebes from 'the devouring pest' (тàv åρñaέávdрav κnpa) was admired by all Thebans as the first of men. 'But when, hapless one, he came to knowledge of his ill-starred marriage, impatient of his pain, with frenzied heart he wrought a twofold ill': he blinded himself, and called down on his sons this curse, that one day they should divide their heritage with the sword. 'And now I tremble lest the swift Erinnys bring it to pass.' Hence we see that the Oedipus of Aeschylus included the imprecation of Oedipus upon his sons. This was essential to the poet's main purpose, which was to exhibit the continuous action of the Erinnys in the house. Similarly the Laïus doubtless included the curse called down on Laïus by Pelops, when bereft by him of his son Chrysippus. The true climax of the Aeschylean Oedipus would thus have consisted, not in the discovery alone, but in the discovery followed by the curse. And we may safely infer that the process of discovery indicated in the Seven against Thebes by the words ÉTTEì 8' ἀρτίφρων | ἐγένετο...γάμων (778) was not comparable with that in the play of Sophocles. It was probably much more abrupt, and due to some of those more mechanical devices which were ordinarily employed to bring about a 'recognition' on the stage. The Oedipus of Aeschylus, however brilliant, was only a link in a chain which derived its essential unity from 'the mindful Erinnys.' § 3. The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles was not part of a trilogy, but a work complete in itself. The proper climax of such a work was the discovery, considered in its immediate effects, not in its ulterior consequences. Here the constructive art of the dramatist would be successful in proportion as the discovery was naturally prepared, approached by a process of rising interest, and attended in the moment of fulfilment with the most astounding reversal of a previous situation. In regard to the structure of the plot, this is what Sophocles has achieved. Before giving an analysis of his plot, we must notice two features of it which are due to his own invention. (1) According to previous accounts, the infant Oedipus, when exposed on Mount Cithaeron, had been found by herdsmen, and reared either in Southern Boeotia, or at Sicyon, a place associated with the worship of the Eumenides. Sophocles makes the Theban herd of Laïus give the babe to the herd of Polybus, king of Corinth, who rears it as his own. Thus are prepared the two convergent threads of evidence which meet in the final discovery. And thus, too, the belief of Oedipus concerning his own parentage becomes to him a source, first of anxiety, then of dread, then of hope-in contrast, at successive moments, with that reality which the spectators know. (2) The only verses remaining from the Oedipus of Aeschylus show that in that drama Oedipus encountered and slew Laïus at a meeting of three roads near Potniae, a place in Boeotia, on the road leading from Thebes to Plataea. At the ruins of this place Pausanias saw 'a grove of Demeter and Persephone'1. It appears to have been sacred also to those other and more terrible goddesses who shared with these the epithet of πότνιαι,the Eumenides (ποτνιάδες θεαί, Eur. Or. 318). For the purpose of Aeschylus, no choice of a scene could have been more fitting. The father and son, doomed by the curse in their house, are brought together at a spot sacred to the Erinnyes :— ἐπῇμεν τῆς ὁδοῦ τροχήλατον σχιστῆς κελεύθου τρίοδον, ἔνθα συμβολὰς τριῶν κελεύθων Ποτνιάδων ἠμείβομεν. 'We were coming in our journey to the spot from which three high-roads part, where we must pass by the junction of triple ways at Potniae.' But for Sophocles this local fitness did not exist. For him, the supernatural agency which dominates the drama is not that of the Furies, but of Apollo. He transfers the scene of the encounter from the 'three roads' at Potniae to the 'three roads' near Daulia3 in Phocis. The 'branching ways' of Potniae can no longer be traced. But in the Phocian pass a visitor can still feel how the aspect of nature is in unison with the deed of which Sophocles has made it the theatre1. This change of locality has something more than the significance of a detail. It symbolises the removal of the action from the control of the dark Avenging Powers to a region within the influence of that Delphian god who is able to disclose and to punish impurity, but who will also give final rest to the wanderer, final absolution to the weary mourner of unconscious sin. § 4. The events which had preceded the action of the Oedipus Tyrannus are not set forth, after the fashion of Euripides, in a formal prologue. They have to be gathered from incidental hints in the play itself. It is an indispensable aid to the full comprehension of the drama that we should first connect these hints into a brief narrative of its antecedents as imagined by Sophocles. Laïus, king of Thebes, being childless, asked the oracle of Apollo at Delphi whether it was fated that a son should be born to him. The answer was, 'I will give thee a son, but it is doomed that thou leave the sunlight by the hands of thy child: for thus hath spoken Zeus, son of Cronus, moved by the dread 1 ἄλσος Δήμητρος καὶ Κόρης, 9. 8. Ι. 2 Aesch. fr. 167 (Nauck). 3 Daulis was the Homeric form of the name, Daulia the post-homeric (Strabo 9. 423). 4 See the note on verse 733. |