The Fall of Oedipus

We return today to the saga of Oedipus, the beleaguered King of Thebes (for the previous and first episode of the story, please click here). Having received word from the sacred Oracle at Delphi, King Oedipus discovered that in order for Apollo to lift the plague which stalks the streets of Thebes, he must hunt down and cast out the murderer of King Laius, Oedipus' predecessor. Vowing to exile the culprit himself, Oedipus embarked upon a campaign of discovery, piecing together the events surrounding his rise to the throne (when the Oracle had decreed that Oedipus would kill his own father and be wed to his own mother), and the murder of Laius. The blind prophet Tiresias denounced Oedipus himself as the murderer, much to the latter's disgust, yet Queen Jocasta sought to sooth her King's pain by reassuring him that Laius was killed at a crossroads by robbers, so it could not possibly have been Oedipus. Or could it?

The Corinthian lands
Photograph by the author.

Whilst urgently awaiting the arrival of the sole survivor of the massacre which took the life of Laius, Oedipus grows more and more agitated. Memories of his old life flood his mind, as his thoughts race, twist and turn to the time when he himself walked the road from Delphi to Thebes, and was himself assailed at a crossroads. Jocasta says that Laius was killed “at a place where three roads meet”, which reminds him all too ominously of where Oedipus slew that vulgar man and his entourage. Oedipus asks Jocasta to describe Laius:

                                    “ He was swarthy...

                                      And the gray had just begun to streak his temples,

                                      And his build... wasn’t far from yours... ”

                                                  - JOCASTA DESCRIBES LAIUS

Terror floods Oedipus, perhaps that blind seer could see? Just as he is about to resign himself to have fulfilled Apollo's terrible curse, a messenger suddenly arrives from Corinth. He tells Oedipus that his father, King Polybus is now dead, and that he is the rightful King of Corinth! Oedipus quickly demands to know how he died, was it murder? Sickness? What? Old age, the messenger assures him. Jocasta is relieved, there surely, is proof that the prophecy was false after all? Oedipus recovers a little of his former confidence. If it is as Jocasta and this man say, then he is in the clear.

The Messenger with the infant Oedipus
Sculpture by Antoine-Denis Chaudet.

Rejoicing in the news, Oedipus tells the messenger that he must not face Queen Merope of Corinth, his mother, for the second line of the prophecy could still, however dreadful, come to pass. "What prophecy is this?", the messenger asks. Oedipus repeats the fateful verse, that he is fated to murder his father and be wed to his mother. "Why don't I rid you of that old worry now?" says the messenger. So the messenger begins his story, that once as a young man whilst tending his flocks in the mountain pastures of Mount Cithaeron, a stranger gave to him an infant. An infant whose ankles were painfully bound. Oedipus remembers the deformity in his own feet that had plagued his movement for as long as he could remember. That baby was given by the messenger to King Polybus, who adopted it as his own, and raised him as his own son. Who gave this baby to him? Another shepherd, the messenger remembers, a servant "he called himself a servant of... if I remember lightly - Laius". Jocasta sharply turns to the messenger, "the king of the land who ruled here long ago?". "That's the one", he assures her. Upon asking his court if anyone knows of this servant, they reply that he is in fact the same man who survived the attack at the place where three roads meet, whom Oedipus has sent for. Jocasta, dread realisation spreading through her, begs Oedipus to call off his investigation, for his own sake. Oedipus is adamant, he must discover the truth. He vowed before the gods themselves that he would cast out Laius' murderer, and he alone can do so. Ordering the servant to speed his way to the court, Queen Jocasta runs screaming to her bedroom, bemoaning the "man of agony" that is her son.

An old shepherd is brought to the palace, reluctantly coming before King Oedipus. The messenger from Corinth is exultant, "He's your man!" he tells Oedipus. Oedipus questions him closely, did he truly hand over a baby to the messenger? "What? Why rake that up again?" the shepherd wails. Desperatedly trying to evade questioning and revealing the truth, the shepherd screams for Oedipus to ask no more. Threatening him with torture, Oedipus forces him to go on. "Queen Jocasta gave the infant to me", he despairs. Oedipus asks why she would do this. Out of fear of a prophecy, the shepherd responds, "they said - he'd kill his parents...". But why did the shepherd give the infant to this Corinthian? "I pitied the little baby, master", he could not bear to leave it to die on the harsh mountain slopes, and hoped it would receive a better lot in life far away in a distant land. Realisation of the whole truth, the terrible truth, that he had been a pawn of the gods his whole life, now one dreadful curse, Oedipus chokes on the fact that his father was slain by his own hand and that his four children were sprung from his own mother and wife:

      

                  “ O god -

                    all come true, all burst to light!

                    O light - now let me look my last on you!

