O E D Í P L 7 S AT T H E B E S

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 Bernard Knox

OEDIPUS AT THEBES
Sophocles' Tragic Hero
and His Time

Yale University Press

Neiv Haven and London

Copyright © 1957 by Yale University.
Copyright © renewed 1985 by Bernard Knox.
Preface to the New Edition copyright © 1998 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S, Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Knox, Bernard MacGregor Walker.

Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' tragic hero and his time / Bernard Knox.
p. cm.
Originally published: 1957. With new preface.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-07423-9
i. Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. 2. Oedipus (Greek mythology) in literature.
3. Thebes (Greece)—In literature. 4. Heroes in literature. 5. Tragedy
I. Title.
PA44I3.07K551998 97-18471
882'.01—DC2I CIP

Printed in the United States of America.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of
the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council
on Library Resources.
TO ROWENA WALKER KNOX
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CONTENTS

P R E F A C E TO THE NEW EDITION, page i x

P R E F A C E TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION, page X V

I N T R O D U C T I O N , page 1

CHAPTER O N E :HERO, page 3

CHAPTER T W O : A T H E N S , page 5 3

CHAPTER T H R E E : M A N , page 1 0 7

CHAPTER F O U R : G O D , page 1 5 9

CHAPTER F I V E : H E R O , page 1 8 5

N O T E S , page 197
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING, page 2 6 7

REFERENCES, page 2 6 9

I N D E X , page 273
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P R E F A C E TO THE NEW EDITION

When this book was first published by Yale University Press in

1957, it received favorable notices in the New Yorker and the
New York Times but only two serious reviews in scholarly pub-
lications. They were written by two brilliant classical scholars,
Cedric Whitman and D. W. Lucas; both were generous in
their praise of what they saw as the book's originality and
sharply critical of what they considered its extravagances. But
apart from these two thoughtful and substantial assessments,
the scholarly press avoided comment. When later, in Vienna, I
met Albin Lesky, the Continental doyen of studies in Greek
tragedy, he told me, with a paternal smile, that it was "a young
man's book." I refrained from telling him that I was over forty
when it appeared, because in a sense he was right. Between
1936, when I received my B.A. from Cambridge, and 1947,
when, fresh out of the U.S. Army, I enrolled as a graduate stu-
dent at Yale, I had done no serious work in the classics; my
only contact with them had been teaching elementary Latin in
a private school in Connecticut. The rest of the decade had
been spent fighting in two wars, working at odd jobs, emigrat-
ing to America, and getting married. And there were indeed
some features of the book that called up the image of a young
man in a hurry and that seemed calculated to set the teeth of
the classical establishment on edge.
The polemical tone of the original Preface, for example,
seemed to suggest (though it was not my intention) that I was
accusing my fellow classicists of "exclusive technicality" (I had
been dismayed by the appearance of an article, extended over
two successive issues of a periodical, entitled "The Carrot in

IX
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Classical Antiquity")· Further, my decision to transliterate my

frequent citations from the Greek text was an expedient
scorned by the profession at that time. Whitman, for one,
complained that some transliterated sentences had the "unhal-
lowed look of jabberwocky." This was true, but because the
use of Greek script would have made it next to impossible for
the Greekless reader to follow an argument based on a demon-
stration of the repetition of key words, it was a blemish I was
prepared to accept.
Such close attention to verbal patterns was, of course, a
characteristic of what was then known as the New Criticism.
Studying and soon teaching at the same university as Robert
Penn Warren and Cleanth Brooks (though I had not yet meet
either of them), I read with enthusiasm and absorbed the
insights and techniques of their influential textbook Under-
standing Poetry. (I still have the battered volume, annotated by
its enthusiastic undergraduate owner with such marginal notes
as PATHETIC PALIS/ and FALIC SYMBALL, which I had
bought secondhand when, at the age of thirty-two, I started
graduate work at Yale.) My first article, "The Serpent and the
Flame," which appeared in print in 1950, acknowledged its
indebtedness to the New Criticism not only in the flamboy-
ance of its title but also in its subtitle: "The Imagery of the
Second Book of the Aeneid." This was followed in 1952 by a
study of an image in Aeschylus, "The Lion in the House," and
later by an article on the Hippolytus of Euripides, which,
though it had comparatively little to say about imagery, based
its argument on repeated verbal patterns. But the genesis of
this book was a public lecture given at Yale in 1951, the open-
ing lecture of a series entitled "Tragic Themes in Western Lit-
erature," in which I was one of seven participants, all drawn

χ
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

from the Yale faculty. The lectures were published by Yale

University Press in 1955.
My lecture, which dealt with both Oedipus plays, presented
a preliminary treatment of the main thesis of this book: that
the language of the Oedipus Tyrannos invests its protagonist
with all the great qualities and achievements as well as the
tragic flaws of fifth-century Athens and, beyond that, of all
humankind, as pride in the superiority of its intellect tempts it
to forget its inferiority to the gods. But much fuller evidence
was needed to buttress the claim that "the language of the play
suggests a comparison between Oedipus' speech and action in
the play and the whole range of sciences and techniques
which have brought man to mastery, made him tyrannos of the
world/'
As an undergraduate at Cambridge I had been awestruck by
a statement of Walter Headlam, a brilliant Cambridge scholar
whose career was cut short by his early death at the age of
forty-eight in 1908. He claimed that when embarking on the
elucidation of a Greek poetic text, the scholar should first learn
the text by heart and then read the whole of Greek literature
looking for parallel passages. I cannot claim to have lived up to
this Olympian formula (though Headlam seems to have done
so for his uncompleted edition of the Oresteia), but I did read
though all the extant Greek literature, early or late, that might
help me understand the resonances of Sophocles' words and
phrases, I looked for parallels not only in the works of poets,
historians, and philosophers but also in the court-room speech-
es of the orators, the Hippocratic medical texts, the writings of
mathematicians, Xenophon on hunting, and a good many odd
treatises of Plutarch. I was looking for evidence that Sophocles
had chosen words for his mythical characters, and for Oedipus

XI
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

above all, that called to mind the political and legal context of
contemporary Athenian life and the many facets of the intellec-
tual fervor of the age, as well as the stages of humankind's
progress from savagery to the civilization of the city-state.
The suggestion that Oedipus, a royal member of a mythical
accursed Theben house, could be seen as a figure symbolic of
Athenian democracy is not so strange as might at first appear.
Such glaring anachronisms are far from rare in Athenian
tragedy, and they are often much more specific than the
impression conveyed by Sophocles' choice of vocabulary. In 463
B.C., for example, Aeschylus has the unnamed king of Argos tell
the fifty daughters of Danaus that he will not grant them asy-
lum without the consent of his people; the matter must be sub-
mitted to the assembly. When Danaus comes back from Argos,
the chorus leader asks him, "What is the final decision? On
which side is the empowered hand of the people in the majori-
ty?" Danaus gives them the good news that they are welcome.
He does so in a recognizably Athenian democratic formula:
edoxen Argeioisin (resolved by the Argives) and describes "the
air bristling with right hands held high as the proposal was rati-
fied." There is, of course, no suggestion in Sophocles' play that
Thebes is a democracy. Oedipus is a benevolent ruler, but he is
in full control of the city. He is tyrannos, autocratic ruler, and
the effect of the language he uses is to suggest a likeness to
Athens, the polis tyrannos, as its enemies called it; it was a des-
ignation accepted as exact by both Pericles and Cleon in
speeches to the democratic assembly.
This insistence on locating the play firmly in its historical
context was not, of course, something I had to learn from the
New Criticism, which was, in one of its many aspects, a hostile
reaction to a common tendency not to teach poetry "as poetry"

χι ι
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

but to substitute for the poem as an object of study other

things, among them "biographical and historical materials." I
had, however, chosen history as my special field in my last
year at Cambridge, and though I could see the play as a liter-
ary construct and attempt to pay full attention to tone,
imagery, and theme, I was equally interested in its roots in and
attitude toward its time and place. The resultant combination
of methods was a sort of new critical historicism. But emphati-
cally not the "new historicism" of recent years, which insists
on viewing the historical circumstances of the poem as limita-
tions on interpretation and often rejects claims of enduring
significance over the centuries as mere illusions, the raw
material of Rezeptionstheorie. A play, however, which suggests
that, for all its great achievements, human ingenuity may be
fatally flawed, does not seem irrelevant for an age that lives in
dread of atomic and biological warfare, not to mention the
nightmare possibilities offered by the latest developments in
genetics.
One passage in this book has met with total rejection even
from authorities I respect: my decision (on pages 7—8) to reject
Brunk's emendation of verse 376. I still think that the reading
of the manuscripts (including the oldest among them, a
papyrus of the fifth century A.D., makes good sense, and that
interpreting Oedipus' preceding lines as a contemptuous rejec-
tion of punitive action against Tiresias is much more convinc-
ing than understanding it as a claim that Tiresias cannot harm
him, something Tiresias has never spoken of doing. I am lone-
ly in this stance, but not quite Athanasius contra mundum;
Gilbert Murray reads the Greek this way (though for the
wrong reason), and the ancient scholia announce that the
lines can be read either way (diploun to noema).

xin
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

There are, of course, changes I would like to make if this

were a revised edition instead of a reissue: incorporation, for
example, of reference to and discussion of relevant passages in
the truly enormous literature dealing with the play that has
appeared in the past forty years. Some notes would be elimi-
nated, some shortened, others lengthened. I would also make
the point somewhere that Oedipus does not hear the revela-
tions in Tiresias' final speech because he contemptuously goes
offstage as Tiresias starts on his terrifying indictment and
prophecy; the blind prophet speaks to empty air (see Greek,
Roman, and Byzantine Studies, winter 1980). I would also tone
down the excessively polemical tone of the original Preface.
But as it is, the book must go its way, like Hamlet's father,
with all its imperfections on its head.

xiv
P R E F A C E TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION

This hook is addressed to the classical scholar and at the same

time to the " Greekless reader" a category which, once treated
with scorn by the professors of more educated ages, now
includes the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the
planet. The book is therefore condemned from the start to
fall between two stools. But since the two stools in question
often turn out to be those of exclusive technicality on the
one hand and bodiless generality on the other, I may perhaps
be excused for declining to sit squarely on either one of them.

I am optimist enough to think that the educated reader of

today will follow a discussion of Sophocles which deals with
the actual words of the poet rather than those of a translator,
for it has been demonstrated that he will do so for a book on
Rimbaud, Goethe, or Dante without much knowledge of
French, German, or Italian. Eut to superimpose on the barrier
presented by an unfamiliar language an extra hurdle in the
shape of Greek letters is too much; the Greekless reader will
feel, with some justice, that he is being excluded, as I myself
feel when confronted with the Chinese ideograms of Ezra
Pound's latest Cantos. True, most people know some Greek
letters, but it is my experience that few of them can, and even
fewer will, puzzle out the words of the printed Greek text.
For this reason I have throughout the body of the book trans-
literated the words of Sophocles into the letters of our own
alphabet. I know that many of my fellow scholars will find
this intolerable; all that I can do is to refer them to the notes,
where Greek type is used in profusion, and htimbly remind
them that Sophocles himself would not be able to read the
Oxford text of his plays.

xv
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

The book is heavily indebted to all those who have -written

on Sophocles: adequate acknowledgment is impossible. I make
no claim to bibliographical completeness; the literature of the
subject is too big to permit that luxury. To balance any debts
or anticipations which 1 have failed to acknowledge 1 can only
hope that the book contributes enough new material to be
borrowed by, ana to anticipate, others in their turn.

Part of Chapter 2 appeared in the "Classical Journal" in

December 1954, and part of Chapter 3 in "Tragic Themes in
Western Literature," ed. Cleanth Brooks, New Haven, 1955;
my thanks for permission to reprint in a different form are
due to the respective editors. 1 am also indebted to the Morse
Fellowship which was granted me in 1952-53 and which made
possible the writing of this book.

YALE UNIVERSITY,
SEPTEMBER 1955

POSTSCRIPT
For this re-issue the Press has allowed me to correct the many
misprints and mistakes which appeared in the original edition.
I have taken full advantage of this generous offer. Apart from
these corrections, I have made no changes in the text.

WASHINGTON, D. C.
JANUARY 1965

XVI
OEDIPUS AT THEBES
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INTRODUCTION

It sometimes happens that a great poet creates a character

in whom the essence of an age is distilled, a representative
figure who in his action and suffering presents to his own
time the image of its victory and defeat. For later centuries
this character becomes the central reference point for an
understanding of his creator's time; but he is a figure of such
symbolic potency that he appears to them not only as a
historical but also as a contemporary phenomenon. The poet
who created him has penetrated so deeply into the permanent
elements of the human situation that his creation transcends
time. One such figure is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and
such another is Oedipus, King of Thebes.
But this double existence of the hero, in time and out of
it, creates a critical problem. " Commemoration," says Auden's
prize-day orator, "Commemoration. What did it mean to
them, there, then? What does it mean to us, here, now? "
There is a possibility, if not a probability, that a study of
Oedipus as a figure in time, a creation of the human intellect
shaped and limited by the ideas and circumstances of the
fifth century B. c., may produce an interpretation different
from that which emerges from a study of Oedipus out of time,
as a figure symbolic of Western man and, most important for
1
us, of Western man in the twentieth century.
This book is essentially a study of the Sophoclean play,
Oedipus Tyrannus, in terms of the age which produced it,
an attempt to answer the question, "What did it mean to
them, there, then? " But it suggests also an answer to the
question, " What does it mean to us, here, now? " And the
answer suggested is: the same thing it meant to them, there,

ι
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

then. For in this case, the attempt to understand the play

as a particular phenomenon reveals its universal nature; the
rigidly historical method finds itself uncovering the timeless.
The materials of which the Oedipus Tyrannus is constructed
are basic to the human situation; they have not changed since
the play was written and probably never will. The play needs
only to be seen clearly as what it was, to be understood as
what it is.

2
CHAPTER ONE; HERO

I
An initial obstacle lies square athwart the critical approach
to the Oedipus Tyrannus: the widely accepted and often
repeated judgment that the play is a " tragedy of fate." This
judgment is based on a blurred vision of the relation between
the hero's predicted destiny and his action in the play, but,
although its basis is a misapprehension, its influence has none
the less served to pigeonhole the Oedipus Tyrannus as the
classical example of the " tragedy of fate/' the example which
is supposed to illustrate the essential distinction between ancient
and modern tragedy. The purport of this distinction, expressed
or implied with varying degrees of subtlety, is not only that
ancient tragedy is less significant for the modern consciousness
because it operates in the pre-Christian framework of fate
rather than the modern Christian framework of individual
free will, but also that ancient tragedy has a lesser inherent
dramatic potential than modern, since in ancient tragedy
(example, the Oedipus Tyrannus^) the hero's will is limited
by fate, not free, like Hamlet's. But this view of the Sopho-
clean tragedy conflicts with experience, for every unprejudiced
reader and spectator feels that the play has a dramatic power
as great as that of Hamlet. And this is hard to explain if the
play is not dramatically self-sufficient—if the real responsibility
for the catastrophe must be attributed to an external factor.
A good example of the fundamental misconception (that
the Oedipus Tyrannus is a " tragedy of fate ")> the problem
raised by the misconception, and a brilliant but eccentric
attempt to solve the problem is furnished by the comments of
Sigmund Freud, whose name, to modern ears, is as closely

3
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

associated with Oedipus as that of Sophocles—to many, in

fact, more so.2

The Oedipus Rex is a tragedy of fate: its tragic effect

depends on the conflict between the all-powerful will of
the gods and the vain efforts of human beings threatened
with disaster; resignation to the divine will, and the per-
ception of one's own impotence is the lesson which the
deeply moved spectator is supposed to learn from the
tragedy. Modern authors have therefore sought to achieve
a similar tragic effect by expressing the same conflict in
stories of their own invention. But the playgoers have
looked on unmoved. . . . The modern tragedies of destiny
have failed of their effect. If the Oedipus Rex is capable
of moving a modern reader or playgoer no less powerfully
than it moved the contemporary Greeks, the only possible
explanation is that the effect of the Greek tragedy does
not depend upon the conflict between fate and human
will, but upon the peculiar nature of the material by which
this conflict is revealed. There must be a voice within
us which is prepared to acknowledge the compelling power
of fate in the Oedipus, while we are able to condemn
the situations occurring in Die Ahnfrau or other tragedies
of fate as arbitrary inventions . . . this [Oedipus'] fate
moves us only because it might have been our own,
because the oracle laid upon us before our birth the very
curse which rested upon him. It may be that we were
all destined to direct our first sexual impulses towards our
mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and violence
towards our fathers; our dreams convince us that we
were.3

This famous passage is of course a landmark in the history

of modern thought, and it is a token of the vitality of Greek

4
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO
literature that in these sentences one of the most bitterly con-
tested and influential concepts of the modern mind takes the
form of an attempt to solve a critical problem raised by the
Sophoclean play. But quite apart from the value (or lack of
it) of Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex (which he here
announced for the first time), the solution he proposes to the
critical problem raised by calling the play a " tragedy of fate "
cannot be accepted. When he says that Oedipus' fate affects
us because " it might have been our own " he has put his
finger on an essential aspect of the tragedy, the universality
of the theme, which of course extends far beyond the particular
appeal which Freud himself here expounds. But the universal
appeal of the theme, whether understood in psychoanalytical
or other terms, does not explain the dramatic excitement gener-
ated by the tragedy. No amount of symbolic richness—con-
scious, subconscious, or unconscious—will create dramatic ex-
citement in a play which does not possess the essential pre-
requisites of human free will and responsibility. The tragedy
must be self-sufficient: that is, the catastrophe must be the
result of the free decision and action (or inaction) of the
tragic protagonist.
The problem, stated in Freud's terms, (and he only states
in extreme form what many others imply or assume), is obvi-
ously insoluble. If the Oedipus Tyrannus is a " tragedy of
fate," the hero's will is not free, and the dramatic efficiency
of the play is limited by that fact. The problem is insoluble;
but luckily the problem does not exist to start with. For in
the play which Sophocles wrote the hero's will is absolutely
free and he is fully responsible for the catastrophe. Sophocles
has very carefully arranged the material of the myth in such
a way as to exclude the external factor in the life of Oedipus
from the action of the tragedy. This action is not Oedipus'
fulfillment of the prophecy, but his discovery that he has

5
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

already fulfilled it. The catastrophe of Oedipus is that he

discovers his own identity; and for this discovery he is first
and last responsible. The main events of the play are in fact
not even part of the prophecy: Apollo predicted neither the
discovery of the truth, the suicide of Jocasta, nor the self-
blinding of Oedipus.4 In the actions of Oedipus in the play
" fate " plays no part at all.
This may seem a sweeping assertion, and objections arise
at once. For one thing, both the discovery and the blindness
(though not the self-blinding) are predicted early in the course
of the play by Tiresias, who also informs Oedipus that he
is the murderer of Laius, the murderer of his father, and
his mother's husband. But this prophecy of Tiresias cannot
be considered an external factor operating in the play, since
Tiresias delivers it only as a result of Oedipus' action in the
first place. Tiresias has made up his mind not to speak a
word (343); he delivers the prophecy because Oedipus attacks
him so violently and unexpectedly that he forgets his resolu-
tion to keep silent. The prophecy is extracted from him by
Oedipus, and he says as much himself: "For you impelled
me to speak against my will " (358).*
Not only is it not an external factor, it is also without effect.
It is pronounced in the course of a violent altercation by a
man whom Oedipus suspects of conspiracy against him, and
it is attached to the accusation that Oedipus is the murderer
of Laius. Oedipus is so furiously angry at this apparently
senseless but none the less terrible accusation that the prophecy
makes comparatively little impression on him, and in any case

* The translations throughout the book are my own and aim merely
at a rough equivalence. The same words are sometimes translated
differently in different places to bring out the particular connotation,
metaphorical suggestion, or emphasis of the original text which is
relevant to the discussion.

6
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

he does not understand it. " Everything you say is too riddling
and obscure/' he tells the prophet at the end of their inter-
view (439). It makes no apparent impression on the chorus
either, for in the stasimon which immediately follows this
scene they discuss the accusation that Oedipus is the murderer
but do not even mention the prophecy or any other aspect
of Tiresias' statements. When later, Oedipus, after learning
from Jocasta the significant detail about Laius' murder, ex-
presses his fear that perhaps the blind prophet can see (747),
he is thinking only of the accusation that he is the murderer
of Laius. The other, even more terrible, things that Tiresias
said he has apparently forgotten; he does not refer to them
when he learns that Polybus of Corinth is not, in fact, his
father, nor later as he comes swiftly closer to the dreadful
truth. For all the effect on Oedipus' action that Tiresias'
prophecy has, it might just as well never have been uttered.
This prophecy of Tiresias, then, is in the first place produced
by the action of Oedipus, and in the second place has no
effect on his subsequent action. It can be considered neither
external nor causal.
There is, however, one two-line speech of Tiresias which
seems to raise an unanswerable objection to this line of argu-
ment. " It is not destiny that you should fall at my hands,"
he says to Oedipus, in all the modern texts and translations,5
" since Apollo is enough for that, and it is his affair " (376-7).
Here the " fall " of Oedipus is specifically attributed to Apollo
by Apollo's prophet; the lines are unequivocally phrased in
such a way as to emphasize the action of the external factor
in the plot of the play.
But the lines, in this form, are a comparatively modern
creation; they date from 1786, when Brunck emended the
manuscripts in his edition of the play.6 What the manuscripts
say (and they are confirmed by the only papyrus fragment

7
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

of this passage which has so far been found),7 is exactly the

opposite: " It is not destiny that I should fall at your hands,
since Apollo is enough, and it is his affair." 8
Brunk's emendation has been universally accepted by editors
because the preceding speech of Oedipus (374-5), as they
understood it, seemed to demand the sense which Brunk's
rearrangement affords: "You are maintained in one unbroken
night, so that you can never harm either me or any other man
who sees the light." If this is the meaning of Oedipus' lines,
Brunk's emendation is indeed " imperative," as the editors
of the papyrus fragment put it. But the words can also mean:
" You are maintained in endless night, so that neither I nor
any other man who sees the light would ever harm you."
To this statement the reading of the manuscripts is a proper
and cogent answer : " You could not harm me in any case,"
Tiresias replies in effect; " if I am to fall, that is Apollo's
business and he can take care of it." 9
This reading and interpretation make this part of the ex-
change between Oedipus and Tiresias a logical development:
Oedipus dismisses the idea of punitive action against a blind
man, and proceeds to find a culprit against whom he can
retaliate. His answer to Tiresias' defiant speech is " Is this
Creon's invention or yours? " (378).10
Surely in such an important passage as this the burden of
proof is on the corrector and the editors who print the correc-
tion; the only possible excuse for Brunk's emendation is that
the manuscript text should not make sense, which it does.
One cannot quite dismiss the suspicion that the almost uni-
versal acceptance of Brunk's version is due, in the last analysis,
to the fact that it confirms the preconceived idea that the
play is a tragedy of fate by solidly grounding the operation of
the external factor in the development of the plot.
It might also be urged that the process of Oedipus' self-

8
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO
discovery starts with his request to the Delphic oracle for
advice about the plague, that the plague is therefore the causal
factor, and the plague is sent by Apollo, who in this play
represents the external factor, " fate." u Apollo is, in fact,
traditionally the god who sends pestilence; every spectator of
the play would in the early scenes think of the opening of
the Iliad, where Apollo's deadly arrows kill mules, dogs, and
men, and " the pyres of the dead burned numerous." 12 The
Athenian spectator would also be reminded of the plague at
Athens in the early years of the Peloponnesian War, and the
current attribution of it to Apollo, on the basis of the god's
promise, made oracularly at Delphi at the beginning of the
war, that he would collaborate with the Spartans.13
If the plague in the Oedipus Tyrannus were indeed to be
considered as sent by Apollo, this would be a powerful objec-
tion, but Sophocles has repeatedly and emphatically indicated
that this is not the case. The priest calls on Apollo to rescue
Thebes from the plague, and his words contain no suggestion
that Apollo is responsible for it in the first place. "May
Apollo come as savior and put an end to the sickness" (149-
50). He also says that the people are praying to other gods,
specifically to Pallas, and at the oracle of Ismenus. The
chorus calls on Apollo in similarly neutral terms, praying for
rescue (162); it associates him with Athena and Artemis as
one of the three defenders from death (163). In this passage
it calls him "far-darter" (162), the word that Homer uses
to describe him as the plague god, and at the end of the
stasimon the chorus mentions his arrows (205). But they call
on Apollo not, as we might expect from Homer, to stop shooting
them; they call for his arrows to be arrayed on their side as
allies, against the plague (2o6).14 Nothing could make clearer
the fact that Apollo has no connection with the plague, except
what the chorus has said a few lines before. They have already

9
 O E D I P U S A T THEBES

identified the plague with a god, not Apollo but Ares; this
is the identity of the god whom the priest left unnamed:
"The fire-bearing god, hateful pestilence" (27-8). Apollo
is called on to help with his arrows, together with Zeus,
Artemis, and Dionysus, in the fight against Ares, the god
"unhonored among the gods" (215). The plague, whether
or not the chorus is right in calling it Ares, is of course, in
the last analysis, from a religious point of view, the will of
the gods, but Sophocles is clearly insisting, by his unparalleled
image of the arrows of Apollo as allies against plague and his
equally unparalleled identification of the plague with Ares,15
that the plague is not to be understood as Apolline interference,
that it is not the work of the play's external factor.
The plague, then, is not Apolline interference intended to
force the discovery of the truth. It is not the working of
"fate/' Nevertheless it is an imperative of the initial situa-
tion: it calls for action on the part of Oedipus.16 As ruler
of Thebes he must find a way to put an end to the plague or
face the possibility that, as the priest tells him, he may be
ruler over an empty city.17 Yet his decision to consult the
Delphic oracle is clearly and emphatically presented by Sopho-
cles as an independent decision. The clarity and care with
which this essential point is made deserve some notice. The
priest, who has come to beg Oedipus to act on the city's
behalf, is tactfully vague about what he wants Oedipus to
do: he does not come out clearly with advice that Oedipus
should consult the oracle. His speech consists of a series of
qualified hints that Oedipus might consider some recourse to
divine authority: "we consider you first of men in the circum-
stances of human life . . . and in relationship with the gods "
(33-4); " you are said and thought to have set our life straight
once before . . . with the assistance of a god" (38); "find
some means of rescue for us, whether by hearing the utterance

ίο
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

of one of the gods [phêmên] * or knowing something from

some man."
This formula is the nearest the priest gets to suggesting
consultation of the Oracle (for phêmê is the appropriate word
for oracular utterance), but even this is qualified ("one of
the gods "), and offered as an alternative to consultation with
a man. Oedipus* answer is that he has already translated into
action the only remedy his careful reflection suggested to
him: he has sent Creon to Delphi to consult Apollo. This
initial action (carried out in full before the play begins)
Sophocles has defined by striking dramatic means as the free
action of a free agent. For the priest's hesitation in suggesting
the action impresses us forcibly with the essential fact that
Oedipus does not have to consult Delphi. He is the tyrannos,
his word in Thebes is law, and, apart from his power, his
experience, prestige, and record of magnificent success give
him a free hand.
The same insistence on Oedipus' independence of action,
and the same clear suggestion that Oedipus can do or not do
what he in fact does, is to be seen in Sophocles' presentation
of the hero's action throughout the play. When Creon returns
and asks if Oedipus wishes to hear the oracle's reply in public
or in private, Oedipus tells him to speak before all of them.
This decision is important, for it makes it more difficult to

* The transcription of ancient Greek into a modern alphabet raises

some nice problems. In the absence of a general convention I have
followed my own preference, I hope consistently. Eta and omega are
represented by é and d, upsilon by y except in diphthongs, where I
use M (e. g. ou, au, eu). Xi appears as x, and rhô as thé simple r
(not rh); the nasal gamma I have indicated with n not g (ananke for
example). Iota subscript I have written as adscript (logôi for λόγφ)
and I have added h to show rough breathing (heurein). For the
classical reader 1 have indicated crasis (.taxeurêmata for example) be-
cause I have myself been sometimes bewildered by transcriptions which
omitted it.

II
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

stop the enquiry or suppress the result later in the course of

the action. It is clearly Oedipus' decision and his alone, and
just as clearly Creon is made to suggest that the matter would
be better discussed in private. Oedipus next decides to under-
take the search for the murderer of Laius, and to do so ener-
getically—"I will leave nothing undone " (145). This decision
is defined as a free decision by the priest : " What we came
here for, he now volunteers" (i48).18 Oedipus implements
the decision in the next scene by pronouncing a terrible curse
on the murderer if he does not at once come forward, and
this of course increases the horror of the catastrophe when he
discovers who the murderer is. And the curse is clearly
Oedipus' own idea; neither the Oracle nor anyone in Thebes
has suggested this step to him. When the chorus proposes
that he send for Tiresias the same dramatic device as before
is employed to stress the independence of the decision—he
tells the chorus that he has already done so. And so with
the rest of his actions; the energetic search for the truth is
pressed on to the final revelation by the will of Oedipus and
by nothing else.19 The autonomy of his actions is emphasized
by the series of attempts made by others to stop the investi-
gation. He is four times advised to drop the matter and be
content with ignorance: once at the beginning by Tiresias
(320-1), twice in the middle by Jocasta 20 (848 and 1060 if.),
and once at the end by the shepherd (1165). He rejects the
advice every time, and goes on his own way. Oedipus' will,
in the play, is free. Nothing he does is forced on him by fate,
in any of the various senses of that widely ambiguous word.
Oedipus' action is not only the action of a free agent, it is
also the cause of the events of the play. The hero is not only
free but fully responsible for the events which constitute the
plot. The plot, that is to say the process by which Oedipus'
identity is revealed, goes far toward meeting Aristotle's ideal

12
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

requirement of logical development. The recognition and

reversal " arise from the internal structure of the plot itself "
in such a way that what follows is the " necessary or probable
result of the preceding action/' The subsequent events are
due to the preceding ones, not merely after them—dia tade
not meta tade. (There is only one exception to this, the
arrival of the Corinthian messenger,)21 And the sequence
of events is put into motion and kept in motion by Oedipus'
action. The actions of Oedipus which cause the final catas-
trophe begin just before the opening of the play with the
sending of Creon to Delphi. Following this he insists on full
publication of the oracular response, assumes the responsibility
of the search for Laius' murderer, curses the unknown mur-
derer, and sends for Tiresias. He then refuses to accept
Tiresias' stubborn insistence that he drop the whole matter,
and by his angry accusation stings the prophet into accusing
him in his turn. His subsequent attack on Creon brings
Jocasta in as peacemaker, and her attempt to comfort him
raises the first doubt in his mind. He refuses to accept her
proposal that he be content with the situation as it is, and
sends for the shepherd who is the witness to Laius' murder.
This is already enough to bring about his recognition as the
murderer of Laius, if the shepherd can be prevailed upon to
speak, and speak the truth.
The situation is changed by an event which happens merely
after the others, not because of them: the arrival of the
messenger with news of the death of Polybus. From this point
on Oedipus is concerned not so much with finding the
murderer of Laius as with establishing his own identity. He
refuses to accept Jocasta's proposal that he rest content with
the confused situation which follows the messenger's revela-
tions, and maintains the decision to talk to the shepherd, who
is now the witness to Oedipus' identity as well as to Laius'

13
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

murder. But when the witness arrives he has no choice but

to tell the truth. He is reluctant to a degree, and would clearly
have lied or remained silent if he could, but the Corinthian
messenger is there to make lies or evasion impossible. The
truth is forced out of him by Oedipus, and the tyrannos
recognizes himself not only as Laius' murderer and son but
also as Jocasta's son and husband.

II
The decisions and actions of Oedipus are the causal factor in
the plot of the tragedy, and these decisions and actions are
the expression of the character of Oedipus. Oedipus is no
ordinary man, he is in fact a very extraordinary one: a man
who, starting with nothing but his wits and energy, has become
the despotic and beloved ruler of the city to which he came
as a homeless exile. This character is many-sided and subtly
complicated, yet it has a marvellous consistency. Oedipus is
surely the greatest single individual in Greek tragedy.22
Oedipus, as one would expect of a tyrannos, a self-made
ruler,23 is essentially a man of action. There is nothing passive
in his make-up; his natural tendency is always to act, and he
scorns inactivity. " I am not a sleeper that you woke from his
rest/' he tells the priest who speaks for the suppliants of the
first scene (65). He imposes himself on people and circum-
stances: they are the raw material which his will to action
forces into a pattern. The words which express action (draw,
prasseln) are typical of his own speech and of the opinions
of him expressed by others.24
It is characteristic of him to expect the Oracle at Delphi
to demand action of him; he waits impatiently to hear " by
what action or solemn pronouncement I may save this city "
(72).25 This formulation, an alternative of speech or action, is

M
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

replaced a few lines later by a more restricted formula which

admits only of action. " I would be a coward if I did not do
everything the god may clearly indicate " (77). He announces
his decision to carry out the oracular command in words which
show his conception of himself as the active force of the com-
munity—" I will do everything" (145).
His confidence in action is based on experience, and it is
to Oedipus as an experienced man that the priest appeals at
the beginning of the play. " It is men of experience whose
decision produces results that are most valid " (45). Oedipus*
vigorous action is justified not only in his own mind but also
in those of the priest and the chorus, the representatives of
Thebes, by his unbroken record of successful action.
His constant will to action is based on a superb courage;
one of the aspects of Creon's supposed treachery which most
enrages him later is the reflection that Creon must have taken
him for a coward. " What cowardice did you see in me . . . ? "
he asks Creon indignantly (536). This is no unfounded claim;
the courage with which Oedipus assaults the unknown through-
out the play is characteristic of the man who risked his life
when he answered the riddle of the Sphinx.
His action is lightning swift: once conceived it is not
hampered by fear or hesitation; it anticipates advice, approval,
or dissent. The characteristic Oedipean action is the fait
accompli. By the time the priest hesitantly suggests an appeal
to the Oracle, Oedipus has already acted several days before.26
" I have put the idea into action " (69). By the time the
chorus suggests recourse to Tiresias, Oedipus has already sent
to him, not once but twice: "I did not leave this to wait
for tomorrow either" (287). "Swift," tachys, is his word.
The decision to find Laius' murderer once made, Oedipus
sees no point in prolonging a situation which no longer corre-
sponds to the reality. His order to the suppliants to leave the

15
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

altar is peremptory: "As soon as you can, children, stand

up, leave the altar" (hôs tachista, 142). Their presence is
now inappropriate; for Oedipus' action, which will follow
swiftly, he needs not suppliants but the assembly of the people
of Thebes to hear his proclamation: "Let someone else
summon the people of Cadmus to this place" (144). The
chorus, which comes in shortly after, thus represents the people
of Thebes, summoned to hear the decision of its ruler. When
Oedipus decides to send for the shepherd who is a witness
of Laius' murder, he wants him in a hurry : " Get him to me
quickly " (en tachei, 765), and Jocasta knows her husband
well enough to emphasize the speed : " I shall send for him in
haste " (tachynas', 861). The most brilliant example of his
speed of action is contained in the seventy-five lines in which
he examines the shepherd and learns the full truth. The
searching questions follow each other in a swift and terrible
rhythm, broken only by the increasing reluctance of the
witness, a reluctance which provokes Oedipus to angry demands
for speed and the application of force to produce it : " Some-
body twist his arms back—quickly!" (hôs tachos, 1154). The
last terrible conclusive questions and answers are framed in
the hasty rhythm of the half-lines; the questions, asked now
only to confirm the terrible truth Oedipus knows, get shorter
until they culminate in the single word γοιοη : " What
oracles? " (1176).
The speed of one of his decisions, his condemnation of
Creon, causes the chorus to remonstrate and point out the
danger that hasty thought may make a slip : " Those who are
quick to think things out are not infallible " Qtoi tachéis, 617).
Oedipus' answer reveals the temper of the man, his insistence
on speed as the only guarantee of success, his rejection of
passivity: "When the adversary moves fast \tachyrs, 618],
plotting in secret, I must be fast [tachyn, 619] to make counter-

ιό
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

decisions. If I wait for him inactive, his project will be already

translated into action, mine a failure/'
This speed of his own action is naturally combined with
impatience of others' slowness: he can admit no external
obstacle to his own swiftness to impose himself on the pattern
of events. In the very first scene he is impatient that Creon
has not returned. He has presented the priest with a decision
that anticipates the cautious hints to consult Delphi, and is
already impatient that he cannot present him with the result
of the action as well. He counts the days; time is being wasted.
The delay is agony for him : " The day measured against the
time already pains me . . ." (73-4). So with his repeated
summons to Tiresias. He is upset by the prophet's slowness.
" I am surprised that he is not here long since " (289).
But this speed is not thoughtless; it is preceded by careful
reflection and deliberation. The initial decision to apply to
Delphi, swiftly executed though it was, came only after exten-
sive mental ranging over the possibilities and careful considera-
tion : " I traveled to the decision over many wandering ways
of thought . . ." (67), he says, " carefully considering, I found
only one remedy . . ." (68). The decision to reopen the case
of Laius' murder is made only after a careful examination of
Creon, which elicits the few known facts, and a realistic
appraisal of the enormous difficulty of the search. "Where
shall it be found, the track of ancient guilt, difficult to find by
inference?" (108-9). The decision to excommunicate the
murderer, a psychological attack on the unknown criminal
combined with an offer of comparative immunity for confession
and reward for betrayal, is announced to the people after the
singing of a choral ode; the suspension of dramatic time and
action creates the impression that while the ode was sung
Oedipus, in the palace, has thought his way through to the
decision. Even the accusation against Creon, hurled at him

i?
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

from the crest of a wave of tremendous anger, is presented

by the same dramatic device as the product of reflection and
deliberation. A faint suspicion in the opening scene,27 then
an impulsive reaction in the quarrel with Tiresias, the attack
on Creon emerges after the choral ode as a fully accepted
conclusion based on political logic. Oedipus sees himself the
target of accusations based on past events in Thebes to which
he considers himself foreign (220), for they happened before
his arrival. His source of information about these events is
Creon; Creon urged him to send for Tiresias; Creon's failure
to act when Laius was killed seemed to him suspicious from
the start. The whole business has the marks of conspiracy,
and though Oedipus is wrong, he has already reflected on the
situation and arrived at what is, for him, the only possible
conclusion.
The swift action is firmly based on reflection, and that
reflection is the working of a great intelligence. His bitterest
word of condemnation is moros, " stupid "; he hurls it at both
Tiresias (433) and Creon (540), and it stings him smartly
that Creon should have thought him stupid enough not to
realize that he was the target of a conspiracy. " Tell me, in the
gods' name what kind of a coward or a fool did you take me
for ... ? Did you think I would not recognize your work for
what it is, just because it operates by deceit? " (536-8).
Characteristic of his intelligence is his insistence on complete
knowledge and clarity. He demands a rational foundation for
his existence: he admits no mysteries, no half-truths, no half-
measures. He will never rest content with less than the full
truth; against this temper both Tiresias' and Jocasta's attempts
to stop him from pressing on to the end have no chance of
success. A striking example of his insistence on full under-
standing is the last question he asks the shepherd. He already
knows the truth—that Jocasta was his mother and Laius his

18
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

father—yet there is one detail he does not understand. It is

not a detail that offers any hope that the whole story may
be false, it is merely a question of the shepherd's motive.
" Why did you give the child to this old man? " (i 177). Even
at the most terrible moment of his existence, he must have
the full story, with no trace of obscurity in it anywhere. He
must complete the process of inquiry, remove the last ambiguity.
His understanding of what has happened to him must be a
complete rational structure before he can give way to the
tide of emotion which will carry him to self-mutilation.
His is a sharply critical intelligence: it is no accident that
Oedipus three times in the play conducts an examination of a
witness. In his examination of Creon in the prologue, the
swift logical succession of questions reveals the essence of the
situation in a few minutes. The questioning of the Corinthian
messenger after his announcement that Oedipus is not the
son of Polybus gives us an insight into the working of this
critical mind. The probability of the story is first attacked
from two different angles (1021, 1023), the messenger's con-
nection with Cithaeron established, and then the veracity of
the account as a whole tested by the question about Oedipus'
maimed foot. But it is in the final examination, that of the
shepherd, that the surgical keenness of Oedipus' intelligence
is best displayed. Nothing is left to chance in the prelimi-
naries, but there is no waste motion: it is like courtroom pro-
cedure in its methodical economy. Oedipus identifies the
witness as one of Laius' men by a question to the chorus
(1115); as the shepherd of the Corinthian messenger's story
by a question to the messenger (1119-20); and then confirms
the connection with Laius by a direct question to the shepherd
himself. The next step is to have the shepherd recognize the
Corinthian messenger and confirm his story, and this is done,
after a significant initial hesitation on the shepherd's part, by

19
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

the vehement intervention of the Corinthian messenger. The

witness then becomes recalcitrant, and Oedipus, by threat and
physical force, brings him to heel (1161). And from there it
is only a few steps to the truth.
But the intelligence of Oedipus is not merely critical, it is
creative too. It can not only ask questions : it can answer them.
And Oedipus' fame and reputation is based above all on his
solution of the riddle of the Sphinx. In this " he was seen to
be wise" (sopfoos, 509), sings the chorus: he answered the
riddle that no other man could answer, and saved the city.
Gnômêi kyrêsas, he says of his achievement : " I succeeded
by intelligence" (398).
His own account of this intellectual achievement reveals
an important aspect of his character: he is the man who by
intelligence alone beats the professionals at their own game;
he is the intelligent amateur who without special training
sees the essential thing the experts could not see. The riddle
of the Sphinx was a problem for professionals, for Tiresias,
in fact; as Oedipus says, " it called for divination " (manteias,
394), and the chorus emphasizes this later when they call
the Sphinx " an oracle-chanting maiden " {chrêsmôidon, 1200).
The priest admits that Oedipus did what should have been
done by a Theban, not a foreigner, that it was done without
Theban help, and without training (oud' ekdidachtheis, 138)
but he adds that Oedipus had the aid of a god. Oedipus
himself sees it differently. " I came [from outside], I who had
no knowledge. I put an end to the Sphinx, finding the answer
by intelligence, not learning it from birds" (396-8). It was
a triumph of the unprofessional intelligence which had no
special skill or even knowledge to buttress it: a sample of the
versatility of the Oedipean brain.
The versatility and adaptability of Oedipus is emphasized
by the position he has attained in Thebes. He came as a

20
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

foreigner, a self-constituted exile, but none the less an exile.

Now that he is tyrannos, far from concealing this fact he
glories in it; 2 8 it is a token of his adaptability, the proof of
the superiority of intelligence wherever and in whatever circum-
stances it may operate. And the situation in the play is like
that which faced him then: he must answer another riddle,
once again he is an outsider (ksenos . . . ton logon, 219),
who knows nothing; and he intends to answer it by the same
instrument, intelligence, gnome.
This combination of swift decision and action, based on
equally swift but unlimited deliberation, springs from and by
its success increases an enormous self-confidence. Mistrust of
the capacities of others is one of the facets of this self-con-
fidence; Oedipus is not the man to leave action or decision
to others. "I came . . . myself" (7). He came himself, not
thinking it right to hear through messengers. " I " (ego) is a
word that is often on his lips: in the first 150 lines Oedipus
speaks there are fourteen lines ending with some form of " I "
or " my," and fifteen beginning in the same way.29 His
insistence on himself is not mere vanity, it is justified by his
whole experience, which presents itself to him as an unbroken
record of success due entirely to himself; and this is no subjec-
tive impression, it is the conclusion of others too. When he
refers to himself as " Oedipus whom all call famous " (8), he
utters a boast that is merely a statement of fact: the attitude
of the priest and the chorus shows that Oedipus' confidence
in himself is no greater than the confidence which his fellow
citizens feel in him.30 " We judge you first of men in the
chances of life," the priest says to him at the beginning of the
play (33).
The successful record of the past inspires Oedipus with
confidence and hope for the future. He loses no whit of his
confidence when faced by the plague. It is an unforeseen

21
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

calamity, but it cannot be counted against him,81 and his

attitude is one of confidence. He expresses the hope, when
Creon returns, that he comes with saving fortune, and, through
the questioning of Creon about the apparently insoluble riddle
of Laius' murder, seeks some basis of hope. There is only one
witness, and he said only one thing. " What? " Oedipus asks.
"Even one thing might find out the way to learn many, if
we could get even the smallest beginning of hope " parchen
bracheian . . . elpidos, 121). When he decides to undertake
the search, it is in full confidence of the outcome: "I shall
reveal" (132); "I shall dispel the pollution" (138). It is
a promise of success. And it is repeated later when, after
reflection, he announces the measures he intends to take.
"If you will listen to, and accept what I have to say, you
may find some rescue . . ." (217-18). His confidence is
revealed again in his reproach to Tiresias, who laments his
own knowledge. "What a despondent attitude," Oedipus
says (athymos, 319); it is a state of mind for which he has
no respect. But he comes to it himself before long. Shaken
by Tiresias' accusation, he is thrown into despondency (aûiymô,
747) and despair (8i5ÍF.) by the revelations of Jocasta. Yet
when the chorus urges him not to abandon hope (eck* eljnday
835) he has already found an avenue of escape from what is
beginning to seem a terrible certainty, he has established a
basis for hope: " Yes, I have this much hope at least " (tosouton
esti moi tes elfidos, 836). His hope is based on a numerical
discrepancy between the account of Laius' death given by
Jocasta and his own memory of the events that took place
where three roads meet. It seems little enough, " a small
beginning of hope," indeed, but it is enough to enable him to
face at least the immediate future. And in reaction to the
greater revelations which come later, his small beginning of
hope grows to enormous dimensions.

22
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

At the point where Jocasta already knows the terrible truth

and Oedipus is only one step from knowing it himself, he
reaches the highest point of hope and confidence. " I count
myself the son of Fortune, the generous giver . . ." (1080-1).
The chorus which sings exultantly of his divine birth soon to
be revealed is only making explicit what is implicit in his
own declaration. At the very edge of disaster his hopes are
at their highest and most fantastic pitch.
This combination of swift action based on intelligent reflec-
tion producing success which in its turn gives rise to a justified
self-confidence is obviously the mark of a superior individual.
But such an individual in society might do either great good,
or, as fifth-century Athens was to find out to its cost, great
harm. Such a man might be either a Pericles or an Alcibiades.
In Oedipus' case these great gifts are controlled by a deep
patriotism and a sense of responsibility to the community: he
is presented, in the opening scenes, as the ideal ruler. In his
first speech we see clearly his high conception of his duty
to the citizens of Thebes. He comes in person to hear his
people's wishes, not thinking it just to hear them from mes-
sengers (6); he is thus contrasted with the fifth-century idea
of the monarch, who holds himself aloof, like Deioces in
Herodotus, who established the norms of monarchy, one of
which was " that no man should go in to the king, but transact
his business with him through messengers, and that the king
should be seen by no man." 32 Oedipus feels pity for his
suffering people (katoikteirôn, 13). And in his second speech
he shows a full realization of the obligations which power lays
on the ruler. They have each one his individual grief, but he
grieves for himself, for them, and for the city as a whole. The
collective sorrow increases the burden of his individual sorrow.
They are sick, but their sickness cannot equal his (59-64). He
feels deeply his responsibility to them, his failure to relieve

23
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

their distress. It is in this spirit of devotion to the welfare

of the citizen-body that he rises to the situation and undertakes
the difficult search for the killer of Laius; he will avenge
that murder on behalf of the country and the god (136). And
in the closing lines of his appeal to Tiresias he states in general
terms his conception of the duty to the city incumbent on
subject and ruler alike. "The finest activity is for a man to
do good for others, with all his resources and capabilities "
(ophelein, 314). It is in terms of this ideal of duty to others
that he angrily rebukes Tiresias for his refusal to speak. " Your
refusal is an outrage to propriety, and an act unfriendly to the
state " (322). From this it is a small step to the accusation of
treachery: "You intend to betray us and destroy the city"
(330-1). All through the violent quarrel with Tiresias he
asserts his pride in his past services to the city, even if, as
Tiresias obscurely hints, those services will bring him to destruc-
tion now. " It was exactly this good fortune which has des-
troyed you/' says Tiresias, referring to the answer to the riddle
of the Sphinx (442), and Oedipus answers proudly: "I don't
care, if I saved this city " (443). The high value he places
on his past services to the state is not subjective boasting : that
value is accepted by the chorus, the people of Thebes. " At
the testing time, he was pleasing to the city " (hadypolis, 510),
"and therefore never in my mind shall he be convicted of
baseness."
This devotion to the welfare of the city and sense of respon-
sibility to his people makes Oedipus a very unusual tyrannos.
Not only does he dispense with the formal isolation of the
ruler from his subjects but he insists on the full publication
of important information which affects them. When Creon
returns from Delphi to report to Oedipus he finds the tyrannos
outside the palace surrounded by a crowd of suppliants. When
Oedipus asks for a report he answers in vague terms, calcu-

24
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

lated to produce a sense of relief in the minds of the crowd

without revealing the nature of the oracular message.33 This
is met by a demand from Oedipus for the exact terms of the
message (towpos, 89) : the word Oedipus uses can mean either
" word " or " hexameter line," the usual medium of Apolline
response.34 Creon must drop hints and speak bluntly : " If you
wish to hear it with these people near, I am ready to speak, or,
if not, to go inside " (91-2). There is surely a touch of con-
tempt in tonde flêsiazontôn, " with these people near "; Creon
did not expect to find Oedipus outside the palace with a crowd
of suppliants round him, and the words suggest pointedly that
Creon would prefer to discuss the matter in private.35 But
Oedipus rejects the suggestion. " Address yourself to all " (es
yantas auda, 93). And the reason he gives is that the sorrow
he feels is more for his people than for himself : " It is for
these people " (he pointedly repeats Creon's slightly contemptu-
ous designation) " that I mourn, rather than for my own life "
(tonde, 93).
Later, at the height of his rage, he yields to the chorus'
entreaties to spare Creon, even though he believes this yielding
endangers his own life or at least his power. " Let him go
then, even if I have to lose my life for it, or be cast out . . ."
(669-70). He yields out of respect for the people's pitiful plea
not to make an already terrible situation worse.
This is indeed a democratic temper, as the scholiast long
ago remarked : " the character of Oedipus is that of a lover of
the people and one who takes measures for the common
interest."36 But there is another side, also characteristically
democratic, to this strange tyrannos: he is quick to suspect a
plot. His reaction to the story of Laius' murder is to suspect
political intrigue. Ironically, in the light of later developments,
he disregards the account that Laius was murdered by a band
of brigands, attributes it to one single brigand (lêistês, 124)

25
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

and asserts that the brigand would never have dared assassinate
a king unless prompted and paid by someone in Thebes. This
comment, as the scholiast points out, is a hit at Creon;37
Oedipus already suspects that the murder of Laius may turn
out to be the work of conspirators at Thebes, and the only
answer to the question cui fccmo? is Creon. Oedipus' mind
is already prepared for the accusation he is later to fling at
Tiresias and Creon. His arrival at Thebes long ago was an
unexpected obstacle to their plans then and they are seizing
the occasion of the plague and the oracular response to shield
themselves and put their original plan into execution. These
suspicions, though in fact ill-founded, are not wildly absurd;
every Athenian in the audience would from his own political
experience have seen their logic and appropriateness.38 In the
same suspicious mood he reacts to Tiresias' refusal to speak;
this is the confirmation of his feeling that Creon was at the
bottom of the murder of Laius. He is always conscious of the
envy which his eminence and his gifts arouse,39 and quick,
when things go wrong, to find a conspiracy against him. By
the time Creon comes to defend himself Oedipus has already
in his own mind tried Creon, found him guilty, and sentenced
him to death. He can even suspect, much later, that Polybus'
death is not a natural one; " Did he die by treachery . . . or
disease? " he asks the messenger (doloisin, 960). He thinks
naturally in political terms: his intelligence probes every situa-
tion to see in it political causes.
Such a man, fully conscious of his worth as a ruler, secure
in his self-confidence and the admiration of his subjects, in-
telligent, capable of deliberation and used to thinking in
political terms, is not easily provoked to anger. But it is to be
expected that once he is, his anger will be a terrible thing.
Such an expectation is not disappointed in the case of Oedipus;
his anger is more terrible than any one could expect. It is an

26
 C H A P T E R ONE*. HERO

anger that knows no bounds, a force that nothing can arrest

or control until it has spent itself. It is not easily provoked,
as the scene with Tiresias makes clear, and it arises in the
first place from Oedipus' devotion to the city: he is shocked
at Tiresias' refusal to give advice. The manner of Tiresias'
refusal is provocative enough : he announces that he has knowl-
edge but regrets that he has come, bids Oedipus send him
home again, tells Oedipus he is speaking to no purpose, that
both he and the people are ignorant, that he will never speak,
that Oedipus' questions are a waste of time, that he will learn
nothing. And each statement contains a hint that something
is wrong with Oedipus. It is enough, as Oedipus says, to make
even a stone angry. But his anger is slow to develop. His
first answer is to comment on the prophet's lack of spirit; he
then reproves him for his impropriety and lack of love for
the city. He next associates himself with the chorus as a
suppliant in an entreaty to Tiresias to help them, an abject
appeal : " We prostrate ourselves before you," he says, pros-
kynoumen (327), a hard word for Oedipus to utter.40 A
further refusal provokes a sharp rebuke, intended to bring
Tiresias to his senses; his silence can only be interpreted as
betrayal of the city. And when this is met with an even more
categorical refusal, he at last breaks out into abuse. " You
lowest of the low . . ." (334). Tiresias cuts the discussion
short: "I shall say no more" (343). But he adds some final
words which are a mistake; and they give us a measure of the
unpredictable violence of Oedipus' anger. Tiresias challenges
him to do his worst : " In answer, if you like, rage in the
wildest anger you can muster" (343-4). He is prepared for
anything; nothing Oedipus says will wring out of him one
word more.
Prophet though he is, he has not foreseen the consequences.
Oedipus* furious reply is to accuse Tiresias of responsibility

27
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

for Laius' death. It is so unexpected that Tiresias forgets his

resolution and flings the accusation back in Oedipus* face.
As he says later, Oedipus has made him speak against his
will (358). This rage of Oedipus, once aroused, flames into
a fury that astounds even those who are prepared for the worst.
It is not easily extinguished. It rages more and more fiercely,
and soon, provoked again,41 it associates Creon with Tiresias
as a plotter against Oedipus' mastery in Thebes.
Tiresias is not an appropriate target for retaliation; Oedipus
treats him with contempt (445-6) but disclaims any intention
of punishing him (402). Creon, however, has no such im-
munity as Tiresias; he is neither old, nor blind, nor a prophet,
and in the next scene the anger of Oedipus blazes fiercely
against him. The intervening time (created by a choral sta-
simon) has afforded Oedipus time to reflect, to review the case
against Creon, to find him guilty and decide on his punish-
ment. The anger, instead of subsiding, finds logical grounds
for its existence and determines action. "You are revealed
as my murderer " (534), is his greeting to Creon when he
comes to justify himself. He will accept no argument from
Creon, whose long sophistic defense leaves him unaffected.
He must act faster than the conspirators. And he has con-
demned Creon not to exile but to death (623). This is fast
action indeed. It is only avoided by Jocasta's intervention and
the appeal of the chorus. And when Oedipus finally yields,
he yields sullenly, maintaining his hate for Creon. He accuses
the chorus of disloyalty (687-8), and turning to Jocasta, tells
her the story, expressing his greater respect for her than for
the people in terms that forcibly recall his previous preference
of the people to Creon. " I yield in pity not to Creon's appeal
but to yours/' he had told the chorus then; and now, " I have
more respect for you, lady, than for these people " (7oo).42
His anger subsides slowly; such natures, as Creon says, are

28
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

most painful for themselves to bear (674-5). And he has reason

to feel bitter. For the first time his independent swift action
has met a check: he has found himself isolated, and forced to
give up the project on which he had decided. He does not
recover his confidence and energy until the great news of the
death of Polybus is brought by the Corinthian messenger, and
he is able to renew the search, this time not for the murderer
of Laius but for the secret of his own birth.
Such is the character of Oedipus: he is a great man, a man
of experience and swift courageous action, who yet acts only
after careful deliberation, illuminated by an analytic and
demanding intelligence. His action by its consistent success
generates a great self-confidence, but it is always directed to
the common good. He is an absolute ruler who loves and is
loved by his people, but is conscious of the jealousy his success
arouses and suspicious of conspiracy in high places. He is
capable of terrible, apparently ungovernable anger, but only
under great provocation, and he can, though grudgingly and
with difficulty, subdue his anger when he sees himself isolated
from his people.

Ill
In the relation between this character and the plot, between
the nature of the hero and the actions which produce the
catastrophe, we shall expect, according to Aristotle's canon,
to find the key to the tragic process. From what aspects or
aspect of the hero's character do the decisive actions spring?
And can that aspect or those aspects be termed a fault
(hamartia)ï
The important initial decisions, those which precede the
quarrel with Tiresias, are all traceable to Oedipus' great quali-
ties as a ruler, his sense of responsibility for his people, his

29
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

energy and intelligence. It is because he possesses these

qualities that he sends Creon to Delphi, orders him to report
the result of his mission in public, accepts the command of
the oracle, pronounces the curse, sends for Tiresias, and refuses
to drop the inquiry when Tiresias suggests that he should.
In all this there can be no question of hamartia in any sense
of the word except " mistake," and that, apart from the fact
that it certainly is not Aristotle's meaning,43 is irrelevant here,
because from the point of view of avoiding the catastrophe
every single action of Oedipus is equally a mistake.
With the Tiresias scene the anger of Oedipus comes into
play. It springs, however, from this same sense of public
responsibility, in the light of which Tiresias' refusal to speak
seems shocking, and, as we have seen, it is not easily provoked.
The angry onslaught on Creon stems from the same anger, but
the important fact about this outburst is that he does spare
Creon, against his own judgment, at the request of Jocasta and
the chorus, an action which illustrates the flexibility and demo-
cratic temper of his rule.
His refusal to follow Jocasta's advice—that he should not
send for the shepherd on whose account of Laius* murder his
hope now rests—is recognizably the product of his intelligence,
which will accept nothing incomplete, nothing untested, only
the full truth. And his second refusal to accept the same advice
offered by her at a later and more terrible moment springs
not only from his intelligence but from a new and magnificent
hope, born of new knowledge which would have terrified any
other man. In this decision, as in the other two cases where
he refuses to accept the situation as it is and insists on pressing
the search for the truth, he is most himself. He has never
been satisfied with half-measures and will not now retreat
from his own severe standards. The man whose intelligent
and courageous action made him the envy of his fellow men

30
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

will not accept a life based on willed ignorance; he cannot

inhabit a world of uncertainties but must re-establish the intel-
lectual clarity in which he has always existed. He will be
himself still, or nothing.
From this analysis of the relation between the hero's char-
acter and the plot it results clearly that though the hero's
character is causal, its operation in the plot does not fit the
Aristotelian formula. For the actions of Oedipus which pro-
duce the catastrophe stem from all sides of his character; no
one particular action is more essential than any other; they are
all equally essential, and they involve not any one trait of
character which might be designated a hamartia but the char-
acter of Oedipus as a whole. The catastrophe of Oedipus is
a product not of any one quality of Oedipus but of the total
man. And the total man is, to use Aristotle's phrase, more
good than bad. The decisive actions are the product of an
admirable character; with the possible exception of his anger
(and even that springs initially from his devotion to the city),
their source is the greatness and nobility of the man and the
ruler. Which makes the play correspond fairly closely to
Aristotle's description of what tragedy should avoid : " the
spectacle of a virtuous man brought from prosperity to adversity
—this moves neither pity nor fear: it merely shocks us." 44
It shocks us "especially in the case of Oedipus because the
catastrophe is one of such tremendous proportions. The
catastrophe consists of Oedipus' recognition of his true identity,
but this constitutes in itself a reversal of the most fearful kind.
The catastrophe of the play is an example of what Aristotle
defined as the best type, reversal combined with recognition;
perhaps it would be truer to say that the catastrophe of the
Oedipus Tyrannus is the basis of the definition. Peripeteia,
" reversal," Aristotle defines as els to enantion ton prattomenôn
metabolê,45 a phrase which, because of the ambiguity of the

3i
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

word prattomenôn, has been taken to mean either " a change

of the [hero's] situation into its opposite," that is, a complete
reversal of fortune, or " a change of the action into its opposite,0
that is, the result of the action appearing as the opposite of the
actor's intention. Surely the phrase has both meanings, for
Aristotle proceeds to explain it by giving two examples, which
aptly illustrate each one a different meaning of the phrase but
cannot both be made consistent with either one or the other.
In the case of Oedipus the peripeteia is both a reversal of
situation and a result of action contrary to the actor's intention.
It is a reversal of situation as complete as may be imagined:
from tyrannos whose phrase is arkteon (628), " I must rule,"
to subject whose phrase is peisteon (1516), "I must obey";
from wealth to beggary, as Tiresias puts it (455); from "best
of men," brotan arist' (46), to " worst of men," kakiston andr
erne (1433); from sight to blindness (454); from fame (kleinos,
8) and highest honor (megist* etimathes, 1203) to utter
uncleanliness—he is an agos (1426), a source of pollution
which must be covered up (i427).48 And the production of
a contrary result is the essence of Oedipus' action in the play:
he undertakes the search for the murderer to protect himself,
to benefit himself (emauton ôphelô, 141), to cleanse himself
from the general pollution in which, as a Theban, he is
involved (138), with the result that he destroys himself;,he
curses and excommunicates the unknown murderer, with the
result that he is himself cursed (araios hôs êrasato, 1291) and
excommunicated (apesteres* emauton, 1381). After the peri-
peteia the farseeing rich autocrat is a blind powerless beggar,
the most honored man in Thebes an exile and polluted out-
cast. He has brought it about himself, and the actions which
produced these results proceed from a character which is in
almost all respects admirable. It is shocking, because it seems
to suggest that what he does and suffers is meaningless. And

32
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

tragedy is, among other things, an attempt to penetrate the

mystery of human suffering.

IV
If the meaning does not lie in the action of the tragedy, it
must be in the initial situation. And in this there is an element
outside the character and action of Oedipus which plays an
important part. The actions of which Oedipus at last discovers
the true nature were predicted. What he discovers in the play
is not only that he is his father's murderer and his mother's
husband, but that he has long ago fulfilled to the letter the
prediction which he thought he had so far dodged, and which,
at the height of his hope, he thought he had escaped forever.
The prediction was made twice : once to his father Laius 47
(and of this he at first knows nothing, and when he does
know he cannot connect it with himself), and once to him
in person, when as a young man he consulted Delphi about
his birth. The problem of fate does enter here, not as a factor
detracting from the dramatic autonomy of the play, for
Sophocles has carefully excluded it from the action, but as a
fundamental problem posed by Oedipus' life as a whole. In
the solution of this problem must lie the tragic meaning of
the play.
The problem needs to be sharply defined, for the English
word fate covers a multitude of different conceptions. It does
not correspond exactly to any particular Greek word; 48 it is
in fact a word which is for the modern consciousness a con-
venient way to summarize, and often to dismiss, a complex of
subtly differentiated Greek conceptions of the nature of divine
guidance of, and interference in, human life.
For Sophocles and the fifth century the problems of human
destiny, of divine will and prediction, presented themselves in

33
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

a bewildering variety of subtly different forms. The shaping

of human destiny by divine power might be presented in differ-
ent ways, with different resulting ideologies, or it might be
rejected altogether. Even if we omit the philosophers (who
present a rich variety of discussion),49 and limit ourselves to
the presentation of the problem in Sophocles' fellow tragedians
and his friend Herodotus, we are confronted with a bewildering
variety of irreconcilably different views.
The effect of divine will on human action might be pre-
sented, to take an extreme case first, as determining, that
is, fully causal. The human beings act as they do because
a god has so willed it. In the Hippolytus of Euripides,50 for
example, the goddess Cypris determines the outcome of the
extremely complicated action of the human characters; not
only does she determine the outcome but she creates the initial
situation too. This is an extreme case (and in that typical
of Euripides), for the possibility of dramatic excitement seems
to have been excluded from the start; but the excitement of
the action exists nevertheless, because Aphrodite does not
inform the human beings involved of her intentions for the
future nor her responsibility for the past. The drama is thus
played out by characters who are under the illusion that their
will is free; the audience sees the apparent unpredictability
of their frequent changes of mind in the framework of
Aphrodite's predetermination of the outcome.
In this instance the determining power has nothing to do
but wait for the human beings to create, without realizing what
they are doing, the pattern of its own will; there is no need
for specific interference, for the result is predetermined as a
whole. But there are also cases in which the human being
falls short of or exceeds the divine intention, so that the deity
must interfere to correct the course of the action. Xerxes in
Herodotus,51 for example, after deciding to invade Greece,

34
 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

yields to the influence of Artabanus and announces the cancel-

lation of the expedition. He is then threatened by an appar-
ently divine figure which appears to him in a dream, and this
persistent visitation manifests itself to Artabanus, too, when
at Xerxes' request he puts on the royal robes and lies on the
royal bed. Although Xerxes and Artabanus interpret the dream
as a favorable injunction to invade Greece, this is clearly a case
of intervention to keep the human beings involved on the path
of the divine will—which is that the Persians shall suffer defeat
in Greece. In this case the human beings fall short of the
divine intention and must be spurred on; 52 but the process
may work also in reverse fashion, as in the Ajax of Sophocles
where Athena intervenes to prevent an overfulfilment of the
divine will. She makes Ajax temporarily mad, so that instead
of killing the Achaean chieftains, which was his intention
when sane, he kills and tortures captured cattle, thus ruining
himself (which was the divine intention) without killing
Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Odysseus.
The external power might predetermine, with or without
direct interference; it might also merely predict. This is, it
is true, a form of intervention, for the human being to whom
the prediction is imparted may be affected in his decisions by
the prediction (though in Herodotus there is at least one case
where the god makes the prediction not to the person concerned
but to others: Herodotus vi. 19). Yet this is an entirely different
way of presenting the problem, for it leaves the individual
concerned a large measure of free will; the prediction is not
fully causal, as the predetermination, with or without incidental
interference, is.
Prediction might take the form of oracular utterance, por-
tent, or dream. These last two are clearly dependent on inter-
pretation. That is to say, the human being has freedom to
understand or misunderstand the prophecy. So Croesus mis·

35
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

understood the Delphic oracle and crossed the Halys;53 Apollo's

rebuke—that he should have enquired a second time for clari-
fication of the oracle 54—implies that he was free to understand
it. So the Magi of Xerxes misinterpreted the eclipse of the
sun as a portent of Greek defeat,55 and Cyrus misunderstood
the dream about Darius that came to him in the country of
the Massagetae.56 It is possible that an oracle may be both
understood and misunderstood at the same time; different
people interpret it different ways, as happened to the famous
oracle about the wooden walls of Athens.57 The person con-
cerned may not trouble himself to interpret the divine sign at
all, as Xerxes disregarded the portent of the mare that gave
birth to a hare: "although it was easy to guess the meaning
of this," says Herodotus, " Xerxes ignored it." 58 Or the sign
may be clearly and correctly interpreted, as in the case of the
portent seen by Hippocrates, father of Pisistratus, and deliber-
ately disregarded.59
In the case of oracular responses which are clear enough
to need no interpreters (a category which Herodotus singles
out as especially worthy of respect),60 a similar variety of effect
and human reaction may be observed. For one thing the oracle
may offer alternatives, thus specifically leaving the responsibility
of choice to the human being concerned.61 Such was the oracle
given to the Spartans at the beginning of the Persian War:
either Sparta would be razed by the barbarians or the Spartan
king should perish.62 This oracle is mentioned by Herodotus
as the main factor in Leónidas' decision to fight to the death
at Thermopylae.63
But if the oracle was a clear prophecy and offered no alter-
natives it still did not operate as a determining factor, for
if it were unacceptable to the human consultant it could be
disregarded, and even forgotten. So the Lydian kings, particu-
larly Croesus, the one most concerned, paid no attention to

36
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

the Delphic prophecy that vengeance would come for the

Heraclid dynasty in the fifth generation from Gyges,64 and the
Euboeans neglected the oracle of Bakis which warned them to
remove their cattle when a foreign-speaking man threw a rope
yoke over the sea.65 The prophecy of the Athenian Lysistratus
was forgotten by all the Greeks, but was fulfilled, Herodotus
says, after the battle of Salamis.66
A prophecy unqualified by alternatives, even if taken seri-
ously, might mistakenly be regarded as fulfilled by circum-
stances which are not the real fulfilment at all, as in the case
of Astyages in Herodotus,67 who is wrongly advised by the
Magi that his dream has been fulfilled by the symbolic kingship
assumed by the young Cyrus in play, and accepts their advice.
Similarly Oedipus in Sophocles' tragedy suggests, but without
taking it too seriously, that the prophecy that he would kill
his father has been fulfilled by the death of Polybus his
supposed father, through yearning for his self-exiled son. " He
is dead and buried . . . and I here in Thebes did not put my
hand to the sword, unless he died through longing for me.
In that sense you could call me responsible for his death"
(967-70).
The prophecy might mistakenly be considered fulfilled " in
some indirect and figurative sense ";68 or it might actually be
so symbolically fulfilled, contrary to the recipient's grandiose
expectations. So Hippias* dream of sexual union with his
mother was fulfilled, not, as he expected, by his recapture of
Athens, but by the loss of a tooth which fell on Attic soil,69
and similarly the oracle to Cleomenes that he would take Argos
was fulfilled by his destruction of the grove named Argos, not
the city.70
Finally the recipient of the oracle might understand the
prophecy perfectly and, instead of disregarding it, might attempt
to defy it and prove it false. Mycerinus of Egypt received a

37
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

prophecy from Boutopolis that he would live only six years.

