oh, it’s a tragedy, of course it’s a tragedy, how can it be
anything else?
but i think the tragedy is not in his actions, not in the
father he killed nor the mother he wed nor the children he sired. no, it’s not
in what he did, it’s in who he was, the tragedy here is that oedipus was a good man and a good king and unlike so many mythical figures, he did not reap what
he sowed
the tragedy here is not that he was human and erred and suffered
due to his errors.
it’s that he did not err, and suffered, it’s that the sins
of our fathers are our sins too and we cannot escape them
the oracle of delphi gave a prophecy that foretold that any son
of king laius would kill his father and marry his mother. so when his wife and
queen jocasta bore him a son, he had the baby’s ankles nailed together and
ordered him to be left to die.
laius erred. laius planned to kill his son of blood, who had committed no crime, who was in perfect health, who had done nothing but be born. it is laius
who committed the sin of infanticide, and through this sin all other such
events transpired
a shepherd spirits the infant away instead of leaving him to
die, and he is eventually brought to the house of king polybus and queen merope, where
he is adopted. laius and jocasta have no more children, even though this leaves
laius heirless. since we know jocasta will later bear four more children, we
know it is not her whom is the issue here. after laius commits this grievous
crime, he is left sterile, and this, here, is where i believe the curse truly
begins.
the curse over thebes does not begin with oedipus’s rule,
with his supposed transgressions. it begins with his father’s sin.
oedipus grows up a devoted and loving son. he eventually hears
rumors about his strange birth and consults the same oracle his birth father
had, and is told the same prophecy. not knowing he’s adopted, he think the
prophecy refers to polybus and merope, and he flees his home, horrified at the
thought that he could ever harm his beloved parents in such a way.
he’s traveling, and upon a crossroads he meets his birth
father, laius. they do not know or recognize eachother. they quarrel about who may precede
first. it’s important to note that laius is the one who attacks first, who’s so
offended that this unknown man will not move for a king that he tries to kill
him, unknowingly attempting to murder his son a second time.
oedipus kills laius, not knowing he’s a king or his father, rather
than let himself be killed, and fulfills the first part of the prophecy. once
again, it is laius’s actions that are the incendiary actions here. if he had not
attempted to kill oedipus, perhaps he wouldn’t have died. if he hadn’t thrown
his son away, oedipus never would have killed him, since he was so aghast at
the possibility of harming his adopted parents that he ran from his home and
his life rather than risk it.
oedipus acts in self defense. even if he hadn’t, laius had
already tried to kill him once, although neither of them had been aware of it.
a trial by combat would be the least of what oedipus would be owed. he breaks
no laws, does not act in hate or malice or fear. oedipus kills laius, kills his
father, but no great sin is committed. patricide is a sin, but defending
yourself is not, refusing to die is not a sin.
so he travels, and lands upon thebes, where a sphinx has
taken residence, eating anyone who attempts to enter the city and cannot answer
it’s riddle, effectively cutting off all trade to thebes and trapping all its
residents inside, lest they leave and never be able to return. was the sphinx
here when laius left? we do not know. it doesn’t say.
but if it was – did laius leave his city to die? was this
sphinx just another piece of the curse laius had brought down upon thebes by
attempting kill his freshly born son?
oedipus, a cleverer man than any who have yet tried to enter
thebes, answers the sphinx’s riddle, and the creature leaves, having been
defeated by this man’s intellect.
oedipus is a man who has shown himself to be strong enough
to kill a king, and clever enough to defeat a sphinx. he has not harmed any who
did not first try to harm him, was so against committing harm against those he
cared about that he simply left them behind. oedipus so far has shown no fatal
flaw, no poor judgement, nothing damning or ruinous.
jocasta’s brother, creon, had said any man who could rid
thebes of the sphinx would be named king, and given his sister’s hand in marriage.
oedipus had not known about this before arriving. he had not come to thebes
with the intention of becoming king.
but king he becomes.
he is given jocasta’s hand in marriage, and the final
portion of the prophecy is complete. he weds and bed and fathers children with
his birth mother.
notice, however, that this only happens in the first place
because of how honorable and kind oedipus is to begin with.
jocasta is in her forties, at least. she may be a beautiful
woman, but she’s not a young woman. yet there are no accounts of oedipus being
unfaithful, or cruel. jocasta bears him four children, two sons and two
daughters, when during those long years after oedipus she had not had another
child with laius. if oedipus had rejected this widowed queen, said her age made
her unsuitable, had taken mistresses, had kept her as a wife in name only –
then perhaps so much pain could have been spared.
