Many years before, it was Oedipus himself who had been the victim of a cruel interrogation. The monstrous Sphinx was at that time terrorizing the Theban countryside, demanding of all passersby that they answer her riddle or die. (Later Greek sources specified the riddle, which was, “What creature has a single voice but goes on four legs, then two, then three?” The required answer is “man”—the animal that crawls as a baby, then walks upright, and finally uses a cane in old age.) Sophocles does not mention the riddle; its content does not seem to matter to him. Oedipus, en route from his native Corinth (at least, he thinks it is native) to Thebes, answered the riddle and saved the city, gaining its empty throne as his reward and, for his mate, the widow of Laius, the previous ruler. Thus he became Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus the King, a Latin translation of the more accurate Greek title Oedipus Tyrannos, “Oedipus who wielded sole power without the sanction of a monarchic line.” (Both titles were contrived to distinguish this play from another of Sophocles’ tragedies, Oedipus at Colonus; Sophocles himself, if he even thought of the play as having a title, would have called it simply Oedipus.)
The distinction between rex and tyrannos is an important one, even if it gets lost in translation from Greek to Latin (and sometimes, as at line 128, is ignored by Oedipus himself). Kings have scepters, thrones, and ancient lineages to prop up their power; the line of Laius, for example, goes straight back to Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes. Tyrants—the English derivative is our best equivalent for the Greek tyrannoi, if we strip away some of the modern word’s connotations of abusive, cruel behavior—must work harder to maintain sovereignty, either by public works and benefices in the best instances, or by use of military force in the worst. The former case defines Oedipus in this play, a man who has already saved Thebes from the Sphinx and now vows to save it from a devastating plague; the latter, interestingly, defines Creon, who will succeed Oedipus as tyrant of Thebes and use exemplary punishment to firm up his rule, as portrayed by Sophocles in Antigone.
The parallels between the central figures of the two plays are close and revealing, even though the original productions are separated by a decade or more. (The three surviving “Theban plays” of Sophocles, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus, are sometimes discussed, or packaged by modern publishers, as though they formed a connected trilogy, but in fact they were written for three separate dramatic festivals over a period of thirty-five years.) Both Oedipus in this play and Creon in the next preside over crises that threaten to destroy the city of Thebes; yet neither has the heroic stature or natural authority that such crises demand. Their zealous efforts to save their cities lead to unforeseen consequences. Both men confront the prophet Tiresias, and both respond vituperatively to his dark warnings, accusing the seer, in remarkably similar terms, of corruption and conspiracy. Both are quick to perceive threats in any obstacles that thwart their will.
Oedipus and Creon, the tyrant who saves and the tyrant who punishes, are twin Sophoclean studies in the toll that political power takes on the human spirit. It’s instructive to read the confrontation between the two men in the Oedipus Rex (lines 532–678) in light of the role Creon had played in the Antigone, a play probably written earlier but taking place, according to mythic chronology, a few years later. Creon protests to Oedipus that he has no designs on rule, for, as Oedipus’ brother-in-law, he enjoys the prerogatives of power without any of the responsibility:
Consider first, whether you think anyone
would choose to rule in fear rather than sleep
safe in his bed at night, yet have the same power…
Now, I gain all this from you, without the fear,
but if I were in charge, there’d be plenty to do
not to my liking. (584–86, 590–1)
These are sane, reasonable thoughts, spoken by a reasonable man. But that same man, as seen in the Antigone, will soon go down the very path he here abjures.
The supreme irony of the Oedipus Rex lies in the fact that Oedipus is, after all, the rightful monarch of Thebes: eldest son of Laius and Jocasta, though cast off at birth, and heir to the throne. The truth of his origins, the last of the truths revealed in the play and the one that makes sense of all the others, bears out the legitimacy of his rule at the same time that it utterly destroys him. Indeed, Homer’s brief synopsis in the Odyssey has Oedipus retaining sovereignty over Thebes even after this truth was revealed, rather than, as Sophocles depicts, casting himself out of power by self-blinding and self-exile.
The slow steps by which Sophocles takes Oedipus, and the audience, to this revelation make this play a masterwork of dramatic construction. Signs, oracles, rumors, and remembrances come trickling out, harmonizing at one moment, contradicting the next. At several points, especially when news arrives of the death of Polybus, Oedipus’ putative father, the emerging picture brings relief and puts all fears to flight; then, as that picture gets clearer, they return with redoubled force. The urgency of the inquest intensifies as it draws nearer to its goal. When at last the one man who can reveal all, the herdsman, is brought onstage, tension rises to a fever pitch. Oedipus by this point has guessed the truth, and Tiresias had largely revealed it well before, but the herdsman’s testimony is nonetheless among the most gripping moments in theater. “I’m close to saying what I dread to say,” the herdsman warns, to which Oedipus replies, with grim determination, “And I to hearing it, but hear I must.”