He turned the nights into days, lighting lamps and feasting
every night, so that his six years should be actually twelve,
and he did this, says Herodotus, " to prove the oracle false." 71
In a sense he may be said to have succeeded, and it is remark-
able that Herodotus makes no comment except to state his
aim and describe his method.
Not only does prediction assume many forms and produce
many different reactions in human beings, it also varies greatly
in its relation to the divine will. Apollo may prophesy some·
thing imposed on him by destiny against his will, as in the
case of Croesus; he tries to change it and does actually succeed
in postponing Croesus' disaster for three years.72 Usually Apollo
predicts events which represent not his own will but the will
of his father Zeus, and in the Oresteia of Aeschylus he demon-
strates that in this particular case he himself does not fully
understand the will of Zeus, for his own action is a contributing
factor to a solution which he himself did not clearly envisage.73
Often the relation of the prophecy to the divine will is simply
left undefined: it is a mystery which can only be guessed at
from the particular circumstances of its delivery and fulfilment.
This summary exploration of the many different ways in
which the working of the external factor could be viewed is
enough to show that the particular frame chosen by the
dramatist is highly significant for the meaning of his work.
And in the Oedipus Tyrannus Sophocles has chosen to present
the terrible actions of Oedipus not as determined but only as
predicted, and he has made no reference to the relation between
the predicted destiny and the divine will. The divine will is
represented in the play by the prophecy and by the prophecy
alone.
The foreknowledge of Oedipus' actions possessed by the
gods does not detract from the independence of Oedipus'

38
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

actions in the play, since it does not affect the decisions which
produce the catastrophe. But this foreknowledge, made objec-
tive in the form of a prophecy, does affect the actions of
Oedipus before the play begins. It does not however, entirely
negate the independence of those actions. For, as is clear from
the examples quoted above, prophecy, in the Greek view, far
from excluding free human action actually requires it. The
prophecy allows for the independent action of the recipient; the
fulfilment of the prophecy results from the combination of
the prophecy with the recipient's free action.
Logically, divine foreknowledge and human free will cannot
exist together, yet the Greek view of prophecy admits the
existence of these two mutually exclusive factors, and of course
the Christian view has to embrace this same illogicality. It is
indeed, by the admission of no less an authority than St.
Augustine, " the question which torments the greater part of
mankind, how these two things can fail to be contrary and
opposed, that God should have foreknowledge of all things
to come and that we should sin, not by necessity, but by our
own will." 75
The problem faced by Christian thought is, it is true, differ-
ent; it is to reconcile human free will with divine prescience
rather than prediction, for God, as Christians understand Him,
does not predict the future to mankind. But there was a time
when He did. In the New Testament, in all four Gospels,
there is a story of a prophecy made by God to a man and its
fulfilment. In the account given by St. Matthew are to be
found the classic elements of a Greek oracular story: it contains
the prophecy of Jesus given directly to the man concerned, his
refusal to accept the prophecy, his unconscious fulfilment of
it, and his terrible dramatic awakening to the fact that the
prophecy has come true. The man is the Apostle Peter, and
here is the story:

39
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that this
night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
Peter said unto him. Though I should die with thee,
yet will I not deny thee. . . .
Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel
came unto him saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of
Galilee. But he denied before them all, saying, I know
not what thou sayest. And when he was gone out into the
porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that
were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.
And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the
man. And after a while came unto him they that stood
by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them,
for thy speech bewrayeth thee. Then began he to curse
and to swear, saying, I know not the man.
And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered
the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock
crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and
wept bitterly.76
No one, so far as I know, has ever suggested that Peter's will
was not free, that he was " fated " to deny his Master.
But the case of Oedipus is not strictly comparable. The
god's predictions do have an important influence on the
suffering and action of Oedipus. The first prediction, made
to Laius,77 influences him to expose his three-day-old son on
the mountain in order to avoid his own predicted death at the
child's hands. The second prediction, made to the son, in-
fluences him to turn away from Corinth towards Thebes and
inspires in him a fear which he carries always with him, which
he must constantly dominate if he is to live as other men do.
Yet the effect of the prophecies is only part of the process. The
prophecies, through the reaction of Laius and Oedipus against

40
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO
them, produce the situation which makes Oedipus' later actions
and suffering possible; but what makes them certain is the
character of Oedipus himself. The external factor and the
independent human being work together to fulfil the prophecy.
The character of Oedipus in action in the present time of
the play makes plausible and explains his actions in the past;
it does this with especial force since one of the purposes of
Oedipus* present action is precisely to reconstruct and under-
stand his past. The discovery of the past in the present action
of the play explores the area of the given situation, which
Sophocles has excluded as a causal factor in the action itself;
the character of Oedipus is shown to be a consistent whole-
he was the same man then as he is now and will be later.
The actions which fulfilled the prophecy are clearly seen as
springing from the same traits of character which lie behind
the action that reveals the prophecy 's fulfilment. He was always
the man of decisive action : the priest addresses him as " savior "
because of his energy (jproihymias, 48) in former time, and
refers to his liberation of the city from the Sphinx : " you who
came and liberated the city." In Oedipus' acceptance of the
challenge of the Sphinx the great qualities of the hero of
the play were all displayed. It took courage, for the price
of failure was death; it required intelligence: gnômêi kurêsas,
says Oedipus, " I found the answer by intelligence "; and it
needed also a tremendous self-confidence. It was an action
which saved the city—" in the hour of testing he was the city's
delight," (hadypolis, 510)—so the chorus celebrates his claim
to the mastery in Thebes. The intelligence that will not be
satisfied with half-measures or politic ignorance is seen in his
refusal to accept his supposed parents' attempt to smooth down
his anger at the indiscreet revelation of the drunken guest;
even then he demanded clarity, he had to know the truth, and
went to Delphi to find it. His killing of Laius and his followers

41
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

at the triple road-junction is, as he recognizes, a typical product

of his violent anger. " I struck in anger " (807), he says, and
the action is characteristically thorough—" I killed them all "
(813). In his reference to this action there is a typical reflec-
tion of his self-confidence; here again, as before the Sphinx,
he was alone, " one man alone " (oiozdwos, 846). His attempt
to avoid fulfilment of the oracle is an example of his deliber-
ate and thoughtful action; confronted with Apollo's terrible
prophecy, he exiles himself from Corinth forever and later
marries Jocasta, thus conclusively nullifying the oracle's predic-
tion about his marriage. He presents the oracle with a fait
accompli, his characteristic response to any situation.
Thus the prophecies are not a sufficient cause of the actions
of Oedipus; to constitute such a cause they need the comple-
ment of Oedipus' character. But they do play a vital part in
the long process which reaches its climax in the self-mutilation
of Oedipus. And this leads us towards the question of the
relation between the prophecy and the divine will, which
Sophocles has not explained.78 It is a mystery. Yet in this
mystery must lie, if anywhere, the meaning of the action and
suffering of Oedipus.

v
The meaning, in its simplest and most uncompromising form,
is emphasized by Sophocles' presentation of the given situation,
the action of the hero, and the nature of the catastrophe. The
factor common to all three is a prophecy, a prophecy given,
apparently defied, and finally vindicated. The initial prophecy
is vital; how vital can be seen in a moment, if the play be
imagined without it. An Oedipus who discovered that he had
become his father's murderer and his mother's husband through
nothing but a series of coincidences which are inexplicable

42
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO
in any terms outside themselves would be a spectacle too
terrible to contemplate. He would be simply a hideous product
of erratic circumstances, comparable to a biological sport, a
freak of nature, a monster. His incest and parricide would be
as meaningless as the indiscriminate mating and killing of the
birds and beasts;79 his cry of agony an echoless sound in an
indifferent universe. Fortunately for his sanity, and ours,
there is an echo; what he has done can be referred to some-
thing outside himself, indeed outside all human understanding
—the prophecy. The existence of the prophecy is the only
thing that makes the discovery of the truth bearable, not only
for us but for Oedipus himself. In fact the prophecy, which
as the expression of fate is often supposed to detract from the
play's tragic impact, is the only thing that makes it possible
to consider the Oedipus Tyrannus tragedy in any sense of
the word. The hero's discovery of his own unspeakable pollu-
tion is made tolerable only because it is somehow connected
with the gods. The man who was the archetype of human
magnificence self-sufficient in its intelligence and action has
now only one consolation in his lonely shame—the fact of
divine prescience demonstrated by the existence of the original
prophecy.
The play is a terrifying affirmation of the truth of prophecy.
Oedipus at the beginning of the play is a man who has appar-
ently defied the most dreadful prophecy ever made to and
about a human being; the man who was promised intolerable
pollution sufficient in itself to make him an outcast is the
splendid and beloved tyrannos of a great city. Oedipus at the
beginning of the play is a Mycerinus who has attempted to
prove the oracle a liar, apparently with complete success; the
catastrophe consists of the revelation that the prediction has
been fulfilled long since. The play takes a clear stand on one

43
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

of the intellectual battlegrounds of the fifth century—the

question of the truth or falsehood of prophecy.
This was at the time the play was first performed a very
live question indeed. Sophocles' friend Herodotus, critical and
open-minded as he was, held firm to the belief that prophecy
was a revelation of the divine will, and always fulfilled. "I
cannot say that there is no truth in prophecies, or feel inclined
to call in question those prophecies that speak clearly when
I think of the following/' he says, referring to the prophecy of
Bakis about Salamis, and after quoting the prophecy he con-
tinues, " I neither venture myself to say anything against
prophecies, nor do I approve of others impugning them." 80
But the emphasis of the statement reveals that the speaker
is making a polemical claim. The validity of prophecy was
no longer taken for granted in Periclean Athens. In Thucy-
dides we can see the opposite point of view. Thucydides does
not even argue the point—he assumes that prophecies are
worthless; the keen sarcasm of his comments on the old oracle
about the Dorian War and the plague or famine that was to
accompany it,81 like the comment on Nicias (that he was too
much influenced by " inspired prophecy and that kind of
thing ")>82 reflect a tired cynicism that takes prophecy to be
what Alcibiades at Sparta called democracy, " an acknowledged
folly." 83 Against Herodotus' defense of prophecy must be
placed Thucydides' general statement about the many oracles
that were current in the Athens of the Peloponnesian War 84 —
that only one of them was fulfilled, a prophecy that the war
would last twenty-seven years. "This was the only one that
in the event justified those who rely on prophecies." 85
Thucydides is not alone in this attitude. The plays of
Euripides are full of fierce attacks on human prophets who set
themselves up as divine mouthpieces,86 and, though his Tiresias
in the Phoenissae draws a distinction between human and

44
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

divine prophecy,87 asserting that Apollo alone should prophesy,

his Ion is a remarkably irreverent treatment of Apollo the
prophet himself.8*' The philosophical attack on prophecy is
more radical; the critical rationalism of Protagoras, with his
appeal to human intelligence as the criterion of reality, abolishes
prophecy as an incidental feature of the abolition of the super-
natural as a whole. " Man is the measure of all things : a
measure of the existence of the existent, and the nonexistence
of the nonexistent." 89 Antiphon the sophist could reply to the
question, " What is prophecy? " with the answer, " the guess
of an intelligent man "; 90 and this is not very different from
the conclusion of the Euripidean messenger in the Helena—
" the best prophet is intelligence and good counsel." 91
The attack on individual professional prophets found an
echo even in the minds of the most devout, for, as is clear from
Euripides and Aristophanes alone,92 Athens during the Pelo-
ponnesian War was plagued with degenerate exponents of the
prophetic art, men who were in the business for money and
who carefully shaped their prophecies to fit the desires of their
customers. In fact it is this contemporary situation which makes
thoroughly understandable Oedipus' furious reaction against
Tiresias; the use of prophets in political intrigue was perfectly
familiar to the Athenian audience,93 and the Athenians them-
selves in 413 в. с. turned in fury upon the prophets who had
94
foretold the conquest of Sicily. Most sensible men, even if
they fully accepted the religious view of human life as subject
to divine control, must have been disgusted by the cynical
excesses of professional prophets. But to deduce from the
demonstrable bad faith of charlatans the falsity of prophecy
as a whole was a further step which few were willing to take,
for the truth of divine prophecy was a fundamental assump-
tion of that combination of ritual cult and heroic literature
which served the Greeks as religion. Any attack on this sector

45
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

of the religious belief was an offensive against the whole

front. And this was in any case the decisive sector. " The real
clash," says Nilsson, " took place between that part of religion
which interfered most in practical life and with which every-
one came in contact every day, namely, the art of foretelling
the future, and the attempts of natural philosophy to give
physical explanations of celestial and atmospheric phenomena,
of portents, and of other events." 95 The question at issue
in the debate was not just the truth or falsehood of prophecy,
but the validity of the whole traditional religious view.
The Sophoclean play presents the issue in precisely these
terms. After Jocasta, to her satisfaction and that of Oedipus,
proves that the prophecy about Laius' son has not been and
can now never be fulfilled, and on this basis urges him to
reject Tiresias' accusation in spite of the terrible indications
that Tiresias may have been right, the chorus, which previously
backed Oedipus against Tiresias, abandons the tyrannos and
his wife, presenting the issue in terms of the truth or falsehood
of the religious view as a whole. " If these things [i. e. the
prophecy of Apollo and the actions of Laius' son] do not turn
out to correspond exactly [hannosei] so that all mankind can
point to it, I shall no longer go in reverence to the inviolable
center of the world [Delphi] nor to the shrine at Abae, nor
to that of Olympia " (897-903). " The old prophecies given
to Laius are dying, they [Jocasta and Oedipus] are now exclud-
ing them. Apollo is not made manifest by worship, divinity
disappears" (906-10). This last phrase, errei ta theia, is
untranslatable, but clearly implies the ruin and disappearance
of divine order.96
This is a clear statement. If the prophecy given to Laius
does not correspond with reality, then all prophecy is false,
Apollo dishonored, the gods a lost cause, religion meaningless.
The chorus takes this so seriously that it actually calls on Zeus

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 CHAPTER O N E : HERO

to fulfil the oracles (904-5), to make it come true, impossible

as that now seems to them, that Laius' son kill his father and
marry his mother. Terrible as this would be, it is better,
they feel, than the alternative—the demonstration of the false-
hood of oracular utterance and the corollary impotence or even
nonexistence of the divine. For the chorus, the issue has
become a test of divine power : " If irreverent action is to be
respected and profitable/' they sing, "why should I dance?"
(895).
With this phrase the situation is brought out of the past
and the myth into the present moment in the theater of
Dionysus. For these words of the chorus were accompanied
not only by music but, as the chorus' very name reminds us,
by dancing: this is the choral dance and song from which
tragedy developed, and which is still what it was in the
beginning, an act of religious worship.97 If the oracles and
the truth do not coincide the very performance of the tragedy
has no meaning, for tragedy is itself a form of worship of the
gods. This phrase, " why should I dance? " is a tour de force
which makes the validity of the performance itself depend on
the dénouement of the play.98

VI
The play, in the simplest analysis, is a reassertion of the
religious view of a divinely ordered universe, a view which
depends on the concept of divine omniscience, represented
in the play by Apollo's prophecy. It is a statement which
rejects the new concepts of the fifth-century philosophers and
sophists, the new visions of a universe ordered by the laws
of physics, the human intelligence, the law of the jungle, or
the lawlessness of blind chance. Indeed, the intellectual
progress of Oedipus and Jocasta in the play is a sort of symbolic

47
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

history of fifth-century rationalism." The formal, shallow piety

of Oedipus in the opening scenes is followed by the attack
on the human representative of the god (Tiresias) and then
by Jocasta's attack on the prophecies of the god himself. This
culminates in a triumphant and contemptuous rejection of
prophecy of all kinds by both Jocasta and Oedipus. The next
stage is Jocasta's rejection of order of any kind, the statement
that chance governs human life, that man must live hap-
hazardly. This statement Oedipus rejects, for he is still seeking
full understanding; he cannot abandon the intellectual search
as Jocasta has done. But at the very moment that Jocasta
knows the truth and her own ignorance Oedipus is impelled
by his discoveries to the same view which she has just aban-
doned; what he has found out seems to confirm the truth of
her belief in the dominance of chance. He proclaims himself
the " son of Chance," a further development of her doctrine;
the personification of chance as a goddess foreshadows the
desperate creeds of later centuries. This picture of the intel-
lectual progress of the fifth century Sophocles has ironically
placed in a dramatic framework which shows it to be wrong
from the start. It is as if the gods are mocking Oedipus; they
watch the critical intelligence work its way through to the
absolutely clear vision, to find out that the prophecy has been
fulfilled all the time. The man who rejected prophecy is the
living demonstration of its truth: the rationalist at his most
intelligent and courageous the unconscious proof of divine
prescience.
For that is what Oedipus is, a proof, a demonstration, a
paradigm (paradeigma, 1193), as the chorus calls him in the
great ode which it sings after he has made the discovery. He
is an example to all mankind of the existence and authority
of divine prescience and of the fundamental ignorance of
man. This function of Oedipus helps to explain the character
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

which Sophocles has given him. The demonstration of the

proposition through the person of a bad man would be clearly
untragic, even uninteresting; and the demonstration of it
through the person of an Aristotelian hero, the good man who
wrecks himself through a " fault," would obscure the issue by
suggesting an explanation of Oedipus' fall in terms of human
ethics. The divine demonstration needs a protagonist whose
character does not obscure the meaning of his fall : the affirma-
tion of the existence of divine prescience and the ignorance
of man must not be confused by any crosscurrent of feeling
that Oedipus' catastrophe can be attributed to a moral fault.
To emphasize this point Sophocles has done something very
remarkable in the second half of the play. He has presented
us with a ruined, blind, polluted Oedipus whose character
is no different from that of the magnificent tyrannos of the
scenes before the catastrophe. This is not due, as some intel-
lectual historians might suggest, to the fifth century's incapacity
to conceive or present change of character; it is rather an
emphatic way of showing that it is not Oedipus' character
which was at fault in the first place. The blind Oedipus
thinks and acts still like Oedipus tyrannos, the elements of
his character are unchanged. His character does not change,
because Oedipus is not a man guilty of a moral fault. Such a
man can learn from his fall, eliminate the fault, and change
his character. But all that Oedipus learns—and all that he had
to learn—is that he was ignorant. And that demands not a
change of character but the acquisition of knowledge.
That knowledge he now possesses. It is Oedipus, not Creon,
who insists on immediate obedience to the Delphic oracle
which demanded the exile or death of the murderer of Laius.
" You would trust the word of the god now," Creon says to
him reproachfully (1445), but the ironic turn of events presents
us with a Creon who wishes to consult the oracle again and

49
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

an Oedipus who without demur accepts literally the original

oracular utterance.100 Oedipus has learned well what his own
tortured mind and body bear witness to, the existence of divine
prescience and of an order beyond human understanding.
The reversal of Oedipus is not then a meaningless calamity,
but seen as a demonstration of the validity of divine prescience
it runs dangerously close to the opposite extreme: it may be
a calamity which has too much meaning to be tragic. Such a
demonstration seems a subject more apt for tract than tragedy;
it seems to call for homily or philosophic discourse as its
medium rather than the drama. The dramatist who presents
such a theme must avoid creating the impression that his tragic
hero is a puppet manipulated by the strings of the author's
intention or the god's purpose to point a moral.
No such impression is created by Sophocles' play, and this
is due to two things: the greatness of the hero and the dramatic
independence of his action.
Oedipus is clearly a very great man. The hero is worthy of
the great purpose with which he unknowingly cooperates to
produce the demonstration; his action, which must complement
the prophecy in order to fulfil it and which is solely responsible
for the discovery of that fulfilment, is magnificent action. The
play is concerned not only with the greatness of the gods but
also with the greatness of man. " The god is great/' sings the
chorus (872), but Oedipus can use the same word of himself,
and justly. " Reproach me," he says to Tiresias, " reproach
me with those things in which you will find my greatness lies "
(441). He is referring to his victorious action in the past
(his solution of the riddle of the Sphinx), but the adjective
can be applied to his present actions too: he is if anything
greater in the play than he has been in the actions which
preceded it. Oedipus represents all that is intelligent, vigorous,
courageous, and creative in man. In his relentless pursuit of

50
 CHAPTER ONE: HERO

the truth he shows his true greatness : all the powers of intellect
and energy which make him a hero are exhibited in his lonely,
stubborn progress to knowledge. Faced with the spectacle of
this heroic action, even the most profoundly religious spectator
must recoil in horror from the catastrophe to which Oedipus
so energetically forces his way. The greatness of the man sets
up a counteraction to the play's tremendous demonstration of
the greatness of the divine. We do not want him to discover
the truth. It is clear that he will, and it seems right that he
should, but we do not want to see it. So deeply do we desire
to see him escape that we are momentarily caught up in the
mad enthusiasm of his most confident declaration: "I count
myself the son of Chance, the giver of good." Sophocles com-
posed the choral ode which follows this speech with a sure
dramatic instinct and knowledge of the human heart; the
chorus with its wild speculation that Oedipus may be revealed
as of divine birth, perhaps even the son of Apollo (ног),101
is hoping for a miracle that will save Oedipus from destruction,
and that is how we feel too. What Sophocles has done is to
make the proof of divine omniscience so hard to accept that we
are emotionally involved in the hero's rejection of that om-
niscience. No man, no matter how deeply religious, can look
on Oedipus, even when he is most ignorant and blind, without
sympathy. For Oedipus represents man's greatness.
The hero's greatness is a partial counterpoise to the awful
weight of the divine omniscience which he denies and tries to
escape; the balance is made perfect by the dramatic autonomy
of his action. Sophocles' careful exclusion of the external factor
from the plot of the play is more than a device to preserve
dramatic excitement: it is essential to the play's meaning. For
the autonomy of Oedipus' action allows Sophocles to present
us not with a hero who is destroyed, but with one who destroys
himself. Not only that, but the process of self-destruction is

51
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

presented as a difficult and heroic task to which he stubbornly

dedicates himself, in defiance of the advice of Tiresias, the
warnings and pleas of Jocasta, and the supplication of the
shepherd; his self-destruction is in fact his greatest achieve-
ment, which puts all his qualities and powers to the supreme
test. This presentation of the self-discovery as heroic action
increases the tension created by the contrary pulls of our accept-
ance of divine omniscience on the one hand and our admira-
tion for Oedipus on the other; it makes us want to see Oedipus
succeed in the search, not for the sake of the vindication of the
prophecy but for his own sake. So we will and do not will
that he should discover the truth and destroy himself; we will
it because if he gives up the search, if he turns his back on
action, intelligence, and clarity by failing to resolve the riddle
of his own identity, he destroys himself in any case, by ceasing
to be Oedipus. Our irrational wish that he should save himself
is countered by the realization that since he has to fall, it is
better that he fall by self-destruction than by self-betrayal. The
discovery of his identity is the most catastrophic defeat
imaginable, but there is a sense in which it is also a great
victory.

52«
C H A P T E R TWO: ATHENS

I
Sophocles' Oedipus is more than an individual tragic hero. It
is characteristic of the Greek attitude towards man to see him
not only as an individual but also as an individual in society,
a political being as well as a private person. When Aristotle
began his Politics with the famous sentence " Man is by nature
a political animal," he was saying nothing new; the formula
expresses an assumption so basic to Greek feeling of the fifth
and earlier centuries that only the analytical spirit of a later
time saw the need to state it explicitly. The action and reversal
of Oedipus is presented in terms not only of the individual
man but also of the society, or as Sophocles would have said,
the polis, the city, which he represents. This aspect of Oedipus
is in fact forced on our attention from the very first line of the
play; Oedipus is the supreme power in the state, and, as we
have seen, the motivation of many of his decisive actions is to
be found precisely in his attitude towards his political respon-
sibility. He is tyrannos. The attempt to understand Oedipus
as man in society must begin with the difficult question raised
by that title. Why does Sophocles so insistently and emphatic-
ally call him tyrannos?г
This is not the same question as that asked by one of the
ancient hypotheses—" Why is it entitled Tyrannos'? "—for the
title by which the play is known is clearly post-Aristotelian.2
But the title owes its origin, as Jebb points out, to the frequent
occurrence of the word tyrannos in the text of the play.
It is of course true that this word tyrannos (partly perhaps
because of its greater convenience for iambic meter) is often
used in tragedy (especially in Euripides) as a neutral substitute
for basileus, "king/' 3 But in the Sophoclean play it is used

53
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

in at least one passage with the full import of its historical and
political meaning: an unconstitutional ruler, who has seized
power, and generally abuses it. Jebb, who translates the word
tyrannos and its cognates as " king/' " prince," " royalty,"
" empire," " crown," and " throne " elsewhere in the play,
comments on 873 (hybris phyteuei tyrannon: "Violence and
pride engender the tyrannos ") as follows: " Here not a prince,
nor even, in the normal Greek sense, an unconstitutionally
absolute ruler (good or bad), but in our sense a ' tyrant/ "
Other passages, too, insist on the historical figure of the
tyrannos, a despot who has won power through " friends . . .
masses and money," as Oedipus himself puts it (541-г).4 The
word cannot then be considered neutral in any of its appear-
ances in the play; it is colored by the reflections of these clear
references to the traditional Athenian estimate of the tyrannos.
In what sense is Oedipus a tyrannos^ There is one aspect
of his position in Thebes which fully justifies the term: he
is not (as far as is known at the beginning of the action) the
hereditary successor to the throne of Thebes but an outsider
5
(ksenos, as he says himself), who, not belonging to the royal
line, for that matter not even a native Theban, has come to
supreme power. This is one of the fundamental differences
between the historical tyrannos and the " king," basileus.
Thucydides, for example, makes this distinction in his recon-
struction of early Greek history: "Tyrannies were established
in the cities as the revenues increased . . . previously there was
kingship with fixed prerogatives handed down from father to
son." β
This sense of the word tyrannos is exactly appropriate for
Oedipus (as far as he understands his own situation at the
beginning of the play) : he is an intruder, one whose warrant
for power is individual achievement, not birth. But though
exact, it is not a flattering word, and Creon, whose sophistic

54
 CHAPTER T W O : A T H E N S

defense later marks him as the subtle politician of the play,

seems to be aware of its implications, for in the opening scene
he refers to Laius, who was king, not tyrannos, in terms which
avoid pointing the contrast between Oedipus' title to power
and the hereditary title of his predecessor. "We once, my
lord, had a leader [hêgemôn] called Laius," is his formula
which avoids what might have seemed an odious comparison
(юз)·7
Oedipus, in his reply, carries on this diplomatic misnomer
of Laius: he refers to the power of his predecessor by a word
which equates it with his own, tyrannis (128). Later in the
play he twice calls Laius himself tyrannos (799, 1043), and
the reason why he calls him tyrannos instead of basileus in
these lines is all too clear. By this time he suspects that Laius
may have been the man he killed so many years ago where the
three roads meet, and it is only natural that in these circum-
stances he should avoid the use of a word which would invest
his violent action with a darker guilt. The psychological
nuance of his use of the word tyrannos here emerges clearly
from the comparison of this situation with that in which, for
the only time in the play, he gives Laius his proper title.
" It was not right," he tells the chorus, " that you left this
matter unpurified, the death of a good man—and a king "
(basileôs, 257). The context explains his choice of terms. For
in these lines, which follow the pronouncement of the curse
on the unknown murderer, Oedipus, with terrible unconscious
irony, is dwelling on the close connection between himself
and Laius. " Since now it is I that am in authority, holding
the powers which he formerly held . . . married to his wife . . .
and if his line had not met with disaster we would have been
connected by children born in common to us both . . . for
all these reasons I shall fight on his behalf as if he were my
father . . . seeking the murderer . . . on behalf of the son of

55
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Labdacus, whose father was Polydorus son of Cadmus before

him, whose father in ancient time was Agenor " (258-68). The
involved irony of these lines has earned much admiring com-
ment; their motivation also deserves attention. The resounding,
half-envious recital of Laius' royal genealogy emphasizes
Oedipus' deep-seated feeling of inadequacy in the matter of
birth; though he claims the royal line of Corinth as his own,
he cannot, in his inmost heart, be sure of his parentage.8
And he tries, in this speech, to insert himself into the honorable
line of Theban kings. " Having his powers "—his successor
then; "married to his wife "—Oedipus feels himself almost
legitimized by this connection,9 and his children completely
so; " we would have been connected by children "—the presence
of an heir of Laius would have drawn attention to the royal
blood in the veins of his own children, born of the same
mother; and then, inconsistently (the typical inconsistency of
deep unconscious desires thrusting themselves up violently on
to the surface of rational speech)—" as if he were my father."
In this context, where Oedipus' misgivings about his birth
express themselves as a fantasy that he is in one sense or
another of the line of Laius, Labdacus, Polydorus, Cadmus,
and Agenor, it is only natural that he should give Laius his
proper title, basileus, " king." It is what he would dearly like
to be himself.
The terrible truth is that he is king; no man more legiti-
mately. He is the son of Laius, direct descendant of Cadmus
and Agenor. But it is only when he and all Thebes know
the truth that he is finally addressed by this title. " You rose
up like a fortified wall against death for my city," sings the
chorus in the tremendous ode which follows the recognition;
"since then you are called my king" (izoz).10 Once he
was called " Oedipus, famous among all men " (8), and now
"you are called my king." But this transformation from

56
 CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

tyrannos to king is his reversal; the revelation that he is king

is the overthrow of the tyrannos. The proof of his legitimacy
is at the same time the exposure of his unspeakable pollution.
The title tyrannos has then a magnificent ironic function,
but if it makes a great contribution to the complexity of the
dramatic texture, it raises some problems as well. For the word
meant more to the fifth-century audience than a usurper who
replaced the hereditary king: the tyrannos was an adventurer
who, however brilliant and prosperous his régime, had gained
power by violence and maintained it by violence. This aspect
of the tyrannos is emphasized when the chorus sings: "Vio-
lence and pride engender the tyrannos." And the succeeding
sentences of this choral ode are an estimate of the origin,
nature, and end of the tyrannos in terms of the current moral
and political tradition of the last half of the fifth century.
What is the reason for the chorus* attack on Oedipus? And
why does it take this particular form? According to Jebb, " the
strain of warning rebuke " is suggested by " the tone of Oedipus
towards Creon," but this does not seem an adequate explana-
tion. The chorus* last word on the subject of Creon was a
declaration of complete loyalty to Oedipus : " I should be
clearly insane, incapable of intelligence, if I turned my back
on you " (690-1). The change from this attitude to "Violence
and pride engender the tyrannos" is clearly a decisive change;
it musi be due to something that has happened since the
quarrel with Creon.
Not much has happened, but much has been revealed.
Oedipus came to Thebes with blood on his hands, and one of
the men he had just killed was a person of some importance,
who rode in a carriage and was accompanied by a herald. True,
Oedipus struck in self-defense, but none the less the chorus has
come to know an Oedipus they had not suspected, a man of
violence who can say, not without a touch of pride, " I killed

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 OEDIPUS AT T H E B E S

the whole lot of them " (813). " Violence and pride engender
the tyrannos" The elevation of Oedipus to the throne of
Thebes was preceded by the bloody slaughter on the highway.
But this is not all. Oedipus has good reason to suspect that
the man in the carnage was Laius, the hereditary king of
Thebes, and the chorus is afraid that he is right.11 If he is,
then Oedipus won his power by killing the hereditary king
and taking his place both on his throne and in his marriage
bed—like Gyges of Lydia, one of the classic types of the
tyrannos; Gyges is in fact the first man to whom the title is
applied in extant Greek literature.12 "Violence and pride
engender the tyrannos "; in the case of Oedipus violence was
the instrument of his accession to power.
These aspects of Oedipus' present title to power and his
past actions, together with the choral ode on the tyrannos,
clearly raise the whole issue of tyrannis in terms of con-
temporary political ideas. Why? The play cannot have been
intended as an attack on tyrannis as an institution, for not only
was tyrannis universally detested, it was also, by the beginning
of the Peloponnesian War, a dead issue. Though he was to
be a typical phenomenon of the next century, in the last half
of the fifth century the tyrannos was a bitter memory of the
past rather than a fear of the future. The Athenian assembly
still opened its proceedings with the recital of prayers which
included curses on those who aimed to restore the tyrannos,
but the acknowledged irrelevancy of this antiquarian survival
is emphasized by the Aristophanic parodies of the formulas
employed. " If anyone kill any of the dead tyrants, he shall
receive a talent as a reward," sings the chorus of The Birds
(1074), and the herald in the Thesmophoriazusae, reciting
the prayer for the " women in assembly," 13 proclaims a curse
on " anyone who makes evil plots against the female people, or
enters into negotiations with Euripides or the Persians to the

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detriment of the women, or plans to become tyrannos or to

cooperate in restoring a tyrannos, or denounces a woman who
passes off a substitute child as her own, or any slave girl who,
acting as a procuress for her mistress, tells tales to her master "
(334-41). In The Wasps, when the choleric chorus of jurymen
accuses Bdelycleon of attempting to establish " tyranny " be-
cause he has prevented his father from attending court,
Bdelycleon bursts out into a famous tirade. " Everything with
you is tyranny and conspiracy, whether the indictment is
great or small. Tyranny! For fifty years I haven't heard the
word mentioned—and now it has become cheaper than salted
fish. The name of tyranny rolls around the marketplace.
If somebody wants perch and doesn't happen to be in the mood
for sprats, the sprat-seller at the next stand says right away,
' Here's a man who does his shopping with tyranny in mind ' "
(488-95). The example which follows is even more ridiculous,
and the final one (contributed by the slave Xanthias) gro-
tesquely obscene. This passage (and others in the same play)
shows that aggrieved and ignorant people as well as unscrupu-
lous prosecutors made free with accusations of tyrannical
ambitions, but it surely suggests at the same time that no
honest or intelligent man took such accusations seriously. It
also suggests that the whole subject was unsuited to the dignity
of the tragic stage.
And in any case Oedipus is a figure who does not conform
to the classic pattern of the tyrannos of the Greek tradition.
The typical tyrannos might begin as one who shared power
with others, but would soon banish or kill his coregents.14
But Oedipus, by the admission of Creon, has for many years
been ruling on terms of equality with Creon and Jocasta.
Nor can the other characteristics of the tyrannos be found in
the actions of Oedipus in the play. He does not defy ancestral
laws, outrage women, or put men to death without trial.15

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

He does not plunder his subjects,16 distrust the good and

delight in the bad,17 or live in fear of his people.18 He is not
equipped with that armed bodyguard which is the hallmark
of the tyrannos in real life 19 and of Aegisthus, for example,
on the tragic stage.20 Oedipus has attendants,21 but he is not
a ruler who walks in fear of his people; he comes directly to
them—" not through messengers," as he says (6)—he is loved,
not feared. His political acts in the play are the reverse of
tyrannical. He deliberately ignores Creon's hint that the
oracular message should be discussed in private,22 calls an
assembly of the people of Thebes,23 and later, on a matter
which he considers vital to his own safety, the condemnation
of Creon, he gives way to Jocasta and the chorus, which repre-
sents the people of Thebes. Thebes under Oedipus may be a
tyrannis, but what it most resembles is a democracy ruled by
its first citizen. What are we to make of this combination of
democracy and tyrannis?
It must have been familiar to the Athenian audience, who
were themselves citizens of just such a state. The situation
calls to mind a similar contradiction which is one of the central
themes of Thucydides' history of his own times. " We are
called a democracy," says Pericles in the Funeral Speech
(ii. 37), but he also tells the Athenians, " You hold your empire
as a tyrannis" 24 He is repeating the phrase which, according
to Plutarch, was used by his political opponents to characterize
his direction of Athenian imperial policy: they claimed that
" Hellas thinks herself subjected to terrible insult and violence,
openly tyrannized over, when she sees that with the forced
contributions she makes to the war, we Athenians gild and
beautify our own city." 25 Cleon too calls the Athenian empire
a tyrannis (Th. iii. 37), and the Athenian envoy Euphemus,
addressing the people of Camarina in Sicily, speaks of Athenian
imperial policy in the same terms—" for a man who is tyrannos

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or a city which has an empire, nothing is unreasonable which

is expedient."26 But this description of Athenian power is
not restricted to Athenian speakers; it is also the word used
by Athens' bitterest enemies. " We are allowing the establish-
ment of a city [Athens] as tyrannos" the Corinthians complain
at Sparta, and later in the same speech they repeat the phrase
—" the city which has been set up as tyrannos in Greece." 27
It is clear from these passages that the idea of Athens as
the polis tyrannos was a commonplace both at Athens and else-
where in the second half of the fifth century. The individual
tyrannos had receded into the past to become a bitter memory,
but he had been succeeded by the polis tyrannos, Athens,
which had the resources and the skill, as it undoubtedly had
the ambition, to become supreme master of the Greek world.
In these circumstances, and the climate of feeling which they
produced, the title which Sophocles has so repeatedly conferred
on his hero served to provide not a historical framework, nor
even a moral criterion, but a vital contemporary reference
which enabled him to appeal directly to the hopes and fears
of his audience not only as individuals but also as Athenians.
This suggestion, that Oedipus' peculiar tyrannis is a reference
to Athens itself, rests on the assumption that the tragedy was
conceived in terms of contemporary situations and attitudes.
Such an assumption is justified not only by many incidental
details in this play,28 but also by the regular practice of
Athenian tragic poets. The contemporary reference in all Attic
tragedy is so obvious and insistent that the term " anachronism,"
often applied to details of the tragic presentation of the mythical
material,29 is completely misleading; in Attic tragedy of the
fifth century anachronism is not the exception but the rule.
The majestic theological atmosphere of the Aeschylean
Eumenides, for example, in which Olympian and pre-Olympian
deities, contesting the case of the legendary hero Orestes, bring

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 OEDIPUS AT T H E B E S

to fulfilment Zeus's will that man should progress from the

primitive anarchy of tribal vengeance to civilized institutions
of justice—this august and ancient atmosphere is filled with
political sermons on the proper internal balance of mid-fifth-
century democracy and with legal procedures which are those
of the fifth-century courts; the final speech of Orestes is a
patent reference to the alliance between Athens and Argos
which had been concluded just before the play was produced.
Even the Prometheus Bound, with its dramatic date fixed at
thirteen generations before the birth of Heracles (P. V. 774),
and its extraordinary dramatis yersonae of whom only one. is
human (and she " provided with four hoofs, two horns, one
tail "), is presented throughout in terms of fifth-century
politics;30 and, towards the end of the play, Prometheus is
abused by Hermes as a " sophist."
This is typical of all Attic tragedy; the Athenian tragedians
wrote not historical but contemporary drama. The " anachron-
istic " details are not careless slips, nor are they necessarily
evidence of the absence of a historical viewpoint;31 they are
incidental but natural results of a fully and deliberately con-
temporary presentation of the mythical material. Euripides can
make his Amphitryon and Lycus in the Heracles discuss
the burning contemporary issue of the comparative value of
light-armed infantry and archers 32 with the same freedom
which permits Shakespeare to make a Roman tribune talk
of " chimney-tops " and an eleventh-century Scottish porter
refer jocularly to the execution of Father Garnet, which took
place in i6o6.33 The basis of this freedom from historical
verisimilitude is the same in both cases: Euripides, like Shake-
speare, is thinking and writing for and about his time.
In the Oedipus Tyrannus this local and contemporary refer-
ence is visible at every turn. A typical example is a jarring
inconsistency of speech and setting which occurs in the priest's

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 CHAPTER T W O : A T H E N S

lines early in the play. It is a geographical rather than an

historical inconsistency, not an anachronism but a " metatop-
ism." The priest of Zeus appeals to Oedipus to stop the plague
before Thebes is depopulated—" for a fortification or a ship
is nothing if deserted, without men to live together inside it "
(56-7). Thebes had fortifications, of course, but why should
the priest mention ships? Plautus could talk about the
" harbor " of Thebes without shocking his Roman audience,34
most of whom knew no more about Thebes than he did, but
to an Athenian poet and audience who took the Theban setting
of the play seriously the phrase would surely have a disturbing
sound.35 But it is perfectly appropriate in an Athenian rather
than a Theban context: Athenian power depended on two
things, fortifications (the Long Walls) and ships, and this
phrase is a cliché of Attic oratory which recurs in almost
any discussion of the nature and history of Athenian imperial
policy and power.36
This is a minor but highly indicative detail; the topical and
contemporary reference is unmistakable also in larger aspects
of the dramatic situation which the play presents. Athens,
like Thebes in the play, had suffered the ravages of plague;
the terrible conditions described by the chorus in the opening
stasimon must have reminded the audience not of the mythic
past but the immediate present.37 And the resemblances
between Oedipus and Pericles, though it is true that they have
often been exaggerated and overinterpreted, are still striking
and not to be lightly dismissed. Pericles was under a hereditary
curse because of the sacrilegious murder of Cylon by his
ancestors, and although Pericles himself does not appear to
have taken this seriously, his political opponents no doubt
made good use of it: this hereditary guilt had been invoked,
before Pericles' time, as an excuse for armed Spartan inter-
vention in Athenian politics.38 The dominance of Oedipus

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

in Thebes, a combination of unquestioned authority and readi-

ness to yield to public opinion, resembles that of Pericles in
Athens: "first of men" the priest calls Oedipus (33), and
Thucydides describes the Athenian government as " technically
a democracy but in fact rule by the first man." 39 And the
enemies of Pericles called him tyrannos. " Civil Strife [stasis]
and old Cronos joined in union," says the comic poet Cratinus,
speaking of the birth of Pericles, "and gave birth to the
greatest tyrannos" 40 ". . . that power of his," says Plutarch,
" which aroused such envy, and which had been spoken of
as monarchy and tyrannis" 41 " His opponents," says Plutarch,
"called his associates young Pisistratids, and challenged him
to swear an oath that he would never become tyrannos, alleging
that his superiority was too imposing, and disproportionate
to democratic institutions." 42
But the fact that the situation of Oedipus, and more
especially his title, might well have suggested a comparison
with Pericles should not be overemphasized.43 Sophocles is
not a comic poet attacking a contemporary politician as Aristo-
phanes did Cleon in The Knights; these similarities are only
incidental details of a basic pattern which suggests a comparison
of Oedipus not to any individual Athenian but to Athens
itself.
Oedipus talks about his power (arche, 383) in terms which
vividly recall the contemporary estimates, both hostile and
friendly, of the power of Periclean Athens. " О wealth and
tyrannis" he exclaims, when he first decides that Tiresias and
Creon are conspiring against him, " and skill surpassing skill
in the competition of life, how much envy and hatred
[phthonos] is stored up in you " (380-3). Wealth and skill
were the two most conspicuous assets of Athens tyrannos.
" They are provided," says Archidamus the Spartan king, warn-
ing the Peloponnesian League that Athens is a dangerous

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enemy, " with wealth, public and private, ships and horses
and arms, and a population larger than is to be found in any
other one Hellenic territory/' "The memory will live/' says
Pericles to the Athenians, " that we are inhabitants of a city
endowed with every sort of wealth and greatness/'44
If Athenian wealth was the boast of her statesmen and the
terror of her enemies, Athenian skill was the source of her
commercial and naval supremacy. The Athenians were skilled
in naval warfare, in siegecraft, in manufacture—in everything
which required the ingenuity and adaptability of an urban
population rather than the simple qualities of the predomi-
nantly rural population of her enemies.45 It is against the
dynamic of Athenian skill that the Corinthians warn Sparta
at the congress of the Peloponnesian allies: "Your attitude
to them is old-fashioned. As in technical and artistic matters
[technes], it is always the newest development that prevails.
For a community which can live in peace, unchangeable insti-
tutions are best, but when varied situations have to be met,
much skilful contrivance is required/'46 Above all it is Athens'
technical superiority in naval warfare which is recognized and
feared by her enemies; enemy commanders cannot deny it and,
to encourage their own sailors, must try to minimize its
importance. " Without courage," says the Spartan admiral to
his men before one of the naval battles in the Gulf of Nau-
pactus, " no technical proficiency avails against danger . . .
skill without bravery is no advantage." 47 In the discussion at
the Peloponnesian congress there is a different emphasis. " As
soon as we have brought our skill to the level of theirs," say
the Corinthians, " our courage will give us the victory. Courage
is a natural gift which cannot be learned, but their superior
skill is something acquired, which we must attain by prac-
tice." 48 But Pericles has no fear that the Athenians will lose
the long lead they have established in the race for technical

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

naval supremacy. "Our enemies," he says, "will not easily

acquire naval skill; even you, practicing it ever since the
Persian War, are not yet masters of it ... Naval power, like
anything else, is a matter of skill; it does not allow itself to
be exercised casually or as a secondary occupation, but rather
itself excludes secondary occupations."49
The " wealth, tyrannis, and skill " of Athens, like those of
Oedipus, arouse phthonos, " hatred " and " envy." " When you
consider the energy and intelligence which we displayed then,"
say the Athenian envoys at Sparta, " do we deserve the exces-
sive hatred and envy the Greeks feel for us because of the
empire we hold? " 50 " Any one," says Pericles, " who does
not possess [an empire such as ours] will envy us. To be
hated and considered offensive has always been temporarily the
lot of those who have felt themselves worthy to rule others.
The correct decision is to accept this envy when the power
involved is great." 5l
The Athenian arche, like that of Oedipus, is not an inherited
power but something comparatively new in the Greek world,
and it was won by self-exertion. Pericles proudly refers to
the fathers of the Athenians whom he is addressing as men
" who by their own efforts and not by inheritance gained this
power and maintained it." 52 And, like the power of Oedipus,
it was originally offered, not sought. " This power," says
Oedipus, " which the city put into my hands, as a free gift,
not something I asked for . . ." (303-4). " We did not take
power by force," the Athenian envoys remind the Spartans,
". . . the allies themselves came to us and asked us to be their
leaders . . . an empire was offered to us, and we accepted it." 53

66
 I!
These resemblances between the Athenian supremacy in Greece
and Oedipus' peculiar power in Thebes suggest that the word
tyrannos as applied to Oedipus is part of a larger pattern, a
comparison of Oedipus to Athens itself. The character of
Oedipus is the character of the Athenian people. Oedipus, in
his capacities and failings, his virtues and his defects, is a
microcosm of the people of Periclean Athens. That such a
generalized concept, the "Athenian character," was current
in the late fifth century is clear from the speeches in Thucy-
dides alone (especially the brilliant contrast between Athenian
and Spartan character made by the Corinthians in the first
book); and for an example of a national character portrayed
on the tragic stage we have only to look at Euripides' Andro-
viadie, where Menelaus is clearly a hostile portrait, verging
on caricature, of the worst aspects of the Spartan character as
seen by the Athenians in wartime.54 The character of Oedipus,
one of the most many-sided and fully developed in all of
Greek tragedy, bears a striking resemblance to the Athenian
character as we find it portrayed in the historians, dramatists,
and orators of the last years of the fifth century.
Oedipus' magnificent vigor and his faith in action are
markedly Athenian characteristics. "Athens," says Pericles,
" will be the envy of the man who has a will to action/' 55
and the boast is fully supported by Thucydides' breath-taking
summary of the activity of the " fifty years." And in the same
speech Pericles gives the highest praise to the kind of swift
resolute action which is typical of Oedipus: "those who in
the face of hostile circumstance are least adversely affected in
judgment and react most resolutely with action are the most
effective citizens and states." 56 The enemies of Athens, while
recognizing the existence of Athenian vigor, naturally take a
less favorable view of it. "Their idea of a holiday," say the
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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Corinthians, " is to do what is necessary," r'7 and this hostile

but admiring assessment of the Athenian genius ends with the
famous epigram : " They were born never to live in peace
themselves, and to prevent the rest of mankind from doing
so." 58 This is an apt description of Oedipus in the play: his
will to action never falters, and it forces Tiresias, Jocasta, and
the shepherd, in spite of their reluctance, to play their parts
in the dynamic movement towards the discovery of the truth
and the hero's fall.
This constant activity of the Athenians makes them, like
Oedipus, rich in experience, which is a source of pride to them,
of comfort to their friends and fear to their enemies. " Any
among you who are Athenians," says Nicias to his troops before
the final battle at Syracuse, " have already behind you the
experience of many wars." 59 It is to the well-known Athenian
experience in naval warfare that Phormio appeals in his speech
to his sailors before the brilliant naval victory in the Gulf of
Naupactus.60 Pausanias, at Plataea, called on the Athenians
to take the place opposite the Persian contingent, reminding
them that they alone among the Greeks had already faced
Persian infantry at Marathon : " you understand them . . .
we are inexperienced." 61 And the Corinthians, in their appeal
to Sparta to attack Athens, call for new attitudes, pointing to
the changes made by the Athenians " as a result of their great
experience." 62
Oedipus has magnificent courage, and Athenian courage was
the admiration, as well as the terror, of Greece. Every Athenian
speaker appeals to the tradition of Athenian bravery at Mara-
thon, Salamis, Plataea, and a score of other engagements. The
Athenians at Plataea, Herodotus tells us, claimed the left-wing
position from the Tegeans on the basis of this reputation for
courage : " it is our hereditary right to be always in the first
place."63 The courage Athens displayed in the Persian war

68
 CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

was in fact the cause of the general Greek fear of Athens; the
allies of Sparta, according to Thucydides, " feared the audacity
which they had displayed in the Persian war/' 64 The Spartans
feared it too; to this fear Thucydides attributes the Spartan
dismissal of the Athenian forces which they had called in to
besiege the helots on Mount Ithome—" fearing the audacity
and originality of the Athenians . . . they sent them away." e5
The Athenians of Pericles' time had not fallen short of this
tradition of courage. The Athenian sailors, says Thucydides
in his account of Phormio's naval victories, "had for a long
time held this estimate of themselves, that being Athenians,
they should not retreat before any superior number of Pelo-
ponnesian ships."60 " We have forced every sea and land
to open up a path to our courage," Pericles tells the Athenians
in the Funeral Speech, and, according to Thucydides, the
courage which after seventeen exhausting years of war inspired
the Athenian attack on Sicily was the wonder of her con-
temporaries.67 It was a constant feature of this courage that
it seemed to be out of proportion to Athenian strength. " Our
ancestors," says Pericles, " repelled the Persian with a courage
greater than their resources," and his proud phrase finds a
hostile echo in the Corinthian assessment of Athenian capa-
bilities—" they have courage out of proportion to their re-
sources." 68 Like Oedipus, they are most courageous when the
situation seems worst. " We displayed the most courageous
energy," say the Athenian envoys at Sparta (they are speaking
of Salamis), "based on a nonexistent city and running risks
for a future city which rested only on a slim hope." 69
The speed of decision and action which distinguishes Oedipus
is another well-known Athenian quality. "They are quick
to form a plan and to put their decision into practice," say
the Corinthians : " they are the only people who simultaneously
hope for and have what they plan, because of their quick

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

fulfilment of decisions." 70 Like Oedipus, they prefer to antici-

pate rather than react: "When the Athenians realized [that
Perdiccas was about to stir up a revolt in the North] they
resolved to forestall it," says Thucydides. Their action when
the revolt of Mitylene seemed imminent was similar—" they
wished to forestall them." 71 The speed of Athenian action
was time after time an unpleasant surprise for their enemies:
two famous examples are the building of the walls after the
Persian invasion and the building of the siege wall at Syracuse
which " astonished the Syracusans, so quickly was it built." 72
" So swiftly did they deal with the danger," says the author
of the Funeral Speech attributed to Lysias (he is speaking of
Marathon), " that the same messengers announced to the rest
of Greece both the arrival of the Persians and the victory of
our forefathers." 73
Like Oedipus, the Athenians, precisely because of their own
speed of decision and action, are impatient at the slowness of
others or events. " If they do not carry out a plan they have
formed, they consider themselves deprived of something they
actually had," say the Corinthians (Th. i. 70). Herodotus
tells the story of the oracle that came to the Athenians from
Delphi, bidding them set aside a precinct for Aeacus and wait
thirty years before beginning the war against Aegina about
which they had consulted the oracle. They set aside the
precinct for Aeacus, " but," says Herodotus, " they could not
bear to hear of waiting thirty years . . . They began preparations
for retaliation." 74
Oedipus' combination of swift action with careful reflection
is mirrored in the Athenian confidence in discussion as a
preparation for action, not, as happens with some people, a
deterrent to it. " We do not believe," says Pericles, " that
discussion is an impediment to action. We are unique in our
combination of most courageous action with rational discussion

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of our projects, whereas others are either overcourageous from

ignorance or made cautious by reasoning." 7δ
The intelligence in which Oedipus takes such pride is
another recognized Athenian characteristic. Herodotus, com-
menting on Pisistratus' return to power by means of a "silly
trick," professes astonishment that such things could have
happened in Athens, " among the Athenians, who are said
to be the first of the Greeks in wisdom." 76 The Athenian
orators refer to the Athenian role in the Persian wars in terms
not only of courage but also of intelligence. The Athenian
envoys at Sparta speak of " the energy and intelligence which
we displayed then," 77 and Pericles claims that the Persian
defeat was due to " intelligence rather than chance." 78 Of his
own generation he makes the famous boast that " we cultivate
the mind without loss of manliness," 79 and in his last speech
he tells the Athenians to rely on their intellectual superiority
to the enemy. " Meet your enemies not just with confidence
but with contempt. Confidence may spring simply from ignor-
ance which has been lucky, and may exist in a coward; con-
tempt is reserved for him who has faith in his intellectual
superiority to the enemy, and this is the case with us. Intelli-
gence strengthens the courage which is based on the evenness
of the chances, by adding contempt, and this intelligence trusts
not in hope, which is a source of strength in desperation, but
in a reasoned judgment of circumstances, which provides more
reliable foresight." 80
The magnificent self-confidence so typical of Oedipus is the
dominant note of the speeches which Thucydides attributes
to Pericles in the first two books of his history. The estimate
of Athenian and Spartan war potentials which Pericles presents
in his speech urging the rejection of the Spartan demands, as
well as the panegyric of the Athenian temper and institutions
in the Funeral Speech, are eloquent testimony to Athens'

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

unlimited confidence in its capacity to overcome all opposition

and all obstacles. Even in an Athens chastened by the plague
and the Peloponnesian invasions, Pericles can talk of Athenian
potentialities as unlimited : " The land and the sea are the two
elements which are useful to man, and of the sea you are
absolute masters, both as far as your empire extends and as
far as you wish to extend it/' S1 And of the Athenians who
fell in the first year of the war Pericles says : " they assigned
to hope the invisible chance of success, but in action, where
the issue was clearly seen, they thought it right to rely on
themselves."82 This confidence can lead the Athenians, as
it does Oedipus, to extravagant hopes. " When they profit
from an enterprise," say the Corinthians, " they think they have
gained little, compared to what is to come." 83 And, like those
of Oedipus, their hopes are strongest in the face of danger
and even of impending disaster. " In such a crisis as this,"
says Demosthenes on Sphacteria, addressing men who are about
to attack Spartan infantry on Spartan soil, "let none of you
try to get a reputation for intelligence by calculating the full
extent of the danger which surrounds us. Rather close with
the enemy in reckless hopefulness." 84 And Nicias, in even
more dangerous circumstances, before the last battle at Syra-
cuse, tells his troops: " Even in our present situation, we must
hope. Men have been saved before this from even more
terrible straits . . . My hope of the future remains confident." 85
" In terrible circumstances," say the Corinthians, " they are full
of good hope ";8e it reads like a comment on the hopeful out-
burst with which Oedipus follows Jocasta's agonized farewell.
Oedipus, speaking of the solution of the riddle of the Sphinx,
claims that he was the amateur (" the know-nothing Oedipus,"
397) who put the professional, Tiresias, to shame on his own
ground. This resembles one of the proud claims which Pericles
makes for the citizens of the Athenian democracy. " In military

7*
 CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

training our enemies pursue the goal of manliness by laborious

exercises begun in extreme youth, while we live a life free of
restraint and yet face just the same dangers as they do ...
We prefer to face danger taking things easily rather than
with laborious training, with a courage which comes more from
character than institutions." 87 This prized superiority of the
intelligent amateur was most highly developed in Themistocles,
the Thucydidean archetype of the Athenian democratic char-
acter at its best. " He was competent to form an adequate
judgment even in matters of which he had no experience. . . .
By native intelligence, without learning anything either before
or after the event, he was the most effective judge of the
immediate issue with the least deliberation." One is reminded
of the estimates of Oedipus' solution of the riddle, both that
of the priest—"knowing no more than us, not taught"—and
that of Oedipus himself—" finding the answer by intelligence,
not learning it from birds." 8S
The adaptability and versatility of Oedipus, his success in
imposing himself on unfamiliar surroundings even in disastrous
circumstances, all this is typically Athenian. " I sum it all
up," says Pericles, " by stating that the whole city is the school
of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian citizen addresses
himself to the most varied types of action as a self-sufficient
personality with the utmost versatility and charm."89 The
classic example of this adaptability is again Themistocles, who,
exiled from Athens and driven from Greece, took refuge at
Sardis. Like Oedipus at Thebes he was a foreigner (and a
hated one at that), but within a year he was in a position of
power. " He got as good a grasp of the Persian language as he
could," says Thucydides, "and also of the customs of the
country. He became a greater power with the king than any
Greek before him."90
Oedipus' devotion to the city is another Athenian trait. " I

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am a lover of the city/' says Pericles,91 and in the Funeral

Speech he calls on his fellow citizens to be lovers of the city
in stronger terms, using the word erastae, which suggests the
violent passion of the lover for the beloved.92 " In their city's
cause," say the Corinthians, " they use their bodies as if they
did not belong to them." 93
Oedipus' keen nose for a plot is so thoroughly Athenian that
the audience which saw the play may well have enjoyed the
development of his subtle suspicions.94 An attitude such as his
was justified in the light of Athenian political experience. The
democracy was menaced from the very first days of its existence
by oligarchical plotters who did not stop short of intelligence
with foreign or even enemy powers. The shield signal to the
Persian fleet after the Battle of Marathon (whoever was respon-
sible for it) was only the first of a long series of treacherous
maneuvers. A similar intrigue was being carried on before
the battle of Tanagra in 457 в. с. " Certain Athenians," says
Thucydides, "were secretly inviting the Spartans in, hoping
that they would put an end to the democratic régime. . . . The
Athenians had their suspicions that the democracy was to be
destroyed." 95 At the time of the Sicilian expedition the mutila-
tion of the Hermae was immediately taken as an indication of
conspiratorial action against the democracy; the Athenians
" reacted to everything with suspicion," their mood was " savage
and suspicious." 96 Pericles was well aware of the suspicious
nature of his fellow countrymen, and at the beginning of the
war he was afraid that if his own property was spared in the
Spartan devastation of Attica he would fall under suspicion
of collusion with the enemy; he therefore announced publicly
that if his lands were spared, he would give them to the state.97
Under the strain of war and the plague this all too ready
suspicion became an unhealthy obsession. "The man who
offers excellent advice is suspected of doing so for private

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profit," Diodotus complains in his speech against Cleon in

the debate over Mitylene; ". . . when a man makes what is
clearly a good contribution to public policy, his reward is a
suspicion that in some obscure way he is going to benefit from
it personally." 98
The particular type of plotting which Oedipus suspects—a
political conspiracy which uses religious pretexts and machinery
—can in fact be paralleled from Athenian history. " Isagoras,"
says Herodotus in his account of the early struggles of the
Athenian democracy, " defeated in his turn, replied with the
following device. He called in Cleomenes the Spartan. . . .
Cleomenes, at the suggestion of Isagoras, sent a herald to
require that Cleisthenes [the opponent of Isagoras] and a large
number of Athenians as well, whom he declared were under
a curse, should be expelled from Athens/' " The word which
Herodotus uses to characterize Cleomenes' " expulsion of the
accursed " is agelatein, " to drive out the defilement/* the same
word exactly that Oedipus uses to describe what he thinks is
the intention of Tiresias and Creon.100 And this " device " was
used again by the Spartans. Before the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War they demanded the expulsion of Pericles
from Athens on the same grounds.101
Oedipus' initial suspicion, which is the basis of the subsequent
explicit and circumstantial accusations against Tiresias and
Creon, springs from the belief that the murder of Laius would
never have been undertaken by a single man unless he had
the backing of conspirators in Thebes. " How could the brigand
have shown such audacity, unless there had been some negotia-
tions, and some money passed from here in Thebes? " (124-5).
So the chorus of Aristophanes' Wasps, keen-scented detectors
of plots, cannot believe that Bdelycleon, without some con-
spiratorial backing, would have kept his father from attending

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

court : " Never would the man have had the audacity to say
what he has said, unless there were some fellow conspirator/'102
The anger of Oedipus is easily recognizable as the terrible
swift anger of the Athenian people which Athenian politicians
had learned to fear. Herodotus' account of the stoning of
Lycidas (who proposed acceptance of the Persian overtures
to Athens before the battle of Plataea), and the murder of
his wife and children by the Athenian women, is a specimen
of the monstrous potentialities of Athenian anger.103 Pericles
knew this temper well. " I was expecting this angry reaction,"
he says to an assembly exasperated by the invasion and the
plague; " he wished," says Thucydides, " to reduce their angry
temper to a gentler frame of mind." 104 " Pericles was afraid,"
says the chorus of Aristophanes' Peace to the Athenian audi-
ence, " fearing your nature and your habit of biting once and
once only." 105 This anger raged against the suspected muti-
lators of the Hermae, and after the Sicilian disaster against
the oracle-mongers who had predicted success.106 Aristophanes
is never tired of ringing the changes on this theme; his Demos
(the Athenian people) in The Knights is described as " an
old man . . . with a rude anger . . . irritable," 107 and Aristo-
phanes refers often to an aspect of this Athenian anger which
directly concerns him, that of the theatrical audience, from
which, for example, the comic poet Crates suffered.108 The
Athenian jurors in The Wasps set off to the law court as if
to war " with three days' ration of vicious anger,"109 and
throughout the comedy they emphasize, as does Philocleon,
this characteristic of the Athenian jury. It was well known
in the law courts as well as in comedy, and there it was no
joke. The defendant in the case of the murder of Herodes
begs the jury to decide " without anger or prejudice." 110 " It
is impossible for an angry man to make a good decision. For
anger destroys man's judgment, the instrument of his délibéra-

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tion." This warning is no mere rhetorical commonplace, for

he has just reminded the court of the fate of the treasurers
of the Hellenic League, falsely accused of emblezzlement but
all (except one) condemned and summarily executed in a blaze
of anger. "Their death was due to your anger rather than
your judgment." llx
But the anger of the Athenians, like that of Oedipus, could
subside—sometimes, as in the case of the Mityleneans, in time
to avoid violent action which they would later have regretted,112
sometimes, as in the case of the victorious generals who failed
to pick up their shipwrecked sailors at Arginusae, too late to do
anything except punish those who had taken advantage of
their angry mood to push them to extremes.113

A constant will to action, grounded in experience, inspired

by courage, expressing itself in speed and impatience but
informed by intelligent reflection, endowed with the self-con-
fidence, optimism, and versatility of the brilliant amateur, and
marred by oversuspicion and occasional outbursts of demonic
anger—this is the character of Athens and Oedipus alike. Both
the virtues and the faults of Oedipus are those of Athenian
democracy. Oedipus son of Laius, a Theban mythical hero,
has been transformed into an Athenian and contemporary
figure. Not, however, a specific individual; the resemblances
that have been pointed out to Themistocles, to Pericles, to
Cleon are all minor facets of his resemblance to Athens itself,
in all its greatness, its power, its intelligence, and also its serious
defects. The audience which watched Oedipus in the theater
of Dionysus was watching itself.