but he didn’t do that. oedipus took a wife twice his age, at
best, took a woman who was not a virgin, who had been the wife of this land’s
former king, and he dedicates himself to her. he is faithful and attentive, and
she must be fond of him, because she later tries to shield him from the truth
when she uncovers it.
which part of his actions can we take account with? yes,
jocasta was his mother, and it is incest – but he didn’t know that. he didn’t
want that. to do otherwise than what he did, to cast aside his gifted bride,
could only be considered cruelty. and oedipus was not cruel.
many years after this marriage, a plague strikes thebes. why
is not clear, because if it were truly due to oedipus’s actions, to the gods
taking offense at this incestuous union between mother and father-killer,
surely it would not have taken years to come to fruition?
but a plague comes, and the oracle says that the only way to
lift it is to see that laius’s killer is brought to justice.
(is it laius, yet again, bringing sorrow upon his city? is
it his restless spirit which curses all of thebes? it is a strange coincidence
that the infertility which he was cursed with after trying to kill his infant
son is the same plight that now faces all of thebes.)
and of course, of
course, honorable and kind oedipus vows to bring the killer to justice,
says that this killer will be exiled for his crime of murdering the king.
exiled, not killed, what a peculiar punishment, what a merciful punishment for a king killer,
what a merciful judgement from a merciful man.
but things unravel, as they do. he tells creon to bring him
the blind prophet tiresias, who tells oedipus that he must stop digging into
this matter. but the good of his city is at stake, so he can’t, of course he can’t,
and tiresias calls him false for not knowing his true parentage. he and creon
quarrel, and slowly, oh so slowly, the truth comes out.
a messenger comes, saying that his adopted father has died,
and oedipus is relieved. not for any malicious reasons, but because it means he
won’t fulfill his prophecy of murdering him. he refuses to go home because
merope is still there, refuses to take up the title of king that is surely his
by right, because he fears harming his mother. when the messenger says that
oedipus is adopted, and there’s no reasons for him not to go home, jocasta finally
realizes that oedipus is her son. she begs him to stop his search for laius’s killer, desperate to
keep the truth from him.
jocasta knows, and tries to protect oedipus. she must
believe he’s worthy of being on the throne, he must have showed her kindness and
affection if she’s so desperate to protect him from the truth, even at the
expense of the well being of thebes.
but oedipus does not listen. he leaves, and finds the shepherd
who gave him to his adopted parents so long ago, and discovers the truth.
he is the son of lauis and jocasta. lauis is the man he
killed at the crossroads. he has killed his fathe and married his mother, all
them each unaware of each other.
after this, there are differing accounts of what happened
next.
sophocles’s account is most popular. he returns to find his
wife and mother jocasta has killed herself, and he takes the pins from her
broach and blinds himself, unable to stand the sight of her. he is then exiled,
as he said laius’s killer would be, and his daughter antigone guides him until
he dies soon after.
in euripides’s version, jocasta does not kill herself.
oedipus is blinded by a servant of laius, and so justice is still served to laius’s
killer, and he continues to rule thebes. i like to think jocasta rules with
him, alive and well, because she no more deserved death than oedipus deserved
blindness.
the tragedy here is not in oedipus. it is in lauis, the
clear villain of this story, the one who damned and hurt and cursed all around
him. he who caused so much strife, and then left it all for his son to fix, for
his son to struggle with.
but he did fix it.
oedipus was a fair and just ruler of thebes, a kind husband
to jocasta, a good father to his children, from all accounts, since antigone was
so devoted to him, and he was disappointed in his sons for their selfishness because that’s not how he raised them.
perhaps oedipus is a story of how our fathers, our
predecessors, those who come before us will curse us and damn us and leave us
more problems than solutions can be found
perhaps oedipus is a cautionary tale, and our tragic figure
is not oedipuis, but laius, who made his own ruin, who’s spiteful hands left
scars on all they touched.
oedipus is a tragedy, but only because it reminds us that
our own undoing, our own unhappy endings, aren’t necessarily within our
control. our own tragedies may not be our fault, may not be due to our
mistakes, maybe we didn’t earn our unhappiness.
it’s not fair.
it’s not fair, and that’s the true tragedy of oedipus. that
good, kind, clever, merciful people can do their absolute best, can show
kindness and sacrifice and love, and in the end it won’t be able to save them
from the mistakes other people have made.
oedipus was a good man, and a good king, and it may not have
saved him – but it saved all those in thebes.
yes, oedipus was blinded. yes, jocasta died.
but the spinx was gone, their line continued, and thebes
thrived.
the tragedy of oedipus is the idea that we’re not in control
of our own destiny.
the triumph of oedipus is the idea that we need not control
it in order to have a destiny worth remembering.
Mooncustafer 