                    I stand revealed at last -

                    cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage,

                    cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands! ”

                                           - THE TERRIBLE TRUTH STRIKES OEDIPUS

Hurtling back into the depths of his palace, Oedipus curses his fate with a great cry. The courtiers all despair at how the Fates can fell even the greatest of men, remembering the old days when Oedipus had saved them all from the Sphinx, only now to taint the land with his terrible curse. A shout echoes from within the palace - Queen Jocasta has hanged herself. Oedipus breaks into her chamber howling with rage. Bellowing at the guards to bring him a sword so that he too might die, he circles the body of his wife and mother. Changing his mind, Oedipus tears two brooch pins from his mothers corpse. Holding them high, and looking straight down the sharp pins, he thrusts them into his eyes. As the dark blood flows from his sockets, Oedipus cries:

               

                 “ You,

                    You'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused

                    Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen,

                    blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind

                    from this hour on! Blind in the darkness - blind! ”

                                         - OEDIPUS DRIVES THE PINS INTO HIS EYES



Oedipus in Exile
Painting by Fulchran-Jean Harriet.

 Emerging slowly from the palace, led by a boy, the blinded Oedipus begs Creon, his uncle and brother-in-law, to enact the decree which Oedipus himself laid out, and exile him. Creon vows to consult the gods to ask what to do, but Oedipus is relentless, he must go. Hearing sobbing behind him, Oedipus turns and hears the voices of Antigone and Ismene, his daughters yet also his sisters. Weeping for them to have been born into such an accursed family, Oedipus begs Creon to look after them, a promise Creon makes. Oedipus offers his hand to Creon, who swiftly backs away, loath to touch the polluted man. Resigned to despair, Oedipus sets out on the road once again, this time a cursed exile, destined to be despised by gods and men for the rest of his days.

So ends Oedipus the King, the first episode of the Three Theban Plays. Regarded as a master stroke of dramatic storytelling, and a model for all future tragedies even in ancient times, the story of Oedipus and his progeny is as potent today as it ever was before. As clichéd as 'on the edge of your seat drama' has become today, this is what started that very sentiment. The story of Oedipus is very easily available, for a nominal price from Amazon. I strongly urge you to give them a go:

United Kingdom

The Three Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus):
The Three Theban Plays (Penguin Classics)
(A masterpiece. Accessible, readable, enjoyable)

The Library of Greek Mythology:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A much later book of mythology, containing the backstory of Oedipus)

United States

The Three Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus):
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus
(A masterpiece. Accessible, readable, enjoyable)

The Library of Greek Mythology:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A much later book of mythology, containing the backstory of Oedipus)

Oedipus the King

Some men were born to suffer. One such man was Oedipus. No matter how noble your heart, how skilled in war, how quick of wit or how reverent toward the skies, the gods cared nothing if you harboured pride within your soul. The gods were fickle. One moment you could be a broken pauper, another a great king, the most admired man in town, to an accursed blight on the land. This is the story of such a man.

Oedipus and the Sphinx
Painting by François-Xavier Fabre

One day, the young prince Oedipus hears a drunk man at a banquet shout at him that he is not the true son of King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth. Angered by the man's ill words, Oedipus questions the King and Queen, who are enraged at the accusation and the foolish man who spread it. Though reassured by their words, the slander and rumours spread, and Oedipus decides to make sure, setting off  with a limp (caused by an injury to his feet he could not remember) on the road to Delphi - the centre of the world and home to Apollo's most holy Oracle. Asking the priestess of the sanctuary if the rumours are true, Oedipus was horrified by her response. "You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see - you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!" Revulsion and terror coursing through his frame, Oedipus fled the sanctuary, and so that the terrible prophecy may never come to pass, Oedipus resolves never to return to Corinth and the court of his mother and father. Taking to the road, running, burdened with shame, Oedipus comes to a crossroads, where a wagon approaches, within which several people ride. Ordering the saddened man to make way, one of the men moves to strike Oedipus with his sceptre. Angered by this insult, Oedipus lashes out and fells the man and his companions, all but for one who escapes. Following the road onward, just before reaching the city of Thebes, a strange sight greets the eyes of Oedipus - a creature with the haunches of a lion, the wings of an eagle and the face and chest of a woman. A Sphinx, one of the dread brood of Typhon and Echidna (for more on this, click here), guarding the road to Thebes. The Thebans had once heard an oracle that they would be freed of the Sphinx if they could answer her riddle, and so many had debated and attempted to answer. All attempts so far had failed, and the Sphinx had slain and devoured all those who had failed to answer her riddle. The Sphinx now fixed Oedipus with her murderous stare and posed the cryptic question:

                “ What speaks with one voice, walks with four feet in the morning,

                   Two at midday and three in the evening? ”

                                    - THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX                                                

Boldly confident and possessed of a sharp intellect, Oedipus replies:

                “ A man, for he is four footed as a baby when he crawls on all fours,

                  two footed as an adult and takes on a third limb as a walking stick in old age. ”

                                    - OEDIPUS SOLVES THE RIDDLE

Furious that her scheme was unveiled, the Sphinx hurls herself from her rock to her death. The Thebans rejoice, and hail Oedipus as their saviour, rewarding him with their throne and the hand of their Queen Jocasta, whose husband King Laius had recently been killed.