77
 Ill
The character of the protagonist is, however, only one of the
factors which combine to create the contemporary, Athenian
atmosphere of the play. Another is the nature of one of the
principal modes of the action. The action of the play is a
characteristically Athenian process: it is a legal investigation,
the identification of a murderer. Oedipus himself is comparable
to Athens, the polis tyrannos, in all its political dynamism,
its intelligence, its will to power; his action is presented in
terms of the legal process, an aspect of civilized social organiza-
tion in which Athens was an example to all Greece and to
succeeding generations.
The proud Aeschylean claim that the civilized administration
of justice began on the Areopagus in Athens, under the patron-
age of Athena,114 is echoed by other voices, among them Aris-
totle,115 and Attic legal procedure had developed by the end
of the fifth century into the most advanced and progressive
code of law and procedure, the admiration of other cities, and,
for many of them, a paradeigma, a model and example.116 The
name of Athens, for the Greeks of the fifth century, was
inseparably associated with the legal institutions, and the
litigiousness, for which Athens was famous. "That's not
Athens," says Strepsiades in The Clouds of Aristophanes, when
shown his native city on a map; " I don't see any courts in
session." 117 " The Athenians," says the critical author of The
Constitution of Athens, a fifth-century antidemocratic pamph-
let, " sit in judgment on more legal actions, public and private,
more investigations, than all the rest of the human race put
together," 118 Athenian preoccupation with legal forms, as the
sarcastic tone of this comment indicates, was often carried to
excessive lengths, and the Aristophanic comedies show that the
Athenians were conscious of this failing, and, among them-

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selves, always willing to listen to a joke on the subject. But

they were none the less convinced of the superiority of their
institutions and the principles underlying them. The statement
made by the Athenian envoys at the first Peloponnesian con-
gress before the war makes no concession to criticism on this
point. " We are supposed to be lovers of litigation," they say,
" because in cases involving contractual relationships with the
allied cities of our empire we reduce ourselves to their level
and bring the case to judgment at Athens under laws before
which both parties are equal." 119 As they go on to point out,
the complaint that such cases are tried at Athens admits the
superior justice of Athenian rule, in that they are tried at
all : " this is not a reproach that is made against other imperial
powers, which are less moderate in their attitude to their
subjects/' There may be abuses of law in the Athenian system
of imperial administration, but there is at least law to abuse.
To the outsider Athens was a city of law courts; to the
Athenian citizen himself the legal process was a familiar part
of his daily life to an extent which we can hardly imagine.
The large juries and the long sessions, the frequency and
multiplicity of public and private legal action in every imagin-
able sphere, and above all the absence of a professional class
of lawyers and the consequent obligation to plead one's own
case in person made the Athenian citizen familiar with legal
procedure as a normal part of his existence as a citizen. Legal
technicalities were as familiar in his mouth as household words.
Almost every Athenian citizen would sooner or later serve on
a jury, and, very likely, plead before one; the legal context
was as native to the Athenian citizen as the political, and in
both he acted not through representatives but in person.
It is in this thoroughly and typically contemporary Athenian
atmosphere that Sophocles has set the action of the Oedipus
Tyrannus. The hunt for the murderer of Laius is presented

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

in terms of Attic private and public law. Once again the

language of the poet suggests that Oedipus is a contemporary
rather than a mythical figure.
The task which Oedipus undertakes at the suggestion of the
oracle—to find the murderer of Laius—is one which, in the legal
framework of Athenian democracy, would have involved both
private legal action (for in Attic law it was the individual,
not the state, which prosecuted for murder) and public,
politico-legal action (for the murdered man was king of Thebes,
and the oracular response makes clear not only that his mur-
derers were Thebans 12° but also that the preservation of the
city depends on their identification and punishment). Accord-
ingly the investigation of the murder of Laius is invested by
Sophocles with the current forms and formulas of both the
politico-legal and the private process.
When Creon tells Oedipus (ιοο-ι) that Apollo demands
action, in the form of banishment or death, against the mur-
derers to requite the "blood which brings storm and winter
on the city," Oedipus characterizes Apollo's statement and the
resultant situation with a word which transfers the action out
of the mythical and supernatural atmosphere springing from
the Apolline response into the contemporary and practical
context of Athenian politics and law. " Whose blood? " he
asks. " Whose mischance does he inform us of? " 121 " Inform "
(menyei) is a basic technicality of fifth-century law, and its
technical significance is strictly applicable to the situation pre-
sented in the opening scene of the play. An " information "
(menysis) was the name given to a denunciation made to the
Athenian assembly of past crimes which the informant con-
sidered worthy of investigation, but could not himself prosecute,
since he was not a citizen.122 On receipt of the " information "
the assembly would assess its validity, and if it was not dis-
missed as patently false would elect investigators (zêtêtat).
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 CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

These investigators would offer rewards for further information,

promise immunity to persons involved who were willing to
denounce their accomplices, and examine witnesses. If their
investigation produced a strong case against definite persons,
they would hand it over to the assembly or the courts of law
for further action.
In the Sophoclean play Apollo, a noncitizen, lays informa-
tion 123 against the murderers of Laius (that they are to be
found in Thebes) and demands their punishment, stating that
the unavenged murder of Laius is the cause of the plague.
Oedipus replies that the crime was committed so long ago that
no trace of the criminals can possibly be found, but Creon,
quoting Apollo, refutes this objection : " They are in this land,
he said. What is investigated can bring capture and convic-
tion [haloton]-, what is neglected allows escape and acquittal
[ekpheugei]." 124 The word translated " investigated " (zêtou-
menon) suggests the investigators (zetetaz) of Athenian pro-
cedure. Oedipus assumes their functions, and by further
questioning assesses the possibility of a successful outcome.
He learns that one eyewitness of the murder survived to report
it to the Thebans, and he leaps to the conclusion that the
murder was the fruit of a political intrigue which had its
roots in Thebes itself. This conclusion confirms the informa-
tion of Apollo that Thebes is the proper place to enquire and
also involves Oedipus personally in the search, for his own
power may be at stake. He assumes full responsibility. The
investigation is launched. " I shall start over again from the
beginning, and bring this matter to light " (132).
His first step is that of the Athenian investigating commis-
sion—he tries to gather new evidence by offering a reward, and,
to anyone who may himself be involved, comparative im-
munity.125 With the rewards he couples punishments, pro-
nouncing a sentence of excommunication from all normal civic

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and domestic functions on any Theban who withholds informa-

tion (236-40), a solemn curse on the actual murderer (246-
8),126 the same curse on himself if he should knowingly give
the murderer shelter and on all who refuse to cooperate with
his efforts to find the guilty man (269-72).
The situation, the measures taken, and the formulas used
are exactly paralleled in the investigation of the sacrilegious
actions of 415 в. с., as it is described in Thucydides, Andocides,
and Plutarch. " No one knew who had done it," says Thucy-
dides of the mutilation of the Hermae, " but the perpetrators
were searched for by means of public rewards for information,
and the assembly decreed that if anyone had knowledge of any
other act of impiety, he should volunteer information about
it without fear, whether he was a citizen, an alien, or a
slave."m Oedipus* activity and authority is like that of an
Athenian investigator;128 and the first step in the search for
new evidence is the calling of a witness, Tiresias the prophet.
The situation and action of the protagonist recalls the
politico-legal process of denunciation and investigation, but the
language of Sophocles also suggests a parallel to a purely legal
process, the prosecution for murder, dike fhonou. Such pro-
ceedings, in fifth-century Athens, could be set on foot only by
129
a relative (or by the owner) of the murdered person. This
fact gives an additional dimension to the passage (258-64) in
which Oedipus emphasizes his close connection with Laius:
·" as if he were my father," he concludes, " I shall fight on his
behalf, and go to every length in the investigation to catch
the man whose hand did the deed." It is as if Oedipus were
trying to establish a basis in relationship to ground his right
and duty to search for and prosecute the murderer of Laius.
The curse pronounced on the murderer and the proclamation
aimed at getting information correspond to the normal initial
measures against "a person or persons unknown" as far as

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we can reconstruct them from Athenian juridical literature.130

The next of kin made a proclamation by means of a herald,
announcing the circumstances of the murder and asking for
information. Such a procedure is described in detail in Plato's
Laws, and, although that work is not a safe authority for fifth-
century Attic legal procedure, the account given there is not
inconsistent with the scattered references to the fifth-century
process which are to be found in earlier literature. " If anyone
be found dead," says the Platonic law, "and the slayer be
unknown, and remain undiscoverable after careful search, there
shall be the same proclamations made as in other cases, and the
same interdict on the murderer. They shall proceed against
him, and announce by the agency of a herald in the market
place that the slayer of so-and-so has been convicted of murder
and shall not set foot in the temples nor anywhere in the
country of the murdered man." This is exactly the procedure
(except that Oedipus is his own herald) and these are exactly
the formulas of the opening scenes of the play.131 Oedipus'
curse on the murderer would remind the Athenian audience
also of the normal procedure in a prosecution for murder in
which the defendant was named; the accused was formally
interdicted by the magistrate presiding over the preliminary
trial from access to temples, sacrifices, prayers, and public
places.132
The chorus of Thebans feels confident that the terrible
imprecations of Oedipus will frighten the unknown criminal
into surrender or flight (294-5), though Oedipus does not
share their confidence. The arrival of Tiresias, the first witness,
is greeted by the chorus with enthusiasm—" here is the one
who will convict the criminal." 133 But when Oedipus' appeal
to the prophet is followed by Tiresias' disturbing regrets that
he has come, we find ourselves suddenly in a familiar ambience,
the examination of a reluctant witness. " How dispiritedly

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

you have come in," says Oedipus (319), and this word "come
in " (eiselelyihas) is the technical term for " coming in to
court." 134 Tiresias replies in similar language : " Send me
home" (aphes m, 320); the word he uses is the normal law-
court term for release, acquittal, and dismissal.135 Oedipus'
answer draws on the same source : " Your proposal is illegal "
(out' ennom eiyas, 322).136 Tiresias' repeated refusal to speak
provokes a veiled accusation of complicity—" You know, and
will not denounce? " 137 " Your questioning," Tiresias replies,
" is useless " (alias elencheis, 333). Oedipus, as his anger
mounts, now makes explicit the accusation he hinted at before:
he charges Tiresias with complicity in and responsibility for
the murder of Laius. The accusation is hurled back at him at
once, a common phenomenon in the Attic law court where it
was clearly a time-honored maxim that the best means of
defense is attack.138 But Oedipus sees more in it than a defen-
sive reaction. The pieces are beginning to fit together in his
swift and suspicious mind, and he now denounces Creon as the
real inspiration of Tiresias' charges. This is followed by a
passage typical of Athenian courtroom pleading. Oedipus con-
trasts the record of his own services to the city with that of
his adversary : at the moment of supreme crisis for Thebes, the
appearance of the Sphinx, Tiresias was silent; it was Oedipus
who saved the city.139
Tiresias' terrible reply (408-28) begins with a forensic claim
to an equal right to free speech : " you must make me your
equal in this at least, the chance to make an equal reply.140
For I too have power, in this respect." 141 He is no slave,
he asserts, nor an alien who must be registered as a dependent
of a free citizen—" I shall not be inscribed on the rolls as a
protégé of Creon" (Kreontos prostatou, 411)—but a citizen
who has the right to conduct his own defense. His defense,
as so often in Attic courts, is an attack. It is a prophecy of
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Oedipus' future blindness and fall, containing a series of hints

at the terrible truth of his identity. Yet even in the mantic
invective of the outraged seer the forensic tone can be heard.
When Tiresias asks Oedipus if he knows who his parents are
(415), we are reminded of the vituperation of the law court,
where one of the commonest weapons of both prosecution and
defense was a suggestion that the adversary was of low, illegiti-
mate, foreign, or even servile birth.142 The mysterious questions
of 420-1—"What shall not be a haven of your cries, what
Cithaeron not ring in echo? " 143—recall the indignant rhetorical
questions which are a recurrent formula of the forensic orator.
" What suit would they not bring to judgment, what court
would they not deceive . . . ?" asks Antiphon in the speech
For the Choreutes-, " What opinion do you think they would
have of him, or what kind of a vote would they give . . . ?"
asks Lysias in the speech against Agoratus.144 Tiresias con-
cludes by qualifying his opponent's speech as vulgar abuse
(propelakizein, 427), a regular device of the courtroom
145
orator. It provokes the standard reply: "Am I supposed
to tolerate this kind of thing from this man? " 14β Oedipus
angrily and insultingly orders Tiresias out, and the prophet's
reply contains a word that defines the relationship of the two
men and their situation : " I would not have come if you had
not called me." The word he uses ('feaZeis) is the normal
147
legal term for " calling " a witness.
When the chorus, in the second half of the following
stasimon, discuss the prophet's accusations, the legal process
advances to a further stage of development. Their delibera-
tions are phrased in terms appropriate for a board of judges
weighing the charge and countercharge of prosecutor and
148
defendant. They cannot decide between them—" I neither
affirm nor deny" (485). But a significant development has
taken place. Oedipus was the first accuser, yet the chorus

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

considers him, not Tiresias, as the accused : they do not mention

Oedipus' charges against Tiresias, but are concerned only to
examine Tiresias' accusations against Oedipus. The action
is moving towards a reversal; in terms of the legal mode of the
action, the investigator and accuser has become the defendant.
The chorus searches for, and fails to find, a motive that
would makes accusation against Oedipus plausible. " What
quarrel was there between the son of Labdacus [Laius] and
the son of Polybus [Oedipus]? I never learned of one in time
past, nor do I know of one now " (489-93). This is of course the
stuff of which murder trials are made; the prosecutor seeks
to prove and the defendant to deny enmity between the victim
and the accused. " What, according to them, was my motive
for killing Herodes? " asks the defendant in Antiphon's famous
speech. " There was not a trace of enmity between us." 149
The chorus can find no motive to buttress the charge; its
authority must rest solely on Tiresias' credibility as a prophet.
They are willing to believe that Zeus and Apollo know the
truth (498-500), but Tiresias, though a prophet, is only a
man, and between his word and another man's there is " no
true judgment" (501 ).150 Against Tiresias' word must be
set Oedipus' record; he was tested, and seen to be wise, and
the city's delight (509-10).151 "Therefore he shall never in
my mind incur the charge of baseness/' The chorus speaks
like a board of Athenian judges; it reviews the evidence so far
presented and rejects the case against Oedipus. But it is
significant that they consider Oedipus the defendant; the
accuser is now the accused.
But Oedipus has directed his accusations against a fresh
target; Tiresias, he claims, is only the mouthpiece of Creon.
And Creon comes on stage ready to deny the charge. " Fellow
citizens, I hear that Oedipus makes dreadful accusations against
me . . . 1 5 2 I am here to refute them. If he believes that I

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have injured him in word or deed . . . I have no desire to live

out the rest of my life, subject to such a reputation " (513-19).
This is the familiar tone of indignation, the introductory cliché
of the Athenian defendant in all his injured innocence. " If
anyone," says Aeschines," either of the spectators here . . .
or of the judges, is convinced that I have done anything of
the sort, I consider the rest of my life not worth living." 153
Creon's exploratory dialogue with the chorus is interrupted
by the entry of Oedipus, who savagely denounces Creon as a
traitor and attempted murderer. " Have you so bold a face as
to come here . . . you who are so plainly proved my murderer? "
(532-4). Both the indignant protest against the opponent's
boldness in appearing to argue his case and the illogical use
of the word " murderer " are commonplaces of the Athenian
courtroom. " I am astonished at my brother's boldness," says
the prosecutor in Antiphon's speech Against the Stepmother
for Poisoning.1™ " By these actions," says Demosthenes in the
speech against Meidias, " he has become, in my opinion, my
murderer." " They are planning my death by unjust means,
upsetting the laws, and becoming my murderers," says the
defendant in one of the forensic tetralogies of Antiphon, and
his opponent replies with a hit at the rhetorical exaggeration of
the cliché—" Alive and with his eyes open he calls us his
murderers." 155
In the heated exchange which follows this outburst, Oedipus
questions Creon, and uses the answers to the questions to
attack Tiresias on a new ground—that he did not accuse
Oedipus when the initial investigation was made. Such a
delay in prosecuting was always used to good advantage by the
defense in an Athenian court;156 in this case the inference
is clear—it is a trumped-up charge and Creon is behind it.
Creon in his turn asks permission to question Oedipus, and
is told to go ahead. " Find out what you want. For I shall

s?
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

never be convicted as the murderer."157 Creon's questions

lead up to his famous speech in his own defense, a master-
piece of the new sophistic rhetoric; it employs the argument
from motive (probability), or rather, in this case, from lack
of motive. This was the most widely used forensic weapon of
the period. Antiphon's Tetralogies, a sort of textbook for
aspiring legal speakers, is a collection of ingenious arguments
for and against hypothetical accusations, all based on the canon
of probability. It is a remarkable coincidence that the only
surviving fragment of Antiphon's great (though unsuccessful)
speech in his own defense against the charge of treason 158
presents an argument exactly parallel to Creon's in the play.
After dismissing many motives that might be thought to make
plausible the charge of antidemocratic activity, Antiphon pro-
ceeds as follows:
My accusers state that my profession was the writing
of speeches for persons involved in lawsuits, and that
the Four Hundred profited from my activities. But is it
not true that under an oligarchic regime I could not
exercise my profession, while under the democracy I am
a power in the city, even as a private individual? That
under an oligarchy my powers as a speaker would be as
worthless as they are valuable under a democracy? Tell
me, what probability is there in the idea that I would
long for oligarchy? Do you think I could not figure this
out for myself? Am I the only man in Athens who cannot
see what is profitable for him? 159
This is exactly the tone and import of Creon's argument:
the down-to-earth sensible appeal of one man of the world to
another—" I am not so deceived as to want anything but what
is proper—and profitable " (ta syn kerdei kola, 595); the
emphasis on the speaker's material reasons for satisfaction with

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the existing regime—" Now I am hailed by everyone, everyone

salutes me, the men who need something from you flatter me "
(596-7); and on the disadvantages he would experience if
the régime were changed—" If I were ruler I would have to
do many things against my will " (591).
After rejecting Oedipus' accusation as unreasonable because
of its psychological improbability, Creon offers something more
substantial. " As a test of my statements [tond' elenchon, 603]
go to Pytho and enquire what the oracle said, to see if I
delivered an exact account/' 16° This appeal to objective evi-
dence corresponds to the calling of witnesses in an Attic law
case; Creon is in a sense calling on Apollo as a witness to
his honesty. The conclusion of his speech is a miniature
anthology of the clichés with which the Athenian defendant
customarily padded his final appeal to the judges. " If you
prove me guilty of conspiracy with the seer, kill me, and not
by a single vote, but a double one, yours and mine "—so runs
the beginning of Creon's appeal; " if I have acted impiously,
kill me," says Andocides in his speech On the Mysteries.161
" You will know the truth in time without fail, for time alone
shows who is the just man," is Creon's last sentence; " Make
a concession to time, with the help of which those who seek the
truth of the event most successfully find it," says Antiphon in
the speech on the murder of Herodes.162
Though the chorus approves Creon's speech and advises
caution, Oedipus replies with vigorous counteraction. In a
blaze of anger characteristic of Athenian assembly and law
court alike he passes sentence—death. Jocasta's arrival inter-
rupts the passionate argument which follows, and she and the
chorus now combine in urging Oedipus to absolve Creon. It
is to her that both parties in the argument address their pleas,
as if she were a judge. " Sister, your husband Oedipus thinks
it just [dikaioi, 640] to take terrible action against me . . ."

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says Creon, and Oedipus explains his reason : " I have caught
him acting evilly against my person, with evil skill " (sun
technêi kakêi, 643). This phrase is a legal technicality of the
fourth-century courtroom, and its use as a technical term almost
certainly dates back to the fifth century.163 As a legal term
(kakotechnia*) it means " to suborn perjury," and this is
precisely the nature of Oedipus' accusation against Creon, that
he is using Tiresias to bear false witness.164
Creon swears a solemn oath protesting his innocence and
placing himself under a curse if he is lying. Jocasta and the
chorus both urge Oedipus to respect the oath. " Do not," says
the chorus, " subject to accusation and dishonor on the basis of
obscure hearsay evidence [aphanei logôi, 657] a friend who
has put himself on oath." " You seek to destroy me," says the
defendant in the case of the murder of Herodes to his accusers,
" by means of obscure hearsay evidence " (aphanei /ogoi).165
Oedipus yields and reprieves Creon, not, as he says, because
of any pity for Creon himself, but because he is moved to com-
passion by the pleas of the chorus. " It is your words, not his,
that move me to pity and compassion . . ." (671). This is
the atmosphere of the law court again: it is a weary common-
place of Attic forensic oratory to appeal to the mercy of the
judges, or, in the case of the prosecutor, to attempt to under-
mine their pity for the defendant. " If they start lamenting,"
says Demosthenes, for the prosecution, " just consider the
victim more to be pitied than those who are going to be
punished." 166 The defendant, with the famous exception of
Socrates, never omits this appeal, no matter how strong his
case, and the appeal is often couched in maudlin terms that
explain why Socrates refused to demean himself by making it
—" take pity on my misfortunes," " have pity on my child." 167
The trial of Creon ends, if not with an acquittal at least
with a reprieve, but Oedipus is still the accused. " He says I

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am the murderer of Laius," he tells Jocasta (703). When

Jocasta discovers that the basis of the accusation is a declaration
by Tiresias, she dismisses the charge. For she can prove the
general unreliability of all prophets. " Acquit yourself of this
charge you mention " (яр/zeis seauton, 707), is the opening
line of her speech, which is intended to release Oedipus from
anxiety. Before she reaches the end of it, Oedipus is a fright-
ened man. She has mentioned, almost casually, a detail full
of terrible significance, the fact that Laius was killed at place
where three roads meet. In a series of swift questions Oedipus
establishes, with legal precision, the place and time of Laius'
murder, the age and description of the victim, and the number
in his party.168 Jocasta's answers tally exactly with the circum-
stances of his own bloody encounter at the crossroads. "O
Zeus, what have you planned to do to me? "
" What is this matter that so haunts you? " (^enthymion,
739)7 asks Jocasta. This word is pregnant with sinister mean-
ing. It is a word characteristic of the fifth-century murder
trial, and describes the mental disturbance which the revenge-
ful spirit of the murdered man is supposed to produce in his
murderer. " If you unjustly acquit the defendant," says the
prosecution in the first tetralogy of Antiphon, to the judges,
" it is not on us that the wrath of the murderer will fall, it
is rather you who will be haunted." And in the second
tetralogy the defense uses the same argument in reverse : " if
my son, who is innocent, is put to death, those who have con-
demned him will be haunted." 169 The word which Sophocles
puts into Jocasta's mouth is a fine example of poetic economy;
it is appropriate in the sense in which she intends it, but points
ironically to the real situation of Oedipus, of which she is
ignorant.
The intervention of Jocasta shifts the emphasis from Tiresias
to a new witness whose veracity cannot be impugned by attacks

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 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

on prophecy, for he is no prophet but a servant of Jocasta's

household and, at the moment, a shepherd. He is an eye-
witness of the murder of Laius. Oedipus insists that he be
sent for at once, and then, at Jocasta's prompting, gives his
account of the affair at the crossroads and of the events which
had brought him there. He begins at the beginning: "My
father was Polybus of Corinth, my mother Merope, a Dorian "
(774-5). The fullness of his account has often been censured
as dramatically implausible, for Jocasta, though it is conceivable
that she does not know of Oedipus' fight at the crossroads or
the oracular response (one can well imagine that Oedipus
suppressed and even tried to forget these uncomfortable facts),
surely knows the identity of Oedipus' supposed parents. This
implausibility is to some extent relieved by the fact that the
formality and abruptness of this beginning recall the court-
room speech, especially that section of it which comes after
the introduction and aims to present the relevant facts, tracing
them from the beginning. Thus Lysias, in the great speech
against Eratosthenes, makes his introduction and then goes
right back to the beginning of the affair, his father's decision
to emigrate from Syracuse to Athens. " My father Cephalus
was persuaded by Pericles to come to this country, and lived
here thirty years." 17° " Diodotus and Diogeiton, gentlemen of
the jury, were brothers, born of the same father and mother,"
says the prosecutor of Diogeiton in the speech Lysias wrote
for him (xxxii. 4). And Demosthenes' client, Euxitheus, who
is pleading to retain his citizenship, goes even further back:
" My grandfather, men of Athens, the father of my mother,
was Demostratus of Melite." 171
The opening of Oedipus' narrative, after his preliminary
address to Jocasta, reminds us once again of the atmosphere of
the court of law. But in ironic circumstances, for Oedipus'
speech is a self-indictment. He presents the killing of the man

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he now fears was Laius as self-defense, but nevertheless, if

it was in fact Laius, Oedipus is excommunicated by his own
curse and banished from Thebes by his own sentence. And
he cannot return to Corinth, for fear of the oracle: "Nor
can I set foot in my fatherland " (825); the word he uses
{embateusaï) is another legal term, its technical significance
in Attic law is " to enter into possession of a father's estate." 172
Oedipus cannot take up his inheritance in Corinth, and now
stands to lose what he has won by his own efforts in Thebes.
" Would not one who judged that this is inflicted on me by
some cruel power be right in his estimate? " he asks bitterly
(828-9). Even here there is an echo of the court of law, for
ômos (cruel) is the word customarily used by the defense to
describe a demanding and savage prosecutor. Demosthenes, for
example, in the speech against Aristogeiton, refers to the
prosecutor's " cruel and bitter attitude," " his bitterness, blood-
thirstiness, and cruelty." 173
The prosecutor is cruel, but the evidence is contradictory,
or at least incomplete. There is a discrepancy between Jocasta's
account of the murder of Laius by brigands, and Oedipus'
knowledge that at the crossroads he was alone. The testimony
of the eyewitness is now vital. Jocasta does not see the need
to question him. " Let me assure you that this was the public
version of his story, and he cannot retract it now." 174 But
Oedipus insists, and Jocasta finally agrees to summon the
witness.
The famous choral stasimon which follows is a commentary
on the situation and conduct of Oedipus and Jocasta in political,
ethical, and religious terms. But also in terms of the law. The
chorus appeals from the laws of man to higher laws "whose
father is Olympus alone—no mortal man gave them birth, nor
does forgetfulness lull them to sleep. In these laws the god
is great, and he does not grow old " (867-72). This appeal to

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

a higher law is dictated by the revelations of the preceding

scene. Jocasta has been revealed as privy to, if not responsible
for, the death of a royal infant, her son by Laius, and Oedipus
is now seen to be responsible for the deaths of four (or as he
thinks, five) men, one of whom was very likely his predecessor
Laius. Whatever may be the extenuating circumstances in
either case, according to the normal fifth-century conception
of responsibility for the taking of life Oedipus is certainly (and
Jocasta possibly) polluted, impure. That is why the chorus
prays for hagneia (864), " purity, holiness," in word and deed.
This word occurs frequently in the speeches of Antiphon which
deal with murder cases; not only is the killer impure (what-
ever his motive and the circumstances may have been) but
he makes the whole community which shelters him as impure
as he is. " It is contrary to your interests," runs a typical
variation on this theme, " that this despicable and impure
wretch should pollute the purity of the divine precincts by
entering them." 175
The appeal to divine law is prompted also by the fact that
human law seems to have failed. Both the exposure of Laius*
child and the killing at the crossroads happened long ago, but
no human authority has intervened or punished. The laws of
man have grown old and powerless, they have been deceived
and are forgetful. But the divine law cannot be put to sleep
or deceived, and the god does not grow old. Oedipus and
Jocasta "walk proudly in word and deed, with no fear of
Justice " (dikes, 885)—the word means also judgment, trial,
and penalty. They scorn prophecy and therefore Apollo. The
chorus appeals to a higher authority, to Zeus, as supreme judge.
" You who are in power, if you are rightly so addressed, Zeus,
let not these things escape the notice of your everlasting rule "
(me lathoi, 904). This word lathoi is a commonplace of the
prosecutor's appeal to the judges. " Let it not escape your

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 CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

notice," say Demosthenes in a typical passage, " that he is

lying." 176
This stasimon marks a further development in the attitude
of the chorus. After the argument between Oedipus and
Tiresias the chorus spoke like a judge, but it speaks now like
a prosecutor before a supreme tribunal, appealing for a con-
demnation as the only possible vindication of that tribunal's
authority. " Unless these oracles are reconciled with fact, so
that all mortal men point the finger at them,177 I shall no
longer go in reverence to the untouchable center of the
earth." 178
Before the eyewitness can be brought into court, the whole
direction of the enquiry, and with it the bearing of his testi-
mony, is changed. The Corinthian messenger reveals that
Oedipus is not the son of Polybus and Merope; he is of Theban
origin. Jocasta realizes what this means, and rushes off to
hang herself, but Oedipus, full of an irrational hope (which
the chorus shares), determines to question the shepherd, who
is now a witness to Oedipus' identity as well as Laius' murder.
The examination of this witness is conducted in unmistakably
legal forms.179 The witness' identity is established by an appeal
to the chorus and to the Corinthian messenger (1115-20). He
is then invited to confirm it. " You, old man, look here at me,
and answer my questions "(1121-2). So Socrates crossquestions
Meletus: "Look at me, Meletus, and tell me . . ." 18° The
question and the answer resemble the semiformal steps of the
erôtêsis, the questioning of witnesses,181 as it is preserved in
a few passages of the Attic orators. " Were you one of Laius'
household? " " I was." So Andocides in his speech On the
Mysteries: "Were you one of the board of investigators?"
" I was." And Lysias questions Eratosthenes : " Were you in
the council chamber? " " I was." 182
But the witness' memory is at fault, and he has to be

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

prompted. " I will remind him," says the Corinthian messenger

(ii33).183 The shepherd is reluctant to admit his former
acquaintance with the Corinthian, and when he is asked about
a child which he once gave to his insistent questioner, he
professes complete bewilderment. The Corinthian condescend-
ingly points out to the apparently stupid old man the import-
ance of the evidence he is withholding. " This man here, my
dear sir [o tan], is the child who was then so young" (1145).
This complacent о tan—" my dear sir, my good man "—is a
characteristic colloquial phrase of the Athenian orator. In
Demosthenes it is often put in the mouth of an imaginary
objector to the speaker's argument, who is himself ignorant,
and is confuted by the speaker's reply—a straw man, in fact.
In the first speech against Aristogeiton, for example, Demos-
thenes, after building up the case against his target, deals
with the grounds on which he can be expected to plead for
clemency, putting these grounds into the mouth of an
imaginary friend of the accused.

" What can he say that is true? " " He can cite some
action of his father's, by Zeus." " But, gentlemen of the
jury, you condemned his father to death in this very
courtroom." . . . " Well, by Zeus, if this matter of his
father is difficult for him, he will have recourse to his
own life, so self-controlled and moderate." "What?
Where did he lead that kind of life? You have all seen
him; he is not that kind of man." " But, my dear sir
[o tan] he will turn to his services to the state." [And
now follows the body blow.] " Services? When and
where? His father's? Nonexistent. His own? You will
184
find denunciations, arrests, informing—but no services."

The use of this condescending phrase by the Corinthian

messenger suggests an ironic effect. He, not the shepherd, is

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the ignorant man, and his condescension could be knocked out

of him with a single word—but it is a word the shepherd would
prefer not to pronounce. " Damn you/' he bursts out instead,
"will you keep your mouth shut?" (1146). Oedipus quickly
reproves this recalcitrant and offensive witness. " Do not
correct him; your words need a corrector more than his"
(1147-8). But the word which Oedipus uses (kolazein) is
stronger than the context warrants; it is in fact the legal term
for punishment. " It is possible to punish [kolazein] by means
of fines, imprisonment, and death," says the accuser of Alcibi-
ades, and Plato, speaking of incorrigible criminals, says, " In
such cases we are forced to assign to the lawgiver, as a corrector
[kolastên] of their misdeeds, death." 185 This threat of punish-
ment is made more explicit a few lines later. " If you will not
speak to please me, you will do it in tears " says Odeipus
(1152), and the shepherd understands the import of these
words. "Do not torture me, I am an old man" (1153). But
tortured he is. " Somebody twist his arms behind him. Quick "
(1154). And the old man at last answers Oedipus' questions
under the imminent threat and the physical preliminaries of
torture.
But this is Attic legal procedure too. The evidence of a
slave (and the shepherd so identifies himself at the beginning
of the scene, 1123) was admissible in the Attic courts only if
given under torture.186 In most cases, our evidence seems to
show, this torture was not administered but was rather a
measure which allowed complicated maneuvering—demands
and counterdemands for the torture of slaves which served
simply as preliminary points that prosecution and defense might
score off each other. But sometimes it was administered: the
evidence in the case of the murder of Herodes, for example,
was mainly extracted by the prosecution before the trial began
from slaves under torture.

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

It was a commonplace of the defense against such evidence

that the tortured slave naturally made the confession which
his torturers wanted to hear. " I need not remind you/' says
the defendant accused of the murder of Herodes, " that
generally, in the case of evidence given under torture, the
evidence is in favor of the torturers." " He knew what his
own interest was," says the same defendant, speaking of a
slave tortured by the prosecution; "he knew that he would
cease to be racked as soon as he said what they wanted to
hear." 187 But in the case of Oedipus the normal situation
appears in reverse. Oedipus forces the slave, reluctant even
under torture, to confess the truth that will reveal the torturer
as the criminal. " I am faced with the dreadful thing itself,
I must say it," says the old man (1169). "And I," replies
Oedipus, " must hear it." The final revelation is extracted from
the shepherd by the last extremity of the the legal process,
but the torturer suffers more than his victim. " I am exposed
[pephasmai—another legal term], born of the wrong parents,
married to the wrong wife, killer of the man I must not kill."
The choral stasimon sums up the case of Oedipus. " Time
which sees all things has found you out—it gives judgment
on the unnatural marriage which is both begetter and begot." 18S
The investigator has found the criminal, the prosecutor
obtained a conviction, and the judge passed sentence, but, like
the marriage, the legal process is both begetter and begot.
Oedipus finds himself, convicts himself, and, in his last words
before he rushes into the palace, passes sentence on himself.
" Light, let this be the last time I look on you." His convic-
tion is, as the chorus says, an example, paradeigma, the example
which the Athenian prosecutor calls for in speech after
speech;189 Oedipus is an example to all men.

98
 IV
Oedipus tyrannos, then, is more than an individual tragic hero.
In his title, tyrannos, in the nature and basis of his power, in
his character, and in the mode of his dramatic action, he
resembles Athens, the city which aimed to become (and was
already far along the road to becoming) the tyrannos of Greece,
the rich and splendid autocrat of the whole Hellenic world.
Such a resemblance, whether consciously recognized or not,
must have won him the sympathy of the Athenian audience
and firmly engaged the emotions of that audience in the hero's
action and suffering. But it does something more. It adds an
extra dimension of significance not only to his career but also,
to his fall, which suggests, in symbolic, prophetic, riddling
terms, the fall of Athens itself. Like Oedipus, Athens justifies
unceasing and ever more vigorous action by an appeal to
previous success; like Oedipus, Athens refuses to halt, to
compromise, to turn back; like Oedipus, Athens follows the
dictates of her energy and intelligence with supreme confidence
in the future; and like Oedipus, the tragedy seems to suggest,
Athens will come to know defeat, learn to say " I must obey "
as she now says " I must rule/' Athens, in the words of her
greatest statesman, claimed that she was an example to others,
paradeigma-, Oedipus is called an example too, but in his fall.
" Taking your fortune as my example [paradeigma]" sings the
chorus, " I call no mortal happy." 19°
This resemblance between Oedipus and Athens suggests a
solution of the chief problem of interpretation presented by
the play—the meaning and application of the magnificent
central stasimon (863-911). The problem lies in the fact that
this stasimon, which for over half its length deals, in general
terms, with the origin, nature, and fall of the tyrannos, contains
some phrases which can be made applicable to Oedipus only

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with great ingenuity (which has of course not been lacking),

and others which, to quote Bruhn, " no technique of interpre-
tation in the world can make applicable to Oedipus and
Jocasta." These lines constitute for the editor or critic of the
play a problem which is central, for his solution either deter-
mines or is determined by his interpretation of the play as a
whole.
Many solutions have been proposed. For those who consider
Oedipus an ethical example whose fall is due to a fault, these
condemnatory phrases, though perhaps verging on the irrele-
vant, are confirmatory evidence of the Tightness of their assump-
tion of Oedipus' guilt. Those who consider that Oedipus is
not, in ethical terms, paying the penalty of his own misdeeds
or wrong attitude, have a more difficult task before them. Sir
John Sheppard, whose edition of the play is a pioneering
attempt to understand the play in fifth-century terms, explains
these awkward phrases as part of the general moral and literary
estimate of the tyrannos. Oedipus may not have done what
the chorus implies, but the stereotype of the tyrannos as the
completely lawless ruler is so influential in the fifth-century
mind that these reflections are, in the circumstances, almost
inevitable. This explanation, maintained with a wealth of
illuminating citation and judicial comment, is, however, funda-
mentally a desperate one; it is precisely the mark of a great
poet that he is the master, not the slave, of the tradition in
which he works. More recently a brilliant and at first sight
convincing explanation has been offered by the Spanish scholar
Ignacio Errandonea in his monograph " El estasimo segundo del
Edipo Key." 191 He suggests that the person referred to in the
central section of the stasimon is not Oedipus at all, but his
father Laius. The language employed by Sophocles (especially
the phrases " make profit " and " touch the untouchable ")
is shown to be exactly appropriate for the unsavory story of

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Laius and Chrysippus. This explanation has the great merit

of giving clear and relevant point to the lines in question,
but it does so at a disastrous cost. For if the stasimon refers
to Laius, the effect is to suggest strongly that Oedipus is paying
for the sins of his father.192 This was the standard version
of the story, the version used by Aeschylus; but Sophocles,
in the Oedipus Tyrannus, resolutely ignores this traditional
burden of the myth. In the Aeschylean trilogy Laius is ordered
three times by Apollo not to beget children, and disobeys;
in the Sophoclean play " an oracle came to Laius once . . .
that he should die at the hands of his son." At point after
point Sophocles remains silent on the question of Laius' respon-
sibility, a silence all the more noticeable and emphatic because
he was addressing an audience familiar with the Aeschylean
handling of the material. If this central stasimon is interpreted
as a reference to the sins of Laius, all that has been achieved
by the explanation is the replacement of a coherent play which
contains a few puzzling choral lines by a coherent choral ode
which is set in the center of an utterly baffling play.
The solution of the problem which has been generally
accepted is that these lines are in fact extraneous and refer
to Athens, not Oedipus. It is generally assumed that Sophocles,
in these two lines at least (889-90), if not in the whole of
the stasimon, is speaking directly to the Athenians, in a sort
of tragic parabasis, about Athens, and that Oedipus is, for the
moment, ignored. The rent in the dramatic texture is accepted
as a deplorable but undeniable fact, and discussion is confined
(if that be the proper word in view of the voluminous literature
on the subject) to a dispute about the aspects of Athenian
policy which are here referred to—a dispute all the more heated
because for most critics these lines constitute the main evidence
for dating the play.
But if Oedipus is throughout the play, by one detail after

ιοί
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

another, built up into a figure which suggests Athens, the rent

in the dramatic texture, though it may still be felt to leave
a scar, is effectively healed. The stasimon is an estimate of
the origin, nature, and inevitable fall of the tyrannos; by the
time the chorus sings its solemn opening lines the resemblance
between Oedipus and Athens is clearly and firmly enough
established for the poet to speak of them as one and the same.
As the chorus appeals over the laws of man to the justice of
a supreme tribunal, Oedipus tyrannos and the Athenian
tyrannis are so closely associated in the poet's mind and lan-
guage that he can attribute to Oedipus faults which are not
to be found in the hero of the play but in the actions of the
city of which he is the dramatic symbol.
Just as Oedipus, who pursues a murderer according to the
processes of law, is himself a murderer, but goes unpunished,
so Athens, the original home and the most advanced center of
the law, rules with a power based on injustice and is beyond
the reach of human law. As the fury and passion of the war
spirit mounted, the actions of Athens became more overtly
violent and unjust; the contradiction between the laws of the
city and a higher law beyond the one man has made, a contra-
diction already explored in the Sophoclean Antigone, became
more open, insistent, and oppressive. The appeal of the chorus
of the Oedipus Tyrannus to laws " whose father is Olympus
alone " which cannot " be deceived, forget, or sleep " is, like
the Antigone, a reminder that there are standards beyond those
of the polis, that Athens, righteous in its own eyes and vindi-
cated in its own courts, may yet have to face a higher, and
impartial, judge.
" Hybris phyteuei tyrannon. Violence and pride engender
the tyrannos!' That the Athenian tyrannis was based on
violence no one could deny; Sophocles himself had taken part
in a war against Samos, an allied city which had tried to secede

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from the Athenian empire. The language which follows is

highly metaphorical and the text, unfortunately, corrupt; it
seems however to present the fate of this violence and pride
in the figure of a wrestler, who, recklessly gorging himself on
improper food, goes to the decisive contest and is defeated.
" Hybris, if it wantonly gorges itself 193> on many things that are
neither suitable nor to its advantage, goes up to the highest
ramparts, and leaps into sheer necessity, where it finds the
use of its foot of no avail. But that wrestling hold which is
good for the city I pray the god never to loose. The god I
shall not cease ever to hold as my champion " (873-82).
This is a figurative discussion of the dynamics of Athenian
imperial policy. It does not reject action entirely; the god
is asked to acquiesce in, not to loose, " the wrestling hold which
is good for the city." But it predicts defeat for action inspired
by drunken pride, and, faced with such action, the chorus
turns from human to divine guidance; prostatên (" champion ")
is a word which describes the unofficial position of leadership
occupied by the statesman who in Athens directed policy, and
was applied to Pericles and Cleon alike.194
In the next strophe the misdeeds of hybris are defined, and
it is in this passage that the language can apply fully to
Oedipus only in the light of his comparison to the po/is
tyrannos. " But if one goes on his way 195 contemptuous in
action and speech, unterrified of Justice, without reverence for
the statues of the gods, may an evil destiny seize him, in return
for his ill-fated pride and luxury " (883-8). The word trans-
lated " pride and luxury " (Midas*) calls to mind the wealth
and comparatively high standard of living made possible by the
Athenian commercial supremacy, as well as the wealth which
Oedipus associates with tyrannis (380); the reference to the
" statues of the gods " may in a strained sense be appropriate
for the irreligious sentiments expressed by Oedipus and Jocasta,

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

but it is exactly applicable in a more literal fashion to a cause

célèbre of the immediate prewar years—the impeachment of
Phidias for dishonesty and sacrilegious conduct in connection
with his famous statue of Athena. The action against Phidias
was aimed at Pericles, the leader of the Athenian imperial
party; he was the man whose portrait Phidias was alleged to
have carved on the goddess* shield. The contemporary refer-
ence of these phrases is made clearer as the stasimon proceeds.
" If he will not gain his profit justly, and refrain from impious
actions, or if he recklessly lay hands on the untouchable, what
man in such circumstances will be able to ward off the god's
missiles and defend his life? " (889-95). There is nothing
in the play which makes the remark about profit fit Oedipus,
but Athens maintained its power on the forced tribute of the
members of what had once been the Delian League and was
now the Athenian empire. The money collected was used for
the embellishment of Athens and the maintenance of the fleet
which guaranteed continued collection; a large sum had been
converted into gold to adorn the Phidian statue of Athena in
the Parthenon. It was an openly avowed intention of Pericles
to use this gold on the goddess* statue for war purposes in case
of emergency. The money which was in the first place unjust
profit had been devoted to the adornment of the statue of the
goddess; to take it from the temple might well be regarded
by many religious Athenians as an impious act which would
"lay hold on the untouchable." This is a detail (though it
is one which seems to fit the terms of the chorus* formulation);
the truth is that imperial Athens, both Periclean and post-
Periclean, had in more ways than one shown an overriding
contempt for religious scruples of all kinds.
In these lines the terrible implications of the resemblance
between Oedipus and Athens are made clear; the words of
the chorus are a warning and a prophecy of Athenian defeat.

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That Sophocles at an early stage in the war could contemplate

the possibility of defeat should not seem surprising; the elabora-
tion and energy of the Periclean arguments for confidence
in victory suggest that there was an important section of the
Athenian population which was far from taking it for granted
that Athens was bound to win. Even Pericles, the architect
of the war policy and the constant prophet of eventual victory,
could admit, in the speech after the plague, the possibility
that Athens might lose. " Even if we should ever in the present
struggle be forced to give in (for all things are born to be
diminished) yet the memory will live that being Greeks we
ruled over the greater part of the Greek nation, that we sus-
tained the burden of wars against our enemies both as indi-
viduals and as members of a united league, and that we
inhabited a city that was in all respects the greatest and richest
of its time." 196 The words which Thucydides puts into the
mouth of Athens' most farseeing statesman contemplate the
possibility of defeat in the language of the tragic vision : " all
things are born to be diminished," the heroic city no less than
the tragic hero.
All this does not mean that the Oedipus Tyrannus is defeatist
propaganda, nor that it is an appeal for a negotiated peace,
as the Acharnians and the Peace of Aristophanes, in some
sense, are. The Oedipus Tyrannus is tragedy, and tragedy
deals with " the irremediable," to anekeston-, the play is a tragic
vision of Athens' splendor, vigor, and inevitable defeat which
contemplates no possibility of escape—the defeat is immanent
in the splendor. The mantic vision of the poet penetrates
through the appearances of Athenian power to the reality of
the tragic reversal, the fall towards which Athens is forcing its
way with all the fierce creative energy, the uncompromising
logic, the initiative and daring which have brought her to the
pinnacle of worldly power. All the Athenians had to do to

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

win the war, as Pericles told them, was to refrain from activity
(hesuchazeiny,197 but the future was to show, and the
Athenian character in any case made sure, that Athens could
no more refrain from action than Oedipus could. Athens and
Oedipus alike push on to the logical consequences of their
energy and initiative. Both come to disaster though the valiant
exercise of the very qualities which have made them great;
their ruin is the result of a stubborn and heroic insistence on
being themselves. " What man," sings the chorus, after
Oedipus knows the truth, " what man attains more prosperity
than just so much as will make an appearance and no sooner
appear than decline? " These words are not only a comment
on the ruin of Oedipus; they are also a tragic epitaph of the
Athenian golden age, a brief period of intellectual, artistic,
and imperial splendor which at its supreme moment was
pregnant with its own destruction, which, like the prosperity
of Oedipus, was based on a calamitously unsound and unjust
foundation, and like him was to shatter itself by the heroic
exercise of those great talents and powers which had brought
it into being.

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I
Oedipus, in his character and his mode of action, is a symbolic
representation of Periclean Athens. But that Athens was not
only the magnificent polis tyrannos and the source of law,
it was also the center of the intellectual revolution of the fifth
century. "Athens," says the sophist Hippias in Plato's Pro-
tagoras (337d), "is the prytaneion, the council chamber, of
the wisdom of Greece." This is a compliment paid to his
hosts by a visiting rhetorician (and put into his mouth by a
subtle master of irony), but it is none the less the truth. The
rich metropolis attracted to itself the discoverers, scientists, and
teachers of the whole Hellenic world. With the practical
innovating spirit of the democratic Athenian in politics, com-
merce, and warfare were now combined the intellectual inno-
vations of philosophers and teachers who explored and ex-
plained a revolutionary view of man's stature and importance.
It was in Athens that the new anthropological and anthro-
pocentric attitude reached its high point of confidence and
assumed its most authoritative tone. The idea that man was
capable of full understanding and eventual domination of his
environment found its appropriate home in the city which
could see no limits to its own unprecedented expansion.1 The
splendor and power of the polis tyrannos encouraged a bold
conception of anthrôpos tyrannos, man the master of the uni-
verse, a self-taught and self-made ruler who has the capacity,
to use the words the chorus applies to Oedipus, to " conquer
complete happiness and prosperity." 2
The essence of the new optimistic spirit is distilled in the
poetry of the famous chorus in the Antigone (332-75). The
first two thirds of that choral ode might well be entitled " A

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Hymn to Man," for it is a catalogue of man's triumphs in his

unaided struggle to civilize himself and assert his mastery.
Many are the wonders and terrors, and nothing more
wonderful and terrible than man. This creature crosses
the white sea with the stormy south wind, forward through
the swell that crashes about him. And earth, oldest of the
gods, indestructible, inexhaustible, he wears down as his
ploughs move back and forth year after year, turning
the soil with the breed of horses. He snares the tribe
of light-witted birds, the nations of wild beasts, the salt
life of the sea, takes them in his net-woven meshes, man
the intelligent. He masters by technique the mountain-
roaming beast that beds in the wilderness, he puts under
the yoke the neck of the shaggy-maned horse and the tire-
less mountain bull. Speech, and thought swift as the
wind, and a temper that enables him to live in com-
munities, all these he has taught himself, and also means
of escape from the frost when man cannot sleep under
the clear sky, and from the hostile shafts of the rain—he
is resourceful in every situation, nothing in the future
toward which he moves shall find him without resource.
From death alone he will not procure escape. But from
desperate diseases he has contrived release. He possesses
knowledge, ingenuity, and technique beyond anything
that could have been foreseen.

These famous lines trace the progress of man from primitive

ignorance to civilized power. He conquers the elements, sea
and land; masters animate nature, the birds, beasts, and fishes;
communicates and combines with his fellows to found society;
protects himself against the elements; begins to conquer disease
—there seems to be no limit to his advance except his own
death. This proud view of man's history is a fifth-century

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invention. It is particularly associated with the name of Pro-
tagoras, who wrote a famous book called Primitive Conditions*
and who, in the Platonic dialogue which bears his name, is
made to tell the story of man's development through stages
similar to those described in the Sophoclean ode. Plato's Prota-
goras was influenced by the account of the same historical
process given by Prometheus in the Aeschylean play. But
there is one marked difference between the Sophoclean version
and the one found in Aeschylus and Plato. Both of these
accounts emphasize strongly the role played by divine beings
who are responsible for man's advance. In Aeschylus, Prome-
theus, single-handed, gives to a passive mankind all the arts
and techniques of civilization; " all arts came to mortals from
Prometheus," the divine champion proclaims (506). In the
myth told by Protagoras in Plato's dialogue, the gods create
men, Prometheus saves them by stealing fire (and so technical
proficiency) for them, man is distinguished from the other
animals by his belief in the gods, and the first thing he is
supposed to have done is to set up altars and statues in their
honor. (So Prometheus, in the Aeschylean version, teaches
man to pray, to sacrifice, to interpret dreams and omens.)
Finally Zeus, in the Platonic account, gives man " a sense of
shame, and justice," which makes possible civilized communal
life. But in the Sophoclean version this is a human invention,
and there is no mention whatever of the gods except that
earth, " oldest of the gods," is worn away by man's ploughs.
The whole process of human development to technical mastery
and civilization is presented as man's achievement, and his
alone: to use a modern and fashionable term, this is a fully
" secular " view of human progress.4 " Man," says the Sopho-
clean chorus, " taught himself."
This is not of course what Sophocles himself believed. The
concluding words of the stasimon raise doubts which under-

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES'

mine the proud confidence of the opening, and the subsequent

events of the play completely shatter the possibility of a
" secular " view of the human condition. But the chorus'
hymn certainly represents a point of view current, and in
intellectual circles probably dominant, in the poet's time. It
is found, for example, in the oration of Gorgias, the Palamedes,
where the speaker details his inventions which have made
" the life of man full of resources instead of resourceless, and
ordered instead of disordered," 5 without mentioning divine
intervention, help, or inspiration; and in the Hippocratic
treatise On Ancient Medicine there is a similarly " secular "
account of human progress in medicine and nutrition (V. M.
3). Such a conception of human progress is very likely closer
to Protagoras' real ideas than that attributed to him by Plato,
for Protagoras is the man who above all the other sophists
defined the new anthropocentric outlook in the famous phrase
" man is the measure of all things " and who also dismissed
the gods as irrelevant. " As to the gods," he said, " I have no
means of knowing either that they exist or that they do not
exist."
These lines of the Antigone describe the rise to power of
anthrôpos tyrannos: self-taught, unaided, he seizes control of
his environment; by intelligence and technique he wins mastery
over the elements and the animals. The language of the
Oedipus Tyrannus associates the hero of the play with this
triumphant progress of man. Oedipus is compared not only
to the city which man has created with his "attitudes that
enable him to live in communities " but also to man the con-
queror and inventor, with all the achievements which have
raised him to the level of civilization and made him tyrannos
of the world. Three of the most striking images of the play,
for example, are drawn from the first three items of the
catalogue of human conquests in the Antigone stasimon.

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 CHAPTER THREE: MAN

Oedipus is metaphorically presented as helmsman, conqueror

of the sea, ploughman, conqueror of the land, and hunter,
pursuer and tamer of wild nature. These images extend the
symbolic significance of the tragic hero beyond the limits of
the comparison to Athens, the center of civilization, to include
the most impressive and revolutionary achievements of the
whole human race.
Oedipus as hunter is an image which stems naturally, almost
inevitably, from the nature of the plot—a search. It is a
difficult search for the murderer of a man now long dead; the
scent has faded. It is in these terms that Oedipus first char-
acterizes the task which the Apolline response lays on him:
" Where shall it be found, this track of an ancient guilt,
difficult to trace? " 6 " If you search for it," runs Creon's
answer, " you can catch it, but if you neglect it, it escapes." 7
Oedipus announces his decision to search for the murderer in
terms of the same figure : " I shall make an announcement
—for I could not track him far alone, without some clue." 8
But at the very beginning of the chase, the interview with
Tiresias, he finds himself faced with an unexpected turn of
events: Tiresias identifies the hunted murderer as Oedipus
himself. Oedipus' angry reply describes this accusation by
means of a technical term drawn from the vocabulary of
hunting. " So shameless? " he says. " To flush such a word
from cover! " (exekinêsas, 354).9 The hunt for the murderer
of Laius, which he at first thought impossible because the
track was faded, is turning out to be too rich in clues, too
complicated and full of surprises.
Oedipus is the hunter, and the chorus, appropriately, sings
of the hunted murderer as a wild animal : " It is time for him
to move in flight a foot swifter than wind-swift mares . . .
the divine command has flashed from Parnassus to track down
by all means in our power the man who has left no trace.10

Ill
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

For he ranges under the shade of the wild forest, among caves
and rocks, like a bull, solitary in misery, with miserable foot."
These words of the chorus, with their unconscious punning
on Oedipus' name,11 emphasize for us the terrible and so far
unsuspected truth that hunter and hunted are the same, that
Oedipus is both the tracker and the wild bull. But Oedipus
confidently applies the metaphor to a different set of circum-
stances, Creon's supposed attempt to win power: "Is your
enterprise not stupid—to hunt, without masses and friends,
supreme power [tyrannis]— a thing which is caught only with
masses and money? " 1 2 He sees Creon as the foolish hunter
who is not equipped for the chase, a contrast to himself who
has long ago captured the prey. But he is now engaged on
another hunt, and the capture of the prey will bring the down-
fall of his power. The tracks lead to a terrible discovery:
the hunter is the prey. In the messenger's account of the
catastrophe there are two touches which recall the chorus'
comparison of the unknown criminal to a wild bull. " He
ranged about/' says the messenger, using the same word which
in the previous passage described the movements of the hunted
13
bull, and he adds that when Oedipus saw Jocasta hanging
he " loosened the noose . . . with a dreadful, bellowing cry." 14
And Oedipus' own words, towards the end of the play, suggest
that he sees himself as a fit inhabitant of the wild: "Let
me live on the mountains." 1δ
Oedipus as helmsman is also of course an appropriate image,
for as tyrannos he is naturally thought of as guiding the ship
of state. The city is inferentially compared to a ship in the
opening lines of the play, a ship " with a cargo of burning
1β
incense, prayers for healing, and laments for the dead " (4~5),
and a few lines later the metaphor is fully developed. "The
city . . . is already pitching excessively and cannot lift its head
up out of the trough of the bloody swell." 17 Creon, bringing

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the news from Delphi, speaks of the blood of Laius " which
brings this storm on the city " and connects Oedipus with his
predecessor at the helm of the state through this same meta-
phor: "we once had . . . a captain, Laius, before you steered
the city on a straight course" (юз-4).18 And the chorus,
after the quarrel between Oedipus and Creon, asserts its
loyalty to Oedipus as the successful pilot of the ship of state:
" You set my beloved land on a fair straight course when it
was storm-tossed in troubles, and now may you be its fortunate
guide" (694-6).19 It soon becomes clear that this wish is in
vain; " He is a stricken man," says Jocasta, " and we tremble
to look at him, as passengers would a stricken pilot " (922-3).
Oedipus can no longer steer the ship of state, for he has reason
to fear that he has steered the ship of his own fortune with
terrible results. And he has not yet discovered the full extent
of the frightful truth. When he does, he will understand
Tiresias' riddling questions at last. " What harbor," the prophet
had asked him, " will not ring in concert with your cries . . .
when you know the truth about the fatal anchorage into
which you sailed, your marriage in this house, after so fortunate
a voyage? " (420 ff.). Oedipus had plotted his course with
care "measuring the distance from Corinth by the stars"
(794-5), but it brought him to an unspeakable harbor. "O
famous Oedipus," the chorus sings when the truth is known,
" the same harbor sufficed to contain you both as child and
20
bridegroom" (i207-io).
The imagery of the play presents Oedipus also as ploughman
and sower. This agricultural metaphor is connected always
with his birth and begetting. Such a transference of agri-
cultural terms to the process of human procreation is common-
21
place in Greek poetry, as it was in seventeenth-century
English ("the seed of Abraham," "the fruit of the womb,"
etc.) and indeed in the figurative language of any people which

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

lives in close contact with the work of the fields. But in this
play the metaphor is pushed to the limits of its capacity. " The
images which Sophocles employs in describing the situation
of Jocasta by her new relation with her son," says an eminent
Victorian editor,22 " will not always bear a minute explana-
tion "; by which he means, of course, that they are hideously
exact. It is true enough that these metaphors are used to
adumbrate physical enormities that would have been intoler-
able in plain speech,23 but they draw part of their force from
the striking appropriateness of this type of imagery to the
dramatic situation. Thebes is afflicted by a blight on the crops
and herds as well as a plague which affects the population.
The normal cycle of ploughing, sowing, and increase has
broken down—" the fruit of our famous land does not increase "
(171-2)—and this is accompanied by an interruption of the
cycle of human procreation and birth—" the land is dying
. . . in the birthless labor pangs of the women " (25-7). This
sympathetic relationship between the fruits of the soil and the
fruit of the womb is reflected in the transference of agricultural
terms to the involved pollution of the marriage of Oedipus and
Jocasta, and what the reflection suggests is the responsibility
of that unholy marriage for the stunted crops.24 This was an
idea which needed no heavy emphasis for a Greek audience;
the magical connection between the king and the fertility of
his domains was an old belief in Greece. A famous example
is the " blameless king " described by Odysseus, who " upholds
justice, and the black earth bears wheat and barley, the trees
are heavy with fruit, the flocks breed unceasingly, and the
sea provides fish, all because of his good rule . . ."25 And the
ceremony of a sacred marriage which had almost certainly
begun as a magical guarantee of the renewal of the crops
was widespread in Greece in historical times.26 Such a cere-
mony in fact regularly took place in Athens in Sophocles' time;

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the sacred marriage between Dionysus and his Athenian bride

had been celebrated just a few weeks before the tragic festival
at which the Oedipus Tyrannus was performed.27 The marri-
age of Oedipus is a blasphemous antitype of this " holy
marriage." " О marriage, marriage," he cries in his agony,
" you gave me birth, and then you who begot me raised my
own seed . . ." (чоз-^).28
Oedipus' first statement about his relationship with Laius
is made in terms of this metaphor. " I possess the powers he
once held, his marriage bed, and his wife homosporon " (259-
60)—a word which in this sentence can only mean " who is
sown with seed by both of us," for Oedipus adds the qualifica-
tion that the seed of Laius, at any rate, had borne no fruit.
This use of the word distorts its usual meaning, which is " sown
together, of the same seed," hence " brother " or " sister." The
unusual meaning forced on the word by the context revives
a metaphor that was probably moribund, if not dead, through
overuse, and the revived metaphor is kept alive when Tiresias
uses the same word in a different, but still unusual, sense.
He prophesies that the murderer will be revealed as "his
father's cosower [homosporon] and murderer" (460). But it
is after the fulfilment of this prophecy that the metaphor
reaches the ghastly stages of its full development. " How,"
sings the chorus, " how could the furrows which your father
ploughed bear you in silence for so long? " (1210-12). Oedipus
burst in, the messenger tells us, asking where he could find
"the maternal ploughland which had borne a double crop,
himself and his children " (1256-7). Oedipus himself explains
his own polluted state to his daughters in terms of this same
image : " your father, by the mother in whom I myself was
planted" (1485). And in similar terms he sums up the
reproach all mankind will level at him: " he ploughed the field
29
where he himself was sown " (i497-8).

"5
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

The imagery thus links Oedipus with the three basic steps
in the progress of humanity described in the Antigone stasimon,
the conquest of the sea, the soil, and the animals. Oedipus
is figuratively presented as helmsman, ploughman, and hunter.
All three images add to the stature of Oedipus, who begins
to appear as a symbolic representative not only of the tyrannic
energy and legal creativity of Athens but also of mankind as
a whole in its difficult progress towards mastery over nature.
And the reversal of the tragic hero, of the tyrannos, and of
the prosecutor is paralleled in the development of these meta-
phors which extend his significance. Oedipus the helmsman
has steered the ship of state into a storm which threatens to
destroy it, and his own destiny into a unspeakable harbor.
The hunter has tracked down the prey only to find that it is
himself. And the sower is not only the sower but also the
seed.