It is difficult today to read Oedipus, or watch it onstage, without an awareness of Sigmund Freud, who not only named one of his central psychic complexes after its main character but also regarded the play generally, with its quest to recover origins and earliest experience, as an analogue for the type of therapy he championed: psychoanalysis. Whatever one thinks of Freud’s reading, there can be little dispute that myth and psychology, always intertwined in Greek drama, stand in a particularly close embrace in this play. Jocasta, for example, points out that the incest Oedipus fears is a common theme of dreams (lines 981–82), and both forms of mutilation Oedipus undergoes—the piercing of his ankles at birth, and the gouging of his eyes at this play’s end—have symbolic connections to castration. Part of the drama’s power comes from the fact that its unveiling of the past is also a journey into the deepest, most universal levels of psychic experience.
Aristotle, in his Poetics, selected the Oedipus as the most exemplary of Greek tragedies for its capacity to produce pity and fear, and many subsequent ages have concurred. It is startling therefore to learn that Sophocles took second prize in the dramatic competition at which the play was staged, losing to Philocles, the nephew of Aeschylus. One would give a great deal to read the play that in its day was judged superior to the Oedipus, but the works of Philocles are entirely lost.
OEDIPUS THE KING
Translated by Frank Nisetich
Aristotle refers to the play simply as Oedipus, which was probably its original title. I have based this translation on the Greek text of the play edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclis Fabulae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990, 1992). Occasionally, I refer to the same two authors’ Sophoclea: Studies on the Text of Sophocles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); to R. C. Jebb, Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893); and to R. D. Dawe, Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). In a few instances, I have preferred readings by other scholars, noted where they occur. Passages considered as interpolations by Lloyd-Jones and Wilson are omitted from the text of the translation but are included in the notes.
CAST OF CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
OEDIPUS, son of Laius and Jocasta; king of Thebes
PRIEST of Zeus
CHORUS of Theban elders, with their Leader
CREON, brother of Jocasta
TIRESIAS, a blind Theban prophet
JOCASTA, wife and mother of Oedipus
MESSENGER from Corinth
SHEPHERD
MESSENGER from within the palace
ANTIGONE and ISMENE, young daughters of Oedipus and Jocasta (nonspeaking parts)
GUARDS and ATTENDANTS of the main characters (nonspeaking parts)
Setting: The play takes place in front of the royal palace of Thebes. The palace has a central door and two doors, one on either side. There is an altar in front of the central door and two smaller altars, one in front of each side door. A group of citizens of all ages led by an elderly priest is seated on the steps of the altars in the garb and attitude of suppliants. The central door of the palace opens and Oedipus emerges.
OEDIPUS: Children, latest in the line of ancient Cadmus,*1
what is the meaning of your sitting here?
Why these suppliant branches, why these garlands?
The city is full of the smoke of incense, prayers
to the healing god,*2 lamentations, all at once.
I didn’t think it right, children, to hear of it
at second hand, from messengers, but came myself—
I, Oedipus, renowned in the eyes of all.
(to the priest) Speak up, then, you whose age makes you
10
the one to speak for these: Why are you here—
is it something you’re afraid of, something you want?
I’ll do all I can, for I’d be hard of heart
if this appeal did not move me to pity.
PRIEST: Oedipus, ruler of my country,
you see us, and you see our different ages
as we take our seats at your altars—some not yet
strong enough to fly far, others heavy with years.
I am priest of Zeus, and these are the flower
of our unmarried young; the rest of the people
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sit in the market places, garlanded, some at the twin
temples of Pallas,*3 others near Ismenus’ mantic ash.*4
For the city, as you see yourself, is pitched
and tossed beyond endurance. It can no longer
lift its head from the depths, the surge of blood.
There’s death in the fruit-enfolding buds of earth,
death among the pasturing flocks, death in the barren
pangs of our women. A fiery god swoops down
and drives the city headlong—the hateful plague*5
by which the house of Cadmus is emptied
30
and black Hades made rich with cries and groans.
I wouldn’t liken you to a god, Oedipus,
nor would these children sitting here as suppliants.
No, we consider you foremost among men
in the hazards of life, and when we have to deal
with powers more than human. It was you that came
to the town of Cadmus and freed us of the tax
we paid the cruel Sphinx.*6 No one taught you to do that,
we did not help you. Guided by a god—
they say and we believe—you lifted up our lives!
40
But now, Oedipus, mightiest in the eyes of all,
we turn to you, in prayer: Find us help
in any way you can—from a god’s utterance,
or a man’s, anything you’ve heard and know.*7
Advice from men tested, like you, in action,
will not miss the mark. Come, then, best of mortals,
restore our city. Come, think of yourself.
