oh, it’s a tragedy, of course it’s a tragedy, how can it beanything else?
but i think the tragedy is not in his actions, not in thefather he killed nor the mother he wed nor the children he sired. no, it’s notin 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 whathe sowed
the tragedy here is not that he was human and erred and suffereddue to his errors.
it’s that he did not err, and suffered, it’s that the sinsof our fathers are our sins too and we cannot escape them
the oracle of delphi gave a prophecy that foretold that any sonof king laius would kill his father and marry his mother. so when his wife andqueen jocasta bore him a son, he had the baby’s ankles nailed together andordered 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 laiuswho committed the sin of infanticide, and through this sin all other suchevents transpired
a shepherd spirits the infant away instead of leaving him todie, and he is eventually brought to the house of king polybus and queen merope, wherehe is adopted. laius and jocasta have no more children, even though this leaveslaius heirless. since we know jocasta will later bear four more children, weknow it is not her whom is the issue here. after laius commits this grievouscrime, he is left sterile, and this, here, is where i believe the curse trulybegins.
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 hearsrumors about his strange birth and consults the same oracle his birth fatherhad, and is told the same prophecy. not knowing he’s adopted, he think theprophecy refers to polybus and merope, and he flees his home, horrified at thethought that he could ever harm his beloved parents in such a way.
he’s traveling, and upon a crossroads he meets his birthfather, laius. they do not know or recognize eachother. they quarrel about who may precedefirst. it’s important to note that laius is the one who attacks first, who’s sooffended that this unknown man will not move for a king that he tries to killhim, unknowingly attempting to murder his son a second time.
oedipus kills laius, not knowing he’s a king or his father, ratherthan let himself be killed, and fulfills the first part of the prophecy. onceagain, it is laius’s actions that are the incendiary actions here. if he had notattempted to kill oedipus, perhaps he wouldn’t have died. if he hadn’t thrownhis son away, oedipus never would have killed him, since he was so aghast atthe possibility of harming his adopted parents that he ran from his home andhis life rather than risk it.
oedipus acts in self defense. even if he hadn’t, laius hadalready 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 breaksno laws, does not act in hate or malice or fear. oedipus kills laius, kills hisfather, but no great sin is committed. patricide is a sin, but defendingyourself is not, refusing to die is not a sin.
so he travels, and lands upon thebes, where a sphinx hastaken residence, eating anyone who attempts to enter the city and cannot answerit’s riddle, effectively cutting off all trade to thebes and trapping all itsresidents inside, lest they leave and never be able to return. was the sphinxhere when laius left? we do not know. it doesn’t say.
but if it was – did laius leave his city to die? was thissphinx just another piece of the curse laius had brought down upon thebes byattempting kill his freshly born son?
oedipus, a cleverer man than any who have yet tried to enterthebes, answers the sphinx’s riddle, and the creature leaves, having beendefeated by this man’s intellect.
oedipus is a man who has shown himself to be strong enoughto kill a king, and clever enough to defeat a sphinx. he has not harmed any whodid not first try to harm him, was so against committing harm against those hecared about that he simply left them behind. oedipus so far has shown no fatalflaw, no poor judgement, nothing damning or ruinous.
jocasta’s brother, creon, had said any man who could ridthebes 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 thebeswith the intention of becoming king.
he is given jocasta’s hand in marriage, and the finalportion of the prophecy is complete. he weds and bed and fathers children withhis birth mother.
notice, however, that this only happens in the first placebecause of how honorable and kind oedipus is to begin with.
jocasta is in her forties, at least. she may be a beautifulwoman, but she’s not a young woman. yet there are no accounts of oedipus beingunfaithful, or cruel. jocasta bears him four children, two sons and twodaughters, when during those long years after oedipus she had not had anotherchild with laius. if oedipus had rejected this widowed queen, said her age madeher 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, atbest, took a woman who was not a virgin, who had been the wife of this land’sformer king, and he dedicates himself to her. he is faithful and attentive, andshe must be fond of him, because she later tries to shield him from the truthwhen 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’twant 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. whyis not clear, because if it were truly due to oedipus’s actions, to the godstaking 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 tolift it is to see that laius’s killer is brought to justice.
(is it laius, yet again, bringing sorrow upon his city? isit his restless spirit which curses all of thebes? it is a strange coincidencethat the infertility which he was cursed with after trying to kill his infantson is the same plight that now faces all of thebes.)
and of course, ofcourse, 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 himthe blind prophet tiresias, who tells oedipus that he must stop digging intothis 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 creonquarrel, 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 hewon’t fulfill his prophecy of murdering him. he refuses to go home becausemerope is still there, refuses to take up the title of king that is surely hisby right, because he fears harming his mother. when the messenger says thatoedipus is adopted, and there’s no reasons for him not to go home, jocasta finallyrealizes that oedipus is her son. she begs him to stop his search for laius’s killer, desperate tokeep the truth from him.
jocasta knows, and tries to protect oedipus. she mustbelieve he’s worthy of being on the throne, he must have showed her kindness andaffection if she’s so desperate to protect him from the truth, even at theexpense of the well being of thebes.
but oedipus does not listen. he leaves, and finds the shepherdwho 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 hekilled at the crossroads. he has killed his fathe and married his mother, allthem each unaware of each other.
after this, there are differing accounts of what happenednext.
sophocles’s account is most popular. he returns to find hiswife and mother jocasta has killed herself, and he takes the pins from herbroach 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 untilhe 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’skiller, and he continues to rule thebes. i like to think jocasta rules withhim, alive and well, because she no more deserved death than oedipus deservedblindness.
the tragedy here is not in oedipus. it is in lauis, theclear villain of this story, the one who damned and hurt and cursed all aroundhim. he who caused so much strife, and then left it all for his son to fix, forhis son to struggle with.
oedipus was a fair and just ruler of thebes, a kind husbandto jocasta, a good father to his children, from all accounts, since antigone wasso 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, ourpredecessors, those who come before us will curse us and damn us and leave usmore problems than solutions can be found
perhaps oedipus is a cautionary tale, and our tragic figureis not oedipuis, but laius, who made his own ruin, who’s spiteful hands leftscars on all they touched.
oedipus is a tragedy, but only because it reminds us thatour own undoing, our own unhappy endings, aren’t necessarily within ourcontrol. our own tragedies may not be our fault, may not be due to ourmistakes, maybe we didn’t earn our unhappiness.
it’s not fair, and that’s the true tragedy of oedipus. thatgood, kind, clever, merciful people can do their absolute best, can showkindness and sacrifice and love, and in the end it won’t be able to save themfrom the mistakes other people have made.
oedipus was a good man, and a good king, and it may not havesaved him – but it saved all those in thebes.
yes, oedipus was blinded. yes, jocasta died.
but the spinx was gone, their line continued, and thebesthrived.
the tragedy of oedipus is the idea that we’re not in controlof our own destiny.
the triumph of oedipus is the idea that we need not controlit in order to have a destiny worth remembering.