II
These images of Oedipus as hunter, helmsman, and cultivator
function as an ironic commentary on the proud and optimistic
conception of man's history and supremacy current in the fifth
century. That conception was itself one of the greatest achieve-
ments of several generations of critical and creative activity
unparalleled in the story of the ancient world. And the lan-
guage of the play identifies Oedipus as the symbolic repre-
sentative of the new critical and inventive spirit. At every
turn it associates Oedipus with the scientific, questioning,
and at the same time confident attitude of the fifth-century
Greek, especially the Athenian, whose city was " the council
chamber of Greek wisdom."
The action of the tragedy, a search for truth pursued without
fear of the consequences to the bitter end, mirrors the intel-
lectual scientific quest of the age. The fame of Oedipus is
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 CHAPTER THREE: MAN

based on his solution of a riddle; when he accuses Tiresias of

speaking in riddles he is scornfully reminded of his reputation :
" Are you not the best man born at finding answers to them? "
(440). Gorgias the sophist, in his speech to the Greeks
assembled at Olympia, spoke of riddles too. " Our struggle
demands two virtues, courage and wisdom; courage to with-
stand the danger, wisdom to solve the riddle." 30 The solution
to the riddle of the Sphinx was " man/' 31 and in the fifth
century the same answer had been proposed to an even greater
riddle: "Man," said Protagoras the sophist, "is the measure
of all things." Oedipus is made to speak time and again in
words that typify the scientific spirit and its dedication to
truth, whatever the cost. " Nothing could persuade me not to
learn this fully and clearly" (1065). "Burst forth what will.
Mean though it may be, I intend to see the seed that gave
me birth" (1076-7). And in a more somber key he answers
the shepherd's agonized cry, " I am on the verge of saying the
dreadful truth," with the words, "And I of hearing it. But
all the same, hear it I must" (1169-70).
The attitude and activity of Oedipus are images of the
critical spirit and the great intellectual achievements of a
generation of sophists, scientists, and philosophers. Oedipus
investigates, examines, questions, infers; he uses intelligence,
mind, thought; he knows, finds, reveals, makes clear, demon-
strates; he learns and teaches; and his relationship to his fellow
men is that of liberator and savior. The Greek words to which
the items of this list correspond bulk large in the vocabulary
of the play; they are the words which sum up the spirit and
serve the purposes of the new scientific attitude and activity.
The word zetein—to " search for, investigate "—is one which
naturally finds a prominent place in the vocabulary of the
play,32 both in its literal and (as we have seen) in its legal
sense, for Oedipus is investigating a murder and searching for

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

a murderer. But this word does not come from the traditional
poetic vocabulary,33 and in the fifth century it was one of the
distinctive words of the new scientific outlook. " Investigating
things under the earth and in the sky," runs Socrates' para-
phrase of the accusation against him,34 and in Aristophanes'
parodie presentation of the scientists at work, The Clouds,
this word plays a prominent role. Socrates is described as
" investigating the paths and circuits of the moon," and his
pupils, their backsides in the air, "investigate the subter-
restrial." 35
The scientific connotations of the word are emphasized in
the Oedipus Tyrannus by the use of two forms of it which
draw attention to the technical associations which the word
acquired in the late fifth century. " What is searched for," says
Creon, reporting Apollo's reply, " can be caught; what is
neglected, escapes" (no-ii). The legal connotations of this
formula have already been discussed; the initial word, to
zêtoumenon, " the thing searched for," is a term associated
with the new investigative processes of philosophy and science.
" The object of our present investigation," to nyn zetoumenon,
is a phrase used by the Eleatic in Plato's Sophist (2230.
" It might cast light on the object of our investigation," to
zetoumenon, says Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus (201 a).36
Apart from the scientific flavor of the initial word, Creon's
statement as a whole is an eloquent expression of the scientific
attitude, with its insistence on search and effort and its promise
that they will be rewarded.37 " To discover without searching
is difficult and rare," says Archytas of Tarentum in his work
on mathematics, " but if one searches, discovery is frequent and
easy." This sentence, couched in the broad Doric of South
Italy, was written long after Sophocles wrote the Oedipus
Tyrannus, but the sentiment (and the key word) is the same
as that of Creon's speech in the play.38

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Another form of this word zêtein occurs in the Oedipus

TyrannuSj zêtêma, " enquiry," an abstract noun which is even
more clearly a term of scientific and philosophical discussion.
" As to the enquiry," says the chorus, " it was the responsibility
of Apollo who sent the oracle to say who committed the
crime " (278-9). This word zêtêma occurs only here in Sopho-
cles, and not at all in Aeschylus; it does not seem to be used
in Greek before the fifth century. But it is common in Plato 39
and also in the fifth-century Hippocratic treatise On Ancient
Medicine, where it is used to describe the whole of the long
process of trial and error which has led to the development of
medical science. "To this discovery and research [zêtêmati]
what juster or more appropriate name could be given than
medicine? " the author asks at the end of his account.40
Oedipus is challenged to " search," and after sizing up the
problem he accepts the challenge. " I shall go to any length in
the search " (zêtôn, 266). He will not " neglect " anything
in the search for truth. He is an example of that scientific
spirit which Thucydides claims is so rare among men : " so
little labor do most people undertake in their search for the
truth—they turn rather to what lies ready to hand." 41 But
nothing can turn Oedipus from his chosen path; Jocasta may
be content with explanations that lie ready to hand untested,
but Oedipus will " go to every length." It is a terrible truth
which he discovers. He is not only the searcher but also the
thing searched for, the object of enquiry as well as the enquirer.
He is to zêtoumenon, the thing he was looking for. " Oedipus,"
says Plutarch in his essay On Curiosity, " searching for himself
(for he believed that he was not a Corinthian but a foreigner),
met Laius, killed him, received, in addition to a kingdom, his
own mother to wife, and, thinking that he was a happy man,
again began to search for himself."42 The peripeteia of the

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tragic hero is reflected in the peripeteia of one of his char-

acteristic words.43
Oedipus' methods of investigation are those of the critical
spirit of the age which he represents : skopein, " to contemplate,
examine "; historein, " to question, inquire "; tekmairesihai, " to
judge from evidence, to infer." The first of these words,
skopein, has a special importance in the new scientific vocabu-
lary. It describes a critical, calculating scrutiny, which assesses
and draws conclusions. It is a word much favored by Thucy-
dides. " From evidence which, after the most extensive scrutiny
[epi mdkrotaton skopounti] turns out to be trustworthy . . . ,"
he says in the opening sentences of his History (i. i. 3), and
the element of calculation in the word emerges clearly from
his use of it in his attempt to estimate the size of the Greek
army at Troy. " In any case, if you examine the mean [to
meson skopounti] between [the crews of] the largest and the
smallest ships, the number of men who went on the expedition
does not seem large" (i. 10. 5). So later he uses this word to
distinguish between emotional judgments and the scientific
historical view: "Although men judge the war in which they
happen to be fighting the greatest always, but when it is over
are more impressed by former events, this war will neverthe-
less, to those who examine it on the basis of the facts them-
selves [apl autôn ton ergon skopousi], prove to have been
greater than its predecessors." 44
Oedipus uses this word in precisely this critical sense. He
applies it both to examination of a situation with a view to
action (" the only remedy I found after careful consideration,"
eu skopôn, 68), and to critical examination of statements about
the death of Laius ("I examine every word," panta . . . skopô
logon, 291). It is with this word that the chorus reproachfully
tries to divert him from his angry assault on Tiresias to his
proper task: " This is not what we need. How to find the best

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solution for the oracle of the god, there is what you should
examine" (iode skopein, 407). But the critical overtones of
skopein (one remembers that the Skeptic philosophers took
their name from a closely allied word) come out most clearly
when Jocasta announces her proof that the oracle was wrong.
"Listen to this man, and as you listen, examine what the
hallowed oracles of the gods come to" (sfeopei, 952). And
Oedipus goes further. " Why should one scrutinize the
prophetic hearth of Pytho or the birds screaming overhead? "
(sfeopoifo, 964). For him they are not worth the trouble of a
critical examination. They are worth, as he says a few lines
later,"nothing" (972).«
Historein, " to ask questions," is a word particularly associated
with the Ionian investigative spirit, and most of all with
Herodotus, whose historiai (researches, questions and answers)
are the beginning of what we know as " history." In Herodotus
this word usually means " to question," though in two cases it
shades off into the meaning "to know as a result of ques-
tioning." 4e In the Oedipus Tyrannus the first of these two
meanings is the dominant one. The characteristic tone of
Oedipus in the first two-thirds of the play is that of an
impatient, demanding questioner.47 The tragedy opens with a
question which Oedipus puts to the priest. When Creon arrives
he is met with a rapid barrage of questions (eleven of them
in 89-129) which exhaust his information about the oracle
and the murder of Laius. In the quarrel with Tiresias, Oedipus
hurls a series of questions at the blind prophet, some real
questions, some imperative, some rhetorical: five in the initial
brush between them (319-40), six more before Oedipus makes
his long speech (380-403), which itself contains two questions.
Tiresias' reply to it is followed by an outburst of four violent
questions (429-31) which are really imprecations, and his
reference to Oedipus' parents (435-6) by two genuine and

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heartfelt questions (437) which the prophet answers with

riddles. Creon's second appearance is greeted by an angry
explosion of eleven lines which consists entirely of rhetorical
questions, and this is followed by a rapid examination of
Creon's knowledge of the previous attitude of Tiresias, phrased
in six questions (555-68). Jocasta's account of the oracle that
failed is followed by a series of swift precise questions (732-
65), seven of them; the answers are enough to make him fear
the worst. The next subject for interrogation is the Corinthian
messenger, whose examination is introduced by the typically
businesslike question, " Who is this, and what does he have to
say to me? " 48 One is reminded of Strepsiades in Aristophanes'
CloudSj who welcomes his son back from his studies at the
" thinking-shop " with the gleeful comment, " That local * what-
do-you-say? ' look is positively blooming on him." 49
The Corinthian messenger gives his news, but his real
interrogation does not begin until he tells Oedipus that Polybus
was not his father. This revelation is followed by no less than
fourteen searching questions (1017-45), which prepare the
way for the examination of the last witness, the shepherd.
In the course of this last interrogation the shepherd refuses
to answer in plain terms, and Oedipus backs his questions with
threats and physical force.50 It is at this point that the shepherd
makes a final attempt to stop the relentless questioning. " No,
by the gods, master, do not ask any more questions." 51 The
answer is another threat, and more questions, culminating
in the rapid half-line questions which extract the dreadful
truth (1173-6). "If you are the one of whom he speaks,
know that you were born unlucky," is the shepherd's last
answer. Oedipus is not only the questioner but also the answer
to the question.52
Tekmairesthai is a word which (though it is used in Homer
in a different sense) sums up, in its fifth-century meaning

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—" to form a judgment from evidence "—the new scientific

spirit. It is a word used by both the great historians of the
century to describe the process of inferring one set of con-
ditions from the existence of another : so Herodotus " infers "
from the present speech of the Pelasgians the ancient language
of Greece, and Thucydides " infers " the future greatness of
the Peloponnesian War from the present power of the com-
batants. 53 The Hippocratic writers use the word to describe
" prognosis," the process of inferring the future course of the
disease from the present symptoms,54 and a famous doctor-
philosopher of the West Greek world, Alcmaeon of Croton,
used the word (probably the first use of the verb in its scientific
sense) to describe human knowledge as distinguished from
that of the gods : " The gods have certainty, for men there is
inference." 55 Oedipus' original reluctance to take up the
investigation of the murder of Laius is expressed in terms of
this word: the track of the ancient guilt, he says, is dystek-
marton, "difficult to infer" (юр).56 He later becomes con-
vinced that the evidence is sufficient to warrant his full engage-
ment in the search but, with Jocasta's account of Laius' death,
finds himself faced with an inference which he dreads. At this
point Jocasta criticizes Oedipus for his failure to make a proper
inference from the facts. " He does not, like a man in full
possession of his mind, form his judgment of the new by
inference from the old" (tekmairetai, 916).57 She is talking
about oracles. The old oracle of Apollo given to Laius was
wrong (as she has proved) and Oedipus should be able to
infer that the oracle given later to him, as well as the accusa-
tions of Apollo's prophet Tiresias, are equally false. Her words
are a typical formulation of the scientific outlook, and there
is, in the Hippocratic treatise called Prorrhetics, a sentence
which explicitly draws the contrast implicit in Jocasta's
phrase, that between prophecy (which does not deal in logic)

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and the scientific process of inference. " I shall not prophesy,"

says the medical author; " I simply record the symptoms from
which inferences must be made " Qioisi ehre tekmairesihm).**
The instrument of these scientific procedures—investigation,
enquiry, deduction—is the human intelligence, gnome. Prome-
theus, in the Aeschylean play, describes the primitive stage of
human history in terms of the absence of this faculty: "they
did everything without intelligence " (ater gnomes, 456). The
great reputation of Oedipus is based on his answer to the
riddle of the Sphinx and, though the priest suggests that he
was helped in this achievement by a god, Oedipus proudly
defines it as the work of his unaided intelligence. " I found
the answer by intelligence [gnômêi, 398]—! did not learn
it from birds." The human intelligence is here posed in oppo-
sition to the inspired, unscientific apprehension of the
prophet,59 a contrast fundamental not only for the play but
for an understanding of the age in which it was written.
This intelligence, gnome, is the capacity to distinguish,
recognize, gignôskein eo (just as the English, or rather Latin
word "intelligence" means etymologically "choosing be-
tween "). Gignôskein is a significant word in the dramatic
context, for Oedipus is eventually to recognize himself. " May
you never recognize your identity" (gnoiés, io68),61 says
Jocasta just before she rushes off stage, and Oedipus, in the
speech which accompanies his self-blinding (a speech reported
by the messenger), consigns to darkness those eyes which
"failed to distinguish those whom he sought" (i273-4).e2
But before the failure of Oedipus' intelligence is revealed, the
chorus, in a supremely ironic phrase, joins in unity the intel-
ligence of man and the religious apprehension of the prophet
which Oedipus had put asunder. They celebrate the imminent
revelation of Oedipus' birth, which they claim will prove to
be of divine origin. " If I am a prophet, and have knowledge

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based on intelligence" (kata gnôman idris, loSy)63—these

are the opening words of the stasimon which precedes the
great discovery of the truth of prophecy and the inadequacy
of that human intelligence which Oedipus represents.
This gnome, the active intelligence which distinguishes
and recognizes, is a function of wows, the mind. This word
nous was in Periclean Athens pregnant with scientific and
philosophical significance, if only because of the widely dis-
cussed theories of Anaxagoras, who made nous the moving
force of the universe in his philosophical system and was
himself nicknamed Nous by his contemporaries.
The mind of Oedipus is the driving force behind the action
of the Sophoclean drama, and just as he opposes his gnome
to the divine inspiration of the prophet, so he taunts Tiresias
with the failure of his nous. " You are blind, in ears and mind
and eyes" (371). This extraordinary phrase echoes many
formulas of the philosophical and religious traditions. " Mind
sees and Mind hears," said Epicharmus; " everything else is
dumb and blind."64 "The divinity," says Xenophanes, "is
β5
all seeing, and mind, and hearing." Oedipus' savage taunt
denies Tiresias religious insight as well as human reasoning
power. The prophet's reply is a warning that before long the
same taunts will be flung at Oedipus himself—and before the
play is over he blinds himself, and wishes that he could have
deafened himself and so cut off his mind from the cognizance
of his disasters. Meanwhile, under the impact of Jocasta's
revelations the mind of Oedipus begins to lose control. " He
does not," says Jocasta, "like a man in control of his mind
[ennous] judge the present on the basis of the past " (915-16).
This word ennous indicates a person whose mind is in full
control of his faculties: it is used by Agave in the Bacchae
of Euripides to describe her return to sanity from Dionysiac
ecstasy, and by Plato to describe the rational, controlled mind

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which is incapable of inspired prophesy.66 The word occurs

nowhere else in Sophocles; in Aeschylus it occurs only once,
and that once in a significant context. It is the word Prome-
theus uses to describe the state of the human race after his
intervention had brought about the transition from savagery to
civilization : " before, they were childish; I made them into
rational beings " (enwows, 444).67
But when Jocasta speaks of Oedipus he is no longer a rational
creature; he is a prey to pain and fear. The next reference to
his mind comes after the revelation of the truth and his violent
reaction to it. When he tries to justify on rational grounds
the impulse which led him to put out his eyes, the chorus
says to him: "I feel pity for you—for your mind and your
disasters equally" (i347).68
The intelligence, the mind of Oedipus are always active;
their activity is phrontis, " thought." " I came wandering over
many roads of thought " (phrontidos, 67), he tells the priest
early in the play.69 This word was closely associated in the
popular mind with the new scientific developments, as is plain
from Aristophanes' satirical offensive against the new outlook,
The Clouds. In this comedy the " school " of Socrates is called
the phrontistêrion, " thought-shop." " Quiet! " says one of the
students to Strepsiades as he hammers at the door. " You have
just aborted a thought [phrontid', 137] which I had dis-
covered." 70 And Socrates in the same play, describes himself
as " suspending the operation of his mind and thought "
(phrontida, 229).71
Oedipus has wandered over many roads of thought in his
attempt to find a remedy for the plague, but the chorus, which
has not heard this statement of his, provides an ironic echo
of his words as it enters the orchestra. "The whole of my
people is sick, and there is no sword of thought [phrontidos,
170] with which one can defend oneself."72 The thought of

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Oedipus does finally reach its objective, the truth, but his
reaction to the discovery is to blind himself. He would have
deafened himself too, he says, if there had been any way to
block the sense of hearing—"so that I could be blind and
totally deaf. That my thought [phrontid, 1390] should dwell
outside my miseries—that would be sweet/' 73 He wishes, for
a moment, to isolate his thought from all contact with the
world of his senses, and be what he called Tiresias, " blind in
ears and mind and eyes."
The search for truth, guided by intelligence, produces
knowledge. " To know " (oida, егаепаг) is a word built into
the fabric of Oedipus* name and ironically emphasized in line
after line of the play. He speaks not only of his knowledge 74
but also, with fierce and conscious irony, of his ignorance.
" I stopped her," he says of the Sphinx, " I, know-nothing
Oedipus " (ho mêden eidôs Oidipous, 397).75 This sarcastic
phrase is an expression of contempt for the useless knowledge
possessed by Tiresias, and the taunt is returned to him with
interest. "Do you know [oisth', 415] who your parents are? "
Oedipus is ignorant of the one thing most men know, their
parentage. It is not long before Oedipus begins to fear that
his ironic boast of ignorance may have been a literal statement
of the truth. " It seems," he tells Jocasta, " that it was myself
I was subjecting to dreadful curses just now—without knowing
it" (owfe eidenai, 745). With the arrival of the Corinthian
messenger the ignorance of Oedipus is emphatically and re-
peatedly stressed: "You don't know what you are doing"
(1008). "Don't you know that you have no just ground for
fear?" (1014). "Know that he took you as a gift from my
hand" (1022). And it is with this last word "know" (&Ы,
n8i) that the shepherd announces the monstrous truth: "if
you are the man he says you are, know that you were born
ill-fated." 7e Towards the end of the play Oedipus sums up

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the knowledge that remains with him. "This much at least

I know " (tosouton g' oida, 1455), says the blind, ruined man;
" no disease nor anything else could wreck me. For I would
never have been saved from death, unless for some dreadful
evil/' It seems little enough but, unlike the knowledge he
laid claim to before the catastrophe, it is real knowledge.
The knowledge attained by intelligent investigation fitted
the exponents of the new scientific outlook to perform great
services for their fellow men. They were equipped to find,
to discover (the Greek word corresponding to these two means
also " to invent "), to reveal, to make clear, to demonstrate, to
teach. Their self-appointed task was to bring light where
there was darkness, certainty where there was doubt, to replace
confusion with clarity, and to train others in their methods
and views. These are the attitudes and activities of an intel-
lectual revolution, an age of enlightenment, and the words
which describe them bulk large in the vocabulary of the
Oedipus Tyrannus.
Heurein, " to find," is familiar even to the Greekless reader
as a word associated with scientific discovery because of the
story of Archimedes in the bath and his cry of Qi)eureka, " I
have found it." But long before Archimedes ran naked through
the streets of Syracuse in the third century в. с.,77 this word
was in common use to describe scientific discovery and inven-
tion. The Greek penchant for attributing every discovery or
invention to a specific (and usually legendary) inventor
Qiemetes) is well known; prôtos heure, "he was the first to
discover " (or " invent "), is a formula which recurs incessantly
in Greek histories of philosophy, mathematics, and science.78
It is a word used by Thucydides to describe the result of
his historical method—the discovery of the past. The reader,
he says, speaking of his own attempt to reconstruct ancient
history, should " consider that the facts have been discovered

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[heurêsthai] on the basis of the clearest evidence, as satis-
factorily as they could, considering that they happened long
ago." 79 In this sense it is a word exactly appropriate to the
search conducted by Oedipus; he too is a historian, trying to
discover the facts about the past on the basis of the clearest
evidence available. But the word is also applicable to discovery
in astronomy, technique, mathematics, in fact to the whole
range of discoveries and inventions which have made possible
human civilization. It is the verb which recurs most frequently
in Prometheus' account of his civilizing gifts to man; he uses
it of his discovery of number and writing (460), ships (468),
and metals (5оз).80 The word occurs frequently also in the
myth of human progress told by Protagoras in the Platonic
dialogue: "man . . . invented [hêureto, 3223] houses, clothes,
shoes, blankets, and crops/' So Palamedes, in the oration of
Gorgias, claims to have invented Qieurôn, 30) " warlike forma-
tions . . . written laws . . . letters . . . weights and measures
. . . number . . . signal fires . . . and the game of checkers."
And the same word recurs in the fragments of the two
Sophoclean plays which dealt with Palamedes, the Palamedes
and the Nauplius.*1 It is used also in a magnificent passage
in one of the Hippocratic treatises, a passage which epitomizes
the confident, rational spirit of the new age. " Medicine,"
says the writer of the work entitled On Ancient Medicine,
" is not like some branches of enquiry [he has instanced
enquiries into things above and things below the earth] in
which everything rests on an unprovable hypothesis. Medicine
has discovered a principle and a method, through which many
great discoveries have been made over a long period, and what
remains will be discovered too, if the enquirer is competent,
knows what discoveries have been made, and takes them as the
starting point for his enquiry." 82
In the opening scene of the play Oedipus, speaking to the

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

priest, calls his action in sending Creon to Delphi " the only
healing treatment which after careful examination I was able
to discover" (hêuriskon, 68). The result of that action is a
call for further discovery, the investigation of the murder of
Laius, an attempt to discover the past. Oedipus is at first
appalled at the difficulty of the task—" Where shall the track
be discovered? " Qieurêthêsetai, 108)—but soon, as his ques-
tioning of Creon begins to elicit facts, he regains confidence.
The witness who was present at Laius' death knew only one
thing, says Creon deprecatingly, but Oedipus insists on knowing
it. " For one thing might discover [the way] to learn many "
(exeuroi, 120).
Oedipus begins as the discoverer, but as the investigation
gets under way the confidence with which he uses the word
evaporates. " Are these inventions [taxeuremata, 378] yours
or Creon's? " he asks Tiresias (378) when the prophet accuses
him; the word is profoundly ironic, for the accusation is not
an invention but a discovery of truth. Tiresias in reply taunts
him with his reputation as a discoverer. " You speak in
riddles," Oedipus tells the prophet, and the answer is: "Are
you not the best man alive at finding the answers to them? "
Qieuriskein, 440).
Oedipus accepts this taunt proudly. " Go on, reproach me,
but it is in this, you will discover, that my greatness lies "
(hemeseis, 441). And he applies himself energetically to the
attempt first to discover the secret of Laius' murder, and later
to solve the secret of his own birth, the riddle read him by
Tiresias. When the Corinthian messenger makes clear that
the shepherd who accompanied Laius is the key to the riddle
of Oedipus' identity, Oedipus asks where the shepherd is to
be found. " Inform me, this is the vital moment for these
things to be discovered" (heuresthai, io5o).83
But meanwhile a change has taken place in the relationship

ï3°
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between Oedipus and the process of discovery. " I found you,"

the Corinthian messenger says to him, " in the wooded glens
of Cithaeron " (heuron, 1026). This is a lie, and he later
retracts it, but it raises for the first time the prospect of
Oedipus not as discoverer but as discovered. And the chorus,
in its optimistic speculations on the possibility that Oedipus
is of divine birth, repeats the idea. " Did the Bacchic god
who dwells on the mountains receive you as a lucky find from
one of the nymphs of Helicon, with whom he often sports? "
(heurêma, no6).85
When the great discovery is finally made, the suggestion
inherent in this change of relationship becomes clear statement.
" All-seeing time has discovered you, against your will "
(eyheure, 1213), sings the chorus, and Oedipus himself ex-
presses the complete transition from active to passive, the
peripeteia of the word. " Now I am discovered as base and of
base birth" (heuriskomai, 1397); "I am discovered as base
in every respect" (ephêurêmai, 1421). The finder has turned
into the thing found, the discoverer into the thing discovered.
РЪагпегп, " to bring to light, to make visible," is another
of the words which are typical formulas of the scientific spirit
of the age. It is of course a term associated with the legal
process (to bring a criminal, or a crime, to light by informing
the authorities), and this meaning is fully operative in the
play, but so also are its wider scientific connotations, which are
well exemplified by the passage in which Gorgias, in his
defense of Helen, pays tribute to the power of words and
mentions as an example of it " the words of the astronomers
which have made things incredible and obscure visible
[phainesthai] to the eyes of opinion."8G
The truth about the murder of Laius belongs to the realm
of things invisible, not revealed. "The Sphinx," says Creon,
speaking of the murder of Laius, " forced us to dismiss what

!3i
 OEDIPUS AT T H E B E S

was obscure, invisible" (tàphanê, 131). But Oedipus an-

nounces that he will " make a fresh start, and bring it to light "
(egd phanô, 132). The initial revelations, however, come from
others. Tiresias refuses to " reveal my sorrows, not to mention
yours " (efepfeéno, 329), but he is goaded to speech by Oedipus
himself and ends their interview with a prophecy of revela-
tions to come. " The man you seek is here . . . he shall be
revealed as a Theban born [phanêsetai, 453] . . . he shall
be revealed as father and brother of his own children "
(phanesetai, 457). The next revelation comes from Jocasta,
and it is made in terms which forcefully suggest not only the
form but also the content of the new scientific doctrines:
"Listen to me and learn that no human creature has the
capacity to prophecy. I will reveal [phanô, 710] evidence to
prove it, and it will not take long/' The evidence she brings
forward is an ambiguous proof at best, for it seems to prove that
though Apollo was wrong, Tiresias may have been right.
" Alas, it is clear as crystal now/' says Oedipus when he hears
the details of the death of Laius; the word he uses, diaphane
(754), comes from the scientific vocabulary.87
With the news from Corinth Oedipus recovers some of his
confidence, and once more assumes the title and performs the
function of the revealer. " It is impossible," he tells the dis-
traught Jocasta, " that with such evidence before me, I should
not reveal my origin " (jphano, 1059). But the revelation of his
origin is also the revelation of his pollution, and in his final
statements his use of this word is no longer active but passive.
" I am revealed," he cries, " unnaturally born and married, an
unnatural murderer " (pephasmai, 1184). " Revealed as unholy
by the gods" (phanent', 1383), he calls himself later, and in
one of his most terrible phrases he says that he has been
" revealed as a father who ploughed where he himself was

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sown " (ephanihên, 1485). He is not only the revealer but

also the thing revealed.
To "make visible" the obscure is to make it "clear," and
it is characteristic of all ages of enlightenment that they are
inclined to equate clarity with truth. The Greek word saches,
which in its earliest form in Homer, means " clear," 88 came
to be used in the fifth century with something very like the
meaning " true." Thucydides, for example, uses this word to
recommend his austere history to those "who will want to
examine the truth about [to saphes, " a clear picture of "] past
events."89 This insistence on clarity is typical of the temper
of the new age: the mythos might be indirect, obscure, ambigu-
ous, but the logos must be direct, clear, precise.90 It is in these
terms that Aristophanes makes his burlesque Euripides attack
the dramatic writing of Aeschylus. " Not one thing he said
was clear " (saphes, 927), says Euripides in the Frogs, and he
attacks the Aeschylean prologue on the same basis: " He was
obscure [asapheSy 1122] in his exposition of the facts."
The scientific spirit, which strives to make the invisible
visible (phainesihai ta aphanê*), attempts also to make the
unclear clear. Oedipus, searching for clarity in the obscure
affair of the death of Laius, is told by the chorus that from
Tiresias he will learn the truth "most clearly" (saphestata,
286). Tiresias is a prophet, and the word saphês applied to
prophets has a special force, for they were well known to deal
in obscurity and ambiguity. A " clear " prophet can at least be
judged by results; if his statement about the future can be
clearly understood, it is at least possible to know, some day,
whether it was also " true."91 But what Tiresias says is some-
thing Oedipus cannot accept, and he retaliates by attacking
the prophet's "clarity." "Tell me, how can you be called a
clear [true] prophet? " (mantis . . . saphês, 390). This taunt is
a reference to Tiresias' silence when the Sphinx ravaged

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

Thebes; Tiresias was no clear prophet at that time of danger-

he said nothing at all. And though he proceeds to prophecy
now, it is " riddling and unclear " (ainikta kàsaphê, 439). This
denunciation of Tiresias' obscurity (falsehood) is carried to
further lengths in Jocasta's claim that there is no foreknowledge
in all the universe : " there is no clear [true] foreknowledge
of anything " (sapfees, 978).
There may be no foreknowledge, but Oedipus insists on
clarity, the clarity created by the human intelligence, which
in his person is now striving to discover not the future but the
past. " I will not be persuaded," he tells Jocasta, " not to learn
this [i.e. his origin] fully and clearly" (saphos, 1065). But
the final clarity which he establishes proves the divine predic-
tion both clear and true. " Alas," he cries, " then it would all
come out clear" (sapfee, 1182). But these words also mean:
" Then the oracles must have turned out true." 92 Now he
sees clear for the first time in the play, but his eyes cannot
bear the clarity his intelligence has created and he rushes off
to put them out.
The man who has discovered, revealed, and made clear
becomes a demonstrator, a teacher. He makes evident (delod)
and points out (deiknymi'). Both words mean also " to prove,"
and they are characteristic formulas of the great teachers of the
fifth century, the sophists.93 They appear also in the Oedipus
Tyrannus and move in the pattern exemplified by the other
operative words of the Oedipean vocabulary, the pattern of
reversal from active to passive.
Oedipus undertakes to " make evident " an " unseen " mur-
derer (adelon, 475), to solve the mystery of an " unclear "
death (adêlôn, 497), but he is soon condemning Creon on " an
opinion which lacks evidence " (adeloi, 608) and plunged into
darkness on the vital question of his own identity. The Corin-
thian messenger starts him off again on the search for clarity

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by his mention of the all-important witness, the shepherd.

" Who is that? " asks Oedipus. " Can you make him evident? "
(dêlôsai, 1041). His identity is only too evident to Jocasta,
but Oedipus has still some time to run before he shouts, to
quote the messenger's words, for " someone to make evident to
all Thebes the father-killer" (dêloun, 1287). The prophecy
is fulfilled, that he would " make evident a progeny that man
could not bear to see " (dêlôsoim', 792).
His intention was to " point out " (deiknymï) the murderer.
" I have no means of pointing out the killer " (deïksai, 278),
says the chorus in answer to his proclamation. " You will point
out [more clearly] if you will say one thing more " (deïkseis,
748), says Oedipus to Jocasta, as he poses the final question
which completes the revelation of the circumstances of the
murder of Laius. And the word recurs in the terrible moment
when the doors of the palace open, just before the blind and
bloodstained Oedipus is revealed to the audience. " He will
show you" (deiksei, 1294), says the messenger.94 "The locks
of these gates are opening. You will see a spectacle before
long such that even one who hated him would pity."

The Greek words for " learn " and " teach " (jnanthanein
and didaskein) occur frequently in the text of the play. It is
true that they occur with great frequency in the text of almost
any Greek play, for the word manthanein was commonly used
in the general sense of " to find out " and didaskein with the
simple meaning of " tell, inform." But in the Oedipus
Tyrannus these words seem to be used in contexts and with a
force which direct attention to their literal meaning.
They are of course words which in their literal sense re-create
the atmosphere of the intellectual ferment of fifth-century
Athens. The sophists who were subjecting every aspect of the
traditional Athenian outlook to corrosive criticism were all of

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them professional teachers who for high fees trained listeners

from all walks of life in the critical methods and the revolu-
tionary doctrines of the new schools. This new education, an
education for adults, was the burning question of the day, and
even those who most severely criticized its products and results
were molded by its disciplines and used its characteristic
methods and formulas.
Oedipus is like the great teachers of the fifth century in
one respect: he has no master from whom he learned, he is
self-taught. "You had not been taught" (ekdidachtheis, 38),
says the priest, expressing his admiration for Oedipus' solution
of the riddle of the Sphinx, and Oedipus repeats the phrase
in his proud claim that the solution of the riddle was a triumph
of untrained intelligence. " I did not learn it from birds "
(wflifodw, 398). But though untaught himself, he assumes
that others have had a teacher. " Who taught you that? "
(didachtheis, 357) he asks Tiresias when he finds himself
accused. "You did not learn it from your prophetic art."
It is to Oedipus that others come for instruction. "Instruct
me " (didaske, 554), says Creon, " what you claim to have
suffered at my hands." "You are a skillful speaker," says
Oedipus to Creon, " but I am a bad learner, from you "
(manthanein, 545). "I have the right to learn from you"
(maihein, 575), says Creon, and Oedipus answers: "Learn
then, in full " (ekmanthan, 576). " Instruct me " ddidakson,
698), says Jocasta, asking Oedipus for an explanation of the
quarrel with Creon, and Oedipus prefaces his account of his
life before he came to Thebes with the words " I will instruct
you " (didaksô, 839).
But as the action develops, the roles are reversed. Oedipus
has a lesson read to him by Jocasta. " Listen to me," she tells
him, in words that conjure up not only the atmosphere but
also the doctrine of the sophistic schools; "Listen, and learn

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that nothing human has the gift of prophecy " (tnatfe', 708).
And later Oedipus, now in truth the ignorant Oedipus of his
own proud and sarcastic phrase, begs the Corinthian messenger
for instruction. " My mother, or my father? Instruct me, in
the gods' name" (didaske, 1009). The teacher becomes the
learner, but he becomes something more. He turns into the
"thing pointed out" (paradeigma, 1193), the paradigm, the
example, the object lesson. "I have your destiny as an ex-
ample," sings the chorus, "and call no man happy" (1193-5).
This same reversal is to be seen in the development of two
other words which are typical titles of the champions of
enlightenment in all ages, and which were in the Greek
experience particularly associated with Athens in its role as
the center of the political and intellectual revolution of the
fifth century. Oedipus, like Athens,95 and like the scientists
and philosophers of the age,96 is offered and accepts the titles
"liberator"and "savior."
Prometheus, the mythical prototype of the scientist and
sophist, proclaims himself, in Aeschylus* play, the liberator
of mankind. "I liberated mortals," he says, "from going
shattered to death " (ekselysamen, P. V. 235); the means of
liberation, he tells us later, was the gift of fire, from which
mankind learned the techniques of civilization. Many years
later, when the liberating role of the new teachings was
regarded with a less favorable and optimistic eye, Aristophanes
in The Clouds made Strepsiades describe his son, a recent
graduate cum laude of the sophistic school, as " a savior for my
house . . . and a liberator from pain " (soter domois . . . kai
lysanias, 1161-2).
Oedipus is addressed by both titles in the opening speech
of the priest. "You liberated the city of Cadmus [ekselysas,
35] ... this land calls you savior . . ." (sdtera, 48). And later,
in the course of the quarrel with Tiresias, he adopts both of

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these titles himself. " How was it," he asks Tiresias, speaking
of the time when Thebes was under attack by the Sphinx,
" that you uttered no liberating word [eklytêrion, 392] for
these fellow citizens of yours? No, I came . . ." And later,
hard pressed by Tiresias, he retorts : " But if I saved this city,
I don't care [what happens to me]" (poZm . . . eksesos, 443).
But in the present crisis he finds himself unable either to
liberate or to save. And soon the familiar rhythm of reversal
becomes apparent in the language. " Why don't I liberate you
from this fear? " (ekselysamen, 1003), the Corinthian mes-
senger asks Oedipus, and the same officious informant a few
lines later assumes the other title too. " I was your savior at
that moment, my child " (sdier, 1030). " I liberated you from
the fetters that pierced your feet" (Ij/d, 1034), he says later,
and the shepherd adds the complementary verb—" he saved
you . . . for disaster" (esdsen, 1180). Oedipus in his agony
recognizes the Corinthian's claim. "Curse him," he cries,
"curse the man who liberated me from my bonds [elyse,
!35°] · · · and saved me . . ." (kànesôsen, i35i). 9 7 And later
he repeats the shepherd's phrase. "I was saved [esôthên,
1457] . . . for some dreadful evil." The liberator turns out
to be the liberated, the savior the saved.
In the reversal which is the pattern of development of these
words in the play, the suffering of the tragic hero is projected
on to a larger stage. The reversal of Oedipus becomes a
demonstration tyaradeigma) of the paradoxical nature of man's
greatest achievements: his magnificent energy accomplishes
his own ruin; his probing intelligence, pushing on to final
solutions, brings him in the end face to face with a reality he
cannot contemplate. His action defeats itself, or rather loses
the name of action at all, for he is both actor and patient,
the seeker and the thing sought, the finder and the thing found,
the revealer and the thing revealed.
138
 Ill
This same terrifying pattern is developed in detail in two
more verbal complexes which suggest fresh images of the
action and attitude of Oedipus. They are appropriate and
significant images for the revolutionary nature of man's attempt
to assert his mastery over nature by means of his intelligence,
especially so for the fifth century, for it is from two of the
greatest intellectual achievements of that century that they are
drawn. Oedipus is presented in the figure of physician and
mathematician.

The culminating achievement of man, in the history of

human progress sketched in the choral ode of the Antigone, is
the discovery of the art of medicine—" and from desperate
diseases he has contrived means of escape." Medicine ranks
high in the list of the inventions of Prometheus, the mythical
founder of human civilization.98 And it was, in fact, one of
the great scientific achievements of fifth-century Greece. It
is in the writings of the Hippocratic school that the most
striking statements of the new scientific outlook are to be
found. They exhibit an empirical spirit and an optimistic
confidence which are not to be seen again in Western Europe
until the nineteenth century after Christ. " Many discoveries
have been made, and everything else will be discovered," is
the sublimely confident statement of the author of the treatise
On Ancient Medicine?* an argument in favor of the empirical
method aimed against the importation into the art of medicine
of philosophical hypotheses. "This disease," says the author
of the treatise On the Sacred Disease, (5), "is in my opinion no
more sacred than the rest of them. It has the same nature as
other diseases, and, like them, a cause. It is also curable."
The disease he is so confident can be cured is epilepsy. And

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

the author of On Ancient Medicine propounds a medical

adaptation of the Protagorean humanist thesis: "One must
aim at some measure. But no measure, number or weight can
you find, by reference to which you can attain exact knowledge,
except the sensations of the body/' 10° It is in the fifth-century
medical writings that the spirit of the enlightenment is seen
in its clearest colors and at its best. And one of the most fully
developed images of the play presents Oedipus in these terms,
as a physician.
As before, the metaphor has a solid basis in the dramatic
situation. Oedipus is called upon to find the cause of the
plague which afflicts the city, and to devise a remedy. The
situation prepares the ground for the image, which is made
precise and alive by the frequent appearance of words and
usages which are drawn from and suggest the scientific
vocabulary and style of the new medical science.
In the priest's speech at the beginning of the play there
are a number of expressions which suggest that he is appealing
to a physician on behalf of a sick patient. "The city," he
tells Oedipus/' . . . is storm-tossed, and cannot raise up
[anakouphisai, 23] its head out of the depths of the bloody
swell." This is figurative language which suggests a swimmer
in a heavy sea, or a ship,101 but it also weaves into the complex
pattern the image of a patient fighting a disease, and this
suggestion is strengthened by the word " bloody " (phoiniou,
24), which does not seem appropriate for either swimmer or
ship. And the priest's word anakouphisai y " raise up," is echoed
in a later speech of Oedipus, in a context which does not
suggest ships or swimmers. " You might receive help and
relief [anakouphisin, 218] from your troubles," he says to the
chorus. The translation " relief " emphasizes what is in fact
a common meaning of the word : kouphizein, " to lighten,"
is used almost as a technical term in medical language to

140
 CHAPTER THREE: MAN
describe " improvement " on the part of the patient, especially
relief from fever. " Copious sweats," reads a Hippocratic
description of the symptoms of a fever on the island of Thasos,
"bringing no relief" (kouphizontes ouden*).™2 In the Philoc-
tetes Sophocles uses this word in the strictly medical sense:
" I seem to be relieved " (kouphizein dokô, 735), says Philoc-
tetes when Neoptolemus anxiously enquires about the condition
of his disease.
In his description of the plague in Thebes the priest usev>
a word for " sterile " (agonois, 27) which occurs nowhere else
in Sophocles and is a standard term of the Hippocratic writers
and also of the later Greek medical literature.103 And he
appeals to Oedipus as " experienced " (empeiroisi, 44), using
a word which is the highest term of praise the Hippocratic
writers can bestow on a physician.104
Oedipus in reply uses similar language. " This one method
of cure [iasin, 68] 105 which I found on examination [skopôn]
I have already put into practice/' Creon's arrival brings what
corresponds to the diagnosis of the disease, for he brings an
explanation of the cause of the plague, the murder of Laius,
and also suggests a cure, the punishment of the murderer.
His speech is scattered with words which come from the same
source and suggest the same atmosphere. The news is " hard
to bear," (dysphor, 87);106 he quotes Apollo as saying that
the blood of Laius " brings a storm on the city " (cheimazon
polin, ιοί), using a word which in medical literature describes
the suffering of the patient at the height of the disease. " They
feel pain on the third day, and are at their worst [cheimazontai
malista—literally " are most storm-tossed "] on the fifth ," says
the author of the treatise On Prognosis.™1
The chorus, in the opening stasimon, describes the plague
from which Thebes is suffering. Here again, ornate and lyrical
as their language is, and though the song they are singing is

141
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

a prayer to the gods, many of the words they use are drawn
from the vocabulary of the new scientific medicine. " The
flame of pain " [phloga pematos, 166] is their phrase for the
plague, and they describe its action as " burning " ( phlegei,
192). The use of these and cognate words to describe fever
and inflammation is characteristic of the Hippocratic writers
and appears also in Thucydides' account of the Athenian
plague.108 "Children lie death-bringing on the ground"
(thanataphora, 181), sings the chorus, and this adjective is
common in medical texts.109
Oedipus now appears and promises them relief (andkou-
phisin, 218). He goes on to reproach them for the advanced
stage the disease has attained, for according to him they could
have prevented it by pressing the enquiry into the murder
of Laius. " It was not right," he tells them, " for you to leave
that affair unpurified, uncleansed" {akaiharton, 256). This
word occurs nowhere else in Sophocles but is a common term
in the medical wrfters: they use it, for example, of an ulcer
which has been neglected, or of a patient who has not been
purged.110
All through the violent scenes of altercation, first with
Tiresias and then with Creon, the metaphor is maintained,111
but by the end of the scene with Creon a change has taken
place in its application. " Such natures," says Creon, meaning
Oedipus, "are, justly, most painful for themselves to bear"
Qiai de toiautai physeis, 674). This judgment on Oedipus is
expressed in what are unmistakable medical terms. The use of
the word " nature " (pfej/sis) in the plural is unexampled else-
where in Sophocles and does not occur in Aeschylus either,
but the whole phrase is a commonplace of the Hippocratic
writings, where it is usually used to denote physical types.
" Such natures " (tas de toiautas yhysias*), says the author of
Ancient Medicine, (12) "are weaker . . ." "Such natures"

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(tas de toiautas physias*), says the writer of Airs, Waters, Places

(4), "are necessarily given to eating much and drinking
little." 112 The words of Creon are a diagnosis and Oedipus is
the patient. Four lines later the chorus asks Jocasta: "Why do
you delay to take this man into the house? " Qwmizein, 678).n3
They do not address Oedipus but appeal over his head to
Jocasta; the solicitous tone of the request suggests that they think
of Oedipus as a sick man. And it is in these terms that Jocasta
speaks of him later, when Oedipus knows the circumstances
of Laius' death. " He raises his passion too high with pains
of all kinds" (lypaisi, 915). He is like a "stricken" pilot
(empeplegmenon, 922).
From this agony of spirit the great news brought by the
Corinthian messenger gives him a temporary relief. Oedipus
begins to probe and question once again. He asks how
Polybus died. " By treachery, or by the visitation of disease? "
(nosou synallagei, 960).114 The Corinthian messenger answers
like a Hippocratic physician: "A small impulse brings aged
bodies to their rest." 115
This news brings Oedipus some comfort, and Jocasta claims
the credit for the result. " Did I not foretell this long ago? "
(proulegon, 973). The word she uses (and this is its only
occurrence in Sophocles) is one of the key words in the Hippo-
cratic discussions of the function of the doctor. "To declare
the past, diagnose the present, foretell the future [prolegew],
this should be your practice," says the author of the first book
of Visits.11* But it is typical of the irony of this play that Jocasta
should use the word at this moment, for she now launches
on a denial of the possibility of foretelling anything. Oedipus
should not fear the prophecy of Apollo. " What should man
fear, whose life is governed by the operations of chance, and
for whom there is no clear [true] foreknowledge [pronoia, 978]
of anything? " This is more than an attack on oracular prophecy,

43
 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

it is a nihilistic statement which rejects not only the religious

viewpoint but the scientific one as well. Pronoia, " foreknowl-
edge, foresight," is not only the basis of divine prophecy; it
is also the ability which the physician, in the Hippocratic
writings, is urged to cultivate above all others. " Practise fore-
sight " (jpronoiari) begins the treatise On Prognosis;117 this
work is a full discussion of the art of making accurate forecasts
as a necessary preliminary to treatment and as a means of
inspiring confidence in the patient.
Jocasta rejects foresight and proclaims the rule of chance;
the doctors, who teach both the possibility and the necessity
of foresight, emphatically reject the concept of chance, both in
the doctor's operations and in the functioning of the human
body. " We ought not," says the writer of On Ancient Medi-
cine, "to jettison the ancient art of medicine as nonexistent
or bad research just because it does not have complete accuracy,
but much rather, because of its capacity to advance by reason-
ing from deep ignorance to a point very near real accuracy,
we should admire its discoveries as the product of good and
correct research, and not of chance " (V. M. 12). The author
of the treatise On Places in Man is even more explicit and
indignant in his rejection of chance. " The whole of medicine
has a sound basis," he says, "and the superb intellectual
achievements which constitute it do not seem to have any need
of chance. Chance is self-controlling, not subject to control,
not even by prayer can you make fortune come; science is
subject to control and has a fortunate result when the one
who wishes to use it is an expert. What need has medicine
of fortune [chance]? If there are clear [saphê, "true"]
remedies for diseases, these remedies, it seems to me, do not
wait for fortune to turn disease into health . . ."118 The same
point of view is developed in the treatise On the Art. Replying
to those critics who malign the art of medicine because it does

44
 CHAPTER THREE: MAN

not heal all cases of sickness and who claim that even those
patients who are healed by it owe more to chance than the
medical art, the author states, in conciliatory form, a very
unconciliatory opinion: "I do not myself deprive chance of
any of its achievements, but I think that when diseases are
badly treated the result is generally misfortune, and when
they are well treated, good fortune." 119 The patients them-
selves, he goes on to point out, do not really believe that their
cure was due to chance, since they submitted to medical treat-
ment; "they were unwilling to look at the naked face of
chance—they handed themselves over to the medical art." 1<?0
Jocasta's denial of foresight and exaltation of chance is a
rejection of the possibility of that very forecasting in which
she at first claimed to have been successful (proulegon, 973).
And she proceeds to state the consequences which follow from
the recognition of the dominion of chance in terms which,
ironically, are the terms of medical science. They are terms
which in themselves constitute a diagnosis of and a judgment
on the course of conduct which she advocates. If chance
governs all things, then " it is best to live recklessly [eikê,
"haphazardly, without system," 979], as best one can."121
This word eikê is used by Aeschylus' Prometheus to describe
the chaotic nature of human life before civilization—" they
confused everything at random " [eikê, P. V. 450]—and it is
used in the doctors to describe the way of life which is unregi-
mented, undisciplined, loose, one which gives no thought to
the consequences. " Of those who were sick," says the writer
of the first book of Visits, describing an epidemic on the island
of Thasos," these mostly died: boys, young people, men in
their prime . . . those who had lived recklessly [eikê] and at
their ease [epi to rathymon]." 122 The second of these two
phrases appears in Jocasta's next statement : " He who pays no

45
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

attention to such things [as dreams] bears the burden of life

most at his ease " (rasta ton bion fherei, 983).
But Oedipus has never lived " recklessly " or " at his ease,"
and when the messenger opens up a fresh avenue of investi-
gation Oedipus continues to pursue the truth, to reach finally
a point at which Jocasta, her eyes open at last, rushes into
the palace to hang herself, after a last futile attempt to stop
Oedipus' dogged probing. In the prolonged silence which
follows this unexpected reaction li?3 the chorus expresses its
foreboding. " I fear that from this silence will break out evil "
(anarrêksei, 1075). "Burst forth what will" (régnytô, 1076),
Oedipus replies. This is generally taken to be a metaphor
drawn from the nbursting out" of a storm: "the image,"
says Jebb, "is that of a storm bursting forth from a great
stillness." It is noticeable, however, that the two parallels
which Jebb quotes are both examples of ekrêgnysthai not
anarrêgnysthai, and the effect of ana ("up") is to suggest
rather an image of a volcanic eruption, or waters " bursting
up " after an earthquake.124 It suggests also an image from
medical terminology, in which this word occurs frequently.
The doctors use it of infections " chronic, troublesome, and
often breaking out again " (anarregnymena), of air " breaking
up the bubbles in which it is enclosed " {anarrëksêi)—a medical
description of belching—of phlegm " bursting open the veins "
(anarrêgnyeï), of a flux " bursting upward " (^anarrêgnytaï),
of blood " bursting open the passages " (anarrêgnyeï).12*
Evil " bursts up " as the chorus feared it would, and the
messenger, after his clinical description of Oedipus' ghastly
operation on his own eyes,126 repeats the phrase: "This has
broken out from two not one, evil mixed for husband and
wife." 12T The messenger announces that Oedipus is about to
come out of the palace. " But he needs strength, and someone
to lead him on. For the disease is more than he can bear." 128
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 CHAPTER THREE: MAN

Oedipus is a sick man, but he is also, in a terrible sense,

the doctor, the surgeon who has just performed an operation
on his own eyes. He justifies this action, and adds that if he
had known how, he would have destroyed his hearing as well
as his sight. This statement is made in words which suggest
the medical vocabulary. "If there had been some way to
obstruct [phragmos, 1387] the stream of hearing in the ears,
I would not have refrained from shutting off [apokleisai, 1388]
my wretched body entirely." Both these words are found only
here in Sophocles, and both are common in the doctors.129
Oedipus goes on to recall the stages of his life, addressing
himself to places and persons who have harbored and nurtured
him, to Cithaeron, Polybus, Corinth. "You brought me up,
a thing of beauty, but how festering with evil underneath
the surface" (kallos kakôn hyyoulon, I390).130 The festering
sore of his hidden past has finally burst up, and Oedipus
stands revealed not as the physician but as the sick man-
in fact as the disease, for his presence in Thebes is the cause
of the plague.131

IV
What is in some ways the most elaborately formulated and
deeply suggestive image in the play is introduced by a bold
phrase in the first speech of the priest in the prologue. " I
do not regard you,0 he says to Oedipus, "as one equated to
the gods [theoisi . . . isoumenon, 31] but as first of men."
Isoumenon, " equated," is a mathematical term, and it is only
one of a whole complex of such terms which is inextricably
woven into the texture of the play's taut and spggestive lan-
guage. To all the other achievements of mankind which are
symbolized in the figure of Oedipus tyrannos is added what

47
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

the Greeks regarded as a man's greatest, because most purely

intellectual, discovery, mathematics.
In the Greek anthropological tradition, the discovery of
number ranks very high among the steps towards man's under-
standing and hope of eventual control of his environment. It
is claimed by Aeschylus' Promotheus : " and number too I
discovered, outstanding among intellectual achievements "
(ariihmon, P. V. 45p).132 Palamedes, too, is credited with the
discovery. " He discovered," says one of the characters in the
lost Nauplius of Sophocles, " the inventions of weights,
numbers, and measures . . . and first contrived ten out of one,
and out of ten again units of fifty, and then thousands . . ." 133
The philosophic and scientific enquirers saw number as the
basis of scientific cognition. " Everything that can be known
has number," said Philolaos, " for it is impossible to grasp any-
thing with the mind or recognize it without this." 1S4 And
Aristotle mentions a proposed definition of man as " the creature
which knows how to count." 135
The word which the priest uses, isoumenon, " equated,"
refers to what the Greeks seem to have regarded as the central
mathematical concept on which all the others depend, the
idea of equality. " Geometrical equality," says Plato, " has great
power among both gods and men." 13β And Jocasta, in the
Phoenissae of Euripides, urging her son Eteocles to share power
equally with his brother, describes equality as the directing
creative force behind all mathematical relationships. " It was
Equality which ordered measures for man, and divisions of
weights, and defined number" (isotés . . . kctrithmon diorisen,
Ph. 542).137 When Euclid came to systematize the work of
centuries of mathematical activity, he prefaced his book with
the essential definitions, postulates, and axioms, the first four
of which are concerned with equality. And when Diophantus,
many centuries later, wrote his book on what we now know

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as algebra, he used this word which appears in the priest's

speech to describe his fundamental operation, " to equate/*138
Oedipus is not judged—not at any rate by the priest—as
" equated to the gods," but this phrase is the prelude to the
priest's demand that Oedipus find some way to equate himself
to what he was once, when he answered the riddle of the
Sphinx—the savior and liberator of Thebes. " With fair omens
you brought us good fortune then, and now be equal to the
man you were" (tanyn isos genou, 53). For the rejected
equation of Oedipus to the gods the priest suggests a more
appropriate one: he is asked to be equal to himself, to his own
great reputation as the successful savior of Thebes.
But these two equations are only the beginning of a series.
The play is full of equations, some incomplete, some false; the
final equation shows man equated not to the gods but to
himself, as Oedipus is finally equated to himself. For there
are in this play not one Oedipus but two. One is the magnifi-
cent figure of the opening scenes, tyrannos, the man of wealth,
power, and knowledge, " first of men," the intellect and the
energy which drives on the search for the murderer of Laius.
The other is the object of the search (to zetoumenon), an
obscure figure (ton adêlon andra) who has violated the most
powerful human taboos, an incestuous parricide, "most
accursed of men " (1345). In the end the one Oedipus finds
the other, but even before he does so the two of them are
already symbolically equated in the hero's name Oedipus,
which connects the knowledge (pida) of the confident tyrannos
with the swollen foot (pews) of Laius' outcast son. In the name
they both bear is locked the secret of their identity, their
equation, but Oedipus does not yet know the meaning of his
name; that is what he is to find out. " Be now the equal of
the man you were." The priest is right. Oedipus once
answered a riddle and now he must answer another; but the

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 OEDIPUS AT T H E B E S

answer to the riddle, once found, will equate him not to the
foreigner who saved Thebes from the Sphinx but to the native-
born king, the son of Laius and Jocasta.
Oedipus in his reply to the priest repeats the significant
word: "Sick as you are, not one of you has sickness equal
to mine" (efes isou nosei, 61). And he adds a word of his
own, a characteristic metaphor—he is impatient at Creon's
continued absence: "Measuring the day against the time
[ksymmetroumenon chronôi, 73], I am anxious." And then,
as Creon approaches, " He is now commensurate with the
range of our voices " (ksymmetros gar has klyein, 84).139
Measure, like number, is one of the great instruments of
human progress; weights and measures are among the dis-
coveries of Palamedes, and figure in the list of ideas made
possible by the conception of equality in the speech of
Euripides' Jocasta. In the river valleys of the East centuries
of mensuration and calculation had brought man to an under-
standing of the movements of the stars and of time; in the
Histories of his friend Herodotus Sophocles had read of the
calculation and mensuration which had gone into the building
of the Egyptian pyramids. " Measure "—it is Protagoras' word :
" Man is the measure of all things."
With these phrases of Oedipus the metaphor is set in train.
Oedipus is the equator and measurer, and these are the methods
by which he will reach the truth; calculation of time, measure-
ment of age and number, comparison of place and description
—these are the techniques which will solve the equation, estab-
lish the identity of the murderer of Laius. The tightly organ-
ized and relentless process by which Oedipus finds his way
to the truth is presented by the language of the play as an
equivalent of the activity of man's mind in almost all its
aspects; it is the investigation by the officer of the law who
identifies a criminal, the series of diagnoses by the physician

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who identifies the disease,140 and it is also the working out

of a mathematical problem which ends with the establishment
of a true equation.
With Creon's entry the numerical aspect of the problem
is emphasized at once. "One man of Laius' party escaped,"
he says, " and he had only one thing to say "(118-19). " What
was it? " asks Oedipus. " One thing might find out a way
to learn many" (120). The one thing the one man said
was that Laius was killed not by one man but by many. This
begins to sound like a problem in arithmetic,141 and Oedipus
undertakes to solve it. But the chorus, which enters at this
point, has no such confidence; its note is one of despair. It
makes its despondent statement about the plague in these
same terms; it has its characteristic word, which like the priest
and like Oedipus it pronounces twice. The chorus' word is
anarithmos, " numberless, uncountable " : " My sorrows are
numberless" (anarithma . . . pêmata, 168), they sing, and
later, "uncountable the deaths of which the city is dying"
(anarithmos ollutai, 179). For the chorus the plague is some-
thing beyond the power of " number, outstanding among
intellectual achievements." 142
The prologue and the first stasimon, besides presenting the
necessary exposition of the situation, present also the exposition
of the metaphor. And with the entry of Tiresias, the develop-
ment of the metaphor begins; its terrible potentialities are
revealed. " Even though you are tyrannos" says the prophet
at the height of his anger," we must be equated in the equality
of the speeches we make against each other " (eksisôsteon to
goun is' antileksai, 408-9). But he pushes the word to further
lengths: "There is a mass of evils of which you are uncon-
scious, which shall equate you to yourself and your children "
(ha s eksisôsei soi te kai tois sois teknois, 425).143 This is not
the equation the priest desired to see, Oedipus present equated

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to Oedipus past, the deliverer from the Sphinx, but a more

frightening equation reaching further back into the past,
Oedipus son of Polybus and Merope equated to Oedipus son
of Laius and Jocasta, and equated to his own children, for
he is the brother of his own sons and daughters. In his closing
lines Tiresias explains this mysterious statement, and connects
it with the as yet unrevealed murderer of Laius. " He will be
revealed, a native Theban, one who in his relationship with
his own children is both brother and father, with his mother
both son and husband, with his father both marriage partner
and murderer. Go inside the palace and reckon this up
[logizou, 461] and if you find me mistaken [epseusmenon,
461] then say I have no head for prophecy." 144 Tiresias adopts
the terms of Oedipus' own science and throws them in his
face. But these new equations are beyond Oedipus' under-
standing; he dismisses them as the ravings of an unsuccessful
conspirator with his back to the wall. Even the chorus, though
clearly disturbed, rejects the prophet's words and stands by
Oedipus.
After Tiresias, Creon; after the prophet, the politician. In
Tiresias Oedipus faced a blind man who saw with unearthly
sight, but Creon's vision, like that of Oedipus, is of this world.
They are two of a kind, and Creon talks Oedipus' language;
it is a quarrel between two calculators. " Hear an equal
reply" (is1 antakouson, 544), says Creon, and "long time
might be measured since Laius' murder " (metrêiheien chronoi,
561). Tiresias was "equally honored then as now" (efes isou,
563). "You and Jocasta rule this land in equality of power"
(ges ison nernon, 579). And finally, " Am I not a third party
equated to you two? " (isowwai, 581). Creon and Oedipus are
not equated now, for Creon is at the mercy of the tyrannos,
begging for a hearing; but before the play is over Oedipus
will be at the mercy of Creon, begging kindness for his

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daughters, and he then uses the same word : " Do not equate
them with my misfortunes " (méX éksisôsêis, 1507).
With Jocasta's intervention the enquiry changes direction.
In her attempt to comfort Oedipus, whose only accuser is a
prophet, she indicts prophecy in general, using as her example
the unfulfilled prophecy about her own child, who was
supposed to kill his father Laius. The child was abandoned
on the mountainside, and Laius was killed by brigands at a
place where three roads meet. " Such were the definitions
[diôrisan, 723] made by prophetic voices," 145 and they were
incorrect. But Oedipus is not for the moment interested in
prophetic voices. " Where three roads meet." He once killed
a man at such a place, and now, in a series of swift questions,
he determines the relation between these two events. The
place, the time, the description of the victim, the number in
his party (five) all correspond exactly. His account of the
circumstances of his own encounter at the crossroads includes
a mention of Apollo's prophecy that he would kill his father
and be his mother's mate. But this does not disturb him now.
That prophecy has not been fulfilled, for his father and mother
are alive in Corinth, where he will never go. " I measure
the distance to the Corinthian land by the stars " (astrois . . .
ekmetroumenos, 795)·14β What does disturb him is the possi-
bility that he may be the murderer of Laius, the cause of
the plague, the object of his own solemn excommunication.
But he has some slight ground for hope. There is a discrepancy
in the two corresponding sets of circumstances. It is the same
numerical distinction which was discussed before, whether
147
Laius was killed by one man or by many. Jocasta said
"brigands" and Oedipus was alone. This distinction is now
all-important, the key to the solution of the equation. Oedipus
gives orders to summon the survivor who can confirm or deny
this saving detail. " If he says the same number as you, then

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I am not the murderer. For one cannot be equal to many"

(iois pollois isos, 845). The Greek words which express this
closing thought suggest a general statement, and may fairly
be rendered : " In no circumstances can one be equal to more
than one/' Oedipus' guilt or innocence rests now on a mathe-
matical axiom.148
But a more fundamental equation has been brought into
question, the relation of the oracles to reality. Here are two
oracular " definitions," both the same, both apparently in-
correct: the same terrible destiny was predicted for Jocasta's
son, who perished on the mountainside before he could fulfil
it, and for Oedipus, who has so far successfully avoided it.
One thing is clear to Jocasta. No matter who turns out to be
the murderer of Laius, the oracles were doubly wrong. " From
this day forward," she says, " I would not, on account of
prophecy, turn my head this way or that " (857-8). But this
is a far-reaching statement. If the equation of oracular
prophecy to reality is a false equation, then religion as a whole
is meaningless. Neither Jocasta nor Oedipus can allow the
possibility that the oracles may be right, and they accept the
consequences of this stand, as their subsequent statements make
clear. But they have gone too far for the chorus, which now
abandons Oedipus and turns instead to those "high-footed
laws [hypsipodes, 866] which are the children of Olympus
and not a creation of mortal man." The chorus calls on Zeus
to fulfil the oracles: " If these things do not coincide [harmosei,
902] "—if the oracles are not equated to reality—then " the
divine order is overthrown " (errei ta theia, pio).149
The oracles are now the central issue; the murder of Laius
is for the moment forgotten. A messenger from Corinth brings
news, news which will be greeted, he announces, "with an
equal amount of sorrow and joy " (isds, 937).150 " What is it,"
asks Jocasta, "which has such double power?" Polybus is

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dead.151 The sorrow equal to the joy will come later; for the
moment there is only joy. The oracles are proved wrong
again; Oedipus' father is dead, and not by the hand of Oedipus.
Oedipus can no more kill his father than the son of Laius
killed his. " Oracles of the gods, where are you now? " Oedipus
is caught up in Jocasta's exaltation, but for him it does not
last. Only half his burden is lifted from him. His mother
still lives. He must still measure the distance to Corinthian
soil by the stars.
Jocasta and the Corinthian messenger now try, in turn, to
relieve him of this last remaining fear. Jocasta makes her
famous declaration which rejects fear, providence—divine and
human alike—and any idea of universal order. Her declaration
amounts almost to a rejection of the law of cause and effect,
and it certainly undermines the basis of human calculation.
" Why should man fear? His life is governed by the operations
of chance. Nothing can be accurately foreseen. The best rule
is to live at random, as best one can."152 It is a statement
which recognizes and accepts an incalculable and meaningless
universe. Oedipus would accept it too, but for one thing. His
mother still lives. Try as he may to disregard the future, he
still feels fear.
Where Jocasta failed, the Corinthian messenger succeeds.
He does it by proving false the equation on which Oedipus'
life is based. And he uses familiar terms : " Polybus is no more
your father than I am, but equally so " (ison, 1018). Oedipus'
reply is indignant: " How can my father be equal to a nobody,
153
to zero? " (eks isou toi mêdeni, ιοιρ). The answer to his
question is: "Polybus is not your father, neither am I."
But that is as far as the Corinthian's knowledge goes; he
was given the child Oedipus by another, a shepherd, one of
Laius' men. And now the two separate equations begin to
merge. " I think," says the chorus, " that this shepherd is the

155
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same man you have already sent for." The eyewitness to the
death of Laius. He was sent for to say whether Laius was
killed by one or many, but now he will bring more important
news. He will finally lift from Oedipus' shoulders the burden
of fear he has carried ever since he left Delphi. Oedipus
brushes aside Jocasta's attempt to stop him and orders the
shepherd to be brought in. Jocasta was right before. Why
should he fear?
But Jocasta has already realized the truth. Not chance, but
the fulfilment of the oracle; the prophecy and the facts
coincide, as the chorus prayed they would. Her farewell to
Oedipus expresses her knowledge and her agony by its omis-
sions; she recognizes but cannot bring herself to pronounce the
dreadful equations formulated by Tiresias. " Unfortunate. "
{dustene). " This is the only name I can call you " (1071-72).
She cannot call him husband. The three-day-old child she
sent out to die on Cithaeron has been restored to her, and
she cannot call him son.154
Oedipus hardly listens to her. He in his turn has scaled
the same heights of desperate confidence from which she has
toppled, and he goes higher still. Chance governs the universe,
and Oedipus is her son. Not the son of Polybus, nor of any
mortal man, but the son of fortunate chance. In his exaltation
he rises in imagination above human stature : " The months,
my brothers, have defined [diôrisan, 1083] me great and
small." 155 He has waxed and waned like the moon, he is one
of the forces of the universe, his family is time and space.
It is a religious, a mystical conception; here is Oedipus' real
religion: he is equal to the gods, the son of Chance, the only
real goddess. Why should he not establish his identity?
The solution is only a few steps ahead. The shepherd of
Laius is brought on. " If I, who never met the man, may make
i56
 CHAPTER THREE: MAN

an estimate [stathmastkai, ιιιι],15β I think this is the shepherd

who has heen for some time the object of our search [zêtoumen,
HIT,]. In age he is commensurate [symmetros, 1113] with
this Corinthian here." With this significant prologue he
plunges into the final calculation.
The movement of the next sixty lines is the swift ease of
the last stages of the mathematical proof; the end is half
foreseen, the process an almost automatic movement from one
step to the next until Oedipus tyrannos and Oedipus the
accursed, the knowledge and the swollen foot, are equated.
" It all comes out clear," he cries at the end. The prophecy
has been fulfilled. Oedipus knows himself for what he is. He
is not the measurer but the thing measured, not the equator but
the thing equated. He is the answer to the problem he tried
to solve. The chorus sees in Oedipus a paradeigma, an example
to mankind. In this self-recognition of Oedipus, man recog-
nizes himself. Man measures himself, and the result is not
that man is the measure of all things. The chorus which at
the beginning of the play had no faith in number has now
learned to count, and states what it understands to be the
result of the great calculation : " Generations of mankind that
must die, I add up the total of your life and find it equal to
zero " (isa kai torneden. . . enarithmô, 1187).
This despairing equation, though it is a natural reaction
to the shock of the discovery, is not the play's last word. Man
is not equated to zero, as the last section of the play makes
clear, for Oedipus rises again from the ruin which inspired this
starkly negative summation. But the culmination of the mathe-
matical images in this phrase suggests something else. It
proposes a formula for the solution of the problem discussed
in the opening chapter, the relation between Oedipus' actions
and the prophecy of Apollo. Oedipus' will was free, his actions
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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

his own, but the pattern of his action and suffering is the
same as that of the Delphic prophecy. The relation between
the prophecy and the hero's action is not that of cause and
effect. It is the relation between two independent entities
which are equated.

i58
CHAPTER FOUR; GOD

When the priest, in the opening scene, tells Oedipus that he

regards him not as " equated to the gods " but as " first of men/'
he is attempting, by means of this careful distinction, to clarify
and correct an ambiguity inherent in his own speech and
action. The beginning of the play suggests in both verbal and
visual terms that Oedipus is in fact regarded as " equated to
the gods." The priest of Zeus and selected young priests have
come as suppliants to the palace of Oedipus; their action is
parallel to that of other groups who, the priest tells us (19),
have gone in supplication to the twin temples of Athena and
the fire oracle of the Theban hero Ismenus. " You see us here,"
the priest says to Oedipus, " sitting in supplication at your
altars" (bômoisi tois sois, 16). This is an extraordinary phrase
for a priest to address to a tyrannos, and it did not escape
the eye of the ancient commentators; "They come to the
altars built in front of the palace as to the altars of a god,"
says the scholiast.1 It is not until many hundred lines later
(and after many events and revelations) that we find out from
Jocasta that " your altars " are the altars dedicated to Lycean
Apollo (919).
The equation is one that Oedipus does not reject. His first
question to the suppliants contains an ambiguous pronoun
(тог, 2) which suggests two different meanings for the
sentence as a whole : " Tell me, what is the meaning of this
supplicatory attitude? " or " What is the meaning of this atti-
tude in which you supplicate me? " 2 And at the end of the
chorus* appeal to the gods, an ode which is liturgical in form,8
Oedipus addresses the chorus in words which, like his opening
sentence, betray acceptance of the attitude towards him implicit
in the tableau and speeches of the opening scene. " You are