We call you savior now because you sped
to our defense before. May we never
look back on your reign as the time
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we stood up, only to fall down again later!
No—raise this city on a sure foundation.
The auspices*8 were good back then, when you secured
our luck for us; be the same once more!
For if you mean to go on ruling the land,
better to rule it full of men than empty.
For what are city walls or ships without
men alive in them? Nothing, nothing at all.
OEDIPUS: Children, you have my sympathy. Known
and not unknown to me are the needs
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that brought you here, for well I know
you are all sick, yet none so sick as I.
The pain you feel comes to each of you
alone, apart from others, but my heart
groans for city and self and you alike.
You haven’t roused me, then, as if from sleep.
No, often—I tell you—I have wept
and traveled many a road, wandered in thought.
I’ve looked long and hard, and found
a single remedy: I’ve sent Creon,
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my brother-in-law, to the Pythian*9 house,
the oracle of Phoebus*10 at Delphi, to learn
what I must do or say to guard this city.
And now, when I reckon the time he’s been away,
I worry how he is, for he’s been gone
too long, well beyond what you’d expect.
When he returns, I’d be of no account
if I didn’t do everything the god prescribes.
PRIEST: Your words are well timed—just now these men
signal to me that Creon is approaching.
80
OEDIPUS: O lord Apollo! May his coming be a stroke
of luck, salvation shining like a light!
PRIEST: My guess is, he brings good news. Otherwise
he wouldn’t be coming crowned in radiant laurel.
OEDIPUS: We’ll know soon. He’s within hearing now.
(calling offstage) Lord, son of Menoeceus, my kinsman,*11
what news do you bring us from the god?
(Enter Creon.)
CREON: The news is good, on the whole, for even
hardships, if they come out right, are fortunate.
OEDIPUS: But what did the god say? What you’ve hinted so far
90
leaves me neither encouraged nor alarmed.
CREON: I’m prepared to speak, if you want to hear while these
are present (indicating the Chorus), or would you rather go inside?
OEDIPUS: Speak out for all to hear. The suffering
of these, my people, means more than my own life.
CREON: Well, then, what I heard from the god was this:
Phoebus orders us, my lord, to expel
a pollution nurtured in this land of ours
and not still nurture it till it’s past cure.
OEDIPUS: How rid ourselves of it? What’s the remedy?
100
CREON: Exile, or killing in return for killing
since it is blood that engulfs the city now.
OEDIPUS: Whose blood? Who met this fate? Does the god say?
CREON: We had a leader,*12 my lord—Laius, who ruled
this land before you took the city’s helm.
OEDIPUS: I know of him, by hearsay—never saw him.
CREON: Well, he died, and the god commands us now
to punish his murderers, whoever they are.
OEDIPUS: But where are they? The track of this old crime,
so faded now—where will it be found?
110
CREON: Here, he said, in this land. “The thing pursued
is catchable; the thing ignored escapes.”
OEDIPUS: Did Laius meet his death in Thebes,
at home or out of doors, or was he traveling?
CREON: He went to consult the oracle, as he said
at the time. He never came home again.
OEDIPUS: Was there no one to report, no fellow traveler
who saw, whose testimony might have helped?
CREON: They all died, all but one who fled in terror
and couldn’t say what he saw, but for one thing.
120
OEDIPUS: What was it? Knowing one thing, you may learn many,
if you are eager, and start searching right away.*13
CREON: Bandits, he said, met
and killed him. The strength
of many, not just one, brought him down.
OEDIPUS: How could this “bandit”*14 dare go so far, unless
he acted with support—money from here?
CREON: We thought so, too. But once Laius was killed
no one emerged to help us in our troubles.
OEDIPUS: The tyranny*15 brought down the way it was, what
“troubles” could keep you from looking into it?
130
CREON: The riddle-chanting Sphinx kept our eyes
on things at hand. Those out of sight we left alone.
OEDIPUS: I’ll bring them back to light, from the beginning!
Phoebus is right, and so are you, Creon,
to show concern for the man who was killed.
And now you’ll see me also take his side,
as I should, supporting land and god together.
It’s not for the sake of a distant friend
that I’ll dispel this pollution, but for my own.
For the man who killed him may well want
140
to turn on me with the same violence.*16
By taking up his cause, I help myself.
Rise up now, children, from these steps. Hurry,
and take your suppliant branches with you.
Let someone else gather the people here,
and leave the rest to me. For either
we fare well with the god’s help, or we fall.
(Oedipus exits into the palace; Creon exits offstage.)
PRIEST: Let us rise, children. What we came to hear
The Greek Plays Page 28