The Plague of Thebes
Painting by Charles François Jalabert.

One day, many years later, plague once again strikes the city of Thebes. The people suffer and die. A priest ventures to the palace of Thebes, to the court of King Oedipus and Queen Jocasta, and their two daughters, Antigone and Ismene, and their two sons, Eteocles and Polynices. Begging for Oedipus to save the Theban people once again, the priest see the concern in his King's eyes. Oedipus expresses sorrow for the lot of the people, and reveals he had already sent his brother-in-law, Creon, to the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi to determine how they are to be rid of this pestilence, and that even now he awaits his return. Just then, Creon returns, bearing grave news. Asking to go inside and discuss it privately, Oedipus joyfully rebukes him, telling him to reveal the god's words here, in front of the people and before him, for after all, it was he and he alone who saved the people from the Sphinx and he vows to do so again. Creon reveals that Apollo demands that the killer of King Laius, who was murdered shortly before Oedipus's arrival, be brought to justice. Vowing to bring divine wrath upon the culprit and cursing him for the plague he spreads, Oedipus enquires as to Laius' murder. "He went to consult an oracle, Apollo said, and he set out and never came home again", Creon tells him. Was there no one who saw this most heinous crime? asked King Oedipus. "No, they were all killed but one", came the reply, and word that the lone survivor had fled in terror, claiming they had been ambushed by robbers. Calling himself Apollo's champion, Oedipus declares that he will not stop in his pursuit of the truth.

Promising that if the culprit comes forward, he will face only exile, Oedipus sends for the blind prophet Tiresias, through whom the visions and knowledge of Apollo flow. Oedipus asks him what he knows of Laius' killer and the blind prophet trembles, begging the King to allow him to go. But quick-witted Oedipus bids him stay and tell all he knows. When the prophet stubbornly refuses to speak, Oedipus' temper begins to wear, shouting at Tiresias for allowing the city to fall to doom. Accusing Tiresias himself of slaying Laius, the prophet then cracks, and speaks in anger:

                              “ Is that so!

                                I charge you, then, to submit to that decree

                                You just laid down: from this day onward

                                Speak to no one, not these citizens, not myself.

                                You are the curse, the corruption of the land! ”

                                              - TIRESIAS NAMES OEDIPUS AS THE MURDERER

The Road to Delphi
Photograph by the author.

Furious at his unfounded charge, Oedipus sends the old prophet away, mocking his blindness. Tiresias turns to him, "I pity you, flinging at me the very insults each man here will fling at you so soon". Ridiculing Oedipus' accusation that he is plotting against the throne, the blind prophet tells the King not to forget his words, and departs. Still reeling with anger, and suspicious of all around him, Oedipus turns to greet his Queen, Jocasta, who enters. Asking her husband what is wrong, Oedipus tells her of Tiresias' words. Her face relaxing, Jocasta smiles and begs Oedipus be reassured. A long time ago, she tells him, an oracle came to Laius, declaring that "doom would strike him down at the hands of a son", but Laius was killed by robbers on his way to Delphi "at a place where three roads meet". Not only that, Laius ordered his infant son's feet bound, and the baby cast onto the mountainside, abandoned to die. "There you see? Apollo brought neither thing to pass", Jocasta assures Oedipus. But Oedipus's mind was racing, he had always limped from a forgotten injury, and "a place where three roads meet", that couldn't possibly be the crossroads where he had been assailed by that vile man could it? But the messengers had said Laius was set upon by robbers, not just one man. Quickly asking Jocasta if the man who escaped the murder still lives, she confirms that he does, though far away. Oedipus sends for the man with all haste. Everything depends on his confirmation that there was more than one robber, he thought. If he confirms his old story, his conscience can rest. But if he doesn't, the consequences could be terrible. The fate of Oedipus hung in the balance...

Oedipus the King, widely renowned and lauded as the greatest tragedy ever written, both by contemporaries and modern critics alike, is a masterpiece of theatre. Winning first prize in the theatrical festival in Athens when it was first staged in ancient times, it is the perfect study in tension, drama and suspense. The first act of a grand trilogy, the powerful story of the House of Oedipus is epic indeed. In future posts, we will continue with the saga, from Oedipus' frantic inevstigations to its bitter end. The Trilogy, known as The Three Theban Plays is easily available, at a good price, from Amazon. Read them. They're pretty good.

United Kingdom

The Three Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus):
The Three Theban Plays (Penguin Classics)
(A masterpiece. Accessible, readable, enjoyable)

The Library of Greek Mythology:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A much later book of mythology, containing the backstory of Oedipus)

United States

The Three Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus):
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus
(A masterpiece. Accessible, readable, enjoyable)

The Library of Greek Mythology:
The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
(A much later book of mythology, containing the backstory of Oedipus)