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 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

praying. And what you are praying for, if you are willing to
hear and accept what I am about to say ... you will receive
. . ."4 The words Oedipus chooses are symptomatic of a god-
like attitude. They accept and promise fulfilment of the choral
prayer (which was addressed to Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Zeus,
and Dionysus) and are phrased in what is a typical formula of
the Delphic oracle. "You are praying to me for Arcadia,"
the Pythian priestess answered the Spartans, according to
Herodotus; " What you are praying for is a big thing. I shall
not give it to you." " You come praying for good government,"
she said to Lycurgus; " I shall give it to you." 5
These pointers would not have gone unrecognized in fifth-
century Athens, for Oedipus is a tyrannos and the comparison
of tyrannis to divine power is a commonplace of Greek litera-
ture. " He praises tyrannis" says Adeimantus in Plato's
Republic, "as equal to godhead." The possessor of the ring
of Gyges, in Glaucus' fable in the same work, is described as
possessed of power to carry out any imaginable (and unlawful)
act, and the catalogue of his powers concludes with the words,
". . . and act in other respects like one equal to the gods among
men."«
The individual tyrannos is equal to the gods in his power,
his prosperity, and his success. The polis tyrannos, Athens,
assumes this same quasi-divinity; in the Periclean speeches in
Thucydides the city replaces the gods as the object of man's
veneration and devotion. In the three magnificent and lengthy
speeches attributed to Pericles in the first two books of the
History, the word theos, "god," does not occur even once.7
The nearest thing to religious feeling which is to be found in
them occurs in that section of the Funeral Speech where Peri-
cles calls on the Athenians to " contemplate daily the power
of the city and become lovers of Athens." " Athens," he says,
in words more appropriate for a god than a state, "Athens

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alone comes to the test superior to report, Athens alone affords

the attacking enemy no cause for annoyance at the character
of the enemy by whom he is beaten and to the subject no
cause for blaming his master as unworthy to rule." 8
The city which thus in fifth-century Athens becomes the
object of man's veneration is in the first place the creation
of man, of his " attitudes which enable him to live in com-
munities " (astynomous orgas), as Sophocles puts it in the
chorus of the Antigone. If Athens can be spoken of in wor-
shiping tones, what of man, who created the city? 9 The
development of the new humanist view tended inevitably
towards the substitution of man for god as the true center of
the universe, the true measure of reality; this is what Prota-
goras meant by his famous phrase, " Man is the measure of all
things/' The rationalistic scientific mind, seeking an explana-
tion of reality in human terms and assuming that such an
explanation is possible and attainable, rejects the concept of
God as irrelevant. If reality is fully explicable in human terms,
the gods will automatically be disposed of when the complete
explanation is worked out; meanwhile the important thing is
the search for the explanation. The question of the existence
or nonexistence of the gods is secondary and must be postponed;
it is also a blind alley, for the answer to the question depends
on the answer to another question, which the human intel-
ligence has some hope of answering. " About the gods," so
ran the opening sentence (all that we have left) of Protagoras'
famous book On the Gods, " I have no means of knowing
whether they exist or do not exist or what their form may be.
Many things prevent [the attainment] of this knowledge, the
obscurity [of the subject] and the fact that man's life is short."
The word translated "obscurity" {adélotês) disposes of the
subject of the gods as one which does not allow of scientific
method: nothing can be "made clear," "proved" (dêlon,

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dêloun). Everything connected with the gods is aaelon\ they

are, by their nature and by definition, beyond the reach of
scientific understanding and discussion. And the concluding
phrase—" the shortness of human life "—is not, as at first
appears, a cynical quip at the impenetrability of the subject
and the consequent futility of discussion about it; it is the
serious statement of a man who sees other things to be under-
stood which can be understood by the efforts of the human
intelligence, though one man's life may not be long enough
to reach the goal. " Life is short," runs the first Hippocratic
aphorism, " the art long ";10 here is the same feeling of pressure
—there is so much to be learned, so little time to learn it. For
such an attitude the existence or nonexistence of the gods is
not the most urgent question; it is in fact a question to be
excluded. And this is precisely what Plato makes Protagoras
say in the Theaetetus, where Socrates imagines the great
sophist reproving him and his fellow debaters for the irrele-
vancy of their discussions. " There you sit in a bunch making
speeches, and bringing into the discussion the gods, while I
exclude [eksairô] from both spoken and written discussion the
whole question of their existence or nonexistence." X1
With the gods excluded from discussion, and man the
measure of all things, man's attempt to understand his environ-
ment and nature, if successful, will make him " equated to the
gods." " The doctor who is also a philosopher," says the Hippo-
cratic treatise On Decorum, " is the equal of the gods."12
" Many are the wonderful and terrible things," sang the chorus
of the Antigone, " and nothing more wonderful and terrible
than man." But man with the attainment of complete under-
standing would be more than the equal of the gods, for if the
scientific explanation of the universe made the concept of
divine power unnecessary or demonstrably false, man would be
revealed as the creator of the gods. This final stage is repre-

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sented by a famous dramatic fragment of Critias, the leading

spirit of the Thirty Tyrants; it describes the invention of the
gods by a man of wisdom and intelligence whose object was
to stabilize society by imposing on erring human beings an
inescapable superior and a fear of superhuman vision and
retribution.
There was a time when the life of man was undisciplined,
beastlike, and subject to superior strength, when there was
no reward for the good and no punishment for the wicked.
Then it was, in my opinion, that men made laws as
correctors, so that Justice would be tyrannos . . . and have
violence as its slave. A punishment was administered to
anyone who acted wrongly. Then, when the laws pre-
vented them from open acts of violence, they did them
secretly. At that point, it seems to me, some man of deep
wisdom and intelligence [sophos gnomên] invented
[ekseurein] for mankind the fear of the gods . . . this was
his reason for introducing divinity.
But long before Critias wrote these words which carry the
doctrines of the enlightenment to a cynical extreme, the hope-
ful mood of its early stages—the vision of man in a universe
he could fully understand and perhaps eventually control-
had vanished. The Athenian confidence in their city's uncon-
querable destiny and fifth-century man's dream of a world
understood and controlled by human intelligence—both alike
collapsed in the horrors of the unexpected and inexplicable
plague, in the growing misery and anarchy caused by the
relentless and senseless war. The Protagorean " liberal " pro-
gram of educating man to political justice was revealed as an
idealistic illusion by the Walpurgisnacht of butchery and
cynicism which Thucydides clinically analyzes in his accounts
of the political massacres on Corcyra and the Athenian " nego-

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dations " with Melos. The universe seemed to have been

revealed not as a cosmos, an order, governed either by gods
or by discoverable natural laws, but as a desperate chaos,
governed by blind chance. " Whatever turns out contrary to
calculation/' said Pericles in the speech made just before the
outbreak of the war, "we are accustomed to attribute to
chance." 13 He is reminding the Athenians that in spite of their
financial and technical superiority to the enemy they may suffer
setbacks. But his remarks were grimly prophetic. Too many
things " turned out contrary to calculation "; the plague, which
Pericles describes as " sudden, unexpected, and happening
contrary to all calculation," 14 was only the forerunner of a
series of events which seemed to mock human calculation or
foresight of any kind.15
The plays of Euripides reflect the growth in Athens of an
increasingly reckless feeling that, as Jocasta puts it, " the opera-
tion of chance governs all things," Even in the prewar
Alcestis (438 в. с.) Euripides prophetically expounds the
desperate mood of the war years in the philosophizing of the
drunken Heracles. " The course of chance—no one can see
where it will go—this is not a thing which can be taught, or
captured by technique . . . Enjoy yourself, drink, calculate that
this day's life is yours—the rest belongs to chance." 1β In the
later plays the mood is grimmer. This same Heracles, in a
different Euripidean play, is struck by a series of calamities
which defy human expectation and rational explanation; he
rejects the solution which this terrible situation seems to call
for, suicide, and determines to go on living, but in a world
which he redefines as one subject to inexplicable chance.
17
" Now, it seems, I must act as a slave to chance." Menelaus,
in the Euripidean Orestes, describes his situation in the same
terms : "Now it is necessity that the wise should be slaves
to chance." 18 The most uncompromising expression of this

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terrible doctrine is put into the mouth of Hecuba in the
Troades, as she mourns over the mangled body of the child
Astyanax. " Any mortal man that, seeming to prosper, rejoices
as if his prosperity were solidly based, is a fool. For the turns
of chance are like those of a crazed man, leaping now this
way, now that . . ." 19
This chance, which the Euripidean characters identify as
the governing force of the universe, is clearly the philosophical
" chance " of Thucydides, an abstraction of the absence of any
causality comprehensible in human terms. But it was only
to be expected, in fifth-century Greece, that this abstraction
which now seemed to many the dominant factor in human life
should be personified, should become in fact a god, or rather
(since the word tyche, " chance," is feminine in Greek) a
goddess. So Oedipus calls himself " the son of chance " (ifaida
tes tychês), and Ion, in Euripides, addresses Chance as a divine
being. "O you who have changed the fortunes of tens of
thousands of mortals before now, making them unfortunate
and then prosperous, Chance . . ."20
This personification was not unprecedented; in fact the
unprecedented thing was the philosophical abstraction. Chance,
in the older Greek poets,21 and even in Herodotus, is often
personified, and usually, far from indicating an absence of
causality and order, it is associated with divine dispensation.
In Herodotus' account of the founding of the Scythian royal
line (a story told him by Greek colonists in Pontus), Heracles,
driving the cattle of Geryon, comes to Scythia, and while he is
asleep his cattle vanish " by divine chance " (jheiai tychei,
iv. 8). It is, in other words, no chance at all, and the result
of the disappearance of the cattle, the birth of Scythes, son of
Heracles and the first Scythian king, was as the phrase indi-
cates the divine purpose behind the apparently fortuitous
disappearance of the cattle. So also in the Herodotean account

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of the founding of the Cypselid tyranny at Corinth (v. 92),

the child Cypselus, later to be tyrannos of Corinth, is spared
by his ten appointed executioners because when the first man
of the ten took hold of the child, " by divine chance " it smiled,
and the man had not the heart to kill it, nor had the others.
The child " chanced " to smile, but this was not blind chance,
for if the child had been killed the oracles predicting its
eventual seizure of power in Corinth could not have been
fulfilled.22 This Chance, the instrument of the divine will, is
addressed by Pindar as the " daughter of Zeus the liberator,
saving chance,"23 and the poet Alcman called her, in an
astonishing phrase, " sister of good government and Persuasion,
daughter of Foreknowledge." "4
That Chance, Tyche, should be personified and deified in
Oedipus' confident outburst and other tragic passages is nothing
new; what is new is the nature of the Chance which now
assumes divinity. It is no longer the old instrument of the
divine purpose, "daughter of Foreknowledge," but an auto-
nomous goddess who personifies the absence of causal order
in the universe. She is the principle of chaos. She presides
not, as the older gods did, over an ordered universe but over
a disorder in which " there is no clear foresight of anything."
And this goddess cannot merely coexist with the other gods.
She must be either, as the daughter of Forethought, divine
Chance, their servant, or, as the absence of causality, blind
Chance, their mistress. The very existence of this new goddess
Chance makes the existence of the old gods meaningless. That
the logic of this was apparent in the fifth century is demon-
strated by a passage in Euripides' satyr-play The Cyclops.
Odysseus, preparing to put out Polyphemus' eye, appeals to
Hephaestus and Sleep to help him. "Do not," he says,
"destroy Odysseus and his crew, after their glorious labors
at Troy, at the hands of a man who cares nothing for gods

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or mortals. Otherwise we must think that Chance is a divinity,

and "—here follows the logical conclusion—" that the power
of the other divinities is inferior to that of Chance/'25
This is of course exactly what was to happen in the long
run; the other divinities receded before the figure of the new
goddess Tyche. The pessimistic mood of the end of the fifth
century deepened in the fourth as Greece, torn apart by
incessant warfare, succumbed ignobly to the perseverance,
intrigue, and raw aggressiveness of a half-savage Macedonian
king. In this atmosphere of impotence and defeat the goddess
Chance seemed to reign supreme. In spite of the efforts of the
philosophers to reduce chance to a subordinate position (Plato,
for example, counters the idea that " practically all human
affairs are matters of chance " with a new version of the
archaic relationship of "divine chance" to divine will—"All
things are god, and with god chance and occasion "),26 the
goddess Chance, who symbolized the century's " sense of
drift," 27 continued to be the obsessive refrain of the prayers
and speculations of the ordinary man.28 In the last years of
the fourth century Demetrius of Phalerum wrote a book on
Chance, and the historian Polybius approvingly quotes from it
a passage which identifies Chance as the governing force in
human history : " Chance, which makes no contracts with
this life of ours, makes everything new contrary to our calula-
tion and displays her power in the unexpected." 29 Though
she had fewer temples,30 the goddess Tyche superseded the
Olympians in the mind of the common man; she was the only
appropriate icon of a world which persistently mocked all
human calculation and the logic on which it is based.
Such was the paradoxical ending of a search for truth which
began by criticizing and then proceeded to abandon the
Olympian deities as inadequate representatives of a cosmic
order. The quest for rational principle and appropriate religious
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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

personifications of a rational universe ended in the deification

of anarchy. The movement of more than a century of brilliant
and searching thought is movement not forward but back
to the starting point, from gods to goddess, from the Homeric
Olympians to the goddess Chance. But this circular progress
is not on one plane; the point of return is on a lower level.
The movement is a descending spiral.31
This self-defeating advance of the search for an intelligible
order in the universe is paralleled in Sophocles* tragedy by
the intellectual progress of Oedipus and Jocasta. Their succes-
sive changes of attitude towards the gods and the oracles which
represent the divine prescience in the play, brilliantly moti-
vated by the initial situation and the turns of the plot and
fully appropriate to the respective dramatic characters, are
yet symbolic of the mental agonies of a generation which aban-
doned a traditional order of belief with a hopeful vision of an
intelligible universe, only to find itself at last facing an incom-
prehensible future with a desperation thinly disguised as
recklessness.
The Oedipus of the opening scenes, formally pious in action
and speech but betraying in one phrase after another a con-
fidence in man's worth as equal to that of the gods, is symbolic
of the mood of imperial Athens and bears a clear resemblance
to the representative figure who set the tone of the era and
gave it his name, Pericles. As an official of the Athenian state
Pericles performed religious acts (among which was presumably
32
the consultation of the Delphic oracle), but if the oracle's
firmly expressed support of the Spartan cause against Athens
in 431 в. с. caused him any qualms, they find no reflection
in the confident speeches attributed to him by Thucydides in
the opening books of his History. In his funeral oration over
those who fell in the Samian War, Pericles compared the
Athenian dead to the gods, and the language he used is

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typical of the rationalist spirit of the age. The Athenian dead

are immortal, like the gods—so the historian Stesimhrotus
reports his argument—" for we do not see the gods, but infer
[tekmairometha] their immortality from the honors which they
receive and the benefits which they confer upon us." 33 This
is a statement which illustrates clearly the application of the
Protagorean dictum, " Man is the measure of all things."
The immortality of the gods is deduced from the fact that man
honors them (in spite of their invisibility) and the fact that
they confer benefits on man. And by the same tokens Pericles
proves the immortality of the Athenian dead who gave their
lives for the city.
The mood of the Athenian leadership at the beginning of
the war was one of outer conformance and inner skepticism.
The skepticism would come out into the open only if circum-
stances forced it; but the calamitous surprises of the war quickly
achieved precisely that effect. In the inferno produced by
the plague, which made no discrimination between the just
and the unjust, the conviction grew that " it made no difference
whether one worshiped the gods or not "; and in the frequent
Euripidean attacks on the Delphic oracle (in plays produced at
a religious festival in the city's name) we have some measure of
the strong Athenian reaction against Delphi's enthusiastic
encouragement of the Spartans at the beginning of the war.
So with Oedipus. His true feelings do not find open expres-
sion until the prophet of Apollo accuses him of the murder
of Laius. Immediately the respectful, almost adulatory tone
of Oedipus' first address to Tiresias (300-15) is replaced by
incredulous and contemptuous fury. All the opprobrious
epithets which fifth-century Athens could invent for cynical
peddlers of superstition are hurled at the blind prophet's head :
" intriguing quack," Oedipus calls the representative of Apollo,
"deceitful huckster, with an eye for profit, and for nothing
else." »*
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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

That a king should attack a prophet is nothing new in Greek

literature. In the first book of the Iliad Agamemnon threatens
Chryses, the priest of Apollo, with physical violence (i. 26-8)
and angrily reviles the prophet Calchas for taking the priest's
part (i. 105 ff.)· But Oedipus' attack on the prophet is not
like Agamemnon's. Agamemnon reviles Calchas as a " prophet
of evil," but he does not question the truth of the prophet's
statement (though it accuses him of wrongdoing), and he
proceeds to follow the prophet's advice. Oedipus not only
rejects the prophet's statement but also goes on to attack the
claims of prophecy itself. He contrasts the failure of Tiresias
to solve the riddle of the Sphinx with his own success; his
words imply a contemptuous comparison between the sources
of information open to the prophet (the birds, 395, and the
god, 396), and his own intelligence, which without any source
of information stopped the Sphinx. Oedipus has rejected the
statement of a prophet "in whom alone," according to the
chorus, " truth is inborn " (299), who " sees the same things as
Lord Apollo" (284-5), and in Oedipus' proud words can be
seen the outline of the next step in his progress, the rejection
of all prophecy, including the prophecy of a god.
But for the chorus the first step is disturbing enough. At
first they "neither accept nor reject" (485-6) the prophet's
words; they " can find nothing to say." But in the end they
reach a formula which seems appropriate: Tiresias is after
all a man, and therefore fallible—to reject his words does not
necessarily mean that one rejects Apollo. "Zeus and Apollo
have understanding and know the deeds of mortals. But when
it comes to men—that a prophet is more right than I am, there
is no true judgment of this" (498-501). So the complicated
rhythm of the development is established: as Oedipus' words
reveal that he is ready to take the next step towards total
rejection of prophecy, the chorus draws the line where it
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stands—it will accept, reluctantly, the rejection of a human

prophet but not of divine prophecy.
It is Jocasta who crosses this line first; and the decisive
nature of the step she takes is stressed dramatically by the
hesitant and complicated way in which she takes it. When she
hears that the basis of Creon's supposed attack on Oedipus
is neither personal knowledge of the facts nor an informant
(704), but the statement of a prophet (705), she carries the
argument forward to an intermediate stage. A prophet might
be wrong, so ran the argument of the chorus, and one prophet
might be wiser than another (502), but Jocasta claims that
no one human prophet is any better than any other—they are
all wrong. " Listen and learn that there is no human creature
which possesses the art of prophecy " (709). This general
proposition she claims that she can prove, and without much
loss of time.
But the proof consists of the failure of a prophecy, not of
Tiresias, but of Apollo. It is the oracle given to Laius. " An
oracle came to Laius once . . ." (711); the vague formula is
Herodotean, and in Herodotus it is used when the means of
communication between the god and the recipient is unknown
or irrelevant—an exclusive stress is placed on the content of
the oracle and the reaction to it.35 What should follow in
the formula is the place from which the oracle came, but
Jocasta continues with a qualification: ". . . came . . . I will
not say from Phoebus himself, but from his ministers "
Qiypereton, 712). The oracle said that Laius would be killed
by his own son, but instead Laius was killed by brigands, and
his three-day-old son, his feet skewered together, had long
before been thrown out on to the barren mountainside. " In
this case Apollo did not bring to fulfilment that the son should
be the father's killer, nor that Laius should suffer the dreadful
thing he feared at his son's hand. Such were the precise

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formulations [diorisan, 723] of prophetic voices. Do not con-

cern yourself with prophecies. For whatever the god seeks
and needs he will easily make clear himself " (720-5).
This is an extraordinary statement. The false oracle came
not from Apollo but from his " ministers." Who were they?
Not, this time, Tiresias, for if so Jocasta would have named
him—the case against the prophet's fallibility would be clear
and sufficient. She must be referring to Apollo's " ministers "
at Delphi, the priests or the priestess responsible for the delivery
of the prophecy. The ministers gave voice to the prophecy,se
but Apollo did not bring it to fulfilment; it was not his
prophecy. If he needs to say anything he will reveal it in
person, not through "ministers." Here is subtle doctrine.
It avoids indicting Apollo, but delivers a death blow to Apolline
prophecy, which had from time immemorial been delivered
through his ministers at Delphi. How is Apollo to prophesy,
if not through human beings who serve him? "There is no
human creature," Jocasta said, "which possesses the art of
prophecy"; as she explains that statement it becomes clear
that she might just as well have added " and no god either."
Before the scene is over this is precisely what she does say,
fully and clearly. As was to be expected of the superlative
plotting of this play, she does so in reaction to a fresh revela-
tion. Her first attack on prophecy, which was intended to
comfort Oedipus, has had the paradoxical effect of plunging
him into fear that Tiresias may be right. He is unimpressed
by her general argument; he can see nothing but the incidental
detail: the fact that Laius was killed at the junction of three
roads. To explain his fears to Jocasta he gives her an account
of his life previous to his arrival at Thebes, and this account
includes the prophecy given to him by Apollo at Delphi: that
he would kill his father and beget children by his mother.
Oedipus does not try to belittle this prophecy as the work of

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Apollo's " ministers." " Phoebus/' he says unequivocally, " spoke

and foreshadowed dreadful disasters" (788-90).
Jocasta has dismissed the prophet Tiresias and exposed the
falsity of the prophecy made by the "ministers" of Apollo;
if she is to be of any comfort to Oedipus now she must extend
her indictment to include what Oedipus himself calls the
word of Phoebus. She does not hesitate: she now makes a
significant correction of her first hesitant formulation and
states openly what she previously implied. The eyewitness
of Laius' death, she says, may possibly go back on what he
said, but he cannot demonstrate that the death of Laius was
consistent with the prophecy. " Loxias plainly said that he
was to die at the hands of my son."37 The oracle to Laius,
she now says, came not from " ministers " but from the god
himself. To counter the words of Tiresias all she needed was
a false oracle from Apollo's human ministers; to counter the
oracle given to Oedipus by Apollo she needs a false oracle
delivered by Apollo himself; and by this bold correction she
makes the same oracle serve both arguments. The oracle,
man-given or god-given, is false and will be forever false, for
the son who was to kill his father died first. When she sums
up her argument with her famous defiance of prophecy—
" From now on I would not, for the sake of a prophecy, look
this way, or that " (857-8)—she is dismissing all the prophecies
so far revealed: the accusations of Tiresias, the oracle given by
Apollo's ministers, or rather by Apollo, to Laius, and the oracle
given by Apollo to Oedipus. The logic of the changing situa-
tion drives her to the position that was in any case implicit
in her first statement, the rejection of all prophecy, human
and divine alike.38
The chorus could doubt Tiresias but not Apollo. It reacts
violently against Jocasta's defiance of prophecy, and its attitude
is colored by other aspects of the scene it has just witnessed.

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Since it last expressed its unimpaired loyalty to Oedipus

(691 ff.) it has learned much. It has heard that Jocasta's child
by Laius was exposed on the mountainside in a particularly
barbarous fashion, and that this was done to prevent the fulfil-
ment of a Delphic oracle; that Oedipus, the savior of Thebes,
came to the city stained with blood, possibly the blood of
Laius; that Oedipus is a fugitive from a Delphic oracle which
predicts for him the same unhallowed destiny as that foretold
for Laius' son. All these dreadful revelations of pollution,
actual and threatened, combined with Jocasta's proud rejection
of prophecy and Oedipus' firmly expressed approval of her
statement,39 impel the chorus to disassociate itself from the
rulers of Thebes. It appeals to higher authorities and laws in
terms which reject implicitly and explicitly the whole philo-
sophical outlook on which Oedipus and Jocasta now base their
hope and action.
" May destiny [moira, 863] be with me," the chorus sings.
The word is carefully chosen; it is the word Jocasta used when
she described the prophecy given to Laius, " that destiny
[moira, 713] would come to him, to die at the hands of his son/'
Prophecy and destiny are linked; Jocasta explicitly rejects the
first, and implicitly the second; the chorus, which will end
by vindicating prophecy, begins by accepting destiny. It prays
for " reverent purity of word and deed " (hagneian, 864). Both
Oedipus and Jocasta, the one as the main actor and the other
as the accomplice in the taking of human life, are " impure "
and both are irreverent in word. Their deeds no one in Thebes
dare question, but the chorus appeals to the "high-footed
laws proclaimed, brought to birth [teknôthentes, 867] in the
clear air of heaven, whose father is Olympus alone—no mortal
nature of human kind begot [etikten, 870] them." The images
here reflect the chorus' horror at the tainted births foretold
in the oracles delivered to Oedipus; the appeal to the higher

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laws emphasizes the inadequacy of man-made law—the law in

Thebes is Oedipus, he is tyrannos.
The chorus realizes that it is facing a harder choice than
before; once it had to choose between Oedipus and Tiresias,
now between Oedipus and Apollo. It does not hesitate: "1
shall not cease to hold the god as my champion " (prostaten,
882). The word they use is the Athenian political term used
to describe the position of the dominating personality in
Athenian affairs, and its appearance here stresses the fact that
this statement is a transfer of allegiance. But if Apollo is
to be their champion, he must vindicate himself; the oracles
must be fufilled (902-3). The old oracles given to Laius
(which Jocasta has apparently proved can never be fulfilled
in any circumstances) are " dying "; Oedipus and Jocasta are
" excluding " (eksairousin, 907) the oracles, as Protagoras did
the gods. Apollo is no longer " made manifest by the honors
paid him." 40 The power of the gods is overthrown.
But the chorus is overestimating the confidence of its rulers.
In spite of Jocasta's comforting demonstrations of the falsity
of prophecy, Oedipus is a prey to agony and fear, and, with
the pilot stricken, Jocasta herself is afraid. She appears with
garlands and incense, announcing her intention to visit " the
temples of the gods" (911). But every word she says shows
that this is not in any sense a recantation. She has not changed
her opinion of oracles, old or new (915-16); it is an erratic
move, the unreasoning expression of fear.41 " The idea occurred
to me [doksa moi parestathê, 911]," she says, "to come as a
suppliant to the temples of the gods." The reason (gar, 914)
is the agitation of Oedipus, which she regards as a sign that
he has lost control of himself (915-16), and which she tried
to overcome by advice (918). Only when her attempt to
stiffen Oedipus' resolution failed did she come as a suppliant
to the gods. She now addresses herself to the altar at which

i?5
 O E D I P U S A T THEBES

the priest sat in supplication at the opening of the play. " I

have come in supplication, with these symbols of prayer, to
you, Lycean Apollo, for you are the nearest/' 42 This is surely
an unusual formula of prayer. True enough, Apollo's altar
is the nearest, and it is only natural that her visit to the
" temples of the gods " should begin with it, but to tell him so
in the invocation of the prayer argues at least a religious
insensibility.
With the electrifying news brought by the Corinthian
messenger Jocasta's confidence surges back, for here is further
proof of what she tried to demonstrate to Oedipus by inference:
the " new " oracles given to him at Delphi are proved as false
as the " old " oracles given to Laius at Thebes.43 " Prophecies
of the gods," she cries, " where are you? " And more precisely
still : " See what the awful oracles of the gods have come to "
(952-3)·44
The proofs now seem overwhelming, and Oedipus matches
Jocasta's confident scorn. " Why should one carefully observe
the hearth of the Pythian prophet or the birds that scream
over our heads . . . ?" He dismisses the prophetic art of
Tiresias and of Apollo in the same breath: " Polybus has
taken the present prophecies with him to Hades where he
lies hidden—they are worthless " (971-г).45
This is not quite true, as he at once realizes. Polybus has
taken only half the prophecies with him; there remains still
the fear of the marriage with his mother. And here, as before,
Jocatas is one step ahead of Oedipus, and now presents him
with a philosophical basis for release from this and every other
fear. " What has man to fear, whose life is governed by the
operation of chance? " 4e
This word tyche, " chance," has been used often before in
the course of the play; its explosive epiphany in these lines
has been well prepared. In the earlier scenes it is used in the

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old sense: fortune, good or bad, viewed as the expression, not

the negation, of divine order. " You brought us fortune then,
with auspicious bird omens" (tyclien, 52), says the priest
to Oedipus, associating the liberation of Thebes from the
Sphinx with Tiresias' art of divination from birds, and thus
placing Oedipus' great achievement in a context of meaningful
relationship between god-given signs and human intelligence
and action.47 This context Oedipus will soon deny (398), but
for the moment he himself prays, when Creon returns from
Delphi with the oracular response : " О Lord Apollo, may he
walk in the brightness of some saving fortune " (tychei . . .
sôtêri, 80-1), thus associating tyche directly with the god and
the oracle which he impatiently awaits.48 He later twice uses
this word of the misfortunes of Laius (102, 263), the second
time in a striking personification: "now Tyche has jumped
on his head," a metaphor drawn from the pancration, the merci-
less " all-in " fighting event of the Greek athletic games.49 The
word is used here in a different sense, for the death of Laius
is not, so far as Oedipus can see, an event associated with
divine plan or order: it is something terrible which simply
" happened " (etychen). As the action unfolds further, this
word is made to express the feeling of both Oedipus and
Jocasta about events which they cannot comprehend; it begins
to assume the meaning assigned to it by Pericles—" to chance
we ascribe whatever turns out contrary to calculation." So
Jocasta, when asked by the chorus to take Oedipus into the
palace, replies: " Yes, I will, when I know the nature of what
has chanced " (tyche, 680). She is referring to the apparently
irrational quarrel between Oedipus and Creon. "To whom
else should I confide," says Oedipus later, just before he tells
his story to Jocasta, " passing through such chance as this? "
(tyches, 773). He is referring to the chance discovery50 that
the place where Laius was killed was the same as the scene

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of his own bloody action so many years ago. And a few lines
later, speaking of the drunkard's taunt which set him on the
road to Delphi and Thebes, he says: "a chance event [tychê,
776] occurred to me, surprising enough indeed, but not worth
all the attention I gave it."
The transition from this use of the word tychê to describe
unexpected events to the philosophical abstraction in Jocasta's
famous speech is made through the contrast between chance
and the oracle which Jocasta draws when she hears the news
of the death of Polybus. " This is the man that Oedipus, in
fear that he would kill him, has fled from so long. And now
he is dead, by chance [pros tes tychês, 949] and not at the
hand of Oedipus." Polybus died "in the course of nature,"
as Jebb correctly translates this phrase,51 but also in defiance
of the oracle; tychê is opposed to divine prediction. From this
it is only a step to proclaim the universal dominance of chance,
the absence of divine and the futility of human forethought,
a world of chaos where the golden rule is "live by hit and
miss, as best you can." In such a world Oedipus has nothing
to fear from prophecies.
Jocasta goes on to point out to Oedipus that the prophecy
about marriage with his mother, like that about killing his
father, can be judged by reference to similar prophecies which
have proved false. Many men have had such a prophecy about
their mothers, for they have dreamed of such a consummation
(and dreams, though subject to a variety of interpretation,
were generally considered prophetic in the fifth century).52
These prophecies, too, Jocasta dismisses; " the man who values
such things as nothing bears life's burden most easily " (982-3).
Oedipus is not entirely convinced. Though, as he says,
Jocasta has made a good case,58 it is not so good a case as die
one against the oracle about his father; in fact it could be as
good a case only if his mother Merope were dead.54 As long
i78
 CHAPTER F O U R : GOD

as his mother lives he cannot banish fear. Strong as the

evidence is, he cannot yet accept the universe of chance.
It is the Corinthian messenger who now delivers the con-
vincing argument. Oedipus is not the son of Polybus and
Merope. His whole life history is a striking example of the
operation of chance. Found on the hillside by one shepherd
(or so the Corinthian messenger believes), passed on to
another, given to the childless king Polybus, brought up as
the heir to a kingdom, Oedipus went to Delphi as a result
of a chance remark made by a drunkard, to hear a dreadful
prophecy which made him a self-banished exile from Corinth
forever. He came to Thebes a homeless wanderer, answered
the riddle of the Sphinx, and won the tyrannis of the city
and the hand of a queen. Even his name he owes to chance.
"You were named the man you are from this chance" (efe
tychês tautês, 1036), the messenger reminds him. The whole
story, the beginning of which is only now being brought to
light, seems like a powerful demonstration that Jocasta was
right. Such a fantastic series of coincidences seems expressly
designed to mock the idea that human destiny is predictable;
it is a paradigm of the inconsequent anarchy of the universe.

Jocasta was right, but for Oedipus in his present mood she
seems to have stopped short of the full truth. He accepts
the rule of chance, but it is not, for him, a blind chance which
nullifies human action and condemns man to live at random.
Chance is a goddess, and Oedipus is her son.55 She is " the
good giver," 5e and he will not be dishonored when his real
identity is at last established. It is typical of Oedipus that he
accepts a doctrine which is offered to him as a warrant for
" living at random " and transforms it into a basis for controlled
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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

action; as the son of Tyche he will press on the search to the

end—his parentage is a guarantee of success. He makes out
of Jocasta's nihilizing chance a goddess who controls the uni-
verse and has selected him as her chosen vessel: he is kin to
the moons that mark the months for all men and for Oedipus
the ebb and rise of his own great destiny.57
The implication of this magnificent speech of Oedipus is
clearly that he is equated to the gods. The chorus, breath-
taken at the sudden and (apparently) auspicious revelations,
inspired by Oedipus' courage and infected by his enthusiasm
for the unimaginable vistas that now open up before him,
proceeds to make the idea explicit.58 Oedipus, they sing, will
prove to be not a foreigner but, to their great joy, a Theban;
his nurse and mother is revealed as the Theban mountain
Cithaeron (roSpff.). But his real parentage must be greater
yet. Which of the mountain nymphs bore him to Pan? To
Apollo? Or was his father Hermes? Or the Theban divinity
Dionysus? 59
These exultant speculations, put forward as prophetic
(wantis, 1086) and addressed to Apollo for his approval (1096-
97), are the penultimate step in the long search for the origins
of Oedipus. " My father," Oedipus told Jocasta, " was Polybus
of Corinth, my mother Merope, a Dorian." But that was
before the Corinthian messenger released Oedipus from fear.
Since then his mother, in his mind and in that of the chorus,
has appeared to the imagination in a variety of identities,
which run the gamut from small to great : a third-generation
slave (1063), the goddess Tyche, the mountain Cithaeron, a
long-lived nymph, a nymph of Helicon. And the image of his
father, once stable in the figure of Polybus of Corinth, has
been tentatively identified with the Corinthian messenger,60
Apollo, Pan, Hermes, and Dionysus. As the last notes of the
chorus' joyful song die away, Oedipus begins the final enquiry
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 CHAPTER F O U R : GOD

which will bring the search for the truth to an end; he will
soon know his parents as Jocasta, who has already gone off
into the palace to hang herself, and Laius, whom he killed
at the crossroads so many years ago.61 He is the son not of
Chance but of mischance, as the herdsman tells him (i 181);e2
the revelation of his parentage, far from raising him to the
level of the gods, reduces him below the level of all normal
humanity. And the vicissitudes of his astonishing career are
revealed as the working not of Jocasta's blind chance nor the
anarchic goddess Chance but of the old "divine chance,"
theia tychê, the expression in action of divine foreknowledge,
the mode of fulfilment of Apollo's oracle.
This intellectual progress of Oedipus and Jocasta, which
parallels the intellectual progress of the age of enlightenment,
has been carefully set in an ironic dramatic framework where
it is exposed as wrong from the start. At one point after
another the words which characterize the power, decision, and
action of Oedipus find a significant echo in contexts which
emphatically oppose to his human greatness the power, decision,
and action of the gods. The assumption of divine stature
implicit in Oedipus* attitude is thus made explicit and at the
same time exposed as false. The priest, for example, addresses
Oedipus as " the one in power " (αΪΓ ô kratynôn, 14), and the
chorus, much later, at the point where it transfers its allegiance
from the tyrannos to the god, uses exactly the same words to
address Zeus (all ô kratynôn, 904). The priest hails Oedipus
as "savior" (solera, 48), a title which Oedipus accepts
вз
(eksesos*, 443); the priest meanwhile has prayed that " Apollo
will come as savior" (sdter, 150). Oedipus claims that he
has " stopped " the Sphinx (epausa, 397), but it is on Apollo
that the priest calls to "stop" the plague (pawsterios, 150).
Oedipus claims to " wield the power " in Thebes (kratê . . .
nemo, 237), but Zeus, the chorus sings, "wields the power
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 OEDIPUS AT T H E B E S

of the lightning" (astrapan kratê nemôn, 201). Oedipus

calls himself "great" (jnegan, 441; cf. 776), but the god,
says the chorus, is " great " in his laws (wegas theos, 872).6*
Oedipus has " empire " (arche, 259, 383), but the " empire "
of Zeus is immortal (athanaton archan, 905). Oedipus promises
"strength" (alken, 218; cf. 42) but it is to Athena that the
chorus prays for "strength" Balkan, 189). Oedipus talks to
the Thebans like a father to his children (tekna, i; cf. 6),65
but the chorus finally appeals to "father Zeus" (Zew pater,
202). Oedipus "destroyed" the Sphinx (phthisas, 1198), but
it is to Zeus that the chorus appeals to " destroy " the plague
(phthison, 202).ββ All these echoes are like a mockery of
Oedipus' pretensions,67 and in addition the language of the
play rings with sardonic puns on his name which seem to find
their way into the speech of the characters like echoes of
some far-off grim laughter. Oidipous—" Swollen-foot "—the
name emphasizes the physical blemish which scars the body
of the splendid tyrannos, a defect he would like to forget 68
but which reminds us of the cast-out child he once was and
forshadows the outcast man he is soon to be. The second
half of his name, pous, " foot," recurs constantly in passages
which, though the speaker is usually not conscious of the force
of his speech, refer to Oedipus' real identity as the murderer
of Laius. "The Sphinx," says Creon, replying to Oedipus'
veiled reproach that he had not exerted himself enough in
the original search for the murderer of Laius, " the Sphinx
forced us to look at what was at our feet " (to pros posi skopein,
130). Tiresias invokes the " dread-footed curse of your mother
and father" (deinopous ara, 418). And two of the choral
odes heavily emphasize this word by repeating it in strophe and
antistrophe. " It is time [for the unknown murderer] to set
his foot in motion in flight " (phygai poda nornan, 468), they
sing, and in the corresponding antistrophe they describe the

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 CHAPTER F O U R : GOD

murderer as " a wild beast, alone, cut off," meleos meleôi podi
chêreuôn (479)—a phrase which can be taken metaphorically,
as Jebb does (" forlorn on his joyless path "), but which means
literally " forlorn and miserable with miserable foot." In the
next choral ode, the one in which they abandon Oedipus and
pray for the fulfilment of the oracles, the chorus* words repeat
the same pattern : " The laws of Zeus are high-footed "
(hypsipodes, 866) is answered in the antistrophe by "pride
. . . plunges into sheer necessity wherein no service of the
foot can serve " (Jebb's translation of ou podi chrêsimôi chrêtai,
877). These words literally mean " where it uses a useless
foot "; they repeat in a negative form the " miserable foot "
(meleoi podi*) of the previous ode. These phrases all point
with terrible irony to the maimed foot of Oedipus which is
the basis of his name and the key to his identity; two of them,
hypsipodes and delnopous, are like punning forms of the name
itself.
These mocking repetitions of the second half of the hero's
name evoke the Oedipus who will be revealed, the hunted
murderer. The equally emphatic repetitions of the first com-
ponent of his name stress a dominant characteristic of the im-
posing tyrannos. Oidi- means " swell," but it is very close to oida,
" I know," e9 and this is a word that is never far from Oedipus'
lips; his knowledge is what makes him the decisive and con-
fident tyrannos. Oida recurs throughout the text of the play
with the same grim persistence as pows,70 and the suggestion
inherent in the name of the tyrannos is ironically pointed up
in a group of three assonantal line-endings which in their
savage punning emphasis are surely unparalleled in Greek
tragedy. When the messenger from Corinth comes to tell
Oedipus that his father Polybus is dead, he enquires for
Oedipus, who is inside the palace, in the following terms
(924-6):

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Strangers, from you might I learn where

is the palace of the tyrannos Oidipous,
best of all, where he himself is, if you know where.

Here it is in the original:

Ar* an par* hymôn ô ksenoi mathoim' hopou

ta tou tyrannou domat' estin Oidipou
malista d' auton eipat' ei katoisth' hopou.71
These violent puns,72 suggesting a fantastic conjugation of
a verb " to know where " formed from the name of the hero
who, as Tiresias told him, does not know where he is—this
is the ironic laughter of the gods whom Oedipus " excludes "
in his search for the truth. They watch the critical intelligence
work its way laboriously and courageously through to the abso-
lutely clear vision which, once found, it cannot bear to face.
Their presence is manifested in this intrusive ironic pattern in
the language of the characters, which is a riddling reminder
that there is a standard beyond man by which Oedipus is
measured. As Oedipus finds out in the end, man is not the
measure of all things; rather, as Plato was to say much later,
" the measure of all things is—the god." 73

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CHAPTER FIVE: HERO

But the play does not end with the proof of divine omniscience
and human ignorance. It ends, as it begins, with Oedipus.
" Equal to zero "—the chorus' estimate, proposed at the moment
when Oedipus learns who he is, seems right and indeed
inevitable. But it is hard to accept. It means that the heroic
action of Oedipus, with all that his action is made to represent,
is a hollow mockery, a snare and a delusion. It suggests that
man should not seek, for fear of what he will find. It renounces
the qualities and actions which distinguish man from the
beasts, and accepts a state of blind, mute acquiescence no
less repugnant to the human spirit than the recklessness
demanded by Jocasta's universe of chance. And yet at that
moment it seems the only possible conclusion. With Oedipus
as their paradigm, it is difficult to see what other estimate the
chorus can make.
A different estimate is proposed, not in words but in dramatic
action, by the final scene of the play. For Oedipus, the
paradigm, on whom the chorus' despairing estimate is based,
surmounts the catastrophe and reasserts himself. He is so far
from being equal to zero that in the last lines of the play'
Creon has to tell him not to try to " rule in everything"
(152,2). This last scene of the play, so often criticized as
anticlimactic or unbearable, is on the contrary vital for the
play, and a development which makes its acceptance possible.
It shows us the recovery of Oedipus, the reintegration of the
hero, the reconstitution of the imperious, dynamic, intelligent
figure of the opening scenes.
This is an astonishing development, for Oedipus, when he
comes out of the palace, is so terrible a sight that the chorus
cannot bear to look at him (1303), and his situation is such

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

that the chorus expresses a wish that it had never known him
(1348). It approves his wish that he could have died on the
mountainside before he reached manhood (1356), and tells
him that he would be better dead now than alive and blind
(1368). This despair is reflected in the words of Oedipus
himself: they are the words of a broken man.
The first lines present us with an Oedipus who speaks
in terms we can hardly recognize: he speaks of his move
ments, voice, and destiny as things alien to him, utterly
beyond his control. " Where am I being carried? How does
my voice fly about, carried aloft? О my destiny, to what
point have you leaped out? " ( 1309-11).2 These are the words
of a blinded man awakening to the realization of his terrible
impotence, but they express also a feeling that Oedipus is no
longer an active force but purely passive. This impression
is enforced by his next words, an address to the darkness in
which he will now forever move, and a reference to the pain
which pierces his eyes and mind alike (1313-18). The climax
of this unnatural passivity is reached when Oedipus first
becomes aware of the presence of the chorus (1321). His
realization takes the form of a grateful recognition of their
steadfastness in "looking after the blind man " (1323). This
is an expression of his utter dependency on others; he is so
far from action now that he needs help even to exist. He seems
indeed a zero, equal to nothing.
It is precisely at this point that the chorus reminds us, and
him, that part at any rate of his present calamitous state, his
blindness, is his own choice, the result of his own independent
action after the recognition of the truth. This was not called
for by the prophecy of Apollo, nor was it demanded in the
oracle's instructions about the murderer's punishment or the
curse on him pronounced by Oedipus. It was Oedipus' auto-
nomous action, and the chorus now asks him why he did it:

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 CHAPTER F I V E : HERO

" You have done dreadful things " (deina drasas, 1327). They
use the word for action which was peculiarly his when he
was tyrannos, and the question they ask him suggests an
explanation. " Which of the divinities spurred you on? "
Oedipus' reply defends his action and rejects the chorus'
formula, which would shift the responsibility for the blinding
off his shoulders. Apollo, he says, brought my sufferings to
fulfilment, but " as for the hand that struck my eyes, it was
mine and no one else's " (1330-1). He confirms what the
messenger has already told us; the action was " self-chosen "
(authairetoi, 1231), and a few lines later the chorus reproves
him for it. It was in fact an action typical of Oedipus tyrannoSj
one which anticipated the reaction, advice, and objection of
others, a fait accompli, a swift decisive act for which he assumes
full responsibility and which he proceeds to defend. And now,
as if the chorus' reminder of his own action had arrested the
disintegration of his personality which was so terribly clear
in the first speech after his entrance, the old Oedipus reappears.
As he rejects the chorus' suggestion that the responsibility was
not his, grounds his action logically, and (as his lines make
the transition from the lyric of lamentation to the iambic of
rational speech), rejects their reproaches, all the traits of his
magnificent character reappear. It is not long before he is
recognizably the same man as before.
He is still the man of decisive action, and still displays
the courage which had always inspired that action. His atti-
tude to the new and terrible situation in which he now finds
himself is full of the same courage which he displayed before :
he accepts the full consequences of the curse he imposed on
himself, and insists stubbornly, in the face of Creon's oppo-
sition, that he be put to death or exiled from Thebes. He
brushes aside the compromise offered by Creon with the same
courage that dismissed the attempts of Tiresias, Jocasta, and

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

the herdsman to stop the investigation. The speed and im-

patience of his will is if anything increased; tachys, " swift,"
is still his word. " Take me away from this place as quickly
as possible " Qioü tachista, 1340). " Hide me away as quickly
as possible" (hopos tachista, 1410). "Throw me out of this
land as quickly as may be" (hoson tachisth', 1436).
As before, he has no patience with half-measures or delay;
the oracle and his own curse call for his exile or death, and
he sees nothing to be gained by prolonging the inaction. The
same analytical intelligence is at work; he is right, and, as we
know, Creon finally does late what Oedipus wanted done
early—he exiles Oedipus from Thebes. The same hard intel-
ligence which insisted on full clarity and all the facts is
displayed in his remorseless exploration and formulation of the
frightful situation in which he finds himself. He spares himself
no detail of the consequences of his pollution for himself and
for his daughters. It is typical that while Creon's reaction is
to cover and conceal (1426 ff.), Oedipus brings everything out
into the open, analyzing in painful detail his own situation
and that of his children. The intelligence of Oedipus is at
work even at the high pitch of semihysterical grief;8 even
in his outburst of lamentation he distinguishes between what
he regards as the gods' responsibility and his own. And an
extraordinary thing emerges as Oedipus abandons the wild
lament of his first reaction for the reasoned speech of the
last part of the play: it becomes apparent that even the self-
blinding was based on the deliberation and reflection which
in Oedipus tyrannos always preceded action.4 To the chorus'
reproach that he had "made a bad decision" (1367) in
blinding himself he replies with the old impatience and a touch
of the old anger. " Do not read me a lesson or give me any
advice, to the effect that I have not done the best thing " (1369-
70). And he goes on to describe in detail the reasoning by

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which he arrived at the decision to put out his eyes (1370-83).

Sophocles makes it clear that this is an account of past reflec-
tion preceding the action (and not a present rationalization of
it) by his use of the past tense throughout the speech.5 Oedipus
is fully confident of the Tightness of the action and the thought
which preceded and produced it. And all through this scene
he maps out the future for himself and his family, giving
Creon instructions for the burial of Jocasta, his own expulsion
from Thebes, and the upbringing of his sons and daughters.
The old confidence in his own intelligence and action is
still there, but the exaggerated and vaulting hopefulness is
gone. And yet there is still a kind of hope; he becomes certain,
after his initial wish for death, that he is destined to live,
that he is in some sense indestructible. " This much I know
[oida]: that not disease, nor anything else can destroy me.
For I would never have been saved from death in the first
place [i. e. as a child on the mountainside] except for some
strange and fearful evil" (àeinoi kakôi, 1457). He feels
himself as eminent in disaster as he once was in prosperity—
" my sufferings are such as no one could bear but me " (1414-
15); whatever his end will be, it will be out of the ordinary,
like everything else about him. " But let my destiny go,
wherever it is going" (1458).
The devotion to the interests of the city which was so
marked a feature of the attitude of the tyrannos might be
expected to become dormant in the man who is now a polluted
outcast from society, but on the contrary it is still active in
Oedipus. His anxiety to have the terms of his own curse and
the command of the oracle exactly and immediately fulfilled
springs partly from his sense of the city's need of release from
the plague, which can come only through the punishment of
the murderer of Laius. It is in terms of the interest of the
city that he states his desire for exile, speaking this time not

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

as tyrannos but with a consciousness of his newly revealed

position as the hereditary monarch : " Let not the city of my
fathers be condemned to have me as a living inhabitant"
(1449-50).
And Oedipus is still adaptable, quick to align himself with
changed circumstances. The process of his swift adjustment
to his blindness is carefully delineated. After the helpless
desperation of the opening lines, in which he is oblivious
of any reality outside himself, he comes to realize that he has
still some power of perception and recognition—he can hear.
" You are not unperceived," he tells the chorus; " I distinguish
clearly [gignôskô saphôs, 1325] your voice at any rate, plunged
in darkness though I am." And from the point at which he
recognizes the possibilities as well as the limitations of his
new state, he never turns back. He begins to adapt himself
to the larger aspects of the situation, and makes the transition
from passive back to active.
The adaptability of Oedipus surmounts the most terrible
reversal of relationships imaginable. Oedipus is now an outcast,
and, as Tiresias told him he would be, a beggar. The wealthy
tyrannos expressed his wish as an order, but the beggar lives
by insistent appeals, by emphatic and often importunate plead-
ing. When Creon appears, Oedipus shows himself to be as
insistent a beggar as ever lived; the formulas of supplication
come as easily from his lips as the imperative words, and they
are charged with the same fierce energy. Once Oedipus is
told that Creon has not come to mock him, he shows himself
an adept in his new role; appeal and entreaty follow each
other swiftly—Creon is given no breathing space. " By the
gods . . . do what I ask," he says (1432); begging to be expelled
from the city, and Creon recognizes the tone of his speech, for
he replies "You importune me" (lipareis, 1435), the appro-
priate word for the action of the beggar. In the subsequent

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appeal to be allowed the privilege of saying farewell to his

children, Oedipus achieves a wheedling importunacy which
is formally emphasized by the breaks in the regularity of
??? ??????? ????? ????? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ???
end of the first measure. " Let me touch them, and weep
for their sorrows. Grant it, my lord. Grant it, you who are
noble in birth." This last phrase is a reference to his own
polluted fatherhood; it is the beggar's characteristic contrast
between the nobility of his patron's birth and the humble
nature of his own circumstances. Oedipus greets the granting
of his request with the beggar's typical blessing of his bene-
factor— " May you be fortunate . . ." (1478)—and the same
flattering contrast of circumstances—" May a divinity prove a
better guardian to you than it did to me" (1479). Later he
makes another appeal to Creon's pity, this time on behalf of
his daughters: "Do not let them wander husbandless as
beggars, do not make their fortune the equivalent of mine "
(1505-7)—a phrase which indicates his conception of his own
status as a beggar. "Pity them," he continues (1508); "Nod
your head in sign of acceptance, noble man, touch them with
your hand" (1510). Oedipus has made a swift and strikingly
successful adjustment to his new role. As a beggar he is
irresistible.6
For this abject and insistent supplication is full of an
imperiousness that recalls the tyrannos. When he first hears
the voice of Creon, whom he had wrongly condemned to
death, he is abashed and at a loss for words (1419), yet in
a few moments he is arguing stubbornly with him, and finally
gives him his instructions in a magnificent phrase which
combines the attitude of the tyrannos and the beggar: "I
make you responsible and I beg you . . ." (episkêptô te kai
prostrepsomai, 1446). The first word is the same one which
he used before, when as tyrannos he ordered the people of

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Thebes to cooperate with him in his search for the murderer

of Laius.
It is a surprising word, and even more surprising is the
fact that Creon does not protest. The last scene of the play
presents us with an unpredictable situation: in spite of his
tremendous reversal, Oedipus is still the active force which
binds men and circumstances to its will. His reflection and
intelligence assure him that he must go immediately into
exile, and to this point of view he clings stubbornly, urging
it persistently and imperiously on Creon until the man who
now has the power to "decide and act" (1417) yields to the
will of the blind beggar. At the last moment, when Creon
orders him into the house, Oedipus imposes conditions (1517);
the conditions are the same demand he has so stubbornly
repeated throughout the scene—that Creon immediately exile
him from Thebes (1518). Creon's attempt to shift the responsi-
bility by consulting Delphi is rejected by Oedipus, and he is
right; according to the original oracular advice, and also the
curse pronounced by Oedipus, the murderer of Laius must be
exiled. " I come as one most hateful to the gods/' says Oedipus
(1519). Creon yields to his demands, but in an ambiguous
phrase: " For that reason you will swiftly get what you want "
(1519)—which might mean either " I will exile you " or " the
gods, since they hate you, will, through the agency of the
oracle, command your banishment." Oedipus demands a clear
promise: "You consent, then?" (1520). And Creon finally
does consent, and though the terms of his consent are still
ambiguous they commit him much more strongly than his
previous statement. "It is not my custom to say idly what
I do not think" (1520)/ It is a phrase worthy of Creon the
politician, but Oedipus accepts it as a definite promise, and
allows himself to be led into the palace. Before he does, he
makes an attempt to take the children with him, but at this

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point Creon finally asserts himself and separates the children

from their father. He takes the occasion to reprove Oedipus
for his imperious tone. " Do not wish to exercise power
[kratein, 1522] in everything. For the power which you won
[hakratêsas, 1522] has not accompanied you to the end of your
life." He does not get his way in everything, but in most he
has, including the most important issue of all, his expulsion;
in this the blind beggar has imposed his will on the king.
The final phrase of Creon—" Do not wish to exercise power
in everything "—brings us full circle; it is an echo of the first
words addressed to Oedipus in the play; " Oedipus, you who
exercise power in my country," the priest said to him at the
beginning (kratynon, 14). Creon actually has to remind the
blinded polluted man that he is no longer tyrannos-, the will
of Oedipus is reasserting itself, and Creon suddenly sees that
" action and deliberation," the functions which he assumed
when Oedipus was revealed as the son of Laius, are slipping
from him. The swiftness and force of Oedipus* recovery from
the shock of self-recognition can be gauged from the fact that
in the very last line of the play Oedipus has to be reminded of
his reversal.
This recovery is all the more astonishing because there is
no reference in Sophocles' lines to the justification of Oedipus
and his elevation to the status of divine hero which is the
subject of the later play Oedtyus at Colonus* There is, at
most, a sense that Oedipus has a special destiny, an invulner-
ability to ordinary calamities, but this special destiny Oedipus
can only refer to as a "dreadful evil" {deinôi kakôi, 1457).
The reassertion of Oedipus' forceful personality rests on no
change in his situation, no promise or assurance, human or
divine; it is, like every one of his actions and attitudes, auto-
nomous, the expression of a great personality which defies
human expectation as it once defied divine prophecy.

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 O E D I P U S AT T H E B E S

The closing note of the tragedy is a renewed insistence on

the heroic nature of Oedipus; the play ends as it began, with
the greatness of the hero. But it is a different kind of great-
ness. It is now based on knowledge, not, as before, on ignor-
ance,9 and this new knowledge is, like that of Socrates, a
recognition of man's ignorance. " Apollo and Zeus," the chorus
sang, " have understanding and knowledge of things human "
(497-9); and Oedipus now directs the full force of his in-
telligence and action to the fulfilment of the oracular command
that the murderer of Laius be killed or exiled, Creon, who
resists the appeals of Oedipus, can taunt him with his former
lack of belief—" You would have faith in the god now " (1445)
—but Oedipus does not deign to answer this sarcastic rebuke.
He hammers away insistently at his demand that the command
of the oracle be literally and immediately fulfilled. The heroic
qualities of the tyrannos, once exercised against prophecy and
the destiny of which it is the expression, are now ranged on
its side. And Creon's refusal to fulfil the oracle's command
presents us with a situation in which Oedipus' acceptance
of what he once rejected demands and produces not passivity
but action, not acquiescence but struggle. The heroic qualities
of Oedipus are still to be given full play, but now with, not
against, the powers that shape destiny and govern the world.
" May Destiny be with me . . ." the chorus sang when it
abandoned Oedipus (863); that prayer is fulfilled for the hero.
Destiny is with him; the confidence which was once based
solely on himself is now more firmly based; it proceeds now
from a knowledge of the nature of reality and the forces which
govern it, and his identification with their will. In the last
scene he champions the command of the oracle against the will
of Creon, the new ruler of Thebes; it is Creon now who
displays a politic attitude towards the Delphic oracle, and
Oedipus who insists on its literal fulfilment. He is now blind

194
 CHAPTER F I V E : HERO

like Tiresias, and like Tiresias has a more penetrating vision

than the ruler he opposes; in this scene he has in fact become
the spokesman of Apollo, " seeing," as the chorus said of
Tiresias, " the same things as the lord Apollo." Now that
his will is identified with moira, "destiny," his action ceases
to be self-defeating, for it is based on true knowledge. The
greatness of Oedipus in his ruin is no less, and in some senses
more, than the greatness of the tyrannos.
Oedipus is a paradigm of all mankind, and of the city which
is man's greatest creation. His resurgence in the last scene
of the play is a prophetic vision of a defeated Athens which
will rise to a greatness beyond anything she had attained in
victory, a vision of man, superior to the tragic reversal of his
action and the terrible success of his search for truth, reasserting
his greatness, not this time in defiance of the powers which
shape human life but in harmony with those powers. " All
things are born to be diminished," Pericles reminded the
Athenians; the tragic vision of Sophocles accepts this melan-
choly recognition and transcends it, to see beyond the defeat
of man's ambition the true greatness of which only the defeated
are capable.
The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles combines two appar-
ently irreconcilable themes, the greatness of the gods and the
greatness of man, and the combination of these themes is
inevitably tragic, for the greatness of the gods is most clearly
and powerfully demonstrated by man's defeat. "The god is
great in his laws and he does not grow old." But man does,
and not only does he grow old, he also dies. Unlike the gods,
he exists in time. The beauty and power of his physical frame
is subject to sickness, death, and corruption; the beauty and
power of his intellectual, artistic, and social achievement to
decline, overthrow, and oblivion. His greatness and beauty
arouse in us a pride in their magnificence which is inseparable

195
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

from and increased by our sorrow over their immanent and

imminent death. Oedipus is symbolic of all human achieve-
ment: his hard-won magnificience, unlike the everlasting
magnificence of the divine, cannot last, and while it lives,
shines all the more brilliant against the somber background
of its impermanency. Sophocles' tragedy presents us with a
terrible affirmation of man's subordinate position in the uni-
verse, and at the same time with a heroic vision of man's victory
in defeat. Man is not equated to the gods, but man at his
greatest, as in Oedipus, is capable of something which the
gods, by definition, cannot experience; the proud tragic view of
Sophocles sees in the fragility and inevitable defeat of human
greatness the possibility of a purely human heroism to which
the gods can never attain, for the condition of their existence
is everlasting victory.

196
NOTES FOR CHAPTER ONE: H E R O

The abbreviations for authors and works are those used in

the ninth edition of Liddell and Scott's Lexicon; and their
methods of reference are used except in the case of Plutarch's
Moralia, where I give the title of the essay as well as the Wyt-
tenbach page number. The abbreviations for periodicals are
those used in Uannée philologique.
ι. Other centuries claim him too. Sir Richard Jebb in Sophocles.
Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1887), Intro.,
p. xxvii, remarks: "As regards Oedipus, it might be said
that, in this particular aspect [i.e. the sense in which he is
conceived to be placed at issue with religion] he is a modern
character, and more especially, perhaps, a character of the
nineteenth century/'
2. I quote Freud's remarks merely as a fine illustration of the
view under discussion, not as a target for another classical
volley against Freud. As will be clear, I have considerable
respect for his views. His discussion of the Oedipus does not
deserve the strictures which many classical scholars have wasted
on it, since he is concerned not so much with Sophocles' play
as with the basic mythic material. He states this clearly
himself: "The form which it [the Oedipus fable] subsequently
assumed [i.e. the Oedipus Tyrannus] was the result of an
uncomprehending secondary elaboration of the material, which
sought to make it serve a theological intention "( The Inter-
pretation of Dreams, N. Y., Modern Library, 1938, p. 309).
Freud himself obviously never entertained the notion of a
Freudian interpretation of the Sophoclean play: that unenvi-
able task was assumed by his disciples. A recent product of
the school is worth quoting briefly as an example of what
happens when the epigonos rushes in where his predecessor
feared to tread: The Muse at Length, by Arthur Wormhoudt,
Ph. D., Boston, The Christopher Publishing House, 1953.

197
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

From this work (pp. 118-23) it appears that Jocasta "instead

of stiffening Oedipus' courage as we should expect in the
positive Oedipus complex . . . makes him back down in accord
with her role as finger symbol in the breast complex or feminine
identity and ring symbol in the negative Oedipus complex."
"Laius' . . . double-pronged goad represents the two breasts
transferred from the pre-oedipal to the oedipal level." " Mount
Cithaeron . .. Parnassus ... and Helicon . . . are breast symbols
which represent the poet's ability to substitute words or sym-
bols for the milk of which he wants to be masochistically de-
prived." Mr. Wormhoudt neatly resolves the much discussed
problem of the exodus of the Oedipus Tyrannus: " what
Oedipus accomplishes in the last scene of the play . . . is the
substitution of exhibitionism for voyeurism."
As for the Oedipus at Colonus: " Polynices describes the
filthy garments in which Oedipus is dressed, and accepts the
anal guilt which these imply himself. The reason then for
Oedipus' violent rejection of him is that in this way he exe-
cutes the punishment of castration upon himself."
The author, to give him his due, does not expect such
radical reinterpretations to be accepted overnight: " the re-
sistance to the scientific study of literature is much greater
than to astronomy, chemistry or biology (great as that was),
because it touches matters closer to home " (pp. 9-10).
3. Ibid., pp. 108-9.
4. These last two actions are described by the messenger as
tKovra KOVK aKovTa: "willed, not against the will" (1230);
and avOaiptToi: "self-chosen" (1231). For the first of these
two phrases cf. Macaria's description of her act of self-sacrifice
in E. Heracl. 531: tKovaa KOVK aKovva.
5. ov yap ere p.olpa TT/DO? y* c/xoi3 Trcaetv, CTTCI txavos 'ATroAAoov, $ raS*
€K7rpa£ai ^c'Act. So all the modern editors and translators.

6. " Nempe Tiresias plane contrarium dicit illius quod dicere

debuit . . . Facile, impends describentibus librariis, prono-
mina commutari potuerunt."

198
 Notes f o r CHAPTER ONE: HERO

7. This papyrus (POxy. 22) dates from the fifth century A.D.
and is thus our earliest manuscript of the passage. It reads
[ ] ME ΜΟΙΡΑ ПРОС ГЕ COY ПЕСЕШ ΕΠΕΙ. One
recent MS (cod. Abbat. 41, i4th century, Jebb's Δ) reads σ«,
but no MS reads γ* Ιμου.
8. ου yap μ€ μοίρα тг/эос ус σου . . . See Pearson's apparatus.
9. It was first challenged by Gilbert Murray in his book The
Rise of the Greek Epic ($d ed. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1924),
p. 87, η. ι. The gist of the note is: "Oed. 'Thou art a
child of unbroken night, so that neither I nor any other who
sees the light would (αν) ever harm thee/ Tir. ' It is not my
doom to fall by thy hand ' &c. So Mss. and cf. 448 below where
Tiresias repeats the same statement." To this there is little to
add : for the omission of the object (" you ") in the MS version
cf. 1045 below, ώστ' tSeti/ e/i€, which must mean "so that I
may see [him]." Murray attributes Oedipus' announcement
that he would not harm Tiresias to αιδώς (and is on this ground
rightly challenged by A. C. Pearson, " Sophoclea II," 374-5,
in CQ 23 [1929], 94); Oedipus' motive in sparing Tiresias
is not respect but contempt (cf. the scathing contempt of
348-9); Tiresias is beneath his notice. Pearson's other objection,
that " the ruin of Oedipus, not of Tiresias, is the main question
raised by 372 sq." does not take account of the threats to
punish Tiresias which Oedipus repeatedly makes (cf. 355, 363,
368). Sir John Sheppard's objection (p. 125) does not allow
for the possibility that τάδ* may refer to Tiresias' hypothetical
fall instead of " this present business."
ίο. With Brunk's emendation this question seems to be a
complete change of direction; not impossible, of course, but the
logical advance indicated by the MS reading is much more
like Oedipus.
ii. So, apparently, W. C. Greene, Moira (Cambridge, Mass.,
Harvard Univ. Press, 1948), p. 155: "Granted, however, that
Oedipus is already guilty of parricide and incest, there will

199
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

be no tragedy if these facts do not transpire. But in that case,

too, the old oracles and their god, Apollo, will be in disrepute,
as the chorus will protest. Consistency demands therefore that
the agencies of fate discover the facts which fate has already
caused; the plague which is afflicting Thebes is the force which
initiates the events leading to the discovery/'
12. II. Î. 52: ττνραΐ νεκνων καίοντο θαμααί.

13. For the connection of the plague and the oracle in the
minds of the Athenians see Th. ii. 54.
14. For Apollo as plague averter in historical times cf. Paus,
χ. ιι. 5 (Cleonae, ca. 429 B.C.); I. 3.4 (Athens): την λοιμώδη
σφίσι νόσον ομού τω Τίελοποννησίων πολεμώ πύζονσαν κατά μάν-
τενμα €πανσ€^ν c/t^ Δελφών.
15. The Homeric hymn to Ares, which lists 16 epithets of the
god in the first five lines, has nothing which even vaguely hints
at plague. The closest approximation to this striking identifi-
cation in the Sophoclean passage is to be found in the Suppli-
ants of Aeschylus. In two passages (659-66 and 678-85) the
chorus couples plague and Ares: Aot/txoc . . . "Αρης in the first
case, and "Αρη . . . νονσων in the second. But, though associated,
they are not identified, as they are in the Sophoclean lines. For
the bearing of this identification on the problem of the date
of the play see Knox, "The Date of the Oedipus Tyrannus"
Л/Р, 7 8(1 9 5б), 133 ».
16. It is interesting to compare this initial imperative, which
a religious mind may attribute to the gods but which is none
the less a fact of common human experience, disease, with the
initial imperative in Hamlet, which is a demand for vengeance
expressed by a father's ghost.
17. Cf. David Grene, Three Greek Tragedies in Translation
(Chicago, 1942), p. 79.
18. e&ryycAXcTcu. For this sense of the word cf. E. Heracl. 531,

200
 Notes for C H A P T E R O N E : H E R O

where Macaria volunteers to die for her brothers: κά£αγγε'λ-

λομ,αι θνησκειν. . . .

19. Cf. C. Robert Oidipus (Berlin, 1915), p. 291: "Der aber,

der den schweigenden Zeugen die Zunge löst, der das längst
Vergangene wieder aufleben lässt, der fast einzig und allein die
Entdeckung herbeiführt, das ist ... Oidipus selbst."
20. Cf. the scholiast's comment on 1062: сметой [sc. Οιδίπους]
την Ίοκάστην . . . κώλυαν την ζήτησιν.

2 ΐ . On this see the stimulating article of R. A. Pack, "Fate,

Chance, and Tragic Error," AJP, 60 (1939), 35off.
22. It is difficult to follow the reasoning behind A. J. A. Wai-
dock's statement (Sophocles the Dramatist, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1951, p. 144) that the character of Oedipus is
"not very clearly defined," and the further statement that he
"does not possess . . . an intelligence of piercing quickness
or very remarkable reach " though he " has at least an average
mind." Elsewhere he states (p. 168): "There is no meaning
in the Oedipus Tyrannus," and exposes attempts to "smuggle
significance" into the work (p. 159).
23. Cf. W. Nestlé, " Hippocratica," Hermes, 73 (1938), 13:
" das natürliche Genie des self-made man . . ." (on Thucydides'
portrait of Themistocles).
24. For opâv cf. 72, 77, 145, 235, 640, 1327, and 1402. For
πράσσειν cf. 69, 287, and 1403.
25. δ τι ορών η τί φωνών. . . . For this formula cf. D. xliü, 66
(text of an Athenian consultation of the Delphic Oracle):
επερωτά о δήμος ο 'Αθηναίων 7Tf.pl του σημείου του iv τω ο up άνω
γενομένου ο τι αν δρωσιν *Α.θήναιοι<ζ η οτω θεώ θύουσιν η ευχόμενοι?
εϊη επί το αμεινον από του σημείου.

26. This is implied in 73-5.

27. Indicated in Oedipus' correction of Creon's "brigands"
(λ^στα? 122) to "the brigand (ό ληστής, 124). The point of
201
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

the correction is that if the murderer of Laius was alone he

must have been the agent of a powerful conspiracy, and the
man who would benefit from the death of Laius was Creon,
the next in line for the throne. Oedipus' next question (128-
9) is a veiled accusation that Creon did not want a real in-
vestigation of the death of Laius.
28. Cf. £cvoç, 219, 22O; iWepoç γαρ άστο? etc αστού? Τ€λώ, 222;
τοΰπιόντος . . . ανδρός, 393» *У^ Αιολών, 39^·
29. Line endings: αγνωτά /ΑΟΙ, 58; ως €γώ, 6θ; η δ' с/хт}, 63; μ' c£€~
γείρετε, 65; «γώ κακός, j6', εγώ φανώ, 132; κά/χε σνμμαχον, Ι35>
έμαυτον ωφελώ, 141 ; σήμαιναν ε/iot, 220; κλυειν εμού, 235» αρτίως
c/xot, 243» C/AOV συνειδότος, 250; κυρώ τ* εγώ, 258; τούμοΰ πατρός,
264. Line beginnings: άγω, 6; ε/χοΰ, 12; και μ', 73î <*vaé €/iov,
85; αλλ* αυτός, 138; καμ* αν, 140» ως παν €/χοΰ, 145» άγω» 219;
t^vcvov αυτός, 221 ; τ^σδ* ^ς €γώ, 237> ^γώ, 244» cv TOtç c/xotç, 250;
итгс/э τ' ίμαντον, 253; αν^ <^ν ^У^> 2^4î ^χουσα κάγώ, 293·
30. Cf. the chorus* phrase : èm ταν ίπίδαμον φάτιν . . . Οιδίποδα
(495-6)·
3ΐ. His attitude bears a remarkable resemblance to that of
Pericles in the last speech reported by Thucydides, after the
plague (ii. 61 especially). Pericles terms the plague " sudden,
unexpected, and completely beyond calculation " (αιφνι'δων /cat
απροσδόκητο ν και . . . πλει'στω παραλόγω ξνμβαΐνον) and bids
the Athenians " withstand their misfortunes " (έυ/χφοραις . . .
νφίστασθαΟ. His description of the Athenian reaction to the
plague-1"'pain possesses the feelings of each one of you" (то
,α-cv λυπούν c^ct . . . την αίσθησιν εκαστω)—resembles О. Т. 62 ff.
32. Hdt. i. 99: μήτε «ri€vai παρά βασιλέα μηδένα, 8ι* αγγέλων
8(. πάντα χρασθαι, ορασθαί тс. βασιλέα υπό μ??δ€νός.
33· It is a carefully couched diplomatic formula which reveals
nothing except to those who can relate it to the facts. It begins
with Ισθλήν ("Good news!") and proceeds to δυ'σφορ' ("it
may not sound so good ") and ends with €υτυχ€«/ (" everything
is going to be all right ").

202
 Notes for C H A P T E R O N E : H E R O

34. For this exact shade of éVoç cf. Th. ii. 54. 2.
35. The closing word έσω may have been accompanied by a
gesture towards the door of the palace, or even a movement
towards it.
36. 2 ОП I : φίλόδημον καΐ προνοητικον του KOLVTJ συμφέροντος то
του Οιδίποδος ^0oç.

37« Cf. 2 ОП 124: τείνει δε τούτο etc Κρέοντα ώ? αυτού συνθεμένου

τω του Λαίου φον€Ϊ δια ττρ/ βασι,λείαν.

38. Cf. Chap. 2, pp. 74-5 and С. Н. Whitman, Sophocles

(Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ. Press, 1951), p. 268, n. 31 :
"I think the lively Athenians would . . . approve of his
shrewdness in smelling a plot"

39. Cf. 380-3.

40. Elsewhere in Sophocles this word is used to describe venera-
tion of a god (or a place), never of a man. Cf. О. С. 1654,
Ph. 657: προσκυσαι θ* ωσπερ θεόν (the bow of Heracles); EZ.
1374: εδη θεών, Ph. 533» 776, Ч°8.

4 ΐ . The dynamics of the altercation between Oedipus and

Tiresias make a curious pattern. Tiresias challenges Oedipus
to do the worst his anger can suggest to him, and is surprised
by the result (343-56). But then the roles are reversed. " Shall
I say something else, to make you more angry? " asks Tiresias
(364), and Oedipus tells him to say whatever he likes—it will
have no result (μάτην είρήσεται, 365). He in his turn is sur-
prised. Tiresias surpasses his expectations—it is tit for tat.
42. This τώνδε is the expression Creon used for the suppliants,
and which Oedipus mildly reproved.
43. See Whitman, pp. 33 ff. and references there.
44. Poetics 452b. 13. Cf. the enlightening discussion in Greene
(i), pp. 92-3, especially n. 16.
203
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

45. Ibid. 1452*. i i .

46. The process is emphasized by the reversals of relationship
implied in a number of words which contrast the tyrannos and
the fallen man. He "feels pity" ζκατοικτίρων, 13), and in the
end is himself a sight such as " even one who hates him would
pity" (και στνγονντ* €ττοικτίσαι, 1296). He does not ask for
anything (ουκ αΐτητόν, 384), others ask him (atretc, 216), but
in the end he asks for a sword to kill himself Ο£αιτώι/, 1255)
and for banishment (atretc, 1518). He orders Tiresias to be
taken away (κομιστώ, 445); in the end Creon orders him too
to be taken away («nco/uferc, 1429). He orders the shepherd
to be led on (a£et TIC, 1069) and in the end begs to be led off
(атгаует*, 1340, 1341, cf. 1521). These last two examples stem
of course from his violent transformation from seeing to blind :
on which see W. C. Helmbold, " The Paradox of the Oedipus,"
Л/Р, 72 (I 9 5 l), 293 if.

47. This oracular prediction was apparently (in Sophocles*

version at any rate) unsolicited. The phrase used by Jocasta
(χρησμός γαρ ηλβϊ Λαΐω тгот', 7 1 1 ) recalls unsolicited oracles
in Herodotus (e.g. Hdt. ii. 133: i\6tîv ol μαντψον ек Βουτοΰς
πολιός [Mycerinus].
48. " Fate " serves as a stock translation equivalent for, among
Others, the following Greek words : μοίρα, /ло/эос, μόρσψον, €ΐμαρ-
μΑνη, πεπρωμένου, αισα, πότμος, ανάγκη, χρεών, δαίμων—all of
which have different connotations.
49. Cf. Greene (i), chap. 8, and his article "Fate, Good, and
Evil in Pre-Socratic Philosophy," HSPh, 47 (1936), 85-129.
50. Cf. Knox, "The Hippolytus of Euripides," YCIS, 13
(1952), 1-31.
51. Hdt. vii. 12 ff.
52. Cf. also Pylades' famous three lines in the Choephoroe
which spur on the halting Orestes, and the epiphany of Hera-
cles in the Philoctetes.

204
 Notes for CHAPTER O N E : HERO

53. Hdt. i. 53-4.

54. Ibid. i. 91.
55. Ibid. vii. 37.
56. Ibid. i. 209-10.
57. Ibid. vii. 142.
58. Ibid. VÜ. 57: iv ovotvl λόγω Ιποιήσατο καίπερ ενσυμβλητον cov.

59« Ibid. i. 59: ουκ ων ταύτα τταραινίσαντος Χίλωνος πείθίσθαι

С
θέ\€ίν τον 1тг7гок/эатса.

6θ. Ibid. VÜi. 77: wapycit)? λέγοντας. . . .

6ι. Servius on Aen. iv. 696 distinguishes between fata de-

nuntiativa and fatum condidonale. As an example of the
former he gives: " ' Pompeius ter triumphaturus est' (fata
decernunt ut ubicumque terrarum fuerit, ter triumphet, nee
potest aliter evenire)." His example of the second type is:
" Pompeius si post Pharsalicum bellum Aegypti litus attigerit,
ferro peribit." He also adduces the speech of Achilles (IZ.
xviii. 88 ff.) in which the hero describes the alternatives prophe-
sied for him by Thetis. On these two examples Servius com-
ments: "vides igitur condicionem fati sub duplici eventus
expectatione pendere. . . ." and later uses the clever formula
" gemina fati auctoritate." The application of these categories
to the oracle in the О. Т. is discussed by Pack.
62. Hdt. vii. 220. The text of the oracle is given there.
63. Ibid. : ταντά те Βη èViAcyo/uvov Α^ωνίδην. . ,

64. Ibid. i. 13.

65. Ibid. viii. 19.
66. Ibid. VÜi. 96: то еАсАт^ес πάντα? топс "Ελλ^ι/ас. . . .

67. Ibid. i. 120.

68. JebbonOT97i.
205
 OEDIPUS AT THBBBS

69. Hdt. vi. 107.

70. Ibid. vi. 80.
71. Ibid. Ü. 133: βίλων το μαντήιον ψευδό μ.€νον àno$e£at. . . .

72. Ibid. i. 91.

73. His angry and contemptuous rejection of the Erinyes, to
take only one example, is clearly not the attitude of Zeus.
74. For a full examination of the subject see Greene (i),
especially app. 6.
75. Augustinus, De lib его arbitrio iii. 2 : " Maximam partem
hominum ista quaestione torqueri quomodo non sint contraria
et repugnantia ut et Deus praesciens omnium futurorum sit
et nos non necessitate sed voluntate peccemus." Cf. also the
brilliant discussion of the whole problem in De civ. dei v. 8-10.
76. Ev. Matt. 26: 34-5, 69-75. EV· Marc. 14: 29-31, 66-72.
Ev. Luc. 22: 34, 54-62. Ev. Jo. 13: 36-8, 18: 25-7.
77. In Sophocles' version an unqualified, unconditional pro-
phecy, not, as in Aeschylus and Euripides, a command which
he might have obeyed but did not.
78. This is a deliberate omission, for in both Aeschylus (Tfe.
742 if.) and Euripides (Ph. 13 ff.) Laius disobeys Apollo's
command (thrice repeated in Aeschylus' account) not to have
children. In this version of the legend Oedipus is paying for
the sin of Laius. Sophocles allows no such easy way out. Cf.
Helmbold, p. 294, п«з: "There is a complete suppression of
the reason why Laius, and consequently his son, was doomed."
79. Cf. D. Chr. x. 29 (a comic denigration of the Oedipus
Story): [Οιδίπους] . . . ήγανάκτει και εβόα /icyaAa, ότι των αυτών
πατήρ εστί και άδ£λφος καΐ της αυτής γυναικός ανηρ και υιός· οι Se
άλ£κτρυόν€ς ουκ άγανακτοΰσιν «τι τούτοις ουδέ οι κυν€ς ουδέ των
όνων ούδας. . . .

8θ. Hdt. viii. 77· Χρ^σμυΪσι δε ουκ έχω avTiAcyciv ως ουκ €ΐσι

2θ6
 Notes for C H A P T E R O N E : HERO

άλ?70€€ς, ου /3ουλόμ.€νος èvapytws λέγοντας παρασθαί καταβάλλων,

eç τοιάδε πρή-γματα Ισβλεψας . . . cç τοιαύτα /jtcv και ούτω Ιναργέως
λί'γοντι Βακιδι άντιλογίας χρησμών περί ουτ€ αυτός Acycti/ τολμάω
ουτ€ ττα/ο* άλλων ένδίκομαι.

8 ΐ . ΤΗ. Ü. 54·

82. Ibid. VU. 50·' θειασμώ тс και τω τοιουτω. . . .

83. Ibid. vi. 89* ύμολογονμένη? άνοιας. . . .

84. Ibid. Ü. 8: πολλά /xèv λόγια еАсусто, ττολλα δε χρησμολόγοι

yoov.

85. Ibid. V. 26: τοις άττό χρησμών τι ισχυ/οισαμά/οις //όνοι/ δτ/ τούτο
έχυρώ« ξυμβάν. Ironically enough, even this prophecy is true
only on the basis of Thucydides' computation of the duration
of the war, which was not generally accepted.

86. The locus classions is Hel. 744-57. Cf. also I. A. 956-8.

87. 954-9: Φοίβο ν άνθρωποι? μόνον χρήν #еопчй>$е«/, oç 3c£ot*€v

ovScva. Cf. idem, El. 399-400.

88. Apollo's plan (described in detail by Hermes, 67-73) *s to

tell Xuthus a lie (that Ion is the son of Xuthus) and so estab-
lish Ion in Athens. Xuthus will think Ion his son, Creusa
will know that he is actually hers by Apollo (γνωσ0$ Κρ€ουσ?;,
72), and Apollo's rape of Creusa will remain a secret (γάμοι
тс Λοφίου κρυπτοί γενωνται, 72"3)· This design, based on a false
oracular statement and contemplating the permanent deception
of Xuthus, is a miserable failure, for Creusa publishes the
whole story of her rape by Apollo, nearly kills Ion, and is in
turn almost killed by him. Ion challenges the story that Apollo
is his father, and is only prevented from asking the god at his
oracle for an explanation by the arrival of Athena, who comes
because Apollo did not think it right (ουκ ήέίου, 1557) to
appear in person—he might be blamed for the preceding events
(1558).
207
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

89. H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker

(loth ed. Berlin, 1960), Protagoras Bi. The usual interpreta-
tion of this famous statement is that of Plato (Tht. 1523, Cra.
3856, etc.)·* the individual man is his own measure of reality.
But the statement can also be taken to mean that mankind as
a whole is the criterion, as Plato in fact implies by his parody
of the phrase (Tht. i6ic: "Why didn't he say that a pig is
the measure of all things?")· This interpretation is offered by
Sextus Empiricus (Diels-Kranz, Protagoras A14) in his sum-
mary; in addition to the " relative " interpretation, he offers also
the interpretation that "all things which appear to men exist,
and the things which do not appear to any man do not exist."
Cf. also Kurt von Fritz, NOY2, NOEIN, and Their Derivatives,"
Pt. II, CP, 41 (1946), 22; and Kathleen Freeman, The Pre-
Socratic Philosophers (Oxford, 1949), p. 349. A full discussion
of the implications of Protagoras' statement for the Oedipus is
to be found in chap. 4 of this book.

90. Diels-Kranz, Antipho. A9.

2
91. E. Hel. 757; cf. idem, Fr. 973 (Nauck ).

92. Cf. especially Eq., passim, and the oracle-monger in Aves.

93. See Herodotus' account of the use made by the Pisistra-

tidae of the oracle-monger Onomacritus to influence Mardonius
(vii. 6). The Knights of Aristophanes makes much capital out
of the use of oracles as political ammunition. They are pre-
sented as one of Cleon's most important techniques for con-
trolling Demos (cf. 61), and Cleon finally loses his power by
being beaten in a contest between the oracles of Bakis and
those of Glanis. The subjects of the oracles of Bakis are:
"Athens, Pylos, you, me, everything" (1005-6), and those of
Glanis: "Athens, lentil soup, the Spartans; fresh mackerel,
short-weigh t barley-sellers in the market place, you, and me
and everything" (1007-10).

94· Th. VUi. I : ωργίζοντο 8c και τοις χρησμολόγοις тс και μάντεσι

2θ8
 Notes for C H A P T E R O N E : HERO

καΐ οπόσοι η тотс αυτούς &ιάσαντ€ς €7π}λτΓΐσαν ως λήψονται SIACÎ-

λίαν.

95· Martin, P. Nilsson, Greek Popular Religion (Ν. Υ., Colum-

bia Univ. Press, 1940), p. 136. Cf. idem, Geschichte der Grie-
chischen Religion, l (Munich, С. H. Beck, 1955), 768: "Es
ist sehr wahrscheinlich dass in betreff der Entstehung der
Religionsprozesse der springende Punkt in der Rivalität zwis-
chen den Wahrsagen und der Naturphilosophie zu suchen ist."
96. Jebb's " Religion, both faith and observance " is not strong
enough. True, this is the meaning of the parallel which he
quotes from O. C. 1537, but in Ph. 452 (τα θα" Ιπαινών τους
&ους €νρω κακούς*) it means something like "divine action,
dispensation," and in Herodotus то 0eîov generally stands for
divinity itself (cf. i. 32, iii. 108). Θαος is to éfeoç as ανθρώπινος
is to άνθρωπος, and Ippct τα ανθρώπινα would mean something
like " man's power has vanished " or " humanity no longer
exists." In any case this final phrase must be climactic. The
statement progresses from the discounting of prophecy to the
discounting of the particular god who made it (Apollo is no
longer honored), and if the third statement be understood to
mean "faith and observance of the gods is perishing" the
whole structure collapses into anticlimax, for this merely re-
peats the second statement in a more general form. The real
process is that which Jocasta and Oedipus actually go through :
the discounting of prophecy makes necessary disregard for
Apollo, and this leads to disregard for his father Zeus and all
the gods and to rejection of divine order as a whole. Such a
statement of disbelief in divine order is explicitly made by
Jocasta in the next scene, and is implied in Oedipus' proclama-
tion that he is " the son of Chance."
97. Cf. Phrynichus, Fr. 9 (Kock) : ανηρ χορεύει καΐ τα του θεού
καλά. This is discussed by Victor Ehrenberg in The People
of Aristophanes (2d ed. Oxford, 1951), p. 23.
98. Whitman is right when he takes the ode to be " a prayer

209
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

for the fulfilment of the oracle given to Laius rather than for
the mere discovery of the murderer " (p. 269, n. 42). The
oracle given to Laius (or about Laius) is in fact mentioned
specifically in the final statement of the ode (906). But Whit-
man's reading of the ode as a whole is an ingenious attempt
to minimize its importance—as he must do, for this ode is a
substantial thorn in the flesh of his basic thesis. The fact that
the chorus previously refused to believe Tiresias (Whitman,
p. 134) is no grounds for saying that their attitude in this ode
has a " disquieting current of real unbelief "; as Whitman
agrees, they are singing about a different subject, the oracle
given to Laius, not the identity of his murderer, and they are
dealing now with a prophecy made not by a man but by a god.
The admitted fifth-century prejudice against oracle-mongers
(on which Whitman relies greatly) has nothing to do with
this case, for although Jocasta, with her νπηρ€των από (712),
has tried to shift the question from the area of divine to that
of human prophecy, nobody believes her, and she does not
even believe it herself, for at the end of the scene (853) she
attributes the prophecy squarely to Apollo. What is involved
now is the categorical, unambiguous prophecy of a god, and
whereas Tiresias' prophecies might be doubted without irrever-
ence, Apollo's may not. " They threaten Zeus and Apollo with
neglect and contempt unless the oracle does come true," says
Whitman. Rather, they pray to Zeus to fulfil the oracle (as
Whitman says himself in the note): that is, they pray for
something which is, as far as they can see, impossible—that
Laius' son, who is dead, should kill his father, who is also
dead. If this is not " faith with fervor " what would be? It
sounds like the faith which moves mountains. In the circum-
stances, the fact that the chorus takes the oracle with any
seriousness at all is a signal proof of faith. And in any case,
they do profess " faith with fervor " in the opening strophe
where they sing of the sublimity of the divine laws, pure in
conception, superhuman, unforgetting: "In these the god is
great, and does not grow old." This is a faith that is directly

210
 Notes for C H A P T E R O N E : HERO

menaced by the attack on prophecy, for prophecy is a pro-

nouncement stemming from these laws, and if prophecy is
false the laws and the order they create do not exist.
Whitman's rather satirical paraphrase of the ode (p. 134)
misses its point : " I believe this prophecy is probably true, but
if I see no evidence, so much for prophecies and the gods in
general." A more accurate paraphrase would run: "The god
is great in his everlasting laws which are beyond human under-
standing. Oedipus and Jocasta are defying those laws through
their defiance of the prophecy which stems from them. They
seem to be right—the prophecy has not been fulfilled and can-
not be fulfilled. If they are right, worship of the gods will
cease, the gods are dishonored, they disappear. The oracle must
be fulfilled, in a spectacular way, so that all men will be im-
pressed. Zeus, make it come true."
This is hardly "the somewhat confused morality of the
bourgeoisie who can feel that the times want stabilizing"
(Whitman, p. 135). The only character who is trying to
41
stabilize the times " in this play is Jocasta, who would be
content to live with all the questions unanswered, and who
can reject Apollo's prophecy and then pray to him for help.
All this is not to say, with Pohlenz, that the ode is " forcibly
dragged in as a protest against Freigeisterei " (Whitman is, as
often, dévastatingly right in his dismissal of this thesis), nor
that it is " a pronouncement ex cathedra from the poet him-
self " or a "credo from the poet" (Whitman, pp. 133, 135).
Like everything else in the play the ode is magnificently func-
tional: it puts the question raised by the situation (the validity
of divine prophecy), in its larger framework, the validity of
the traditional religious view as a whole.
99. See Chapter 4 for a full discussion. For some perceptive
comments cf. Cleanth Brooks and R. B. Heilman, Under-
standing Drama (N. Y., 1948), pp. 574-7.
100. Creon later, without consulting the oracle, keeps Oedipus

211
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

in Thebes, in spite of his promise to exile him and in spite ol

the original oracular response and the curse.
ι ο ι. The text of this passage is corrupt, but the Λοφίου of 1102
is sound, and the analogy of Πάνος in uoo leaves no doubt
about the meaning.

NOTES FOR CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

ι. τύραννος and τνραννίς occur 14 times in the play: three times

applied by Oedipus to his own position (380, 535, 541), five
times used of him or his power by others with respect or at
least no hint of criticism (Creon, 514, 588, 592, the Corinthian,
925, the chorus, 1095). In the Antigone, where Creon is
surely a more " tyrannical " figure than Oedipus in this play,
the words occur only four times: three times used of Creon by
his critics (Antigone, 506, Ismene, 60, Tiresias, 1056), and
once in a general passage on the instability of human fortune
(1169). Creon never uses either word in connection with
himself.
2. Aristotle calls it simply "The Oedipus"; cf. Poetics 1452**.
i454b, etc.

3. Euripides goes so far as to make a chorus of Athenian citi-

zens refer to Demophon, son of Theseus, an Attic king and a
pattern of Athenian bravery and piety, as tyrannos (Heracl.
in). Cf. also idem, EL 877.

4. Cf. PL R. Ü. 36ib: δια παρασκευην φίλων και ουσίας. Hdt.

i. 64: έρρίζωσ* την τνραννίδα «τικού/οοισι τ€ πολλοίσι καΐ χρημάτων
συνοδό tat.

5. Cf .219-20 and 222.

6. ί. 13: τυραννάς cv ταΐς πόλβσι καθίσταντο των προσόδων

212
 Notes for C H A P T E R T W O : A T H E N S

μειζόνων γιγνο/χενων (тгротсроу δε ήσαν CTTÎ ρητοίς γερασι πατρικαί

βασι\€Ϊαι). For this same distinction cf. Arist. Pol. 1285*. 3.

7. Cf. PI. Ale. i. I2oa: ήγ£μ,ών · · · τ^σδ« τ?)ς 7τόλ€<ο9.

8. He had left Corinth to settle his doubts once for all by

consulting the Delphic Oracle, but was sent away unanswered;
ατι/χον is his word (789), which in the context simply means
"with my request unfulfilled" (cf. άτιμάζας, 340, and PI.
Euthphr. i5d), but also implies "without honor," i.e. the
doubt about his birth still unresolved.
9. Cf. the situation in the Odyssey, where the hand of Pene-
lope is evidently regarded as a basis for the assumption of
royal power.
ΙΟ. εξ ου και βασιλϊνς καλ-β C/AOÇ και τα μ€γιστ* ετιμάθης . . . καλ^
is ambiguous, for in such a construction it refers to both past
and present (cf. W. W. Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and
Tenses of the Greek Verb, Boston, 1890, sec. 26), but the
present reference is emphasized by the change in tense from
this verb to the next (еп^аЯт/с) where there is no ambiguity
at all (naturally, for this second statement can refer only to
the past). Normal construction, however, would demand that
this verb too be in the present tense. The effect is to stress the
reference to the present in *αλ#, which might not have been
emphatic without the change of tense from the first verb to
the second.
и. Cf. 834.
12. Archilochus, Fr. 22 (Diehl), and cf. the second hypoth-
esis of the O. T. The statement that the word tyrannos
first occurs in Archilochus is there attributed to Hippias the
sophist, who either did not know the Homeric hymn to Ares
(cf. 5) or thought that it was composed after the time of
Archilochus.
13. Ar. Th. 329: TcAccoç δ* ίκκλησίάσααμεν, Αθηναίων evyci/cîç
ywcu/ccç.

213
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

14. See Xenophon's account of the establishment of a tyrannis

by Euphron at Sicyon: και των σνναρχόντων δε τους μϊν δολω
άτΓ€ΚΤ€ΐν€ν, τους δε e£fßa\ev · · · ώστ£ ττάντα ύφ' €αυτω Ιποιήσατο και
σαφώς τυ'ραι/voç ^ι/ (Η. G. VÜ. Ι. 44'6)· Cf. Hdt. V. 92^; Arist.
a
Pol 131 i . 7; E. Swpp. 444-55.

15. For these characteristic actions cf. Hdt. iii. 80 and E. Stipp.
447*9-
16. Cf. Hdt. iii. 39 (Polycrates), v. 92c (Cypselus); E. Fr.
2
605 (Nauck ).

17. Cf. Hdt. iii. 80; Ion 627-8.

18. Cf. E. Ion 621-8, X. Hier. ii. 8-ю.

19. Cf. Th. i. 130; X. Hier. viii. ίο; PL R. viii 507d; Arist.
a
Pol. 1285**, 131 i .

20. In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus Aegisthus has a body-

guard of spearmen (λοχίται, 1650) whom he calls in to overawe
the chorus; his assumption of power is described as tyrannis
in 1355, 1365, and 1633. In the Choephoroe he is tricked
into coming to the palace without his bodyguard (λοχίται*, 768;
δορνφόρονς όττάονας, 769). In the Euripidean Electra Aegisthus
has his guard with him when Orestes and Pylades kill him;
they have to be won over by the murderers (λόγχας Be θίντί*
δίστίΌΤου φρονρήματα / δ/шес, 798-9. They are numerous—
ττολλοί, 845.) In the Sophoclean Electra the bodyguard of
Aegisthus is away with him in the country; Orestes is urged
to kill Clytemnestra before Aegisthus and his guards return.
(1370-71 : σοφώτ€/3θΐς αλλοισι τούτων πλαοσιν μαχονμ,ίνοι.. " άλλοισι
are the bodyguards," says Jebb, ad loc.) Aegisthus seems in
fact to be the type of the tragic tyrannos, against whom killing
was "no murder"; it is significant in this respect that Electra's
speech to Chrysothemis, in which she urges the murder of
Aegisthus (S. El. 975-85), recalls the formulas of the famous
scolion in praise of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.

214
 Notes for CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

21. One of them is ordered to twist the shepherd's arms behind

his back (1154).
22. Cf. 91-3.
23. Cf. 144: άλλος Be Κάδμου λαό ν ώδ* άθροιζέτω, and see Earle's
note (M. L. Earle, The Oedipus Tyrannus, N. Y., American
Book Co., 1901).

24. Th. ii. 63. So striking a phrase would hardly have been
attributed to Pericles unless he had actually said something of
this kind.

25. Plu. Per. XÜ: και Зокс? $€ΐνην υβριν η Ελλάς νβρίζ€σθαι και
τνρανν€ΐσθαι περιφανως. . . . In this passage Plutarch is sum-
marizing the arguments of the fifth-century opposition to the
Periclean policies. For the Athenian Demos as tyrannos cf.
Ar. Eq. 1111 ff. : ώ Δή/де καλήν y' «χ€ΐς / αρχήν, ore Travreç
άνθρωποι δεδίασί σ* ωσν€ρ άνδρα τύραννον.

20. Th. vi. 85.* àvBpl Β€ τυραννώ η πόλει αρχήν *χον<ηβ. . . .

27· Ibid. i. 122: τνραννον δε од/ш/ έγκα&στάναι πάλιν, ibid. 124:

την καθεστηκνΐαν Ιν rfî Ελλάδι ττόλιν τύραννον. . . . Cf. ibid,
iii. ίο (the Mitylenean envoys on Athenian policy): «ri κατα-
δουλώσ€ΐ των Ελλήνων . . . την δε των ξυμμάχων δοΰλωσιν. . . .

28. For example, the sophistic tone of Creon's speech in his

own defense; the contemporary reference of such terms as
/xcroticoc (452) (used by Tiresias, of all people) and προστάτες
(411); the use of the word δασμός (36) to describe the
" tribute " exacted by the Sphinx (on which cf. Earle, ad loc.);
the plague, the topical references in the yarodos (on which see
Knox [i]). On the whole subject see now V. Ehrenberg,
Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford, 1954), chap, i, "Tragedy and
History."

29. For a recent example cf. P. Masqueray's note (Sopfeocie,

Paris, Budé, 1929) on 411. On "anachronism" cf. Ehrenberg
(2), pp. 15-16.
215
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

30. For a brilliant analysis of the political framework of the

play see George Thomson's Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound,
Cambridge, 1932.
31. The fifth century is, after all, the period of the birth of
historical writing and the historical consciousness.
32. Lycus, 157-64; Amphitryon, 188-203. For a most remarka-
ble example of " anachronism " (one that if attributed to care-
lessness convicts the poet as a botcher and if to "absence of
historical sense" as a moron) see E. Swpp. 404-9. Theseus,
king of Athens, informs a Theban herald that Athens is not
ruled by one man but is a free city. "The people rules, by
yearly succession of offices in turn. . . ." Theseus is presuma-
bly archon basileus.
33. Julius Caesar I. i; Macbeth II. iii.
34. Amphitruo 149, 164; a portu; 460: ibo ad portum.
35. It seems to have caused some misgiving in ancient times,
for the scholium takes pains to explain that it does not mean
what it says. The comment is obscure, but seems to suggest
that vafc in this line is used metaphorically for "city." This
is of course impossible, in view of the combination of vafa
and τάχος.

36. The bases of the power of Athens after the Persian in-
vasion were the fleet and the walls (both of them the creation
of the policies of Themistocles; cf. PI. Grg. 455e), and the
conditions of the Athenian surrender in 404 B.C. were the
destruction of the walls and the confiscation of the ships (And.
iii. 11 : τα Τ€ίχη καθα,φΰν και ràç ναΰ? παραΒιδόναι. Cf. ibid. 37»
39)· Cf. also Lys. xii. 68, xiii. 14, xxviii. 11; Ar. Fr. 220;
Demetrius, Fr. 2 (Kock, i, 796); Lycurg., In Leocratem 139.
For Themistocles on walls and ships cf. Th. i. 93. Destruction
of walls and surrender of ships were the regular conditions of
capitulation for rebellious Athenian allies; cf. Th. i. ιοί
(Thasos), 117 (Samos), iii. 50 (Mitylene; cf. iii. 2 and 3).

216
 Notes for CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

For this same combination in Sophocles cf. Antigone 954: ου

πύργος ούχ άλίκτυποι κίλαιναί vâcç.

37· For a full discussion of this subject see Knox (i).

38. Cf. Hdt. v. 70.

39. Th. Ü. 65: υττο του πρώτον ανδρός αρχή, i. Ι39: άν^ρ . . .
πρώτος . . . (cf. Ο. Τ. 33: ανδρών δε πρώτον). Add Plu. Per. 3:
οίκου δε και γό/ους του πρώτου κατ* αμφότερους, ΙΟ: πρωτεύων. The
title seems, however, not to have been confined to Pericles: cf.
Cratinus, Fr. I. 3-4: πάντ* άρίστω των Πανελλι/νων πρώτω
Κίμων с. . . .

40. Plu. Per. з (Kock, Fr. 240). With /xc'ywn-ov cf. О. Т. 776.

41. Plu. Per. 39: ίπίφθονος ισχύς . . . μοναρχία Αγομένη και

τυραννι'ς. Cf. Ο. Τ. 380 ff.: ώ πλούτε καΐ τνραννί . . . όσος παρ*
νμιν ο φθόνος φυλάσσεται. . . .

42. Plu. Per. 16. His teacher Damon was ostracized as "friendly
to tyranny," φιλοτυ'ραννος (ibid. 4).

43. Earle (p. 53), sums up the case well: "Periclean traits
do appear—one might almost say inevitably—in Sophocles'
Oedipus."

44. Th. i. 8ο: πλουτω те ίδι'ω και δημοσίψ . . . (Archidamus);

Ü. 64: πόλιν тс τοις πασιν €υπορωτάττ^ν . . . ψκ^σα/xev (Pericles).
For Athenian wealth cf. also Th. ii. 13 (Pericles' inventory
of Athenian reserves) and vi. 31 (Thucydides' comment on
the cost of the expedition to Sicily). Cf. also Eupolis, Fr. 307:
πόλιν . . . άφθονεστάτην . . . χρήμασιν. . . .

45. Siegecraft. Th. i. 102, 142. For the Peloponnesians as

"farmers" cf. Th. i. 141 (Pericles). For Athenian skill and
inventiveness cf. Isoc. 4. 40 (a tribute to Athens1 role as the
inventor and transmitter of technical progress. : ко! /ùv δ^ και
των Τ€χνών τάς тс προς τάναγκαΐα του βίον χρησίμας και τας προς
ήΒονην μ€μηχανήμίνας, τάς /xèv €υροΰσα, τάς δε οοκιμάσασα χρήσθαι

217
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

τοις λοιποίς παρέδωκεν, and Plu. De glor. Ath. 345p: μητηρ και
τροφό* . . . τεχνών. For Athenian " trades " in the fifth century
cf. [X.] Ath. 12: Sctrai η πόλις μετοίκων δια тс то πλήθος των
τεχνών. . . .

I:
46. Th. i. 7 πολλής και της €πιτ€χν?/σ€ως Set. . . .

47· Ibid. U. 87: άνευ δε εύψνχίας ουδεμία τέχνη προς τους κίνδυνους
ισχυ€ΐ . . . τέχνη 8ε άνευ αλκής ουδέν ωφελεί.

48. Ibid., i. Ι 2 ΐ : επιστήμη.

49· Ibid. i. 142.: το δε ναυτικον τέχνης εστίν, ωσπερ και άλλο τι ....

50. Ibid. i. 75· ар* ά£ιοί εσμεν . . . και προθυμίας ένεκα της τότε
και γνώμης ξυνέσεως αρχής γε ^ς εχομεν τοις "Έ»λλησι μη ούτως άγαν
επιφθόνως διακεΐσθαι ; The parallels to the language of the Sopho-
clean play are Striking: της πάρος προθυμίας (48), γνώμ# κυρήσας
(398), т^аос γ* αρχής ουνεχ (383)» όσος . . . φθόνος Сз^2.). For
the same sentiment cf. Lys. ii. 48.

51. Th. ii. 64: et δε τις μη κέκτηται, φθονήσει. . . .

52. Th. ii. 62: μετά πόνων και ου παρ* άλλων δεξάμενοι.

53· Ibid. i. 75* ίλάβομεν ου βιασάμενοι . . . αυτών δεηθέντων ηγε-

μόνας καταστήναι j6> α.ρ)&ν διδομένην εδε£άμεθα. Cf. Ο. ι . 383 "··
αρχής . . . ην εμοι πόλις δωρητον ουκ αιτητον εισεχείρισεν. Cf.
also Th. vi. 76 (Hermocrates on the Athenians): ηγεμόνες γαρ
γενόμενοι εκόντων των τε Ιώνων. Isoc. 4* 7^· δόντων μ*ν
Των
<ϊλλων
Έλλτ/νων. Din. ί. 37·
Like Oedipus, Athens was πρώτος (cf. О. Т. 33 and Th.
i V. 95: ά£ίως . . . της τε πόλεως ην έκαστος πατρίδα έχων πρωτην eV
τοΖς ^Ελλι^σιν άγάλλ€ται and Hdt. ÎX. 27) and μέγας (cf. Hdt.
V. 66: Αθήναι εονσαι και πριν μεγάλαι . . . εγίνοντο μέζονες. . . .
Th. ii. 6 ΐ : πόλιν μεγάλην οικοΰντας. ΑΓ. Eq. 178, ΐ8θ, 838,
Αν. 37; and Th. i. 23 and ii. 64 where the word occurs over
and over again like a refrain). Like Oedipus (8, 1207) Athens

218
 Noies for C H A P T E R TWO: ATHENS

was κλ«ναί cf. S. A;. 86i, Fr. 323; Eub. ίο (Kock ii); Find,
Fr. 64 (Bowra); E. Heracl. 38).

54. Eulogistic portraits of the Athenian character are common

too (Sophocles' Theseus in the O.G., Euripides' Demophon
and Theseus).

55. Th. Ü. 64: ταύτα ô μίν άπρά-γμων μέμψαιτ* αν, ο ос. δραν Tt
και αυτός βουλό/xevos ζηλωσζι. For δραν in the О. Т. cf. Chap. I,
η. 24.
56. Th. ii. 64: OITIVCÇ προς τας £υμφορας γνώμ$ /ièv ηίκιστα
λυπούνται, έργω 8с μάλιστα άντε'χουσιν, ούτοι και πόλ€ων και ιδιωτών
κράτιστοί €ΐσιν. Cf. Ο. Τ. 6i8ff. and also Th. vi. 87 (Athenian
πολυπραγμοσύνη).

57· Th. i. 70: μητί εορτην άλλο τι ήγυσθαι ^ το τα δέοντα πραξαα.

This sounds like a malicious hit at the Spartan practice of
avoiding critical action by celebrating a convenient festival
(cf. Hdt. vi. 106, Marathon; vii. 206, Thermopylae; ix. 7, the
second Persian attack on Athens).

58. Th. i. 70: ττ€φυκ€ναι Ιπΐ τω μήτε αυτούς €χ«ν ήσνχίαν μήτ€ τους
άλλους ανθρώπους èav. For ησυχία cf. О. Т. 620. For Athenian
vigor in general see (in addition to Th. i. 70) Hdt. ix. 60
(Pausanias on the Athenians); Th. i. 74 (the Athenian envoys
at Sparta), vi. 18 (Alcibiades' appeal to the tradition of
Athenian activity).

59· Th. VÜ. 6i: όσοι тс Αθηναίων тгарсатс, ττολλών ^δτ^ πολέμων
€μπ€ΐροι. . . .

6ο. Ibid. ii. 89.

6l. Hdt. IX. 46: υ/mç €πίστασθ€ . . . ήμ€Ϊς δε άπειροι.

Ο2. Th. i. 7 Ι : τα των Αθηναίων από της ττολυπ€ΐρίας €πι πλέον
νμων κ€καίνωται. Cf. also Th. i. 142 (Pericles on Athenian
experience on land and sea), i. 8ο: θαλάσσης Εμπειρότατοι
(Archidamu> on the Athenians), vi. 36: δ€ΐνοί και πολλών

219
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

έμπειροι (Athenagoras on the Athenians), iv. 10; Isoc. 4. 21:

εμπειρότατους.

63. They support their claim by an appeal to ancient history

(the wars against Eurystheus, the Amazons, the Trojans)
and to the more recent victory at Marathon. Hdt. ix. 27:
ήμΐν πατρώων εστί εοϋσι χρηστοισι αεί πρωτοισι είναι.

64. Th. i. 9°> φοβούμενων . . . την ες τον Μέδικοι/ πόλεμον τόλ-

μαν. . . .

65. Th. i. IO2: SctVavrcç των Αθηναίων το τολμηρόν. . . .

66. Ibid. ii. 88.

6y. Th. И. 41: εσβατον ту ημετέρα τόλμη (Pericles); VÜ. 28: τον
παράλογον . . . της δυνάμεως και τόλμης.

68. Ibid. i. Ι44 : τόλμη μείζονι η δυνάμει (Pericles); i. 7O: παρά

δυναμιν τολμηταί . . . (Corinthians).

69. Ibid. i. 74* προθυμίαν δε καΐ πολύ τολμηροτάτην . . . από тс

της ουκ ούσης έτι ορμώμενοι καΐ νπερ της εν βραχεία ελπιδί ούσης
κινδννενοντες. Cf. [Lys.] Epitaph. 58· επέδειξαν δε και εν ταΐς
δνστνχίαις την εαυτών άρετην. For Other references to Athenian
courage see Th. i. 70: άοκνοι, ii, 39, 89, vi. 31, 33.

70. Th. i. 70: €ττινο^σαι ô^cîç και επιτελέσαι έργω α αν γνώσιν . . .

μόνοι yàp εχουσί тс ομοίως και ελπίζουσιν α αν επινοησωσι δια το
ταχείαν την επιχείρησιν ποιεΐσθαι ων αν γνώσιν.

71. Ibid. i. 57: προκαταλαμβάνειν, Üi. 3· προκαταλαβεΐν. Cf. the

advice of the Corcyreans (Th. i. 33): ημέτερον δε γ* αυ cpyov
προτερησαι . . . και προεπιβουλευειν αύτοις μάλλον η άντεπιβου-
λευειν with Ο. Τ. 618-21.

72. For the walls of Athens cf. Th. i. 93: cV όλι'γω χρόνω, for
Syracuse vi. 98: εκπληζιν . . . παρέσχεν τω τάχει της οικοδομίας.
Cf. also IV. 8 (the fortification of Pylos) : οικοδόμημα δια ταχέων
είργασμένον, and vii. 42 (Demosthenes at Syracuse).

73. [Lys.] Epitaph. 26: ούτω Se δια ταχέων. . . . For Athenian

220
 Notes for CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

speed cf. also Isoc. 4. 87; Plu. Per. xiii (the Periclean building
program) : μάλιστα θαυμάσιον fy το τάχος.

74« Hdt. V. 89: ουκ άνέσχοντο ακουσαντες δκως χ/ocov εϊη επισ-
χεΐν. . . . For the impatience of Oedipus cf. Chap, ι, ρ. 17.
When Themistocles, in Thucydides* account of the building
of the walls of Athens, excuses himself for not appearing before
the Spartan assembly on the ground that his colleagues have
not yet arrived, he uses a phrase reminiscent of the remark
of Oedipus waiting for Tiresias: βανμ.άζ€ΐν ως ουπω πάρεισιν
(Th. i. 9°)> СГ. O. I . 289^ πάλαι δε μη παρών θαυμάζεται.
Ο:
75· Th. Ü. 4 τολμαν τε ot αυτοί μάλιστα και περί ων επιχει-
ρήσομ€ν εκλογίζεσθαι.

76. Hdt. i. 6ο: τοισι πρωτοισι λεγομένοισι είναι Ελλήνων σοφίην.

;
77· Th. i. 75 προθυμίας ένεκα της τότε και γνώμης ξυνέσεως. . . .
τ€
78. Ibid. i. Ι44· Ύ^Ι^Ώ πλέονι η τυχ#. Cf. Ο. ΤΓ. 39"·
79· Ibid. Ü. 4 Ο: φιλοσοφονμεν âvev μαλακίας.

8θ. Ibid. Ü. 02: καταφρόνησις 8с ос αν και γνώμ# πιστεν^ των

Ιναντίων προνχειν. . . .

81. Ibid. Ü. 02: δυο μερών των ες χρήσιν φανερών. . . . For these
two "elements" cf. S. Ant. 335;8.
82. Th. Ü. 42: σφίσιν αντοΐς άξιονντες πεποιθέναι. Contrast what
Thucydides says about the Mityleneans (iii. 5): ούτε επίστενσαν
σφίσιν αντοΐς.

83. Ibid. i. 70 ολίγα προς τα μέλλοντα τνχειν πράξαντες.

84. Ibid., IV. ΙΟ: άπερισκέπτως ενελπις.

85. Ibid. VU. 77: «λττι'δα χρη €χ«ν . . . cATrtç . . . θρασεΪα. Cf.
Ο. Τ. 83 5 : Cho. . . . εχ ελπίδα. Oed. και μην τοσούτον γ*
εστί μοι της ελπίδος. . . .

86. Th. i. 70: ev Totç δεινοίς ευέλπιδες. Cf. Εύελπίδης, the Athen-

221
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

ian in the Birds of Aristophanes. Ehrenberg (i), p. 57, n. 2,

quotes this parallel from Croiset, and adds Th. vi. 24 (ευέλπιδες
OVTCC σωθήσεσθαι) and IV. IO.
87. Th. Ü. 39: ραθυμία μάλλον η πόνων μελέτη . . . τρόπων
ανδρείας.

88. Ibid. i. 138: οικεία γαρ £υνέσει και ούτε προμαθων ες αύττ^ν
ουδέν οΰτ* επιμαθων . . . ων δ* άπειρος είη, κριναι ικανως. Cf. Ο. Τ.
:
37"8: ουδέν ε^ιδώς πλέον ουδ* εκδιδαχθείς, 39^ 'ywpg κυρήσας
ονΒ' απ* οιωνών μαθών.

Ι:
89« Th. Ü. 4 ''öv αυτόν άνδρα τταρ* ήμ-ών cm ιτλ€Ϊστ' αν €?δ·^ και
/хета χαρίτων μάλιστ* αν €υτραπ€λως το σώμ,α αυταρκ€? παρέχεσθαι.
: ω
Cf. Ο. Τ. 11-12: ως θίλοντος αν €μου προσαρκείν παν, Ι45 *
παν εμού δράσοντος. . . .

90. Th. i. 138. For another example of Athenian adaptability

see iv. 9.
91. Ibid. Ü. 6ο: φιλόττολι*. Cf. Ο. Τ. 510: άδυττολ«.

92. Th. Ü. 43: сраатас ytyvo/icvovç αντής. Cf. Ο. Τ. 6θΙ : ераатт/с

τήσδε της γνώμης (Creon). This is the only occurrence of the
word in Sophocles.

93. Th. i. 70: TOtc /ACV σωμασιν άλλοτριωτάτοι? wcp της πόλίως. . . .

94. Cf. Whitman, p. 268, η. 31: "I think the lively Athenians
would . . . approve of his shrewdness in smelling a plot."

95« Th. i. 107: δήμου καταλύσεως υποψία.

96. Ibid. vi. 53: πάντα υπόπτως άποδεχόμενοί . . . πάντα υπόπτως

Ιλάμβανεν (se. ο δήμος); 6ο: ό δήμος . . . χαλ€πος ην тотс και
ύποπτης.

97· Ibid. Ü. 13« μηδεμίαν öl υποψίαν κατά ταύτα γιγν€σ0αι. . . .

98. Ibid. iii. 43: νποπτ€υηται κέρδους μεν Ινεκα τα βέλτιστα δε

όμως λέγειν.

222
 Notes for CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

99. Hdt. V. 70: τους cVaycac artAcycov. . . .

100. Ibid., V. 72: cttTtKOftevoc 8c άγηλατ€€ΐ Ιπτακόσια απιστία Αθη-

ναίων. Cf. О. Т. 4О2: άγι;λατΐ7σ€ΐν. This word occurs only
here in Sophocles.

ΙΟΙ. Th. i. 120: το άγος cAavvetv. Cf. 127.

0O2. Ar. V. 343-45.' ου γαρ αν ποθ* οντος άνήρ τοΰτ* Ιτόλμησ€ν

λΙγ€ΐν et μη ζυνωμότης τις fy. Cf. Ο. T. 124-5 : πως οΰν ο ληστής,
с? τι μη ξυν άργνρω Ιπράσσιτ* ίνθένΒ* €c TOS* αϊ/ τόλμης Ιβη ;

103. This action is cited approvingly by Lycurg. In Leocr. 122.

104. Th. Ü. 6ο: προσ$€χομένω /not τα Tijç οργής υμών, 59: ή8οΰ-
λ«το . . . άτταγαγών το ôpytfo/jtevov της γνώ/л^с. . . .

105. Ar. Рях 606-7: HiptfcAeifc φοβηθίΐς . . . тас φΰσ€ΐς ύ/χων

δβδοιχώς και τον αντοΒαζ τρόπον.

Ιθ6. Th. VI. 6ο: αυτών . . . όργι{ο/ΐ€νων, VUÎ. ι: ώργίζοντο Be και

τοις χρησμολόγοις.

107. Ar. Eq. 41"2: ycpdvTtov . . . αγροικο? opyrjv . . . δυσκολον.

Ιθ8. Ibid., 537: Крат^с ôpyàç ύ/χών ήνέσχετο. . . .

109. ΑΓ. V. 243: ^€ρων οργί/ν τριών πονηράν. . . .

110. Antipho. 5· 7 Ι : Й /*€Τ' ôpy^ç και διαβολής. . . .

111. Ibid. 69: οργι} /χαλλον τ} yv^P-Τί· Cf. О. Т, 5^4: °ργ# )3ιασΟ€ν
μάλλον ή γνώμη φρ€νων.

112. Cf. Th. Hi. 36: μετάνοια τις €υθνς ην αυτοΐς . . . .

113- Cf. Χ. Η. G. i. 7· 35: ftcTc/LteAe Totç Άθηναίοις. . . .

114« Α. Ew. 682: πρώτα? δί/caç κρίνοντ€ς. . . .

ι ΐ 5 · See D. L. v. 17 for Aristotle's remark: του? 'Λ^ναίους . . .

€νρηκέναι ττυρονς και νόμους. Cf. Ael. V. H. Üi. 38: Βίκας те δούναι
icat Aa^Öetv ηνρον Αθηναίοι πρώτοι. IsOC. 4· 39 (quoted below,

223
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

n. 116); Cic. Pro Flacco 62: Athenienses . . . uncle . . . iura,

leges ortae; Lucr. vi. 3; Stat. Theb. xii. 501.
116. Cf. IsoC. 4. 39: αυτήν παράδειγμα ποιήσασα* πρώτη yàp και
νόμους еоето.

117· Ar. Nti. 2θ8 : δικαστας οΰχ ορώ καθήμενους. Cf. idem, PuX.
505, Av. 40-41.
118. [X.] Ath. Üi. 2: δίκας και γραφας και έυθύνας ίπιΒικάζειν
όσας ούδ* οι σύμπαντες άνθρωποι ΙπιΒικάζουσι. Cf. Χ. Mem. Ш.
5. 16: πλείστας Βίκας άλλτ^λοις δικάζονται.

119. Th. i. 77'· φίλοδικειν δοκοΰ/xcv. . . .

12Ο. 11 о : cv τ^δ* Ζφασκ* yfj. . . .

121. IO2 : ποίου yàp άνδ/эос T?yvÔ€ μηνύει τύχην \

122. And so could not bring an cîaayycAta. See Meier-Schö-

mann-Lipsius, Der Attische Process (Berlin, 1883-87), pp.
33°-2·
123. For the role of Apollo as μηνυτής cf. the story of Sophocles
and Μηνυτής Ηρακλής (Vita 12).

124. I I O - I I : èv Trjo* €φασκ€ yfj' то Be ζητουμενον

άλωτόν, €κφ€υγ« δ« τάμελουμενον.

125. Cf. D. XXÎV. I l : ελέσθαι ζητητάς, €ΐ δε TIC οιδε τιν', . . .

μηνυειν προς τούτους. For the rewards (μήνυτρα^) cf. Th. VI. 27,
And. i. 27-8, and also O. T. 231-2: κέροος . . . χάρις. For
О. T. 228: αυτός καθ' αυτού see Th. VI. 6o: ο μίν [Andocides]
αυτός тс καθ9 (.αυτού καΐ κατ9 άλλων μηνύει.

120. Cf. the formal curse on Alcibiades pronounced by all

the priests and priestesses in Plu. Ale. xxii.
127. Th. vi. 27: τους Βράσαντας fjBti ούΒυς (cf. О. Т. 293: τον
1
Bf. Βρωντ ούΒείς όρα, 246: τον δεδρακοτΟ άλλα /χεγάλοις μηνύτροις
Βημοσία ούτοι тс Ιζητουντο (cf. Ο. Τ. 232: κέρΒος τ€λω 'γώ, 2θ6:
ζητών τον αΰτοχ€ΐρα) και προσέτι έψηφίσαντο και ci τις άλλο τι

224
 Notes for C H A P T E R T W O : A T H E N S

οιδεν άσεβημα γεγενημενον {Ci. Ο. Τ. 230: et δ* αν τις άλλον oîScv

è£ οίλλτ/ς χ#ονός) μηννειν άδεως τον βονλόμενον (cf. О. Т. 227-9)
και αστών και ξένων και δούλων.

128. Cf. And. i. 14: ήσθα ζητητής, ω Διόγνητε, οτε . . . μη-

ννσαντα Άνδρο μαχον. . . .

129. There is a passage in Demosthenes (xlvii. 68-70) which

describes the dilemma of a man who cannot prosecute those
whom he considers responsible for the death of an old house-
servant: he is not related to her and since she has no living
relatives he cannot find anyone entitled to bring suit. He is
advised by the exegetae that all he can do is to make a
proclamation banishing them from civic and religious func-
tions, but without naming them; he must refer to them only
as "those who did the deed and killed": όνομαστί μεν μηδενΐ
προαγορενειν, τοις δεδρακόσι δε και κτείνασιν. For a detailed dis-
cussion of this passage see R. Bonner and G. Smith, The
Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle (Chicago,
1938), 2, 217 if.

130. The process may be inferred from Antipho. 2. γ. 2: то

κακούργημα αν εκηρνσσετο and ibid. 8.6: et δε εκηρνσσοντο η μη
άλλοι τινές κακούργοι . . . αφανούς δε OVTOÇ του κηρύγματος. For
κηρνσσειν in this sense cf. О. Т. 737: таит* εκηρνχθη πό\€ί (i.e.
the murder of Laius).

131. PI. Lg· IX. 8743, b: èàv δε Τ€0ν€ως μ,έν αυ TIC φαν?/, αδτ/λο? δε
K(
ό KTCivaç y (cf. Ο. Τ. 475~6) u W ά/χελώς ζητονσιν aveupcTOç
γίγνττται (cf. Ο. 1 . Ι Ι Ο - Ι ΐ ) τα«? μεν προρρήσεις τας άυτας γίγνεσθαι
καθάπερ TOÎÇ άλλοις, προαγορενειν 8ε τον φόνον τω δράσαντι (cf.
Ο. Τ. 293» ^9^) *α' επιδίκασαμενον εν αγορά κηρνζαι (cf. Ο. 1 .
45°) ™> κτείναντι τον και τον καΐ ωφληκότι φόνον (cf. Ο. T. 5 1 1 )
μη επιβαίνειν ιερών μηδέ όλης χωράς της τον παθόντος (cf. Ο. Τ.
236-40).

132. Cf. (for example) Antipho. 6. 35-6: προαγορ€ν€ΐν . . .

r tne
εΐργεσθαι των νομίμων, and ibid. 45"^ f° activities proscribed
by the ban.
225
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

133. 297: οΰ&λεγ&ον.

134. Cf. (for example) D. lix. i, xviii. 103, 278, xxi. 176, Ivi. 4;
PL Αγ. 290, Grg. 522b; D. XlX. 2: πρίν yàp άσιλβάν etc ΰ/ιας και
λόγον δούναι, "«σάγω, ασέοχομαι, €ΐσοδος are the proper terms
in speaking of a court/' says John Burnet (Plato, Euthyphro,
Apology, and Crito, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1924) on PL Αγ.
1705. €ΐσ€ρχ€σθαι in Sophocles means "to go into something"
(e. g. a house, a tent) except in El. 685 and 700, where it means
"enter the lists" for a race. In O.G. 907, ouWep αυτό« τους
νόμους άσήλθ* Ιχων, the meaning is surely, as in Ο. Τ. 319, legal;
" he will be made to conform," says Theseus of Creon, " to those
same laws with which he himself came into court." In the
Ο.Τ. passage the literal meaning "come in" will not do:
Tiresias has not " come in " to anything, for the interview takes
place in the open air. This is not, however, an objection to
taking the word in a legal sense, for murder trials in fifth-
century Athens did take place in the open air.

135. Cf. (for example) D. xlii. 32, xxii. 4; Antipho, 2, a. 2;

Ar. V. 922.

136. Cf. D. XXÜi, 86: ου γαρ δτ/ττου . . . ταΰτ* cv ψηφισματι γραίας

riç εννομ* αν είρηκως ei-rç, 95· *στι δ* ουδέν . . . τούτο σημ-tîov του
τούτον Ιννομ άρηκέναι. Cf. also Aeschin. in. 23, 4^> 193» 23°·
This is the only occurrence of Ιννομος in Sophocles.

137· O· T. 330; ξνν€ίδως ov φράσ(.ΐ4\ Cf. PL Lg. 742b: ο συν£ΐδώ«

και μη φράξων. And. î. 4 1 » 47·

138. Cf. Gorg. Pal. 27: άντ^ατηγορήσαί. Antipho. 4 ß 6; Lys.

xxv. 30 ff. Cf. also Arist. Rh. AL xxxvi. I442b: τα? πρά&ιτ . . .
etc τους άντιδί/covç атгот/эе^сбс . . . ·η)ν αίτίαν cîç τους εναντίον ч
T/OC'TTOVTÉÇ.

139· Cf. for speaker's record of service Lys. vii. 30 if. xviii. 7,
xix. 29, 57, xxi ι ff., xxv. 12; for contrast of records Antipho.
2 ß 12; Lys. x. 27-9.

226
 Notes for CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

140. O. T. 408-9: ε&σωστεον το γοΰν ισ* αντιλέξαι. This right to

reply at equal length (avrtAcyctv) was exactly regulated in the
courtroom by the water-clock: prosecution and defense had
exactly the same amount of time.

141. O.T. 409: τούδε γαρ κάγώ κρατώ. Cf. Antipho. 6. 18:
αιτιάσασθαι μεν ουν και καταψενσασθαι εξεστι τω βονλ,ομένω. αυτός
γαρ έκαστος τούτου κρατ€Ϊ. Also Gorg. Pal. 2: του μεν ύ/шс όλου
κρατείτε, του δ* εγώ, της μεν Βίκης εγώ, της δε βίας υμείς . . .
κρατείτε γαρ καΐ τούτων, ων ουδέν εγώ τυγχάνω κρατών.

142. Cf. (for example) Lys. xiii. 18, 64, xxx. 1-2.

143* О. Т. 420-1; îrotoç ουκ εσται λιμήν / ποίος Κιθαιρών ουχί σύμ-
φωνος τάχα ;

144· Antipho. 6. 49* ίΓ°«1*' Βίκην ου δίκάσαίντ* αν η ποίον οΊκασ-

τήριον ουκ €£ατΓαττ;σ€ΐαν ; Cf. ibid. 51 > Lys. XÜi, 46 : ττοι'αν Ttva
о*€<твс γνωμ,ην rrepl τοντου «χ^ιν, ту ποίαν τίνα αν ψήφον θέσθαι . . . ;
Idem, XXXÎ. 3!: ττοιων . . . όρκων φροντίσαι . . . η ττοΐα αν απόρ-
ρητα τηρησαι] Idem, vi. 33·

145* Cf. D. xviii. ία, xxiii. 89; [And.] 4. 16, 21; etc.

146. O. T. 429 : ^ ταύτα δήτ* άν€κτα ττρος τούτου κλυ€ΐν ; Cf. Ar.
Ach. 618: ω δημοκρατία, ταύτα δ^τ* ανασχ€τά ; D. XXV. IJ\ Aeschin.
i· 34·

147* O.T. 432: €t συ μη VaAetç. Cf. (for example) Andoc. ι.

14: καί μοι καλά Δίόγντ/τον, ibid. 18, etc. Other reminiscences
of the legal atmosphere in the Tiresias scene are as follows:
O. T. 351, κηρνγματι, . . . έμμένειν (cf. D. Ivii. 12 : τούτο«
с/л/AcWv, idem, xli. 14, xxv. 17, xxvii. ι); Ο.Τ. 363: ου τι ...
χαίρων (cf. Andoc. I. ιοί; SoKctc οδν χαιρήσ€ΐν)', Ο.Τ. 378:
KpeovToç jj σου ταύτα τάξευρήματα (cf. Antipho. i. 15»* αυτή? μ*ν
τούτο εύρημα, εκείνης δε νπηρέτημα)', Ο.Τ. 4 Ο Ι > Χω οξυνθείς τάδε
(cf. Gorg. Pal. 3· συνέβηκε ταντην την αΐτίαν, Antipho. 5· 25:
ce επιβουλής συνέθεσαν ταύτα, Ar. V. 693*· ζυνθέντε το ττραγ/υια);

227
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

0. T. 441: τοιαΰτ' <5νείδι£* oîç εμ ευρέσεις με'γαν (cf. D. xlv. 78:

μη οΰν μοι ταΰτ* όνειδι£ε, εφ* οις επαίνου τυχοι/л* αν δικαίως); Ο. Τ.
: χχ
445 παρών . . . όχλείς (cf. D. xliv. 45> ί> 189, xviii. 4; Din.
1. 2); O. T. 455: πτωχός aim πλουσίου ξενην επί (cf. Antipho.
2. β. 9· γερών καΐ απολις ων επί ξενίας πτωχεύσω; Lys. XXXii. 17«
αντί πλουσίων πτωχούς).

148. Their intervention in the quarrel itself (404-7) was ju-

dicial in tone, deprecating anger, and attempting to restore
relevancy.

149. Antipho. 5. 57: ουδέ γαρ εχ0ρα ουδεμία ην Ιμοι κάκείνω.

Cf. idem, 2. a. 5·' è* παλαιού yàp Ιχθρος ων αυτού (from the
prosecutor's speech).

150. Ο. Τ. 501: κρίσιτ ουκ Ιστιν αληθής. Cf. Antipho. $. β. 2:

8όζη και μη αΧηθζία την κρίσιν ποιήσασθαι. . . . Gorg. Pal. 35*
μ€τα . . . της αληθείας την κρίσιν ποιήσατε. PL Lg. Ü. бОЗС:
τ^ν δ* άλ?7#€ΐαν της κρίσεως. . . .

151« For σοφός ωφθη cf. Lys. XXVÜ. 3: ωφθησαν αοικονντϊς,

ibid. 6.

152. Ο. Τ. 5 ΐ 3 " Ι 4 : ^€tv> ^ · · · κατηγορύν. Cf. Andoc. ι. 7:

δεινά κατηγορήσαντες. D. XÎX. 9 : πολλά δε και δεινά κατηγορίΐν
έχων.

153· Ο. Τ. 518: ούτοι βίου μοι του μακραίωνος πόθος. Cf. Aeschin.
Η. 5 : αβίωτον ειναί μοι τον λοιπόν βίον νομίζω. Gorg, Pal. 2Ο:
πώς ουκ αν αβίωτος ην ο βίος μοι πρά£αντι ταύτα \

154· Ο. Τ. 533· τόλμες ττρόσωπον. Antipho. Ι. 28: θαυμάζω δε

Ι:
εγωγε ττ^ς τόλμης τον αδελφού, idem, 3· У· τολμηρός, 2: τολμών,
5: ες τούτο . . . τόλμης ήκει, idem, 4» У· 4 : ετόλμτ/σε, 6: ες τούτο
τόλμης, idem, 5· 155 And. ι. ιοο; Lys. xii. 22; Gorg. Pal. 24.

155* О.Т. 534» φονεύς ων τούδε τάνδρος εμφανώς. Cf. D. XXI.

Ι об: αυτόν . . . νομίζω αύτόχειρά /χου γεγεντ/σοαι. Antipho. 4·
^5. 7 : φονής те μου γίγνονται, 4· У· * : f w v
TC κα
' βλε'πων φονεας
αυτού φησιν είναι. Cf. also idem, 5· 59·

228
 Notes for CHAPTER T W O : ATHENS

156. Cf. Antipho. 6. 34.

157. O. T. 576: ου γαρ δη φονίύς άλώσομαι. Cf. Antipho. 2. β. 2:

αυτό« καταδοχ&ις φον€υς είναι άνοσίως άλωσομαι.

158. See Th. viii. 68 for Thucydides* high estimate of it.

159. Text in K. J. Maidment, Minor Attic Orators (London,

1941), i, 294, 296. For a similar argument cf. Hdt. v. 106.

160. For the responsibilities of an ambassador cf. D. xix. 4

(a politico-legal text which throws light on Oedipus' impeach-
ment and Creon's defense) : λογίσασ0€ τίνων προσήκει λόγον τταρα
πρεσβεντοϋ λαβείν πρώτον μεν TOLVVV ων επτ/γγαλ«, οεύτερον δε ων
έπεισε. . . . Cf. Ο. Τ. 604: ci σαφώς ήγγειλά σοι . . . , 555· «w^i^cç
η ουκ έπειθες . . . ;

ΙΟΙ. 32·: £' Ρ*ν τι ήσέβηκα . . . άποκτείνατε /AC. Cf. Ο. i. 605·

6: èdv με . . . λάβτ}ς . . . μη μ? άπλ-η κτάν^ ^φω, διπλ^
Se. . . . Cf. also D. XVÜi. ίο: et μ*ν ιστ* /txc τοιούτοι/ οντά oîov
oJroc yTLOLTO . . . άναστάντςς καταψηφίσασθ* η8η. 1SOC. Ι5· 5 1 »
Lys. iii. 4·
:
102. Ο. Τ. 613" 15 ^λ,λ* €V χρόνω γνωστ} τάδ* ασφαλώς èrrel χρόνος
δίκαιον άνδρα δ€ΐ'κνυσιν μόνος. Antipho. 5* 86: αλλά δότ€ τι και
τω χρόνω /Α€0* ου ορθότατα €υρίσκουσιν οι την άκρίβααν ζητοΰντες
1
των πραγμάτων. Cf. ibid. 7 · Cf. also Lys. XÎX. 6l: πιστ^ΰσαι . . .
τω χρόνω. Gorg. PßZ. 34.

163. It occurs in what seems to be this technical sense in Gorg.

Ря/. 3 : ci δε φθονώ και κακοτίχνια και πανουργία σννέθηκ€ ταντην την
αιτία ν. . . .

164. For κακοτ€χν€Ϊν cf. D. xlüi. 2, xlvi. 25, κακοτεχνία xlvii. 2,

xlix. 56; PL Lg. xi. 936d.

165. O. T. 656-7: τον cvay^ φίλον μ,ηποτ* cv αιτία συν άφαν€Ϊ

λόγω σ* ατι/χον βα\€Ϊν. Antipho. 5· 59: ^ν άφανίΐ λόγω fi/TCÎç
airoAcaat. For €ναγτ;ς cf. Aeschin. Üi. HO.

166. D. xlv. 88: τον TTCTTOvtfOT1 cAcivOTcpov των δωσόντων δίκιων

229
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

ήγ€ΐσθ€. Cf. Antipho. i. 25-7, Gorg. Pal. 33. D. xxv. 76 con-

tains a prosecutor's analysis of and attack on the appeal to pity.
167. Antipho. 3. β. 2, i i . Cf. also idem, 2. β. 13, 3. a. 2,
5. 73; Lys. iv. 20; Andoc. i. 67; D. xxi. 99; Aeschin. ii. 179.
For Socrates' refusal to ask for pity cf. PL Αγ. 34C.
168. О. T. 732: που *σθ* ο χώρος . . . ; 73 5 : * ™ç χρόνος . . . ;
κα

τ
74° ·' °ν ^è Λάιον φνσιν τίν €ΐρπ€, φράζε, τίνα 8* ακμή ν ήβης ϊχων',
75 Ο: πότ€ρον Ιχωρει βαιός, η πολλούς ϊχων . . . ; Cf. Gorg. Pal. 22;
φράσον τοντοις ^τοι/ τρόπον^ TOI/ τόπον, τον χρόνον, πότ€, που,
T ç
πώς . . . and for ^ τρόπον^ cf. Ο. I . 99 · * ° τρόπος της
ξνμφορας ;

169. 2. γ. ίο: ήμ,ιν /icv προστροπαιος ό αποθανών ουκ Ισται, υμ,ΐν

TO Ç
Se Ινθνμ,ιος γ€νήσ€ται. Idem, 3* ^. 9· ' καταλαμβάνονσι μείζον
το ίνθνμαον ·γ*νήσ€ται.

170. Lys. XÜ. 4 : ούμός πατήρ Κέφαλος Ιττίίσθη μ,ΐν ύπο Περικλ/ονς
etc ταύτην την γην αφικέσθαι.

I J l · D. Ivii. 37 : 'Efwu γαρ ην πάππος, ώ ανδρ€ς Αθηναίοι, της

μητρός πατήρ, Δαμ,όστρατος Μ€λιτ£υς. Cf. also idem, XXVÜ. 4:
Δημοσθένης yàp ονμος πατήρ, xl. 6: ή yàp μήτηρ ή Ιμη. . . .

1J2. Cf. D. xliv. 16, 19. For a full discussion see W. Wyse's
note on Is. iii. 62. 4 (The Speeches of Isaeus, Cambridge, 1904,
p. 345). This technical sense is appropriate at E. El. 595 and
1251.

173. O. T. 828-9: αρ* ουκ απ* ώμου ταύτα δαίμονος τις αν κρίνων
. . . ; D. XXV. 83: ώ/χώς και πικρώς €ΐχ€. Ibid. 84: πικρία και
μιαιφονία και ωμότης. Cf. also idem, XXI. 97: τον ούτως ώμόν, ibid.
109.

174· Ο. T. 848-9: φανέν ye τούπος . . . κούκ Ιστιν αύτω τοΰτό

γ* ίκβαλεΐν πάλιν. Cf. PL Cn. 4^b: τους δ^ λόγους ους έ*ν τω
ϊμπροσθεν Ιλεγον ου δυναμαι νυν Ικβαλ€ΐν. . . .

175· Antipho. 2. α. ίο: άναγνον . . . άγνα'αν, 2, β, I I .

230
 Notes for CHAPTER TWO: ATHENS

176. D. XXÎV. 191: μη λανθανέτω \Ι/€υΒόμ€νος ύ/xaç. Cf. idem, XIX.

239, xlviii. 40, xxvii. 64, xxxiv. 31.

177. O. T. 902: χϊΐρόδεικτα. Cf. D. XXV. 68: δακτυλοδ€ΐκτ€ΐτ'

еяч τω πονηρότατον των όντων απάντων $€tKvwcu.

178. Cf. the end of Demosthenes' first speech against Aristo-

geiton (xxv. 98 ff.) where the judges are asked how, if they
bring in an acquittal, they can "go to the sanctuary of the
mother-goddess . . . to consult the laws as if they were still
valid" or "climb the Acropolis on the first day of the month
and pray to the gods."

179. See the discussion of the passage in Chap, i, p. 19.

180. O. T. 1121-2: οΰτος συ πρέσβν Sevpo μοι φών€ΐ βλέπων δσ*

αν σ* ερωτώ. PL Αγ. 24C: μ,οι Ûtvpo ω Μέλητε dtri. Cf. AndoC.
I. 18: βλέΐΓ€Τ€ etc τούτους και μαρτνρ€.ΪΤ€. . . .

181. For €ρωτάν cf. Ο. T. 740, I I I 9 , 1122.

182. О. Т. 1122-3: Λαΐου тгот* ήσθα συ ; ^. Andoc. l. 14: *Ησ0α

ξητητής . . . ; ^. LyS. XÜ. 25: *Ησ^α δ* Ιν τω βου\€υτηρίω . . . ; ^.

183. Ο. Τ. Ι Ι 3 3 : αναμνησω νιν. For άναμιμνήσκω in the Orators

cf. D. xviii. 17, 60, idem, xxiv. 12. Similarly υπομνησαι in
Gorg. Pal. 28, 31, 37. For "forgetful" witnesses cf. Lycurg.
In Leocr. 20.

184. D. xxv. 77-8. For ώ ταν used in the same way (in the
mouth of an imaginary and swiftly confuted objector) cf. idem,
i. 26, Hi. 29, xviii. 312.

185. O. T. 1147; KOAafe, 1148; κολαστοΰ. Cf. AndoC. 4. 4:

κόλαζαν Ιξον . . . , PI. Lg. 8633. For κολά&ιν cf. also Antipho.
4. α. 6 and 7, 3. δ. 8; Lys. xii. 36, Ar. V. 258, 406, 927, and for
κολαστ^ Lys. XXVÜ. 3.

186. The technical word βάσανος is used metaphorically (Ο. Τ.

494 and 510) in the chorus' judicial summation.
231
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

187. Antipho. 5. 32, 50. For a general discussion of this aspect

of evidence given under torture cf. Arist. Rh. i. 15.26 (1376!)·
13773). Cf. also idem, Rh. AL xvi. 14323; βάσανος δ* earl /mèv
ομολογία παρά συνειδότο? άκοντος δε.

188. Ο. Τ. Ι2Ι4~Ι5 : δικάξει τον άγαμον γάμον. . . .

189. For the conviction of the defendant as a παράδειγμα cf.

Lys. xiv. 12, 45, xvi. 14; D. xxi. 76, 97, 227; Lycurg. In Leocr.
27, 150.
Other passages which reinforce the legal emphasis of the
language are: O. T. 136: yrj τ$δε τιμωρονντα τω θ*ω θ* άμα (cf.
Antipho. i. 24: τιμωρήσω τω те πατρί τω ήμϊτέρω καΐ τοις νόμοις
τοις ύμετε'ροις); Ο. Τ. 22Ο: του πραχθέντος (cf. Antipho. i. 6, 13);
Ο. T. 227: τούπι'κλτ/μ' (cf. Antipho. 3 α. Ι, β. 5, 9, etc.: επικα-
λειν); О. Т. 249: οικοισιν ci ξννεστιος . . . (cf. PI. Euthphr. 4!), C:
εάνπερ о κτείνας συνιστώ« σοι . . . $ . . . ίσον γαρ το μίασμα γίγνεται
εάν συντ/ç τω τοιοΰτω συνειδ<υς); Ο. Τ. 7Ο2: το VCÎKOÇ €γκαλών Ccf·
D. xli. 7, 11; Antipho. 2. δ. 11 : Ιγκλ^/Αα, so ibid. 3. β. 9, γ. 11);
О. Т. 705: άσπέμψα* (cf. PI. Euthd. $Ο&*); Ο. Τ. 677: fr δε
τοισδ'. (cf. Earle's note ad loc.) Very interesting in this respect
is the variant recorded by the scholium at 134: γράφε τ^νδβ
0€σττί£€ΐ γραφψ. This would make good sense: "very properly
does Phoebus (and you too) advise from the oracle this suit
on the dead man's behalf."

190. O. T. 1193: τον σον TOL παράδαγμ' Ιχων, τον σον δαίμονα. Th.
Ü. 37 ταράδειγ/Αα δε μάλλον αυτοί OVTCÇ (cf. Lycurg. In LeoCT.
83). Cf. also Th. v. 9o (Melians to Athenians): σφαλά/™?
αν TOtç άλλοις παράδειγμα γενοισ0€.

191. Published in Textos y Estudios, Institute de lenguas

clasicas, Ministerio de Educacion, Universidad Nacional de la
ciudad Eva Peron, Eva Peron (La Plata), Argentina, 1952.
Cf. p. 57: " sinteticemos nuestra tesis: el estasimo segundo . . .
se refiere a Layo y se refiere solamente a Layo."

192. Ibid., pp. 79 ff.

232
 Notes for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

193. 874: ύπ€ρπλτ7σ0#. This same word is used in the preceding

scene (779) of drunkenness: νπ€ρπλησθ€ΐς μέθης. Cf. Hp. Morb.
Ü. 53: απεχίσθω θωρηξίων και μη νπερπίμπλασβαι. PL R. Üi. 42>6a:
μεθύων και έμπιμπλάμ€νος. . . .

ΐ94· Ehrenberg (2) discusses the passage and the fifth-century

use of the term prostates at some length (pp. 99-103). He
concludes that in 882 " there is no idea of opposing the divine
prostates to a human political leader." But though he proves
beyond much doubt that the term prostates was not in any
sense an official title in the fifth century, it is still, surely, a
word which suggests the democratic state and the position of
the leading statesman in it. And in lines 880 ff. I do not see
what sense the passage has unless there is a strong contrast
between divine and human leadership.

195. 884: nopevtrai. A word associated strongly with the jour-

neyings of Oedipus; cf. 787 and also 8οι (οδοιπόρων).

196. Th. Ü. 64: ην και νυν νπενΒωμέν тготс (πάντα γαρ πέφυκ* και
ίλλασσονσθαι) μνήμη καταλύψεται. . . . The WOrd υπ€νδώ/ϋΐ€ν
is a strong one; Thucydides uses the form IvSibovai to describe
the Athenian surrender in 404 B.C. (ii. 65).

197. Th. Π, 65.7.: ησυχάζοντας . . . π€ριέσ€σθαι. . . .

NOTES FOR CHAPTER THREE: MAN

1. Cf. Th. ii. 62, 2 (Pericles) and iv. 65. 4 for Athenian con-
fidence.

2. O. T. 1197-8: ίκράτησας του πάντ* ev$at/xovoç όλβου.

3· περί της Ιν αρχή καταστάσεως. Cf. D. L. IX. 55,

4. See Ehrenberg (2), pp. 61 ff.

*33
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

5. 3O:flOpt/xove£ απόρον. Cf. S. Ant. 360: παντόττορος · άπορος

С7Г* θΰδ€ν ερχεταΐ. . . .

6. Ο. Τ. I Op ίχνος . . . Βνστέκμαρτον. For the f ОГСС of παλαιάς

Ci. X. Суп. vi. 4 : élevai Βε тгрон t να της ιχν£ΐ'σ£ως /uj άποστερώνται
[se. at xi'v£ç] . . . ου γαρ επιμένει του ίχνους η φύσις Аетг-п;
ούσα . . . For δνστεκμαρτον cf. ibid. viii. I : et δ* ενέσται
μελάγχιμα [i.e. patches of bare ground in the snow] . . .
δυσ£?/Τ7?τος εσται [se. ό λαγώς]. For €υρ€0?}σ€ται cf. ibid. VI. 4, 18,
vii. 7, etc.

7. Ο. Τ. ι ΙΟΊ ι : το δε ζ^τοι'/ütcvov άλωτο'ν. The stages of the hunt

are summarized in a famous sentence of Xenophon (Суп. ν.
33) : " so pleasant is the sight that to see the hare tracked, found,
pursued, and caught, is enough to make a man forget the one
he loves." (t^vcvo/ACvov, εΰρισκόμενον, μεταθεόμενον, άλισκό/jtevov).
For άλωτο'ν cf. also ibid. vi. 10, 18; for ζητούμενον ibid. viii. i,
vi. 19, 24, 25.

8. O. T. 221: ιχν€υον . . . μη ουκ Ιχων τι σνμβολον. Cf. Poll.

Ε. 11 : Γχνος, Ιχνηλασία, σημεία ττοδών, σύμβολα Ιντετνπωμίνα rfi γ^.

9· " èKKLveîv is used of starting game/' says Jebb on this passage,

and compares El. 567: Ι&κίνησεν ποδοΐν . . . Ιλαφον. It is a
favorite Sophoclean metaphor, and peculiarly his; the word
does not seem to occur in any other classical Greek author
except Plutarch. Its other appearances in S. in a metaphorical
sense also suggest its force as a hunting term: Tr. 979: как-
κιντ/σ«ς . . . φοιτάδα δανην νόσον (where φοιταδα reinforces the
hunting context as well as the medical), and ibid. 1242: συ
γαρ μ aV €υνασ^€ντος εκκινείς κακόν, where εύνασ&'ντος suggests
the lair of the wild beast. Cf. X. Суп. passim for this sense of
cw>/, and especially ix. 3: εννάσειν (of a dam bedding down
her fawn) and ix. 4: τον vtßpov . . . εννασθεντα.

ΙΟ. 475~6 τον αδ^λον άνδρα ττάντ* t'^vciJciv. αδτ/λος IS the hunting
term for a vanished track; cf. X. Суп. viii. 6: Ιτερον δε ξητείν
πρίν τα ίχνη αΒηλα γενέσθαι (contrast VÜi. I : τα ίχνη . . , δήλα.

234
 Notes for CHAPTER THREE: MAN

Cf. now J. C. Kamerbeek, The Plays of Sophocles, Part I, Ajax

(Leiden, 1953), P* 24 C°n зО-

u. 468: πόδα, 479: ποδί. For a discussion of the whole com-

plex of puns on the name of Oedipus see Chap 4, pp. 182-4.

12. 54 I "3 : τυραννίδα θ-ηρα,ν . . . άλισ*€ται.

13. 1255: φοιτά yàp. . . . Cf. 476: φοιτ£ γαρ . . . ό ταύρος.

Earle (on 1254: π€ρΐ7τολουντΟ> sees this suggestion in the lan-
guage, and remarks: "Seneca tastelessly expresses what Sopho-
cles implies (qualis per arva Libycus insanit leo etc. Sen. Oed.
918 ff.)" For φοιταν cf. Kamerbeek, p. 30 (on 59).

14. 1265: δ€ΐνα βρνχηθ€ΐς. For βρνχασθαι used of the bull cf.
S. Aj. 322: ταύρος ως βρυχώ/xevoç, Theoc. XXV. 137, E. Hei.
1557, Hes. Th. 832.
15. 1451: Ια /χ€ ναίαν opeaiv. Other words which reinforce the
image of the hunter are: άγριος (344 of Oedipus' anger, 476
of the wild wood where the bull ranges, cf. also 1205, 1349),
/Αατ€υ'ω (1052, ι об ι, cf. S. Ichneutae 13), and possibly ocTpeVea-
θαι (851: €t δ* οΰν те κάκτρίποίτο του ττρόσ&ν λόγου, cf. Plu.
De CUr. 11, 52° Ε '· καθάπερ οι κυνηγοί τους σ*υλα*ας ουκ έώσιν
ίκτρ€ΐΓ€σθαι και διώ*€ΐν ττασαν οδμήν).

16. 4 : θυμιαμάτων γέμ.€ΐ. . . . For γε'μω V. Liddell and Scott S.V.

17. 22-4: σαλ€υ€ΐ κανακονφίσαι κάρα βυθών er' ονχ οία тс φοινίου
σάλου. Contrast the successful seafarer in the stasimon of the
Antigonet χωρ€? πςριβρνχίοισίν wepûv υπ* οιδ/ιασιν (33^"7^·
18. ιοί: χύμαζον. For ήγ€/χών, "captain/' cf. Poll. A. 98: ô της
V€u>ç ήγεμων, Th. VÜ. 50: του πλου ·ηγ€μόνας, "pilots," and for
άπϊνθννειν PL Criti. ЮСС: ек ττρυ/χντ/ς άττ€υ^υνοντ€ς oîov οίακι.

Ι9· 694 ff. reading (with Pearson) σαλοίουσαν for the άλΰουσαν
oftheMSS.

20. I207ÎF.: /ϋΐ€γας λιμ,ψ. For λψήν in a sexual sense cf. Diels-

^35
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Kranz, Empedocles В 98. 3: Κυπριδος ορμισβέίσα rcAei'oiç cv

λίμένεσσιν.

21. It is common in prose too: cf. the legal formula «τί παίδων
γνησίων άρότω (quoted by M. NilsSOn (2), p. Ι2θ).

22. T. Mitchell, The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles (Oxford,

1841), note on 1208.

23. Such metaphors, however, are sometimes more horrifying

than the plainest imaginable speech. The language of Leontes
in The Winter's Tale, for example ("sluiced/' "fishpond,"
etc.), reveals the disease of his mind more eloquently than any
combination of four-letter words could do it.

24. Cf. Earle (p. 144): "the forms of blight . . . described

may be regarded as a symbolical judgment on the incestuous
marriage."

25. Od. xix. 109-14. Cf. Sir James G. Frazer, The Golden
Bough (3d ed., London, 1935), vol. 2: The Magic Art, Chap.
11, especially p. 115.

26. Cf. Frazer, 2, 135-41. For more evidence (but a different

estimate) see L. R. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States (Oxford,
1896-1909), i, 184-92 (Zeus and Hera), 3, 176 (Eleusis),
5, 217 ff. Dionysus). Cf. also Nilsson (2), pp. 121-2, 429-30,
(Hera), 661-2 (Eleusis).

27. Cf. Farnell, 5, 217 ff., L. Deubner, Attische Feste (Berlin,

1932), pp. 104 ff., A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic
Festivals of Athens (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953), p. n:
" It was doubtless a piece of fertility-magic, and symbolized the
union of the god of fruitfulness with the community repre-
sented by the wife of its religious head."

28. 1405: avctrc ταντον σπέρμα (with Jebb). For avctre cf. 270:
μήτ' αροτον αντοΐς γης aviévat τινά μήτ9 ονν γυναικών παΐδας and
the Homeric hymn to Demeter, 332: γης καρπον ανησ^ιν.

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 Noies for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

29. Cf. also 717: βλάστας, 1376: βλαστοΰσ* οττω? Ιβλαστ* and
χέρσους ι$ο2 (on which see Earle, ad loc.)·

30. Diels-Kranz, B8. то awy/xa γνώναι (so the MSS). Diels'

emendation, ττλίγμα (retained, with a question mark, in the
latest edition), is high-handed and unnecessary; cf. Kathleen
Freeman's discussion of it (i), p. 362. For γι/ώναι то «шчу/ш
in the sense of "solve the riddle" cf. Anaxilas ap. Ath. xiii.
558d: αλλ* iv αίνιγμ,οίς τισιν . . . cI0' о /ACV у νους ταΰτ* απήλθαν
τυθυς ωσπερ Οιδίπους. Cf. also Ε. Ph. 1506; /лс'Аос εγνω 2φιγγ<κ,
ibid. 1759·

31. The text of the riddle and its answer, though preserved in
full only in a late writer, were familiar to the fifth-century
audience. The riddle is clearly alluded to in Aesch. Agam. 8ο-1
(see E. Fraenkel, The Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Oxford, 1950,
ad loc. and on 1258) and in E. Tr. 275. Further, Creon's
reference to the Sphinx in the О. Т. (as Hermann saw) alludes
to the content of the riddle: ή . . . 2φιγ£ то тгрос ποσΐ σκοπεΐν
. . . ημάς . . . προσή"γ€το (130). Earle SCCS Ш ραψωδός . . . κνων
(391) a reference to the hexameter form of the riddle.

32. ζητάν and its cognates are much more frequent in the О. Т.
than in the other Sophoclean plays: eight occurrences in the
О. Т., three in the Ajax, two in the O. C, one in Trach. In
the fragments only 843: τα δ* сирста ζήτω.

33· It occurs only once in Homer (and in the literal sense)—

II. xiv. 258: €/xc . . . ζήτ€ΐ. Not in Pindar, only once in Hesiod
(Op. 400). In Aeschylus it occurs only in P.V. (262, 316,
6).
77
34. PL Ap. ipb: ζητών та те νπο -γης και ουράνια. . . .

35- Ar. Nu. 171-2 (Socrates), 188 (pupils). Cf. also ibid. 761,
1398.
36. Cf. also PL Sph. 224c, Pit. 26re, Men. jcd, R. vii. 528c.
37. Plu. De fortuna 983, quotes these lines together with S. Fr.

237
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

759, as the expression of an attitude which would be meaning-

less if the universe were governed by blind chance.

38. Diels-Kranz, 63. i&vptlv $c μη ζατονντα άποροι/ και σπάνιον,

ζατουντα Β€ cfaropov και ραδιον. The translation follows Kathleen
Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Cambridge,
Harvard Univ. Press, 1948), p. 80. This sentence is quoted as
an encouragement to the mathematician by Iamb. Comm.
Math. xi. p. 45, 11. ioff.

39. Cf. R. iii. 41 id, ii. з68с, Tht. 1913, Ста. 4213, Sph. 22ic,
etc.

40. Hp. V. M. 3 (translated by W. H. S. Jones, Hippocrates,

London, Loeb Classical Library, 1923): τω 8c άρήματι τούτω
:
και ζητήματα Cf. ibid. 5 oi &(. ζητήσαντες και cbpovTcç Ιητρικψ.
The word ζψάν is used throughout this work in the sense of
"research": see especially 2 (on proper scientific method).

41. Th. i. 2O: η ζήτησις της άλτριας. . .

42. Plu. de СНГ. 522C: ζητών yàp Ιαντον ως ουκ οντά Κορίνθιον
άλλα ξένον . . . και πάλιν εαυτόν Ιζήτιι.

43· Cf. also (£I;T€ÎV) 362, 45°» 658, 659» 1112. With 1112:
oWep πάλαι ξητονμ€ν, cf. PL R. Ш. 392b, ÎV 42ob, Crat. 4243.

44. i. 2i. 2. Cf. also i. 22: то аафсс σκοπ€?ν, ii. 48, v. 2o, etc.;
Ar. Nu. 231 : τανω κάτω&ν €σκόπουν, ibid. 742: όρ0ώς διαιρών
και σκονών. Aristotle (Metaph. 3. ioo5 a 3i) defines the "object
of the Speculations" of the ψυσικοί as wtpl της ολτ^ фυσcωç
σκοπαν. (Quoted by Werner Jaeger, The Theology of the Early
Greek PhilosopherSy Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1947, p. 198,
П. 4). Cf. also Hp. Aer. 3: σκοπ€ΐν και βασανίζ€ΐν. Ar. Ra. 974 ff.
45. Cf. also 130: το προς ποσι σκοπών (Creon), 286: σκοπών
. . . €Κμαθοί.
46. See J. Schweighaeuser, Lexicon Herodoteum s.v., J. E.
Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus, Cambridge, 1938, s.v.: ίστο-

г38
 Notes for CHAPTER THREE: MAN

ptîv ίστορίη. Cf. M. Croiset, Histoire de la littérature grecque

(3rd éd. Paris, 1913), 2, 613 (quoted in How and Wells, A
Commentary on Herodotus, Oxford, 1912, i, 53): "Le mot
Ιστορίη . . . implique et signale une révolution littéraire. . . ."
47. For a statistical study of the questions in the Ο. Τ. as com-
pared with other Sophoclean plays see John P. Carroll, " Some
Remarks on the Questions in the Oedipus Tyrannus," C/, 32,
No. 7 (April 1937), 406-16. Carroll attributes Oedipus' pen-
chant for asking questions to his heredity; he develops the idea
that Laius, too, was much given to asking questions.
48. 954: ούτος Ы тсс тгот* Ιστί και ri μοι Асу« ;

49· 117ί~4· *α* τ°οτο τουπιχωριον άτ€χνώς Ιπανθεΐ το τί Aeyetç σν.

50. πασαν προσφέρων ανάγκην as Plutarch puts it (de CUT. 522c).

51. 1165: μη ττρος $€ων μη δέσποθ* Ιστόρα πλ,ίον. For Ιστορ€Ϊν

ΙΓ 11
cf. also 1144» 5°> 5&·
52. The questioning was broken off and Oedipus intervened
in person when the shepherd refused to admit that he had
given a child to the Corinthian messenger (1150; ουκ ίννίνων
τον τταΐδ' δι/ ούτος Ιστορώ). The shepherd's final admission of
the truth is so phrased as to recall the words with which
Oedipus first intervened: €t yap ούτος €Î ov φησι,ν οδτος . . .
(ιι8ο-ι).
53· Hdt. i. 57: et δε xpcov εστί τεκμαφόμενον Aeyetv τοισι νυν Ιτι
€θΰσι Π^ασγών. . . . Cf. ibid. Π. 33: το'σι «Μφανεσι τα μη
γινωσκο/Acva τ€κμαφόμ*νος . . . Ε. Fr. 574> Τ^1· ^· Ι : <А^о*лс
μέγαν тс ίσ*σθα.ι . . . τεκμαφόμενος ότι. . . .

54· Cf. Ηρ. Prog. 24, Août. 68.

55· Diels-Kranz, Β ΐ : σαφήν€ΐαν μϊν Ôeot Ιχοντι, Ας Se άνθρωποι.*;
τ€κμαίρ€σθαι. On this passage see Hermann Fränkel, Dichtung
und Philosophie des Frühen Griechentums (New York, 1951),
p. 439, n. 2. "Der neue Sinn in dem es [das Verbum] Alk-
maion verwendete, blieb von nun an an dem Wort haften."

239
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

56. δυστ€*μαρτος only here in S.; in A. only in P. V. 497:

ονστέκμαρτον etc τεχνην ωδωσα θνητούς— a technique " difficult to
infer," the technique of prophecy. Cf. E. Hei. 711-12: о 0£oç
. . . ποικίλον και ονστέκμαρτον.

57· °υδ* οποί* ανηρ Ιννους τα καινά τοις πάλαι τεκμαίρεται. This
word is found elsewhere in S. only in Fr. 330; in A. only at
P.V. 336.
58. Hp. Prorrh. Ü. I : cyto ου ... μαντενσομαι, σημεία δε γράφω
οίσι χρη τεκμαίρεσθαι. . . .

59· Oedipus makes the same contrast, though in a more rever-

ent Spirit, in the later O.G. (403: κάνευ θεού τις τούτο γ* αν
γνώμη μαθοί). For the same contrast (γνώμη versus prophecy)
see also X. Mem. i. i. 7-9. For γνώμη opposed to chance (τυ'χ?/)
cf. Th. i. 144; A. Fr. 389. In the Hippocratic writings the
Opposition of γνώμη to σώμα IS СОГПГПОП (cf. V.M. IO, de Arte
7, Flat. ι). Cf. also Hp. de Arte 2. where a contrast is made
between things perceived by the eyes and those perceived by
γνώμη.

во. The play contains a number of words related to γιγνωσκειν

which are rarely found in the other Sophoclean plays: γνωτός,
58, 396 (elsewhere only in Fr. 282; not in Α.); άγι/ωτο?, 58
(not elsewhere in S.; not in Α.); γνωστός, 361 (elsewhere only
in Fr. 203; cf. Hp. V.M. 2.: γνωστά Ac^etv τοίσι δημότησι)',
γνωρίζω, 538 (only here in S.; in A. only at P. V. 487).

6l. είθε μήποτε γνοίης ос εΐ.

02. ους δ* ^χρηζεν ου γνωσοίατο. I follow Jebfrs interpretation of

this enigmatic sentence.

63. μάντις . . . και κατά γνωμαν ιδ/otç. Cf. EL 472 ff. for the same
collocation of the mantic and the " secular " mode of cognition.
64. τυφλός τα τ* ώτα τον тс νουν τα τ* ομματ* ει. EpichamulS
(Diels-Kranz, Β ΐ 2 ) : νους ορήι και νοΟς άκου*€ΐ. ταλλα κωφά και

240
 Notes for CHAPTER THREE: MAN

τυφλά. With the second half of this phrase cf. О. Т. 290:

και μην τα γ* αλλά κωφά και πάλαι" €πη.

65. Diels-Kranz, 624: ούλο« οράι, ούλος δ« voet, ούλος δ« τ* άκοώι.

For τυφλό« cf. also Democritus (Diels-Kranz B175): δια νου
τυφλότητα.

66. Ε. Βα. 1269: γίγνο/Ααι Βέ πω« cvvov«, μετασταθεισα των πάρο«

φρενών. PL Tî. 7 ie: ούδίί« γαρ cvvov« €φάπτ€ται μαντικής ενθεον και
αληθούς.

67. ντρτίου« οντά« το πριν €ννου« Ιο^κα. Cf. Democritus (Diels-

Kranz, A l i i ) : ζητήσεως St την Ivvotav [etvat κριττ/pcov.]

68. TOI) νου τη« те συμφοράς Ισον. See Jebb's perceptive note on
this line.

69. οδού« . . . φροντιδο«.

7Ο. φροντιστήρίον (Nu. 94^» φροντίΒ9 έξήμβλωκας έζηυρημένην

(ibid. 137)· Œ· a^so ibid, ιοί: /iept/ινοφροντισταί, Ι55 : φρόν-
τισμα, 220: φροντιστή, and 44» 695> 7°°> 7^3» 735» 763» !345-
The Connos of Ameipsias, produced in the same year as The
Clouds, had a chorus of φροντισταί. Cf. Eupolis, Fr. 352: μισώ
B€ και τον ^ωκράτην . . . δ« ταλλα μεν ττεφρόντικεν, οπόθεν δε κατα-
φαγ€ΐν Ι^οι τούτου κατημέληκεν.

7ΐ. Nu. 229: το νόημα καΐ την φροντίδα. Burnet's statement (p.
76) that " the use of φροντι« for ' thought ' . . . is Ionic rather
than Attic " and that the word " struck Athenian ears as odd "
seems exaggerated in view of the many passages in Aeschylus
where φροντί« seems to mean " thought " rather than " care " or
"heed" (which Burnet claims is the Attic sense of the word).
Cf. A. Pers. 142, A. 912, 1530, Supp. 407, 417.

72. νοσεί . . . πρσπα« στόλο«, ούδ* «·νι φροντιδο« Ιγχο« φ τι«

άλέξ€ται. The metaphorical «ίγχο« may have been suggested by
the military connotations of the preceding στόλο«.

73· To yap την φροντιδ* !£ω των κακών otKCtv γλυκύ.

241
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

74 ) ·8· 59>I0 5> an<3 cf· I29 where he reproaches Creon for
not attaining full knowledge of the circumstances of Laius'
murder.

75. о μηδέν αδώς Οιδίπους. He is adapting the priest's admiring

phiase, ουδέν ^ιδώς πλέον (37).
76. ΐοο8: ουκ €ΐδώς, Ι о 14·' αρ' οισ0α . . . Ю22: ισ0ι, Ι ΐ 8 ΐ : ϊσθί
δυσττοτ/χ,ος ycytoç.
77· The source of this famous story seems to be Vitruvius, De
architectura ix. (preface) 10: nudus vadens domum . . . cur-
rens . . . graece exclamabat €υρηκα, ενρηκα.
78. Cf. e.g. Hdt. i. 25: σιδήρου κόλλησιν é&vpt, ibid. 94, Ü. 4,
PL Phdr. 2673 on Euenus (πρώτος ??i>pcv), and other rhetorical
"inventors." See A. Kleingünther, "Πρώτος αρετής" Phil.
SuppL, 26 (1933). Heft i. Virgil makes use of this Greek
formula in Aen. vi. 663: inventas aut qui vitam excoluere
per artis.

79. i. 2i. i. For «ΰρι'σκίΐν used of historical discovery cf. also

ibid. i. i. 3.
80. Cf. also ibid. 469, and 59, 267, 475.
81. Palamedes: Fr. 479.3: Ιφηΰρ*. Nauplius, Fr. 432.1: ijîpe,
2: €υρτ/ματα, 5: Tjipc, 8: εφηύρε.

82. Hp. V.M. 2: apxrj και οδός €νρημένη, καθ9 ην τα άρημένα

πολλά Τ€ και καλώς Ιχοντα €νρηται èv ττολλώ χρόνω, καί τα λοιπά
£υρ€0τ}σ€ται, ην τις ικανός Τ€ €ων και τα ενρημ,ένα €ΐδώς ск τούτων
6ρ/χώμ.€νος ζητ$· With €υρ€0τ}σ€ται cf. Ο. 1 . Ιθ8.

83. Cf. ηνρήσθαι in Th. i. 21.

84. It may indeed be, as Robert (p. 76) says, a " rudimentärer
Rest einer älteren Sagen version,0 but it is also dramatically
effective, and typical of the unscrupulous opportunism of the
Corinthian messenger.
85. Jebb's note shows how strained is the use of the word

242
 Noies for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

*νρημα in this passage. The context shows clearly that Oedipus

is thought of as the son of Dionysus and one of the nymphs,
but the word εύρημα seems to contradict this idea. Its presence
in this passage suggests the intrusive force of the metaphorical
significance of «upetv throughout the play
86. 13: τους των μετεωρολόγων λόγους OITIVCÇ . . . τα άπιστα και
αδτ?λα φαι'νέσοαι τοις ττ)ς δό£τ?ς ομμασιν εποίησαν. Cf. Hp. V. Μ.
XX : τοιαΰτι^ν δη βουλο/χαι αληθύην και тгсрь των άλλων φανήναι.

8у. τάδ' ηοη διαφανή. Only here in tragedy. In Ar. Nu. 768 it
is used to describe the transparent crystal with which Strep-
siades proposes to melt the wax tablet on which is written the
accusation against him. For its use in the Hippocratic writings
see Liddell and Scott s. v.

88. σάφα (σαφ^ς only in the Hymn to Hermes 208).

89. i. 22. Cf. also iii. 29, vi. 60. Liddell and Scott do not
recognize this meaning of σαφτ/ç except for "seers, oracles,
prophets" (s.v. 2). But they instance (and I quote their
translations) Antipho. i. 13 : των πραχθίντων την σαφήνειαν ττνθέσ-
0αι, "the plain truth"; Pi. Ο. ίο (ιι). 55: το σαφηνέ'ς, "the
plain truth "; and the Thucydidean passage quoted above, των
γένομέ'νων το σαφέ'ς, "the clear truth." Cf. also the Empedo-
clean opposites Νι^ρττ}* (truth) and Άσάφαα (obscurity)
Diels-Kranz, B. 122, 4.

90. Cf. Hp. V.M. XX: περί ψνσιος γνώναί τι σαφ*'$. Ε. Or. 39?:
σοφό ν τοι το σαφές, ου το μη σαφές.
9 ΐ . Cf. Hdt. viii. jj> where he singles out for mention as
exempt from criticism those oracles which "speak clearly"
QvapyctDC λέγοντας).

92. See Jebb, ad. loc. and for έ£?/κοι cf. Hdt. vi. 8ο: ίξήκκν μοι
το χρηστήριον.

93· Aeschylus' Prometheus describes his revelations to mankind

with the word !δέΐ£α (458, 482). Cf. PL Ti. 496: δσα δέίκνυντέ«

243
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

. . . δηλουν ή·γονμ€θά τι, and see Arist. Metaph. 84. ioooa. 20,
where a contrast is drawn between οί fcoAoyoi and οί BC άττο-
3ct£cot>s AcyovTCs.

94. See Jebb, ad loc. for the force of this word.

95. For Athens as σωτήρ cf. Isoc. 4. 80, 7. 84; Hdt. vii. 139. 5.

96. For sophistic rhetoric as "savior" see PI. Grg. 5iic and cf.
the words of Strepsiades to Pheidippides after he emerges as a
graduate of the sophistic school (Ar. Nu. 1177): οττως σώσ«ς μ.

97· ΐ35 ο : «λυτό (with recc. and Jebb) . . . κανίσωσ^ν. Oedipus

also says Ιρυτο, and this verb follows the same pattern, for in
the beginning he himself was the rescuer (ττ/νδ£ ρνσαίμην πόλιν,
7»)·
98. A. P. V. 478 ff. : το μλν μέγιστον is his prefatory phrase.

99. Hp. V. M. 2. See n. 82, above.

100. Hp. V.M.. 9· Act γαρ μέτρου τίνος στοχαίσασθαι* μίτρον 8с

ουτ€ αριθμών ουτ€ σταθμον άλλον тгрос δ αναφερών Сботу το άκρί/îcç,
ουκ αν ci5potç αλλ* ^ του σώματος ττ^ν αίσθησ^ν.

ιοί. The word suggests "lightening" the ship, i.e. jettisoning

Cargo, Cf. Hdt. VUi. 118 : και την vca ίττικουφισ&Ζσαν ούτω 8rj
άποσω^ναι.

102. Hp. Εγϊά. i. 7; cf. in the same chapter [πυρ€τοί] υττοκου-

φιξοντ€ς and σμικρά διακουφί£οντ€ς. Cf. also Epid. i. 2 and
Case χ; Ικονφισεν όλιγω, Case vi: πάντων Ικονφίσθη, Int. 53»
Morb. Üi, 15, 16, Thphr. Sens. 45: άνακουφί^σοαι της λυπτ/ς,
Aret. Ü. 8.9: άν€κονφίσθησαν. The word ανακουφισις occurs Only
here in S. See D. L. Page's note (Euripides, Medea, Oxford,
1938) on E. Med. 473 (cf. Arist. Prob. 894*. 23). For lists
and discussion of Hippocratic "technical terms" in S. see H.
W. Miller, "Medical Terminology in Tragedy/' TAPhA, 75
(1944) 156-67. Euripides uses άποκονφίξ€ΐν in a similar sense;

244
 Notes for CHAPTER THREE: MAN

СГ. НбС. 104.' παθέων αποκονφίζονσ* Or. 43* ^rav μ*ν σώμα.
κονφισθ$ νόσου (cf. ibid. 218).
Two other words in the opening lines of the priest's speech
have medical connotations. σαλ€υ«ν (cf. О. Т. 23) is used to
describe the gait of people with malformed hip joints ("rol-
ling") in Hp. Art. 56 and Plato (Lg. 923^ speaks of people
"rolling" (σαλ£υΌνταΟ "in disease or old age." For yi^iv
cf. Arist. Prob, (ιατρικά) 86ia: то. 8è κάτω πολλής ус/ы« ?repi-
ττώσ£ως και €υσήπτον, and Hp. Flat, ίο: όταν αί . . . φλέβες
-γεμισθωσιν ήερος.
юз- Cf. Hp. Εγ'ιά. ii. 5.6, Aph. ν. 59» &er· 22*> Arist GA.
72ба. ρ; Thphr. Od. 62. The word does not occur in Aeschylus.
104. Cf. Hp. de Arte 8, Fract. 3, Art. 9, Medic. 14, Decent, u.
105. For ιασι? cf. Hp. de Arte 6, Aer. 22 (cv ταΰτ^ Tg «}σ€ΐ, "in
this method of treatment"), Decent. 9, Morb. Sacr. i, 2, etc.,
Int. 26, and see Miller's article referred to above.
106. This is a very common word in the doctors; cf. Hp. Epid.
iii. ι γ', Acut. 54, Epid. i. 26 77', Apfo. ii 13, Liqu. i, etc.
107. Hp. Prog. 24: άρχονται /u-cv νονασθαι τριταίοι, χαράζονται
8c μάλιστα π*μπταΐοι. Cf. S. Ichneutae 267: ίσχυς ci/ νοσώ ^ei-
μάζεται where see Pearson's note. Creon's word πλησιαζόντων
(91), which occurs only here in S., is frequent in medical
contexts; cf. Hp. Acut. 41, and Arist. Prob. vii. 8873: όφθαλμία*
και ψώρας οι πλησιάζοντα . . . ο πλησιάζων τοιούτον άναπνίΐ.
Creon's use of αρωγός in 127 recalls the frequent occurrence of
άρήγ€ΐν, used to describe the doctor's action, in the Hippocratic
writings: cf. Hp. Aer. ίο, (αρωγά), Acut. 29, 41, 60, 65, 67,
Art. 16, and also PL Lg. 9I9C: νόσου . . . αρωγή.
108. Cf. Hp. Morb. Sacr. 14, Morb. ii. 66, 111.7, V.M. 19,
V. C. 15, etc., and φλόγωσ« in Th. ii. 48. D. L. Page, in his
article " Thucydides' Description of the Great Plague," CQ, 47
Ο953)> 97~ll9> has established the fact that this description
"is expressed in the standard terms of contemporary medical
science." Cf. also Aret. i. 7. 4, iv. 2.2: πνριφλ*γί€ς διψαι.

245
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

109. Cf. Hp. Art. 48, Arist. Prob i (ιατρικά). 865*, PA. in.
9.672*: οδυναι θανατηφόροι. The chorus also uses the words
αλ&μοροι (163) and άλε'&ται (171), which recall Prometheus'
word for the function of medicine (P. V. 479: ουκ ψ αλίξημ,*
ουδό/)· Cf. also Hp. Salubr. i : άλέξασθαι, Août. 54: άλε^τ^ρια,
Mul. ii, 212: άλέξημα, A. R., il. 519: λοιμού αλζξητήρα, and the
title of Nicander's treatise: άλεζιφάρμακα.
I I О. Cf. Hp. Fract. 27 еАкос . . . μέλαν Ιπι πολύ ή ακάθαρτον,
Epid. vi. 3, ι, ^^· 6 (of "impure" air), Mori?, ii. 16, 41, 43,
111. 16, Aff. 38. This word is found nowhere else in tragedy
except in the Oedipus of Achaeus (Nauck, Fr. 30) where
HesychlUS says it means μανιώδες. For ακάθαρτον . . . èâv cf.
Hp. ulc. ι: avcTriScTov . . . èâv, Haem. 2: έασαι ακαυστοι/.

ni. Cf. especially πάθημα, 554 (cf. 1240). This is a common

Hippocratic term (cf. e.g. Hp. V.M. 2, 14, 22, 23, Prog, i,
etc.) which does not occur in Aeschylus, and which S. uses
in the Philoctetes in the medical sense (cf. 193). The word
άποκρίνας (640) occurs nowhere else in S. and does not occur
at all in A. It is common in the Hippocratic writings (al-
though usually in the passive), in the sense required by the
context here—"to separate out"; cf. Hp. Morb. Sacr. ι 13, 2i,
Prog. 23, V.M. 14, 16, Aer. 6,9, etc. and Th. ii. 49. Page
(i) 107 comments: "This verb is a standard technical term
in the doctors, especially signifying the secession of an element
from a compound, of a unit from a plurality."
112. Cf. Hp. Aer. 4. Also ibid. 7: τας τοιαύτας φυσιας ουκ
oîov τ« μακρόβιους civai . . . ταύτα 8с τα νοσ€νματα μηκννθέντα
τας τοιαύτας ψυσιας cç ΰδρωπα? καθίστησι.

113. For Ko/u'fciv cf. Hp. Morb. Ü. 71: ττρος την αίθρίην KO/JU£CIV,
"move the patient into the open air"; Epid. iv. 3: από ττυλέων
μετακομισθώ παρ' α-γορήν.
ΙΙ4· Cf. Hp. Medic, i: тгрос Se ίητρον ον μικρά συναλλάγματα
TOÎÇ νοσέουσιν «mv. Jones (2, 213) translates this: "intimacy
between physician and patient is close."

246
 Notes for CHAPTER THREE: MAN

115· $6ΐ· σμικρά παλαιά σώματ* ευνάζει ροπή. ΓΟΓ ροπή cf. Нр.
Εγίά i. 26: ροπα? Ιπΐ το αμ€ΐνον ή το χείρον, Epid. i. 24 and
Π. I. 6 (pcVfti/), Gal. ОП Hp. Prog. i. 14 (59): μικρά τις . . . роя·?},
idem, de vict. «cwt. iv. 78 (856): βραχείαν . . . ροπήν, Arist
Prob, i (Ιατρικά). 861 a (discussing the aged): μικρας . . . ροπής.
Aret. iii. 12 is an almost exact parallel: коте καί γέροντα άλώναι
ρηιοιοί καί άπόφρικτοι άλ,όντες όσον βραχείης ροπής ες «υντ^ι/ θάνατον
χρέος. ΓΟΓ €υι/ά£ω Cr. Ε. Or. 151 : χρόνια yàp πεσων . . . €υνάζεται.

Ι ΙΌ. Hp. Epia, i, i l : προλέγειν τα εσόμενα. με\εταν ταύτα. Cf.

also Prog, ΐ : προγινωσκων γαρ και προ\εγων, ibid. 23, ν . С. Ι9>
Fract. 35> Art. 13, Prorrb. ii. 7.

117. Hp. Prog. I : πρόνοιαν Ιπιτη8€ν€ΐν. Cf. ibid. : τ?/ν πρόνοιαν

ίκμανθάνειν, de Arte 6. See Galen on Hp. Prog. 1.4 for a dis-
cussion of πρόνοια in Hippocrates and its antithesis to τύχη.

118. Loc. Horn. 46 (Littré, vol. 6). Since I have not seen this
brilliant passage quoted elsewhere, I quote the Greek text in
full: Ίϊέβηκε yàp ιητρικη πάσα, και φαίνεται των σοφισμάτων τα
κάλλιστα Ιν αντ$ συγκείμενα ελάχιστα τύχης Βεισθαι. ή γαρ τύχη
αντοκρατης και ουκ άρχεται . . . ή δε επιστήμη άρχεται τε και ευτυχής
εστίν οπόταν βούληται δ επισταμένος χρήσθαι. "Έπειτα τι και Βείται
ιητρικη τύχης ; et μεν yàp εστί των νοσημάτων φάρμακα σαφή, ουκ
επιμένει την τύχην τα φάρμακα υγια ποιήσαι τα νοσήματα. . . . The
whole of this chapter in this little-known work is an extra-
ordinarily clear and dignified statement of the empirical atti-
tude of the Ionian physicians.
119. Hp. de Arte 4: εγώ Βε ουκ αποστερέω μεν ούδ* αυτός την τυχην
έργου ούΒενός. ήγεϋμαι οε τοΐσι μεν κακώς θεραπευομένοισι νοσήμασι
τα πολλά την άτυχίην επεσθαι, τοισι 8с ευ, την ευτυχίην.

Ι2Ο. Ibid. 4 :
ro
fW yùp τή* τύχης είδος ψιλον ουκ έβουλήθησαν
θεήσασθαι. . . .

121. εικ-Q only here in S.; in A. only in P. У. 450 (v. infra)

and 885. Some of its connotations are illustrated by the fol-
lowing examples: Ar. Nu. 43-4, the easy, unorganized (and
dirty) life of the Countryman, άγροικος . . . βίος . . . ακόρητος,

247
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

b
eiK0 Kci/uvoc. Arist. Metaph. АЗ, 984 . 17, Anaxagoras seemed
like a sober man among drunken babblers, νήφων Ιφάνη παρ'
eiKfl λέγοντας. Heraclitus (Diels-Kranz В. 124), the universe a
dust-heap piled up at random, ωσπίρ σαρμά είκ-β κεχυμίνων ο κάλ-
λιστο? . . . κόσμος. PL Phlb. 28d a universe governed by irra-
Λ
tional chance, πότ€ρον . . . τα σύμπαντα και τόθ€ το όλον καλου/*€νον
€7ΓΐτροτΓ€υ€ΐν φωμεν την τον άλογου και €ΐκ$ δυνα/uuv και το отг#
Ζτυχεν η τάναντία . . . νουν και φρόνησίν τίνα . . . ; Aeschin. 3»
187 €LKrj opposed to ακριβώς. For the line as a whole cf. E.
EL 379·

122. Hp. Epid. i. ig: öl ciKiJ και Ιπΐ το ράθυμον βίβιωκότες. In

Epid. vii. 9 (quoted by Liddell and Scott) CIK$ is an emenda-
tion for CKCÎ (v. Littre ad loc.).

123. 1075: της σιωπής τήσδ*. A real silence surely, not the
"silence" of Jocasta's last speech ("reticence" says Jebb in
the note ad loc.) and see Carlo Diano, "Edipo figlio della
Tyche," Dioniso, 15 (1952) 56-89. Earle understands "the
silence implied in άλλο . . . ύστερον." For the Sophoclean use
of dramatic silences compare the first speech of Philoctetes.
There are surely pauses (and certainly a failure to answer on
the part of the chorus and Neoptolemus) after each of his
appeals to them to say something. This is shown by the cli-
mactic progress of his requests for an answer: φωνής δ' άκοΰσαι
βονλομαι (225), φωνήσατ* (229), αλλ* ανταμ€ίψασθί (230).

124. Cf. Arist. Mir. 846**: των £V Αιτν# κρατήρων άναρραγεντων

Met. з86а: ύδατα àvtppayri γιγνομ,ενων σ€ΐσμων.

125* Hp. rTact. II : όχλώδεα και πολλάκις άναρρηγννμενα . . . ,

Fiat, y: αήρ οκόταν αναρρήξτ) τας πο/χφόλυγας, ibid. ΙΟ: το φλέγμα
. . . άναρρτ/γνυ« τας φλέβας, ibid.: δια τί δ^ποτ« το ρενμα αναρ-
ρήγννται, ibid. : το αίμα . . . àvappyyvvet τον? πόρους. Cf. ibid. 11 :
τα ... ρήγματα, МогЪ. i. 21 : άναρρτ)γνυται. The Simple verb
ρηγνυ€ΐν and other compounds are very common in the Hippo-
cratic texts, often applied to the "bursting" of an infection:
e. g. Epid. ii. 2. 5, ibid. 3. 3, Int. I : p a y f j . . . συρραγέωσιν... катар-

248
 Notes for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

ρτγγνννται . . . άνάρρηξις, ibid. 8: avappayy, άναρρήγνυται, 18: οδύνη

. . . payeîaa, Prorrh. ii. 7, etc. ϊκρήγννμι (which Jebb cites as a
parallel for his interpretation of the metaphor as drawn from
the storm) is also common in the medical texts: cf. Epid. i. 5:
λημία . . . έκρηγνυμενα, Hdt. Üi. 133: φνμα . . . έκραγέν (cf. Hp.
Aph. iv. 82, Fist, i, Hp. Morb. ii. 31, 47, Int. 32).
126. μυδώσας (1278) is a medical term (see Miller's article and
references there, to which add Hp. V. C. 15: σάρκα . . . μυδώσαν,
ibid. 2i, and idem, Ulc. 10). For σταγών (only here in S.)
cf. Hp. Flat. 8 and for χαλαρά (1279) cf. Hp. Morb. ii. 49.
127. Jebb's text.
128. I293 : To yep νόσημα μείζον η фсрео/. Cf. Hp. PfOg. Vl:
φέροντα το νόσημα, ibid. 9, 15, /wt. 12. νόσημα (which occurs
also at 307) is, according to Page (i), a more specific term in
the doctors than ι/οσο* : "... most often used when a particular
malady is under consideration. It is noticeable that the word
occurs in Thucydides only with reference to the plague."
129. φραγμός, Hp. Flat, ίο (cf. Arist. PA 672*0. Cf. also Hp.
Flat. 7: Ιμφραχθύσης . . . κοίλες, Aer. g: ο στόμαχος . . . συ/χ-
ττ€φρακται, Int. 13: άποφραχθί}. For άττοκλι/σαι cf. Hp. Art. I I :
άττοκλείουσι γαρ ттус άνω εύρυχωρίης την κεφαλήν τον βραχίονος—
" they shut out the head of the humérus from the space above
it." He is speaking of cauteries. Cf. also ibid. 30: τω Wo το ους
όστ€ω . . . όπερ aTroxActet τας κεφάλας της κάτω γνάθον. For meta-
phorical use of this word in the doctors cf. Hp. Viet. iii. 81,
Int. i, O/f. 24, Gal. Mixt. iii. 687. For τπ/γής (1387) cf. Hp,
Flat. 7 Tnjyat . . . του αίματος, Gal. ОП Hp. Prog. 164.
130. For metaphorical use of ύπουλο? in Attic see Jebb ad loc.;
for medical usage cf. Hp. Medic. 11, Arist. Prob. i. 863*, PI. Ti.
72d, Plu. De san. tuend, ι$70, Gal. Viet. Att. i. 2.

131. Additional instances of words with medical connotations:

φρίκη, 1306. (Not in A., in S. only here and Fr. 875.) For
medical contexts see Liddell and Scott and add Hp. Flat. 7, 8,

249
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Int. 38, 48 etc., Morb. iii. 16. όχλεϊς, 446. (Only here in S.,
in A. only at P. V. ιοοι.) Its collocation with άλγυ'ναις (446)
suggests a medical metaphor here; όχλείν and οχλωδτ?ς occur
frequently in Hp. Fract. in the sense of "trouble, irritate,
troublesome" (e.g. 7, I I , 13, l8, 3 1 ; ουδέν 8εΐ μάτην όχλείν και
οχλ€Ϊσ0αι. See also medical references in Liddell and Scott s.v.).
επίκουρος, 497. επικονρίη is used in H p. de Arte 8 with the
meaning "treatment, aid"; cf. also E. Or. 211: επίκουρον ι/όσου,
and X. Mem. i. 4. 13: νόσοι? επικονρήσαι. The word is common
in the later medical writers. Jocasta's phrase άρθρα . . . ποδοΐν
(718, cf. 1032) is medically exact; cf. Hp. Art. 62, 63.

132. Aesch. P. V. 59-60: και μην αριθμόν, εξοχον σοφισμάτων

εξηνρον αυτοί?.

133· S. Fr. 43 2 : °υτος εφηύρε . . . σταθμών αριθμών και μέτρων

ευρήματα . . . етег'£е πρώτος c£ cvoç δ^κα как των δ^κ* αύθις ηνρε
7Γ€νττ;κοντάδα9, ос χίλι* ϊνθνς. . . . Cf. Gorg. Pal. 30: €νρων . . .
αριθμόν те χρημάτων φύλακα.

134· Diels-Kranz, Philolaus 04: ττάντα γα μαν τα γιγνωσκό/ticva

αριθμόν C^OVTI* ου γαρ οίον тс ουδέν оГте νοηθήμεν οντε -γνωσθήμεν
άνευ τούτον. The translation is Kathleen Freeman's (2), p. 74.
Cf. the (forged) Epicharmus fragment, Diels-Kranz, 656: о
/îi'oç άνθρύποις λογισμού κάριθμον Κείται πάνν ζώμεν [δε] αριθμώ
και λογισμω · ταΰτα yàp σώζει βροτους.

b
135· Arist. Top. 6. I42. : ci τις τον ανθρωπον ορίσαιτο το «τισ-
τάμενον αριθμεΐν.

136. PL Grg. 5o8a: ή ισότης η γεωμετρική κάί εν θεοις και εν

άνθρωποις μέγα δύναται.

137· Ε. Ph. 54 1 " 2 1 *α' У^Р №тр' ανθρωποισι και μέρη σταθμών
ισότης έταξε κάριθμον διωρισε. Jocasta, in this great Speech, IS
of course really concerned with political equality, but the refer-
ence in these lines is clearly to the mathematical concept. For
a mathematical definition of equality see Nicom. Ar. p. 44,
is ff.
250
 Notes for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

138. A typical example is Diophantus vi. a. lav ovv b a f M 0

Ισωσωμζν κνβω, λυσο/zcv το ζητονμενον. The words Ισονν and
Ιξισουν are not used by A., and in S. they are found, outside
the О. Т., only in the Electra (ισοΰν: 686; εξισοϋν: 738, 1072,
1194). For examples of these words used in a mathematical
sense by nonmathematical authors cf. Hdt. ii. 34, PL Phdr.
2393: OVTC &η KpeÎTTù) ойтс Ισονμ€νον, Prm. I56b: αύξάνεσθαι τ«
καΐ φθίνειν καΐ Ισονσθαι (cf. I57b)> ibid. 1446. ίξισονσθον όνο OVTC.
The words ίσος, ίσονν, etc. occur with extraordinary freqency
in the O. T. (cf., in addition to the many passages quoted
below), 611, 627, 677, 810, 1347, 1498.

139. This is Jebb's literal translation in the note on 84. For

σνμμίτρέω cf. also 963.

140. It has even been compared, by Sigmund Freud, to the

process of psychoanalysis (Interpretation of Dreams, chap. 5,
P· 3°?): "· · · tne disclosure, approached step by step and
artistically delayed (and comparable to the work of a psycho-
analysis). . . ."

141. This atmosphere is emphasized by the profusion of nu-

merical phrases in the play; every character is at great pains to
be arithmetically precise. Cf. (in addition to the passages dis-
cussed below) el?: 62, 122, 247, 281, 374, 615, 748, 753, 846,
I
335> 1380; δυο, etc.: 581, 640, 1280, 1373, 1505; т/ж*: 718,
1136, 1398; TreVrc : 752; Ικμήνονς : 1137; απλούς: 519, боб;
διττλοΟς: 20, 8o9, 938, 1135, 1249, 1257, 12,61, 1320 (twice);
SfVTepos: 282; τριπλούς: 7l6, 730, 8oo, 1399; τρίτος: 283, 581,
IO02; τρισσοί: 163; τριδουλος : 1063; πολλάκις те *ον\ αττα£ :
τον
1275; awov αριθμόν: 844« προσθήκη θεού (38) seems to be
colored by the same metaphorical context; προστιθέναι is the
normal term for the operation of addition; cf. Thgn. 809, Zeno,
(Diels-Kranz A2i), Hdt. vii, 184, PL R. vii. 5273if., Phd. 96e,
etc. For προσθήκη itself cf. Iamb. Comm. Math. xxx. p. 92. 9.
προσθήκη only here in S. In A. A. 500 it seems to mean " addi-
tion" (so translated by Paley and accepted by Fraenkel). Cf.

251
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

PL R. i. ЗЗрЬ, Lg. m. 6966. О. Т. 232: χή χάρπ προσκείσιται—

" will be added "—gives us a passive of προστιθίναι.

142. For άνάριθμος in a "scientific" context cf. Melissos (Diels-

Kranz, A. 5, 9763 30) : rt κωλίΈΐ πολλά και άνάριθμα τοιαύτα
€ΐναι ;

143· I believe (with Jebb) that "the vulgate is sound"; not

only sound but magnificent. See Pearson (3) for his defense
of his adoption of Wilamowitz' oV €&σώσ€«.

144. For λογίζομαι as a mathematical term cf. PL Men. 8га:

Πόσοι ούν claw ol όνο δις πόδες \ λογισα/ACi/oç €t7rc. Hdt. Ü. 36 '.
λογίζονται ψήφοισι "EAAi/vcç μ\ν από των αριστερών «τι τα otÇtà,
ibid. 16, i. 137, Plato, Lg. 8176: λογισμοί μ€ν καΐ τα π€ρι αριθμούς,
Euthphr. 7b, Ar. Ach. 31, Ntt. 20. For ψίυδεσθαι in a mathe-
matical sense cf. Arist. Phys. A. i85 a : δσα ίκ των άρχων τις
€πιδ«κνί'ς ψενοεται..

ΐ45· F°r διώρισαν cf. the Euripides passage quoted above (n.
137). S. uses the word only here and 1083 of this play. Aes-
chylus uses it only in P. V. (440, 489) and the lost Palamedes
(Nauck 182). It is a central word of the new scientific vocabu-
lary, διορισμός later appears as a technical term in Euclidean
geometry (see Liddell and Scott). For δωρίζω in mathematical
writings cf. Iamb. Comm. Math. p. 12. 3, 19. 7, 36. 14 etc. The
word £υμ,τταντ€ς (752 and 813) is a form of πα? which in later
mathematical writers is used to denote a total.

146. For €κμ€τρ€ίν cf. Hero Metr. ii. 20. Idem, Dioptr. 34-5 is
concerned with the mensuration of large distances over land
(34) and over land and sea (35). A typical formula is as
follows (35): δέον Se Ιστω . . . την μ€ταξν 'Αλ€£ανδρ€ΐ'ας και
Ρώ/ΐ7/ς όδον ίκμ€τρήσαί. The method employed in this case is
based on the observation of a lunar eclipse.

147. Creon (122) said λίστας and Oedipus (124) corrected

him: ττώς ουν ο λι/σττ)? . . . \

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 Notes for C H A P T E R T H R E E : MAN

148. 845: ου γαρ γένοιτ* αν etc yt TOtç πολλοίς ίσος. Cf. Diels-
Kranz, Democritus АЗУ, 2o (Simplicius quoting Aristotle on
Democritus): κο/χιδτ; γαρ euïjoeç etvat το δυο η та πλείονα γενέσθαι
αν тготс ev. Ibid. Xenophanes (Ai8. 977b.7): то Se ev ойте τω
ουκ δντι ойте τοις πολλοίς ωμοιωσθαι, 977 ·*7> оитс γαρ τω /хту οντι
бите τοις πολλοίς o/xotov cîvcu. Melissos Α5· 974 й · 2 · Ι: *ατα πάντα
γαρ ταύτα πολλά Τ€ το ev γίγνεσθαι και то μη δν τ€κνοΰσ^αι . . .
ταύτα & αδύνατα etvai. The Sophoclean line is perhaps parodied
in Ar. Nu. Il8l-2: ου γαρ ΐσθ* όπως / /χι" ημέρα γβ'νοιτ* αν ημέρα
όνο.
ΐ49· For the meaning of these words see Chap, i, n. 96 above.
150. Jebb takes ?σως in its common sense of "perhaps," but the
obsessive repetition of t'aoc and similar words throughout the
play suggests the literal meaning here. And in any case it
makes better dramatic sense. Why should the messenger an-
nounce the death of Oedipus' father to Jocasta with such a
preface as "You will certainly rejoice—and you might perhaps
feel grief'7 It may be a true estimate but it is hardly a tactful
expression, and the messenger is a man who is looking for a
reward (cf. 1005-6).
151. Jocasta's question and the messenger's answer (943-4)
have been the subject of many attempts to remove the αντιλαβή
in 943. LA recc. read:
943 Ιο. πώς ebraç ; η τέθνηκί Πολυβος ; Αγγ. et δε μη
944 λ€γω γ* £γώ τάλτ/^cç, ά£ιώ Öavetv.
For 944 some of the recc. give the following variations: et μη
λέγω τάλτ^ς, et Be μη λβ'γω, et μη λέγω γ* ίγώ. Most editors have
suppressed the messenger's et δε μη in 943 and substituted a
phrase which they attribute to Jocasta: ώ γ^ρον (Bothe, accepted
by Jebb), ΟΓ (with the suppression of Πολυβος), ΟΙοίπον πατήρ
(Nauck). But surely this violent and sudden αντιλαβή is pre-
cisely what we should expect from Sophocles at this moment
of high excitement. "Par cette coupe extraordinaire," says
Masqueray (p. xxviii), " Sophocle . . . marque le violent émoi
de Jocaste." Masqueray prints the reading of LA recc. A better

253
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

solution would perhaps be to combine the reading of LA rece,

for 943 with one of the variant readings for 944:
lo. Truc ebrac ; т/ TCÖVT/KC ПоАи/?ос ; Ayy. ct 8c firj
et pJr) Ас'уш таАт/^е'с, а£ш> #avctv.
Such a repetition (et 8c /AT;, et /UT)) is characteristic of excited
emphatic protestation. Compare Pythonicus' denunciation of
Alcibiades' parody of the mysteries quoted by Andocides (i.
11 ) : ©ератгал/ vplv evoc eV$á8e ávSpoiv àfAvrjTos Ay ipil та /UK7-
TTJpta (a statement that must have been greeted with expres-
sions of incredulous surprise, like Jocasta's тшс сЬгас ;)—et Se /лт),
XprjvOt P-OL о ri av vp.lv SoicrJ, eàv /AT/ таАт^т; Лсусо. The ending
et Se /AT/ and the beginning of the next line et /XT) might easily
have given rise to the unmetrical et 8c /xr/ Ae'yo) found in some
of the rece.; the version of LA rece. (Асуш у' cyw, etc.) may be
a later attempt to restore the meter.

152. «'кг/, " at random," describes a state of affairs unacceptable

to the mathematician above all others. Cf. Cebes, Tabula
w) : [^X7?] • • • c^Ká 8t8(ücriv СзО oûScv уар Trotee /лета Ао-
укг/АоО ¿АА* eiK-fî ка1 ¿с стг^с ттаута. Iamb. In Nie. 23: OVK ctVc#
тгара TOI) TV\ÓVTO<¡ AajSóvTcc тш TV^ÓVTI атго8а)О'о/х€|/, áAAa ката TTJV
avrrjv ávaAoytav, yvwfuw ^poj/xevot icat olov Kavovt. . . .

153. For oûSèv as "zéro" cf. Nicom. Ar. ii. 6.3: «JWep et т« то
ouSèv oûSevt orvvTeocv отсе'тгтснто, oûSci/ yàp Tretet . . . Iamb. In Nie.
24: атго 8è Toi5 TTCVTC афеАоутес o¿8cv . . . тоО yàp Svo /cat TOÎÎ
oóScv ry/Atcru то cv (25) oàoW/ci ^ oûSèv. And see О. T. 1187:
taa KOI то fjLrjfàv. . . .

154. And, as Earle (on 1447, r^ /mèv кат* ot/covç) points out,
" Oedipus has no name for Jocasta."

155. /xr;vcc with /xt/cpov ка1 /xc'yav suggests an implicit comparison

between the fortunes of Oedipus and the waning and waxing
of the moon. For a similar comparison made explicit cf. S. Fr.
871. For the expression /шсроу ка1 ficyav cf. PI. Epin. çjSd:
TTJV (T€\rjvriv . . . r¡ TOTC ¡AW fjLCÍCwv <t>awo[jLCvrj, TOTC 8e еАатта)У. . . .

254
 Notes for C H A P T E R F O U R : GOD

156. Literally, "to weigh." This is the third of the triad

ápi0/¿óc, /xerpa, errata, for which see X. Smp. iv. 43, 45, Hp.
V. M. 9, PL Lg. vi. 75уЬ, and the Palamedes references in
n. 133 above.

NOTES FOR C H A P T E R F O U R : GOD

1. ¿c yap €?rt 0eoi5 /3<o/zoi>c wapamv em TOVC тг/ао TWV /ЗаочЛешу

tSpvjucvovç.
2. See Earle ad loc.
3. See W. Ax, " Die Parodos des Oidipus Tyrannos," Hennés,
67 (1932) 413-37, especially 421: "Die Liturgische Form des
Inhalts."
4. 2l6-l8: atrctç- a 'S' atrctç . . . Aaßoic av. For the religious
connotations of alrdv cf. Euthyphro's definition of prayer (PI.
Euthphr. I4C): то 81 wxtaOai. airtlv TOUS 0eovç,
5. Hdt. i. 66. : rj 8c YlvOÍTj аф1 хра та8с. 'ApxaStiyv /л1 atrctç ;
/исуа /x* atretç' ou rot Swaa). Eus. P.E., 5» 2,7* '^КС1С ^* CÖVO/UTJV
atT€U/xcvoç* avràp ¿y(ó rot Stúoxü. Cf. the oracles supposed to have
been given to Laius (O. T. Hypothesis iii, Anth. Pal. xiv. 67):
Лснс AaßSaKiSr} Trcu'oW ycvoç 6\ßiov aírctc, and to Alcmaeon
(АЛ. vi. 232f.): Tt/xíJcV /л* atretç Swpov. . . . Cf. also P. Isthm.
6.52.
6. PI. R. viii. 568b: ¡(TOBeov . . . rvpavviSa, ibid. Ü. збос: èv
TOÎÇ àvOpwTrois iaoOeov oí/та. Cf. also PI. Phdr. 258c: ^aatAcùç
. . . ap* OVK ÍGÓOtov ^yctTat aÛTOs тс avTÓv CTI f ûv ; E. i f . 1169:
IvoBeov TvpavvíSos.

7. It appears in the summary of Pericles' financial report (ii.

J
3> 5) but in a reference to the removable gold on the statue of
the goddess Athena, which Pericles tells the Athenians they
can make use of if other sources of revenue run short: avr?/c

^55
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

T?Jç Oeov TOÎç TrcpiKCt/ic'votc ^pvcTtotc. In Striking Contrast to the

absence of the word 0cdc from the Periclean speeches is its
frequent occurrence in the speeches attributed to the Spartans
(e. g. Brasidas iv. 87, Archidamus ii. 74, Sthenelaidas i. 86),
the Plataeans (iii. 58, 59, ii. 71), the Corinthians (i. 71, 123),
the Boeotians (Pagondas iv. 92), and Nicias (vii. 69, 77).
On the other hand, the word is never attributed to Cleon,
Diodotus, or Alcibiades.

8. Th. ii. 41. Pericles speaks of his praise of Athens as a fyvoç :

ibid. 42: a yap TTJV TrdAiv vp,vrj(ra. . . .

9. Cf. Eupolis, Fr. 117 (ATJ/AOI) 6ff.: aAA' ^aav yfuv rfj irdAct
тгрштоу /ici/ ot отратіууоі cic rail/ /лсуготшу ot/aa>v тгАоитш у с vet тс
TTpwTot, oîç a>0-7repci #cotcrii> r/u^d/xea^a • каі yàp ^<rav.

10. Hp. Лр?г. І : 6 Діос Ppaxvs, у 8с тс'х^ /лакрг/. Diels-Kranz,

Protagoras 64: ppaxvs ЛІ/ о )8toç TOV àv6p<*>irov.

11. PI. Tfet. l6ld: ^covç тс ctç то /хсаоі/ ауоутсс, ouç cy<*> ск тс TOV
Ac y et v каі TOV урафсіу тгсрі avrwv <oç ciatv ^ coç OVK ctatv, c^aipw.
This corresponds very well with the opening statement of
Protagoras' book Ои the Gods; it is difficult to see how Plato
could have squared this with the highly theological account
of human progress which he attributes to the sophist in the
Protagoras.

12. Hp. Decent. 5: ojTpôç yap фІАоаофос ûrodcoç. Cf. PL Tht.

161C: ту/лесс fjitv avrov [sc. Protagoras] шотгср ^cov lOavfJidCofjLtv
lirl аофіа.

I3« Th. і. 140: TTJV rvxyv о(та av irapà Adyov £vfA/3fj еішвацеу
аіпааваї. Cf. Diels-Kranz, DemOCritUS 8119: avOpwrroi т^Хф
сГ8а>АоІ/ стгАаогаІ/то тгрофаспу ІЗІт^с à/JouAtryç.

14. Th. ІІ. 6І : то at</>n8tov кас атгроаВокутоу каі то ттАсІстто) тгара-

Аоуш £vfjL/3aîvov.

15« The word тгараАоуос (which expresses this characteristic of

the events of the war) is very common in Th.; cf. ii. 61 (the

256
 Notes for C H A P T E R F O U R : GOD

plague), ii. 85 (Phormio's victory), iii. 16 (the Athenian ex-

pedition against the Péloponnèse), vii. 55 (the Athenian naval
defeat at Syracuse), vii. 28 (the Athenian expedition against
Sicily while under Peloponnesian attack), vii. 61 (Nicias re-
minds the Athenians of the unpredictability of war), viii. 24
(the miscalculations of the Chians).
І6. E. Ale. 785-6, 788-9.
17. Idem, H. F. 1357: VVV 8* <OC €OUC£ Tfj TVXQ 8ovA€UT€OV.

18. Idem, Of. 715-16: vvv 8* шчгукашс с^сі, SovAotcnv сїічи rotc
аофоїт T?}Ç пэдс. Menelaus is speaking of the impossibility of
predicting the reaction of the Argive popular assembly, which
he is about to address on behalf of Orestes.
Ip. Idem, Tf. 1203-5: at rv^aif €.р.тг\г]кто<; <ôç av0pa>7ro$. . . .
Cf. Chaeremon Fr. 2 (Nauck 2 ): тг'^ та 0vi?To>v тт/эау/шт* OVK
cv/?ovAta.

20. Е. ІОП. I 5 I 2 f f .

21. The word rvxri does not of course occur in Homer (h.
Horn. ii. 420 is certainly late). Its first appearance seems to be
3
Archil. 8. Diehl .
22. Cf. also Hdt. i. 126: 0а'я TVXÛ yryovwç (Cyrus), PL R. ix.
5923, Lg. vi. 759C.
23. P. O. xii. І-2. According to Pausanias (vii. 26.8) Pindar
stated also that Chance was one of the Fates (Motpwv) and
more powerful than her sisters.
24. Diehl, Fr. 44: Ewo/лшс <T€> каї Пс^шс а8сЛфа каї Про/га-
^etaç Bvydrrfp. (Tyche as sister of Peitho appears also in Hes.
Th. 360; they are both daughters of Oceanus and Tethys).
Pausanias (iv. 30) mentions a statue of Tyche made by Bu-
palus, who is usually assigned to the sixth century. Cf. Greene
(O,p.66.
25. E. Cyc. 603-7. The last two lines run; »} TTJV rvxyv p*v 8ai/uov*

*57
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

^yctatfat xp€<t>v, та 8at/AÓv(üi/ 8с т^с TV^T/Ç cAáo-trova. Cf. Nauck,

adesp. 169: et /ACV 0eot a0€vovo4v, ou« cortv f^X4' €'L ^' Ol^ f&'fouatv
oi*$€v, €<mv 17 TU'XT/. (Nauck's comma after a&'i/ovo-tv in 2 makes
nonsense of the lines, and G. Wolff's correction «mv % TV^
is unnecessary). Cf. also ibid adesp. 506, E. Нес. 488 ff.,
ГГ. 9° I • C¿T€ TV^a ctTC 8at'/xü)v та ßpOTCta /cpatvet. . . .

26. PI. Lg. 7О9а-Ь: Ti'^aç 8* cti/at (T^eSov ¿brai/ra та ¿vOpúmm

тг/üáy/xaTa . . . #eóc /i.èv WvTa ка\ /хста ocoû тъ'^ту «at /cai/эос Tav-
Opoimva StaKi'^cpvwat оп'/хтга^та. For PI. and 0eta TV^ see refer-
ences in n. 22 above.

27. W. S. Ferguson, "The Leading Ideas of the New Period,"

СЛН VII (Cambridge Univ. Press) p. 2. He uses the phrase
of the third century, but it applies equally well to the fourth;
no better description can be found of the apathetic spirit
against which Demosthenes wages so valiant a struggle. Cf.
D. ii. 22 on г^хч and for the fourth-century Athenian "sense
of drift " cf. D. iv. i o-11, 40-2.
28. This is clear from the comedies of Menander. On this
subject cf. С. F. Angus, САН, VII, pp. 226, 229, and (e. g.)
Menander, Koerte-Thierfelder, 1959, Fr. 249, 296, 395, 420,
630, etc. Fr. 417 (from the Hypobolimaeus*) reads like an ex-
pansion of Jocasta's speech; cf. especially 5-6 on wpovoia.
29. Plb. XXÍX. 21 : f¡ тгрос TOI/ ßiov T7JUUÔV aow&roc TV^T/ /cat irávra
тгара TÓV \oytcrpJov rov ^/AcVcpov KatvoTrotovcra /cat тт/v аг>тт)с Bvvafuv
tv TOÎÇ ?rapa3o£ot? ei/Sct/cvuftcViy. . . .
30. She was the patron goddess of Antioch in Hellenistic times.
For lists and discussion of the cults of Tyche see L. Ruhl,
"Tyche: Kult," in Roscher's Lexikon, 5, 1344-56.
31. This was written before I saw Werner Jaeger's Theology
of the Early Greek Philosophers, in which he speaks (p. 174)
of " the higher stage of the spiral cycle," and refers the reader
to his 1943 Aquinas Lecture (in Humanism and Theology, p.
54) for his discussion of " the spiral as the most fitting symbol

258
 Notes for CHAPTER F O U R : GOD

of the historical development of Greek philosophical thought."

The " descending spiral " which I speak of is of course a symbol
not so much of the development of philosophical thought as of
the vulgar philosophical-religious feeling of the ordinary man;
the advances made by the philosophers in the fourth and third
centuries correspond to (and were an attempt to arrest) the
retreat from reason which was the dominant mood of the Greek
population at large.

32. According to Plutarch (Per. xxi) he led an expedition

against the Delphians and restored to the Athenians their wpo-
pavriia, the right to consult the oracle first. (For the inter-
pretation "right of consulting the oracle on behalf of others
also" [B. Perrin, trans., Plutarch's Lives, London, Loeb Classi-
cal Library, 3 (1916), 65] see the discussion and bibliography
in How and Wells, Commentary on Herodotus, i, p. 75.)

33. Plu. Per. viii: àtfavoVovç eAeye y ey ove vat каватгер TOÙÇ 0eovç-
où yàp eVcetvov? auTOt'ç opw/xev àAAà rat? rt/xatç aç едоиоч кас TOIÇ
ayatfoîç a irap€\ov(Tiv ¿Oavárovs eîvat тек/ьмир<>/д,€0а.

34. O. T, 387-9: fmyov . . . цухауоррафоу, 8ó\tov àyvpnyv, ÔOTIÇ

eV rot? Kcpfamv /AO'VOV Шорк€. . . . Some of these epithets are
found in the Hippocratic treatise The Sacred Disease, where
they are applied to quack doctors who claim magic powers of
healing and use incantations. Cf. especially 2: /xayoi те кш
KaOáprai ка\ Áyvprat /caí ¿Aa£óVcc, 3: тгс/нка&и/схоу . . . Kai /utayciW
. . . TOLCLvra . . . /i^av<ó/icvot . . . 4: /uiayevcov icat Ovwv . . . avOptúiroi
ßiov 8có/u€vot тгоЛЛа ка1 iravTOta T€^vwvTai, Cf. also PI. R, ii.
3O4b: ayvprai §t xat /xái/rcic. . . .

35. Cf. Hdt. ii. 133: i\6w oí [i.e. Mycerinus] /xavTT/tov &
BovToOç тгоЛюс, viii. 114 : xPrJa"l"nPLOV сАтуЛи^ее ¿к ДсЛфшу Лаке-
8aifJLovíoi(TL. . . . Paus. ix. 5. lo: /¿аугеи/ыа ^A^ev ек AcA</>c5v. . . .

36. фгцш1 (723) is the proper word for this.

37* ^53"4: ^v V e Ao^ia« SietTre XP*?VCU ^а1§ос e¿ €/AOV Oavtlv.

259
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

38. Jebb's commentary on this scene performs prodigies of

subtlety in an attempt to defend the basic piety of Jocasta.
"In 853 (¿V ye Ao£íac StctTTc)," he says in his note on 711, "the
name of the god merely stands for that of his Delphian priest-
hood/' With the word "merely" Jebb begs the question in
truly Olympian fashion, for the distinction between the god
and his Delphian priesthood is fundamental for his view of
Jocasta's attitude. (See his note on 708: " . . . a deep and
bitter conviction that no mortal, be he priest or seer, shares the
divine foreknowledge.")

39. каЛшс i/o/ufeiç, 859, immediately after her most general and
far-reaching denunciation of prophecy.

40. 909: Kov&afjiov Ti/icûç 'АтгоЛЛол/ €f¿<t>avr¡<s. Cf. the Periclean

"proof" of the immortality of the gods: тогЧ Otovs . . . TCÛÇ
rt/xatç aç c^ovait/ . . . a^avarovç ctvcu тск/дш/оо/иоа (Plu. Per. ШЙ)-

41. Cf. 922.

42. 919: ay^tcrroç yàp et. Cf. S. irpo rwv Bvpwv yàp tSpvro.

43« Cf. 9*6: та icatvà rots тгаАси. . . .

44. Jebb's note (on 946) to the effect that "Jocasta's scorn is
pointed not at the gods themselves but at the /шутас who pro-
fess to speak in their name" and his statement (note on 708)
that "in 946, 953, 0ewv /шутег'/лата are oracles which professed
to come from the gods " will not hold water. Jocasta is talking
about a prophecy which Oedipus attributes unequivocally to
Apollo himself (788 ff.).
45. I read irapovra with the MSS. Oedipus means that the
"present" prophecies (i.e. the prophecies given to him by
Apollo) are proved worthless by the natural death of Polybus,
as worthless as the "old" prophecies given to Laius; he is
talking in terms of Jocasta's distinction between та Katvá and
та тгаАси.

46. The same phrase (та ™}с тг'хт/О is found in Th. iv. 55, 3.
260
 Notes for C H A P T E R F O U R : GOD

Cf. ibid. 18.3: то njç ти'х^с. It emphasizes the abstract, un

personified nature of this conception of chance. Cf. E. Ale.
785: то T?)Ç rv\r¡<¡.

47. See Plato's definition of the province of prophecy, Smp.

l88b: /ecu oîç p.avTiK.1] cVtoraTct—таъта 8' cortv f) irtpl tfcoi'ç T€ Kai
àvOpUTTOvs тгрос aAAT/Aovç Koivwvía. . . .

48. According to Simplicius on Arist. Ph. ii. 4, 75, Tyche and

Loxias were both invoked at Delphi: lv ДеАфо£с 8c «ai irpo-
Karr^px^v cv Tat? epwTrjvtvw 7П ™x*? Kc" A°£t/a» T<? Sc TW 0€/uor€Uci? ;

49. 263: yw 8* €ç то Ktlvov крат e^Aaö* ^ ^Х7/' ^** Poll- Г 150-

тгаукратш . . . Aa¿ íi/áAAco-oat. Plu. Мог. (Now posse stía-
VÍter . . .) Io87b: etc rí/i/ yaarépa . . . cvaActcroaí, S. ГГ. 75^-

50. It depended on Jocasta's mentioning the nature of the place

where Laius was killed; this she did not need to do, she " just
happened " to mention it.

51. For this meaning cf. Andoc. i. 120: f¡ nais rvxn XP7?0*^^7?
¿Trcoavci/.

52. Cf. S. El. 498 ff. : ^Tot /xavT£ta¿ ßporuv OVK ctatv iv 8avoîç
>
óveípOLs oî»8' iv $£(7фато1с, et fjùj TÓSc фаа/Aa VUKTÔÇ cu катао ^т)о'С1.
The Hippocratic author of Viet, iv takes dreams seriously as
prophetic warnings and Aristotle's treatise On Prophecy in
Sleep (Рял;. Nat. 426*0 begins its discussion of the subject as
follows: "It is not easy to dismiss or accept the proposition"
COUTC катаф/эорт/очн paStov оГ>те 7r€¿o*077^a¿) and goes On to admit
that "all or most people suppose that dreams have some signifi-
cance " (eXCtI/ Tt CTr¡fJL€t<tí8€<¡^.

53. 986: ка каАЛс Acyciç. Cf. his previous *аАшс í/o^tfci?, 859«

54- Не expresses what is almost a wish that she were: ¿AAa

T7/Ç fwa^Ç <f>6ßo<i, 988.

55. 1080: тгаГ8а т^с TI'XTJÇ. Cf. E. Fr. 989: ó ттус TV^T/Ç Traîç
кА?}рос. According to Pausanias, there was at Thebes a temple
of Tyche with a statue of the goddess carrying her son Ploutos

261
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

(ÍX. 1-2: Tv^ç corny tepov фе/эсс /xèv 8т) ПАоОтоу 7rat8a . . .
€<rOcivai IIAoÖTOi/ ¿с тас ^et/oaç arc /Arjrpí ?} трофш rrj TV^TJ. Cf.
О. Т. 1092). The sculptors were Xenophon the Athenian and
Callistonicus the Theban; the statue can thus be assigned to the
early fourth century, but the conception may well be based on
an old tradition (though Pausanias talks as though it were the
invention of the artists). For Oedipus and Ploutos cf. О. Т.
380. Ruhl (in Röscher, Lexicon, 5, 1350) speaks of a "Relief
der Tyche von Melos mit dem Plutos Knaben/'
56. 1081 : TT> €v 8t8ouV??c. For this religious formula cf. PI. Cra.
4040: ArjftTjTTjp . . . SiSovcra, ISOC. 4. 28: Aîj/ATjrpoç . . . Sovcrrjs
8copcàç Strrac. . . . E. Ale. 1005*. хаФ* ^ WOTVI* cv 8e Sony?, idem
Or. 667.
57. /utr>€c (1083) may be a reference to the connection between
Tyche and the moon: cf. Röscher, Lexikon, 5, 1330 (C/G
7304), a gem inscribed Tpo^tfiou. 2€A?Ji/77 rv\fï [v] [/c] vßepv[ÍD]аа.
Cf. ibid. 1331 for a discussion of the later identification of
Tyche and Selene (Luna). Strabo (xii. 3. 31) speaks of the
so-called " royal oath " in Pontus, at the temple of the men of
Pharnaces—TV^T/V ßacnAcwc xat M-íJva Фаруакои—and adds " this
is also the temple of Selene." The scholium on E. Phoen. 26
adds an interesting piece of information: li/iot Se ка1 'HAt'ou фату
ai*TOI/ [i. e. Oedipus] emu TratSa.
58. On the dramatic motivation of this choral ode see M. Bowra,
Soyhodean Tragedy (Oxford, 1944), p. 199.
59. The enthusiasm of the chorus and also their complete
commitment to the cause of Oedipus are indicated by their
announcement that they will dance (xopaW0at, 1093); before
this scene began they were asking, "Why should I dance?/'
TÍ oc¿ /AC x°pwtiv\ (896). If Oedipus had turned out to be the
son of a god and a nymph, he might have been classed as a
daimon. Cf. PL Ap. 2jd: ct 8* av ol Scu/xoi/cc вешу TrcûoVç etaiv
VÓOoi TIV€<5 17 €K VV/jl</>u)V T) €K TtVu)V ttAAu)V. . . .

60. I read Tocón/ in 1025 with the MSS. Oedipus fears that the

262
 Notes for CHAPTER F O U R : GOD

Corinthian may have been his father; the messenger's enigmatic

line 1018 he interprets as a hint in this direction, as is clear
from the vehement tone of his reproving answer (1019). The
messenger would not have been above lying on this point, if
he judged it safe and advantageous; he lies later when he claims
to have "found 0 Oedipus on Cithaeron (efyxW, 1026), a lie
which he retracts (1038) only when he realizes that Oedipus
wants more information than he can supply. See Campbell's
note on this passage.
61. Though the herdsman could corroborate the truth of the
matter of Laius' murder, he is never asked to do so; the proof
of the truth of the "old" oracles is enough to guarantee the
truth of the "new."
62. 1181 : IvOi SvijTTOT/xoc yeywc.

63. The proper use of this title is suggested by X. Ages. xi. 13:
Oí y€ /xr/v cn>y*avSvi'€VOVTeç [cxáAovv auróv] /лета $€ovç (тштура.

64. For this antithesis cf. the speech of Iris in E. H. F. 841:

*/ $eot /ACV ov$ap.ov, та Ovr^rà 6° corcu /xcyr/Ла, ¡му SóVroc BÍKrjv.

65. 2 ad ЮС. ctjcorcoç ovv К£\рута1 TW тс/cva ¿(TTrepct тгаттур.

66. Cf. also the 0poVoc of Oedipus (237) and the Bpóvo* of
Artemis (161); Set ка/хе ßov\evcw C6lp) and ¿ Zcí5 r¿ ¡JLOV Spâcrai.
߀ßor\€v<rai iripL С73"^ сфеотмн СЗ2*) and TYJV HvBofAavTw iaríav
(965); £vn'r?/i' (346) and Zc7N'c о т* 'АтгоЛЛал/ êvvcroi (498);
та TlvOïKCL . . . o)ç 7rv$oi0' o TÍ C70"1)» á\€¿oí/i>yi/ C539^ and
a\c£tfj.opoi (163; cf. 171).

67. Such a feeling is not un-Sophoclean; compare the merciless

way Athena mocks Ajax in front of his enemy in the prologue
of the Ajax.
68. Cf. 1033. Francis Fergusson, The Idea of a Theater
(Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 1949), p. 19, has a percep-
tive comment: "Oedipus' entrance (majestic but for his tell-tale
limp). . . ."
263
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

69. This is pointed out by Jebb (Preface, p. xix, n. 2): "In

v. 397 ó fj.rj&tv ctSwç OtStVcn'ç suggests a play on otSa." Masqueray
remarks on 397: "Une etymologic du mot OîStVovç. Celle que
l'on trouve couramment est donnée au vers 1036. Mais Oedipe
n' était-il pas aussi l'homme et&W то irf.pl тшу -n-oSûv awy/xa? "
This was anticipated by Earle (p. 40): "As 'Knowfoot' (ei&oc
rot»«? 7го8аО he solves the riddle about feet."

70. Cf. e.g. 43: olcrOd TTov, 59: o¿S' on, 84, 105, 397, 498, 745,
and cf. Chap. 3, pp. 127-8.
71. L rece, read катоктв* отгон in 926. This would make the pun
even clearer, and may well be what Sophocles wrote. The
change of number (the plural is only implied in v^v & ¿eVot,
not expressed) is not unusual in addresses to the chorus. (Cf.
7. EL 175: </uAcu. . . . 184: шефы, ¡bid. 215, 218, 751, 757,
etc.)

72. The rhymes have often been noticed, but dismissed. " Proba-
bly unintentional" (Earle); "óVov at the end of two lines and
O8Í7TOV carelessly rhyming between them " (H. D. F. Kitto,
Greek Tragedy, 2d ed. London, Methuen, 1950, p. 182, n. i).
The existence of puns in Sophocles is generally ignored or
excused. A. C. Pearson (3) is reluctant to admit them but
finds no alternative. On O. T. 70 (ГЪ&ка . . . т™0оич>) he
comments as follows: "It seems strange to us that Sophocles
should have had the bad taste to introduce an etymological
pun at this stage of the action. But the fact is beyond dis-
pute. . . ."

73« PI- Lg. ÍV. 7IÓC: o ST? #сос -¡¡¡uv iravrw х/эту/латшу ^¿rpov av
€L7j /LUZAtora. . . .

264
NOTES FOR C H A P T E R FIVE: H E R O

1. With Pearson and many others, I cannot believe that the

play ended with the tasteless and hardly intelligible tetrameters
of 1524-30. As the scholiast says (on 1523): KCÙ аитс/'рксос e^ei
то 8/oa/ia* та yàp €^ç avcn/ccia yi/oj/xoAoyowTO? OtStVoSos. By which
he meant, I take it, that these lines are inappropriate for Oedipus
(and in fact all the MSS attribute them to the chorus) and
impossibe for the chorus (which could hardly say ¿> тгат/эа«?
ö>7/fyc evoLKOL, words which are possible only if the chorus does
not consist of Thebans, like the chorus of the Euripidean Phoe-
wissae). Apart from this obvious indication that these miserable
lines were written for the end of the Phoenissae (whether
Euripides wrote them is another question), the plural aîvi'y/шта
in 1525 is meaningless, and 1526 and the last three lines defy
sense and syntax alike.
2. фе'/эо/лси and <t>opa&7}v. For фо/oaS^v see Jebb's note: "in the
manner of that which is carried." Jebb comments: "He feels
as if his voice was borne from him on the air in a direction
over which he has no control."
3. For which the medium is the lyric meter of his opening song
after his reappearance on stage: he does not return to the iambic
medium of rational speech until he begins to argue in 1369.
4. For the blinding as "deliberate purpose" see Sir Richard
Livingstone, " The Exodus of the Oedipus Tyrannus," in Greek
Poetry and Life (Oxford, 1936), p. 160.
5. OLV 7r/oocret8ov, 1372; oí/ас 771% 1375; c/xeAAov . . . opâv, 1385.
What Oedipus says now about what he thought then is proved
exact by the messenger's account of what he said at the time
(1271-4).
6. The beggar is shameless in his importunity (какос Sf atSoZoc
¿Лг/ттус, says Penelope, Od. xvii. 578, "a modest beggar is no

z65
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

good" ); he compliments the man he hopes to make his patron

(Odysseus to Antinous, ibid., 4158?.); he compares his own
miserable circumstances with the splendid prosperity of his
patron (ibid. 419 ff.); he calls down blessings on his benefactor's
head (Odysseus to Eumaeus, Od. xiv. 53-4). Cf. also xvii.
354-5. All these formulas of the beggar are to be found in
Oedipus' appeals to Creon.

7. See Jebb's note. The expression is completely ambiguous,

for фроуш can mean either " understanding " (i. e. " I do not
idly speak things I do not understand—and will not understand
until I consult the oracle again") or "intention" (in which
case it is a definite concession to Oedipus). Yet Jebb is surely
right in taking it in the latter sense (as Oedipus evidently
does), and there is then no contradiction between this passage
and the reference to Oedipus' exile in О. С. 765 ff. From the
О. С. it appears that Creon never did, in fact, consult the
oracle of Apollo about the exile of Oedipus; the decision to
exile him was made by Creon alone and connived at by
Oedipus' sons. The words OVK ?/0еЛсс, О.С. 767, mean not
"refused" but simply "were unwilling," as Creon in the
Oedipus Tyrannus clearly is.

8. See "Sophocles' Oedipus," in Tragic Themes in Western

Literature, ed. Cleanth Brooks (New Haven, 1955), pp. 23-9.

9. D. Chr. Ixiv. 6 says, of Oedipus: f) rv^rj yap avrw то /^Scv

Traget v 7T€pL7roLOvfjL€vrj то ayvo€Îv cSw/ccv, оттер Ofjioiov rjv TW fjLTj iraOeîv.
eirá a/xa т?}с tVTv\ía<> стгаисгато Kai TOV ytyvwa/«€tv ^р^ато.

266
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Segal, Charles, Oedipus Tyrannus: Tragic Heroism and the

Limits of Knowledge, New York, 1993. A handbook for the
Greekless reader, covering "literary and historical context"
and the author's own sensitive "reading" of the play and
offering an extensive bibliography with useful critical
remarks on each item.

Bushnell, Rebecca W., Prophesying Tragedy, Ithaca, N.Y.,

1988, pp. 67-85.
Fagles, Robert, trans., Sophocles: The Theban Plays, introduc-
tion by Bernard Knox, Harmondsworth, England, 1984, pp.
13Ï-53-
Gellie, G. H., Sophocles: A Reading, Melbourne, Australia,
1972, pp. 79~I05-
Goldhill, Simon, Reading Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, 1986, pp.
199—221.
O'Brian, Michael, ed., Twentieth-Century Interpretations of the
"Oedipus Rex," New York, 1968.
Segal, Charles, Sophocles' Tragic World, Cambridge, Mass.,
1995, pp. 138-212.
Vernant, Jean-Pierre, and Vidal-Naquet, Pierre, Myth and
Tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd, New York,
1988, pp. 85-140, 207-36, 320-27.
Whitman, Cedric, Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism,
Cambridge, Mass,, 1951, pp. 122—46.
Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles: An Interpretation, Cam-
bridge, 1980, pp. 173-204.

267
This page intentionally left blank
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Angus, С. F., "Athens," Cambridge Ancient History (Cam-

bridge, University Press, 1928), vol. 7, chap. 7.
Ax, W., "Die Parodos des Oidipus Tyrannos," Hermes, 67
(1932), 413-37.
Bonner, R., and Smith, G., The Administration of Justice from
Homer to Aristotle, Chicago, 1930, 1938.
Bowra, M. Sophoclean Tragedy, Oxford, 1944.
Brooks, C., and Heilman, R., Understanding Drama, New
York, 1948.
Bruhn, E., Sophokles (id ed. Berlin, 1910), vol. 2: König
Oedipus.
Burnet, J., Plato's Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, and Crito,
Oxford, 1924.
Campbell, L., Sophocles, London, 1879.
Carroll, J. P., " Some Remarks on the Questions in the Oedipus
Tyrannus," C/, 32, No. 7 (April, 1937), 406-16.
Croiset, A. and M., Histoire de la littérature grecque (2d ed.
Paris, 1898), vol. 2.
Deubner, L., Attische Feste, Berlin, 1932.
Diano, C., "Edipo figlio délia Tyche," Dioniso, 15 (1952),
56-89.
Diehl, E., Anthologia Lyrica Graeca (Leipzig, 1925), vol. 2.
Diels, H., and Kranz, W., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
loth ed. Berlin, 1961.
Earle, M. L., The Oedipus Tyrannus, New York, 1901.
Ehrenberg, V. (i), The People of Aristophanes, га ed. Oxford,
1951.
(2), Sophocles and Pericles, Oxford, 1954.
Errandonea, I., " El estasimo segundo del Edipo Rey," Textos
y Estudios, Eva Perón (La Plata), Argentina, 1952.
Farnell, L. R., Cults of the Greek States, Oxford, 1896-1909.
Ferguson, W. S., "The Leading Ideas of the New Period,"
Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University
Press, 1928), vol. 7, chap. i.
269
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

Fergusson, F., The Idea of a Theater, Princeton, 1949.

Fraenkel, E., Aeschylus Agamemnon, Oxford, 1950.
Fränkel, H., Dichtung und Philosophie des Frühen Griechen-
tums, New York, 1951.
Frazer, Sir James G., The Golden Bough (за ed. London,
1935), vol. 2: The Magic Art.
Freeman, K., (i), The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Oxford, 1946.
(2), Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1948.
Freud, S., The Interpretation of Dreams, New York, 1938.
Fritz, Kurt von, " NOY2, NOEIN, and Their Derivatives," Pt.
II, CP, 41 (1946), 12-34.
Goodwin, W. W., Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the
Greek Verb, Boston, 1890.
Greene, W. C. (i), Moira, Cambridge, Mass, 1948.
(2), "Fate, Good, and Evil in Pre-Socratic Philosophy,"
HSCP, 47(1936), 85-129.
Grene, D., Three Greek Tragedies in Translation, Chicago,
1942.
Helmbold, W. С., "The Paradox of the Oedipus" A)P, 72
(1951), 239ff.
How, W. W., and Wells, J., A Commentary on Herodotus,
Oxford, 1912.
Jaeger, W., The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers,
Oxford, 1947.
Jebb, Sir Richard, Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, Cambridge,
1887.
Jones, W. H. S. and Withington, E. T., Hippocrates, London,
1923-31.
Kamerbeek, J. C., The Plays of Sophocles. Part l, Ajax, Leiden,
1953-
Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy, 2d ed. London, 1950.
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Knox, B. M. W. (i), "The Date of the Oedipus Tyrannos,"
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270
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(2), "The Hippolytus of Euripides," YCS, 13 (1952),

I 31
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Masqueray, P., Sophocle (Budé), Paris, 1929.
Meier, M. H. E., and Schömann, G. F., Der Attische Process,
(Neu bearb. von J. H. Lipsius) Berlin, 1883-87.
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87 (1944), 156-67.
Mitchell, T., The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles, Oxford,
1841.
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Nilsson, M. (i), Greek Popular Religion, New York, 1940.
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Pack, R. A., " Fate, Chance, and Tragic Error," A/P, 60 (1939),
350-6.
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Powell, J. E., A Lexicon to Herodotus, Cambridge, 1938.
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Sheppard, J. C., The Oedipus Tyrannus, Cambridge, 1920.

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 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Thomson, G., Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, Cambridge, 1932.

Waldock, A. J. A., Sophocles the Dramatist, Cambridge, 1951.
Whitman, C. H., Sophocles, Cambridge, Mass., 1951.
Wormhoudt, A., The Muse at Length, Boston, 1953.
Wyse, W., The Speeches of Isaeus, Cambridge, 1904.

272
 INDEX

Abac, 46 Andocides, 82, 89, 216, 224-8,230-

Abraham, 113 i, 254, 261
Achaeus, 246 Anêkeston, 105
Achilles, 205 Angus, C. F., 258
Acropolis, the 231 Anthrôpos tyrannos, 107, no
Adeimantus, 160 Antigone, 212. See also Sophocles,
Aeacus, 70 Antigone.
Aegina, 70 Antinous, 266
Aegisthus, 60, 124 Antioch, 258
Aelian, 223 Antiphon orator, 85-91, 94, 98,
Aeschines, 87, 226-30, 248 225-31, 243
Aeschylus, 78, ιοί, 119, 133, 142, — sophista, 45, 208
206, 241, 246, 249, 251; Oresteia, Aphienai, 84, 91
38; Supp., 200, 241; Pers., 241; Aphrodite, 34
Th. 206; A., 214, 237, 241, 251; Apokleisai, 147, 249
Cko., 204, 214; EM., 61, 223;
Apollo, 80, 86, 89, 94, i n , 118,
P.V., 62, 109, 124, 126, 129,
141, 160, 169, 170, 173, 175,
137, 145, 148, 216, 237, 240,
177, 181, 209, 212, 259, 263,
243-4, 246-7, 250, 252; Pala- 266; prophecies of, 6, 40, 42, 47,
medes, 252
143, 153, 157, 171-3» 176, 186,
Agamemnon, 35, 170 206, 210-11, 260; responsibility
Agave, 125 of, 7-8, 187, 200; and the plague,
Agêlatein, 75, 223 9-10, 200; and Croesus, 36, 38;
Agenor, 56 in the Oresteia, 38, 206; and
Agora tus, 85 Oedipus, 51, 180, 195; and Laius,
Ahnfrau, die, 4 ίο ι, 123; and Jocasta, 171-2,
Ajax, 35, 263. See also Sophocles, 176, 260; A. mênytês, 81, 224;
Ajax "ministers" of, 172-3, 260; in
Akathartos, 142, 246 the Ion, 45, 207; Lycean A., 159,
Alcibiades, 23, 44, 97, 219, 224, 176
254, 256 Apollonius Rhodius, 246
Alcmaeon, 255 Arcadia, 160, 255
— of Croton, 123, 239 Arche, 66, 182
Alcman, 166 Archidamus, 64, 217, 219, 256
Amazons, 220 Archilochus, 213, 257
Ameipsias, 241 Archimedes, 128
Amphitryon, 62, 216 Archytas, 118
Anachronism, 61, 63, 215-16 Areopagus, the, 78
Anarithmos, 151, 252 Ares, ίο, 200
Anaxagoras, 125, 248 Aretaeus, 244-5, 247
Anaxilas, 237 Arginusae, 77

273
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Argos, 37, 62, 257 Bothe, 253

Aristogeiton, 93, 96, 231 Boutopolis, 38, 204, 259
— the tyrannicide, 214 Bowra, M., 262
Aristophanes, 45, 64, 126, 133; Av., Brasidas, 256
58, 208, 218, 222; V., 59, 76, Brooks, C., 211, 266
223, 227; Th., 58, 213; Eq., Bruhn, E., 100
64, 76, 208, 215, 218, 223; Pax., Brunck, 7-8, 199
76, 105, 223; Nub., 78, 118, Bupalus, 257
122, 126, 137, 224, 238, 241, Burnet, J., 266, 241
243, 247, 252-3; Ach., 105, 227,
252; Ra., 133, 238; Fr., 216 Cadmus, 16, 56, 137
Aristotle, 12-13, 31-2, 49, 53, 78, Calchas, 170
148, 212, 223, 238, 253; O.A., Callistonicus, 262
245; Metaph., 238, 244, 248; Camarina, 60
Met., 248; Mir., 248; P.A. 246, Campbell, L., 263
249; Pflrv. Nat., 261; Ph., 252, Carroll, J. P., 239
261; Poet., 203-4, 212; PoL, 53, Cebes, 254
213; Prob., 245-7, 249; RJi., 232; Cephalus, 92
Rh. ΑΙ., 226, 232; Top., 250 Chaeremon, 257
Aritforwos, 148, 250 Chance, 47, 48, 71, 144-5» 155-6,
Artabanus, 35 164-8, 176-81, 201, 209, 257.
Artemis, 10, 160, 263 See also Fortune and Tyche.
Astyages, 37 Cheimazein, 141, 245
Astyanax, 165 Chians, 257
Athena, 9, 35, 78, 104, 159-60, Chorus, the, 12, 15-17, 21-2, 25,
182, 207, 255, 263 27, 28, 30, 57, 60, 83, 89-90,
Athenaeus, 237 loo, 113, 120, 135, 143, 146,
Athenagoras, 220 152, 155-6, 170, 177» 181, 185-
Athens, 36-7, 44-5, 63, 88, 92, 8, 190, 195, 202, 228; Parodos,
99-106, 125, 168, 208, 216, 218; 9-10, 114, 126, 141-2, 151, 181-
A. tyrannos, 60—I, 78, 107, 160; 2, 255; ist stasimon, 24, 41, 63,
wealth, 64, 217; skill 65-6, 217; 85-6, I I I - I 2 , 170, 171, 182-3,
and law, 78-9, 82, 223-4; and 194; 2d stasimon, 46-7, 50, 57-
Oedipus, 61, 67, 99, 99-106; and 8, 93-5, 99-io6, 154, 173-5»
the enlightenment, 107, 137; and 182, 194, 209-11, 262; 3d sta-
the sophists, 135-6; walls and simon, 23, 51, 124-5, 1311 ϊ8ο,
ships of, 216-17; Athenian char- 242-3, 262; 4th stasimon, 20, 48,
acter, 67-77, 219-23 56, 98-9, 106-7, 113, 115, 137,
Auden, W. H., i 157
Augustine, St., 39, 206 Chryses, 170
Authairetos, 187, 198 Chrysippus, ιοί
Ax, W., 255 Chrysothemis, 214
Cicero, 224
Bacchus, 131
Bakis, 37, 44, 207-8 Cimon, 217
Basileus, 53-6, 213 Cithaeron, 19, 85, 131, 147, 156,
Bdelycleon, 59, 75 180, 198, 263
Boeotians, 256 Cleisthenes, 75
Bonner, R., and Smith, G., 225 Cleomenes, 37, 75

274
 INDEX

Cleon, 60, 64, 75, 77, 103, 208, 41, 46, 113, 130, 156, 169, 172,
256 176-9, 192; Delphic Oracle, 10,
Cleonae, 200 14-15, 25, 36-7 (Croesus), 49,
Clyterrinestra, 214 158, 168, 174, 194, 201, 213;
ConnoSj 241 Delphian, 260; Delphians, 259
Constitution of Athens, the, 78 Demeter, 236, 262
Corcyra, 163; Corcyreans, 220 Demetrius (Comicus), 216
Corinth, 7, 40, 42, 56, 92-3, 113, Demetrius of Phalerum, 167
132, 147, 153-4, 166, 179, 180, Democracy, Athenian, 44, 60-2,
183; 213; Corinthian, 119, 153, 64, 73-7, 88
155; Corinthian messenger, 13- Democritus, 241, 253, 256
14, 19, 20, 29, 95-6, 122, 127, Demophon, 212, 219
130-31, 134, 137-8, 143, 155, Demos, 76, 208, 215
176, 179, 180, 183, 212, 239, Demosthenes (strategus), 72, 220
242, 253-4, 263; Corinthians, — orator, 87, 90, 92-3, 96, 201,
the, 61, 65, 67-70, 72, 74, 220, 224-32, 258
256 Demostratus of Melite, 92
Crates, 76 Deubner, L., 236
Cratinus, 64, 217 Diano, C., 248
Creon, 8, 17, 18, 30, 57, 59, 64, Didaskein, 135-7
75» 130, 150, 171, 177, 201-2, Dike phonou, 82
211-12, 229; in the prologue, n- Dinarchus, 218
13, 19, 22, 24-5, 54, 60, 80, 81, Dio Chrysostom, 206, 266
in, 118, 121, 131, 141, 151, Diodotus (ap. Th.), 75, 256
182, 237-8 242, 245, 252; — dap. Lys.), 92
quarrel with O., 13, 15-18, 25- Diogeiton, 92
6, 28, 30, 60, 86-90, 1 1 2 , 122, Diogenes Laertius, 223, 233
134, 136, 142, 152, 177, 215, Dionysus, 10, 47, 77, 115, 160,
222; final scene, 49, 152, 187-94, 180, 236, 243; Dionysiac, 125
204; in O.G., 226 Diophantus, 148, 251
Creusa, 207 Diorizein, 148, 153, 156, 172, 252
Critias, 163 Dorian, 44, 92; Doric, 118
Croesus, 35, 36, 38 Dran, 14, 187, 201, 219
Croiset, M., 222, 239 Dreams, 178, 261
Cronos, 64
Cylon, 63 Earle, M. L., 215, 232, 235-7, 248,
Cypris, 34
Cypselus, 166, 214 254-5, 264
Egypt» 37, 150, 205
Cyrus, 36, 37, 257 Ehrenberg, V., 209, 215, 222, 233
Eiké, 145, 247-8, 254
Damon, 217 Eksairô, 162, 175, 256
Darius, 36 Eksekinêsas, 111, 234
Date of the O. T., 200 Eleatic, the, 118
Deiknymi, 134-5, 243-4 Electra, 214. See also Sophocles,
Deioces, 23 Electro, and Euripides, Electra
Delian League, 104 Eleusis, 236
Dêlos dêloô, 134-5, 161-2, 234-5 Elfis, 22, 221-2
Pelphi, 9, n, 13, 17, 24, 30, 33, Embateusai, 93, 230
2
75
 O E D I P U S AT THEBES

Empedocles, 236, 243 Freeman, K., 208, 237-8, 250

Enwous, 125-6, 241 Freud, S., 1-3, 197-8, 251
Enthymion, 91 Fritz, Kurt von, 208
Epicharmus, 125, 240, 250 Funeral Speech (Pericles'), 60, 69,
Eposf 25, 203 71, 160
Equality, 148, 150-5, 157; equation,
147, 149—58. See also Isos. Galen, 247, 249
Eratosthenes, 92, 95 Garnet, Father, 62
Erinyes, 206 Geryon, 165
Erôtêsis, 95 Gignôskô, 124-5, 19°» 24°
Errandonea, I., 100 Glanis, 208
Eteocles, 148 Glaucus, 160
Euboeans, 37 Gnome, 20, 21, 41, 124-5, I ^3>
Euclid, 148, 252 240
Euelpides, 221 Golden Bough, The, 236
Euenus, 242 Goodwin, W. W., 213
Eumaeus, 266 Gorgias, no, 117, 129, 131; G.
Euphemus, 60 Palamedes, no, 226-31, 250
Euphron, 214 Greene, W. C., 199, 203-4, 206
Eupolis, 217, 241, 256 Grene, David, 200
Euripides, 44, 53, 58, 150, 164-6, Gyges, 37, 58, 160
169, 206, 212, 219, 252, 265;
Hipp., 34, 204; Ph., 44, 148, 206, Hades, 176
237, 250, 262, 265; Ion., 45, 207, Hagneia, 94, 174
214, 257; Ale., 164, 257, 261-2; Halys, 36
Hel, 45, 207-8, 235, 240; H. F., Hamartia, 29—31
62, 164, 263; Andr., 67; Ba., Hamlet, i, 3; Hamlet, 200
125, 241; Or., 164, 243, 245, Harmodius, 214
247, 250, 257, 262; TV., 165, Hecuba, 165
237, 255, 257; Cyc., 166, 257; Heilman, R., 211
Heracl., 198, 200, 212, 219; I.A., Helen, 131
207; EL, 207, 212, 214, 248, Helicon, 131, 180, 198
264; Supp., 216; Hec., 245, 258; Helmbold, W. C., 204, 206
Med., 244; Fr., 208, 239, 258, Hephaestus, 166
261 Hera, 236
Eurystheus, 220 Heracles, 62, 164-5, 203-4, 224;
Euxitheus, 92 Heraclid, 37
Heraclitus, 248
Farnell, L. R., 236 Hermae, 74, 76, 82
Fate, 1-4, 7-9, 33-41, 200, 201, Hermann, 237
204-5 Hermes, 62, 180, 207
Ferguson, W. S., 258 Hermocrates, 218
Fergusson, F., 263 Hero Alexandrinus, 252
Fortune, 23, 144-5. See also Chance Herodes, 76, 86, 89, 97-8
and Tyche. Herodotus, 23, 34-8, 44, 68, 70-71,
Four Hundred, the, 88 75-6, 121, 123, 150, 160, 165,
Fraenlcel, E., 237, 251 171, 202, 204-6, 2θ8, 212, 214,
Fränkel, H., 239 217-21, 223, 239, 242-4, 249,
Frazer, Sir James G., 236 251-2
276
 INDEX

Hesiod, 235, 237, 257 Zsos, isod, etc., 147-54, 157, 250-1,
Hesychius, 246 253
Heurein, 128-31, 163, 242-3 Italy, 118
Hippias, 37 Ithome, 69
— sophiste, 107, 213
Hippocrates, father of Pisistratus, 36 Jaeger, W., 238, 258
— medicus, 247; Hippocratic, no, Jebb, Sir Richard, 53-4, 57, 146,
119, 139» 141-3» 162, 240, 243- 178, 183, 197, 199, 205, 209,
6; Hippocratica, 201; Acut., 245- 214, 234, 236, 240-1, 242-4,
6; Aer., 143, 238, 245-6, 249; 248-9, 251-3, 260, 264-5
Aft., 246; Aph., 245, 249, 256; Jesus, 39-40
De Arte, 144, 240, 245, 247, 250; Jocasta, 7, 14, 16, 22-3, 28, 42,
Art., 245-7, M9, 250; Decent., 46-8, 59-6o, 72, 89, 93, loo,
162, 245, 256; Epid., 143, 145, 114, 119, 121-7, 132, 134-6,
244-9; F«*·, 249; Flat., 240, 245, 143-5, 152-6, 164, 168, 177-81,
248-9; Fract., 245-8, 250; Haem., 185, 189, 198, 209, 211, 248,
246; Int., 244-5, 248-50; Liqu., 253-4, 260, 261; and the oracles,
245; Loc. Horn., 144, 247; Medic., 171-6, 204; and foresight, 143-6;
246, 249; Morl·., 233, 244-6, suicide of, 6, 112; attempts to stop
248-50; Morl·. Sacr., 139, 245-6, O., 13, 18, 30, 52, 68, 187, 201;
259; MM/., 246; Off., 249; Prog., in E. Ph., 148, 150, 250
141, 144, 239, 245-7, 249; John, St., 206
Prorrh., 240, 247, 249; Salubr., Jones, W. H. S., 238, 246
246; V. C, 245, 247, 249; V. M., Kakotechnia, go, 229
no, 119, 129, 139, 140, 142, Kamerbeek, J. C., 235
144, 238, 240, 242-6, 255; Viet., Kitto, H. D. F., 264
249, 261; Vic., 246, 249 Kleingünther, Α., 242
Historein, 121-2, 238-9 Kolazein, 97, 231
Homer, 133, 237, 257; Homeric, Komizein, 143, 204, 246
168; Iliad, 9, 170, 200, 205, 237; Kouphizein, 140-1, 244-5
Odyssey, 213; Hymns, 200, 213, Kratynein, Kratos, etc. 181-2 193
236, 243, 257 Ksenos, 21, 54, 202
Hornosporon, 115
Hybris, 54, 102-3 Labdacus, 56, 86
Hypoholimaeus, The, 258 Laius, 6-7, 12-14, 16, 19, 24, 46-7,
Hypoulos, 147, 249 49, 77, 79, 81-2, 86, 91, 93-4,
i n , 113, 130, 149, 154, 172,
lamblichus, Comm. Math., 238, 174, 177, 181-2, 192, 194, 198,
251-2; In Nie., 254 202, 239; murder of, 18, 22, 25-
Ion, 165, 207. See also Euripides, 6, 28, 30, 41, 58, 80, 84, 92,
Ion. 95, 121, 123, 130, 131, 133, 142-
Ionian, 121 3, 153, 156, 225, 242, 263;
Iris, 263 oracle given to, 33, 40, 46, 123,
Isaeus, 230 I7I-3, 175-6, 206, 210, 255,
Isagoras, 75 260; L. basileus, 55-6; and the
Ismene, 212 2d stasimon, ιοο-ι, 232
Ismenus, 9, 159 Leonidas, 36, 205
Isocrates, 217-18, 220-1, 223-4, Leon tes, 236
244, 262 "Liberator," 137-8, 149
277
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Liddell and Scott, 197, 243, 248-50, Murray, G., 199

252 Mycerinus, 37, 43, 204, 259
Liparein, 190
Littré, 247 Naupactus, 65, 68
Livingstone, Sir Richard, 265 Neoptolemus, 141, 248
Loxias, 173, 212, 260 Nesdé, W., 201
Lucretius, 224 Nicander, 246
Luke, St., 206 Nicias, 44, 68, 72, 256-7
Lycidas, 76 Nicomachus, 250, 254
Lycurgus, 160 Nilsson, M., 46, 209, 236
Lycurgus orator, 216, 223, 231-2 Nous, 125-6, 240-1
Lycus, 62, 216
Lydia, 36, 58 O tan, 96, 231
Lysias, 85, 92, 95, 216, 226-32; Oceanus, 257
[Lys.], 70, 220 Odysseus, 114, 166, 266
Lysistratus, 37 Oedipus, independence of his ac-
tion, 6-7, ίο, 12, 29, 38-9, 41-2,
Macaria, 198, 201 51; responsibility, 5, 7, 12-14,
Macedonian, 167 32, ιοί, 186-7," 201, 206; char-
Magi, 36-7 acter, 14-29, 41-2, 187-90, 201,
Maidment, K. J., 229 203; hamartia, 29-31; greatness,
Manthanein, 135-7 50-1; tyrannos, 11, 14, 21, 53-
Marathon, 68, 70, 74, 219-20 66, ι ο 1-2, 147, i59-6o, 212;
Mardonius, 208 anger, 6, 26-8; peripeteia, 31-3,
Mark, St., 206 204; and Tiresias, 6-8, 22, 24,
Masqueray, P., 215, 253, 264 27, 30» 83-6, 121, 130, 133-4»
Massagetae, 36 136-7» 151-*» l69, 203, 221;
Mathematics, 128, 147-8, 154, 157, and Creon, 11-12, 15, 17-18,
250-2 22, 24-6, 28, 30, 49, 55, 59-6o,
Matthew, St., 39, 206 86-90, 121, 136, 142, 151, 185,
Measure, 45, no, 140, 150, 157, 189-94, 202-3, 211, 229, 242,
161, 169, 184. See also Metron. 252; and Jocasta, 13, 16, 18,
Medicine, 139-47 22, 30, 46, 59-6o» 91-3» IM»
Meidias, 87 121, 123, 132, 136, 143-6, 153-
Meier-Schomann, 224 6, 171-80, 254; and the Corin-
Meletus, 95 thian, 19-20, 95-6, 127, 137,
Melissos, 252-3 143, 154, 157, 263; and the
Melos, 164; Melians, 232 shepherd, 19, 95-8; and Pericles,
Menander, 258 23, 63-4, 77, 202; and Athens,
Menelaus, 35, 67, 164, 257 6ο-1, 64-78, 99—106, 218-9; and
Menyein, 80, 224 chance, 176-80; and the gods,
Merope, 92, 152, 179-80 181-4, 262; and Polyhus, 37; and
Metron, etc., 150, 152-3, 157, 250, the Sphinx, 20, 50, 124, 131,
252 133» I49Î and prophecy, 33, 40,
Miller, H. W., 244-5, 249 43, 172-3, 176, 260; and the
Mitchell, T., 236 scientific spirit, 116-17; and
Mitylene, 70, 75, 216; Mityleneans, clarity, 13 3-5; intellectual progress,
77, 215, 221 47-8, 168-9, I2°» 2°9ϊ name,
Moira, 174, 195, 204, 257 182-4, 264; as helmsman, 112-

278
 INDEX

13; as ploughman, 113-15; as 195, 202, 215, 217» 220, 233,

hunter, 111-12; as investigator, 255-6, 260. See also Oedipus.
80-2, 87-98, 117-24, 150; as Peripeteia, 31-2, 120, 131. See also
questioner, 121-2, 239; as ac- Oedipus.
cused, 86, 91, 94-5; as revealer, Persians, 35, 58, 68, 70; Persian,
131-4; as teacher, 135-7; as dis- 68-9, 76, 216, 219; Persian War,
coverer, 128-31, 243; as physi- 36, 66, 68-9
cian, 139-47; as mathematician, Peter, St., 39-40
M7-57; as savior, 137-8; as Phainein, 98, 131-3, 243
liberator, 137-8; as beggar, 190-1, Pharnaces, 262
265-6; and thé 2d stasimon, 99- Pheidippides, 244
106; in the exodus, 49, 185-95, Phêmê, n, 259
265—6; as paradeigma, 48—9, 98, Phidias, 104
137-8, 157; Oedipus of Achaeus, Philocleon, 76
246 Philoctetes, 248
Oedipus complex, 5 Philolaos, 148, 250
Oida, 127-8, 149, 183-4, 189, 264 Phoebus, 171, 173, 207, 232
Olympia, 46, 117; Olympians, 61, Phormio, 68-9, 257
167-8 Phragmos, 147, 249
Olympus, 93, 102, 154, 174 Phrontis, 126-7, 241
Owos, 93, 230 Phrynichus, 209
Onomacritus, 208 Physis, 142-3, 246
Orestes, 61, 204, 214, 257 Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., 236
Pack, R. A., 201, 205 Pindar, 166, 219, 237, 243
Page, D. L., 244-6 Pisistratus, 36, 71; Pisitratids, 64,
Pagondas, 256 208
Palamedes, 129, 148. 150, 255 Plague, the: at Thebes, 26, 63, 114,
Paley, F. A., 251 151; Apollo and, 9-10, 182, 200;
Pallas, 9 Oedipus and, 21, 126, 140-2,
Pan, 180, 212 147; at Athens, 44, 63, 74, 142,
Pancration, 177 163, 169, 202, 249; in the
Paradeigma, 78, 224. See also Iliad, 9
Oedipus, as paradeigma. Plataea, 68, 76; Plataeans, 256
Paralogos, 256-7 Plato, 97, 109-10, 125, 162, 167,
Parnassus, in, 198 184; Ale., 213; Αρ., 226, 230-1,
Parthenon, 104 237, 262; Cm., 208, 238, 262;
Pausanias, 200, 257, 259, 261-2 Cri., 230; Crttt., 235; Epin.t 254;
— Imperator, 68, 219 Eutlnd., 232; Euthphr., 213, 232,
Pearson, A. C, 199, 235, 252, 252, 255; Grg., 216, 226, 244,
264-5 250; Lg., 83, 225, 228-9, 231,
Peitho, 257 245, 252, 255, 257-8, 264; Men.,
Pelasgians, 123, 239 237, 252; Prtn., 251; Phd., 251;
Peloponnesian War, 9, 44-5, 58, Phdr., 242, 251, 255; PMfr., 248;
75, 123 Pit., 237; Prt., 107, 129; R., 160,
Penelope, 213, 265 212, 214, 233, 237-8, 251, 255»
Perdiccas, 70 257; Sph., 118, 237-8; Stwp.,
Pericles, 23, 60, 63-7, 69-77, 92, 261; Tfit., 118, 162, 208, 238,
103-7, 160, 164, 168-9, 177, 256; Ti., 241, 243, 249

279
 OEDIPUS AT THEBES

Plautus, 63 fiegn}'ini, etc., 146, 248-9

Ploutos, 217, 261-2 Rhymes, 264
Plutarch, 60, 64, 82, 197; Per., 215, Robert Q. 201, 242
217, 221, 259-60; Ale., 224; De Röscher, W. H., 258, 262
cur., 119, 235, 238-9; De g/or. Ruhl, L., 258, 262
Ath., 218; De fort., 237; non
p0sse siiav,, 261 "Sacred marriage," 114-15, 236
Pohlenz, 211 Salamis, 37, 44, 68-9
PoJis, 53, 102; P. tyrannos, 103 Samos, 102, 216; Samian, 168
(and see Athens, tyranwos) Saphês, 133-4, 144, 190, 243
Pollux, 234-5, 261 Sardis, 73
Polybius, 167, 258 "Savior/' 137-8, 149, 181, 244,
Polybus, 7, 20, 37, 86, 92, 95, 122,
152, 155-6, 176, 178, 260; death
263
Scholiast, 26, 159, 201, 203, 265
of, 13, 26, 29, 37, 143, 154, 183 Schweighaeuser, J., 238
Polycrates, 214 Scythes, 165
Polydorus, 56 Scythian, 165
Polynices, 198 Selene, 262
Polyphemus, 166 Seneca, 235
Pompeius, 205 Servius, 205
Pontus, 165, 262 Sextus Empiricus, 208
POMS, 149, 182-4 Shakespeare, 62, 216, 236
Powell, J. E., 238 Shepherd, the, 16, 52, 92, 117, 127,
I
Prassern, 14, 201 3°» J 35, !55~6, 204; interroga-
Priest, the, 9-10, 14, 20-1, 62-3, tion of, 19-20, 95-8, 122, 215,
121, 124, 126, 130, 136-7, 140, 239
147-50, 159, 176-7, 181, 193, Sheppard, J. C., 100, 199
242 Sicily, 45, 60, 69, 74, 76, 209, 217,
Progress, 108-9, 116, 139, 150 257
Prolegein, 143, 145, 247 Sicyon, 214
Promanteia, 259 Simplicius, 253, 261
Prometheus, 62, 109, 124, 126, 137, Skeptic, 121
139» 145, MS. See also Aeschy-
lus, P. V. Skopein, 120-1, 238
Pronoia, 143-4, 247 Socrates, 90, 95, 118, 126, 162,
Prophecy, 3, 5-6, 33, 35, 37-46, 194, 230, 237, 241
123-4, 137, 143-4, 154, 156-8, Sophist, 62, 107, no, 117, 134-5,
171-6, 178. See also Oedipus, 162; sophistic, 28, 88, 136
and Laius. Sophocles, 5, 9-11, 33-4, 37, 42,
Prostates, 84, 103, 175, 215, 233 44, 51, 53, 61, 64, 91, 100-2,
Protagoras, 45, 109-10, 117, 129, 109, 119, 126, 129, 141-3» 147-
140, 150, 161-3, l&9> I 75> 2°8, 8, 150, 161, 168, 203, 234, 240,
256; Primitive Conditions, 109; 249, 252-3; Aj., 35, 219, 235,
On the Gods, 161, 256. See also 237; Ant., 102, 107-8, 116, 139,
Plato, Protagoras. l6l, 212, 217, 221, 234-5; El.,
Pylades, 204, 214 214, 226, 234, 240, 251, 261;
Pylos, 208, 220 O.C., 203, 219, 226, 237, 240;
Pytho, 89, 121; Pythian, 160, 176 Tr., 234, 237; Phil, 141, 203,
Pythonicus, 254 209, 246, 248; Nauplius, 129,
280
 INDEX

148, 242; Palamedes, 129, 242; 168, 200-3, 2,07-8, 214-24, 229,
Ichneutae, 235, 245; Fr., 219, 233, 235, 238-40, 242-6, 249,
237, 240, 249-50, 254 256, 260
Sparta, 36, 44, 61, 65-6, 69, 71, Tiresias, 12, 15, 17-18, 20, 22, 24,
219; Spartan, 63-7, 69, 71-2, 26-30, 45-6, 48, 50, 64, 68, 72,
74-5, 168, 219; Spartans, 36, 66, 75, 82-7, 91, i n , 113, 115, 117,
75, 160, 169, 208, 256 120-Ι, 123, 125, 130, 132-4,
Sphacteria, 72 136-8, 142, 151-2, 156, 169-
Sphinx, thé, 20, 41, 84, 127, 131, 73, 175-7, 182, 184, 187, 195,
133» 138, 150, 152, 170, 177, 198-9, 203, 210, 212, 215, 221,
181, 182, 215; riddle of, 15, 20, 227, in E. Ph., 44. See also
24, 50, 72, 117, 124, 136, 149, Oedipus.
170, 179, 237. See also Oedipus. Torture of slaves, 97-8, 231-2
Spiral, 168, 258-9 "Tragedy of Fate," 3-5
Statius, 224 Troy, 120, 166; Trojans, 220
Stesimbrotus, 169 Tyche, 165-8, 176-9, 181, 247,
Sthenelaidas, 256 256-8, 260-62
Strabo, 262 Tyrannos, 25, 32, 43, 46, 99, 100,
Strepsiades, 78, 122, 126, 137, 102-3, 112, 116, 149, 151, 157,
243-4 175, l8l-3, 187-91, 194, 212-
Syracuse, 68, 70, 72, 92, 128, 220, 15; Pericles, 64; Cypselus, 166.
257 See also Athens ana Oedipus.
T achy s, 15-7, 188 Virgil, 242
Tanagra, 74 Vitruvius, 242
Tegeans, 68 Waldock, A. J. A., 201
Tekmairesthai, 120, 122-4, J^9, Whitman, C. H., 203, 209-11, 222
239-40 Wilamowitz, 252
Tethys, 257 Wolff, G., 258
Thasos, 141, 145, 216 Wormhoudt, A., 197-8
Thebes, i, 10-12, 14, 18, 20, 23, Wyse, W., 230
26, 32, 37, 40, 54, 56-8, 60, 63, Wyttenbach, 197
73» 75, 77, 80, 81, 84, 93, 114,
135-6, 138, 147, M9-50, 172, Xanthias, 59
174, 176, 179, 181, 187, 200, Xenophanes, 125, 253
212, 216, 261. See also Plague. Xenophon, H. G., 214, 223; Hier.,
Theios, 46, 209 214; Smp., 255; Mem., 224, 240,
Themistocles, 73, 201, 216, 221 250; Ages., 263; Cyn., 234
Theocritus, 235 [Xenophon], Ath., 78, 218, 224
Theognis, 251 Xenophon sculptor, 262
Theophrastus, 244-5 Xerxes, 35-6
Thermopylae, 36, 219 Xuthus, 207
Theseus, 212, 216, 219, 226
Thetis, 205 Zeno, 251
Thirty Tyrants, the, 163 Zêtein, etc., 80-1, 117-20, 149,
Thomson, G., 216 157, 234, 237-8
Thucydides, 44, 54, 60, 64, 67, 69- Zeus, ίο, 38, 46, 62-3, 86, 91, 94,
71, 73-4, 76, 82, 105, 119, 123, 109, 154, 159-60, 166, 170, 181-
128, 133, 142, 160, 163, 165, 3, 194, 206, 209-11, 236
281
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