Besides these admirable strokes of a rather sophisticated “sense of the theatre” there are powerful effects which arise naturally from the circumstances. Clytæmnestra offers a prayer to the very god who has sent the avenger. Electra’s wonderful address to the ashes of her brother gains greatly by the fact that he stands living beside her. A splendidly dramatic effect is obtained by the return of Chrysothemis—the most “modern” point of the whole work. She has been sent away for a certain purpose, but in the stress of later happenings we forget her. Suddenly she re-appears with news—the result of her mission—news startling in itself, but ten times more so because of the events which (without her knowledge) have just occurred. Again, it is quite natural that Electra should come forth while Clytæmnestra is being slain, since some one must be on the alert for Ægisthus. This gives opportunity for the terrible little passage where the queen’s agonized appeals inside the house are answered by the tense answers or comments of this tragic figure rigid before the gate.
The Œdipus Tyrannus[321] (Οἰδίπους Τύραννος), often called Œdipus Rex or Œdipus the king, is a play of uncertain date, but it seems later than Electra and earlier than Philoctetes.
The plot is rather intricate and must be given at greater length. The scene shows the palace of Œdipus at Thebes. The people are smitten by a pestilence; and all look to the king, who has already sent his wife’s brother, Creon, to ask advice from the Delphic oracle. Creon enters, bringing tidings that Thebes will be freed if the city is purged of those who killed Laius, the former king. Œdipus asks for particulars, and learns that Laius was killed by some robbers. Only one man escaped. The king calls upon the slayer to declare himself, promising no worse treatment than exile; he asks also any man who knows the guilty one to speak. If no one confesses, he denounces civil and religious excommunication against the unknown. The chorus-leader suggests that the prophet Tiresias should be consulted; Œdipus replies that he has been already summoned. The coryphæus remarks casually that some say Laius was slain by certain wayfarers. Tiresias enters, but shows a repugnance even to discuss the problem, till Œdipus in a rage accuses Tiresias of complicity in the murder. An altercation follows in which the prophet accuses Œdipus of having killed Laius. The other, filled with wrath, proclaims that Tiresias and Creon are plotting to make Creon king in his stead. Tiresias threatens the king with mysterious horrors and downfall. Œdipus bids him begone, and rates him for a fool. “Foolish, perhaps, in your eyes,” says the old man, “but thought wise by the parents that begat thee.” Œdipus is startled. “Parents? Stay! What man begat me?” The answer is: “This day shall show thy birth and thy destruction”. The king again bids him go. As he turns away, Tiresias utters his farewell speech. The murderer of Laius is here, supposed an alien, but in reality Theban-born. Bereft of his sight and his riches he shall go forth into a strange land, and shall be found brother and father of his children, son and husband of his wife, murderer and supplanter of his father. Creon enters, dismayed by the charges of Œdipus, when the king appears, heaps reproaches upon the supposed traitor, and insists that Creon shall die. The noise of their dispute brings from the palace Jocasta, sister of Creon and wife of Œdipus; she brings about a half-reconciliation between the two princes, and asks the cause of the quarrel. Œdipus tells of the accusation pointed at himself by Tiresias. Jocasta seeks to console him by a proof that soothsaying is not trustworthy. “An oracle once came to Laius that he should be slain by a son of his and mine. None the less, he was slain by foreign robbers at a place where three roads meet; and the child, not three days old, was cast out upon a mountain, his ankles yoked together.” This speech, so far from comforting the king, fills him with alarm. The phrase “a place where three roads meet” has struck him. He anxiously asks for a description of Laius and the number of his followers. The replies disturb him still more, and he asks that the single survivor, now a herdsman far from the city, should be sent for. Jocasta asks the reason. He tells the story of his early manhood: he is the son of Polybus, King of Corinth, but one day a man insulted him by saying he was no son of Polybus. The youth asked the Delphic oracle of his birth, but the god, instead of answering directly, announced that he was fated to marry his mother and kill his father. Œdipus cheated the oracle by never seeing his parents again. On his way from Delphi he met a body of men such as Jocasta has described, and after a quarrel slew them all. It seems that he is himself the slayer of Laius and is subject to the curses which he has himself uttered. His only hope lies in the survivor who, it is understood, always spoke of robbers, not of a single assailant. If this is accurate, Œdipus is not meant by the recent oracle. A messenger from Corinth enters, bringing news that the people of that city intend to make Œdipus their king; Polybus is dead. Jocasta exclaims that Polybus was the man whom Œdipus feared he must slay. She mocks at the oracle and summons Œdipus, who shares her relief, but reminds her that his mother still lives. The messenger asks what woman they are discussing. “I can free you from that fear,” he exclaims; “Œdipus is not the son of Polybus and Merope.” Further questioning from Œdipus brings forth the explanation. The present messenger gave Œdipus, when a babe, to Polybus. He was found in the glens of Cithæron, where the man was tending flocks, his ankles fastened by an iron thrust through them. Who did this the Corinthian cannot say, but the man who gave him to the Corinthian should know—another herdsman brought him, one of the household of Laius. Œdipus asks if this man can be found. The chorus answer that probably he is the person already summoned, and that perhaps the queen can tell. Œdipus turns to Jocasta, who flings him a few words of agony and sorrow and rushes into the house. Œdipus turns away in contempt, for he believes that Jocasta’s distress springs from a fear that he will be found of ignoble birth. The aged servant of Laius now approaches, and is recognized by the Corinthian as the man who gave him the child. A conversation of intensest thrill follows between the two herdsmen, in which the Corinthian is eager, while the Theban is utterly reluctant, only answering under the direst threats from the king. At length it becomes plain that the babe Œdipus is the son of Laius and Jocasta. The king with a cry of horror rushes into the palace. A slave enters and tells how Jocasta has hanged herself, and how Œdipus has destroyed his own sight. After an interval Œdipus staggers forth, a sight of ghastliness and woe. Creon now appears as ruler of the city and bids Œdipus be hidden in the house. The wretched man asks that he be cast forth to dwell upon Cithæron; Creon replies that the oracle must first be consulted. Œdipus bids a heart-broken farewell to his little daughters, and Creon takes them all into the palace.
The Œdipus Tyrannus has been universally admired as a masterpiece, ever since the time of Aristotle, who in his Poetic takes this play as a model of tragedy. The lyrics are simple, beautiful, and even passionately vigorous; the dialogue in language and rhythm is beyond praise; and the tragic irony, for which this poet is famous, is here at its height. But the chief splendour of the work is its construction, its strictly dramatic strength and sincerity. The events grow out of one another with the ease of actual life yet with the accuracy and the power of art. We should note the two great stages: first, the king fears that he has slain Laius; second, that he has slain his father Laius. This distinction, so vital to the growing horror, is kept admirably clear and is especially pointed by the part of the aged Theban. When he is summoned, it is to settle whether Laius was slain by one man or by a company; by the time he arrives, this is forgotten, and all wait to know from whom he received the outcast infant. Equally wonderful is the skill with which almost every stage in the discovery is made to rise from the temperament of Œdipus. He is the best-drawn character in Sophocles. Not specially virtuous, not specially wise—though full of love and pity for his people and vigorous in his measures for their safety, he is too imperious, suspicious, and choleric. His exaggerated self-confidence, dangerous in a citizen, is almost a crime in a prince. The only notable virtue in his character is the splendid moral courage with which he faces facts, nay, more, with which he insists on unearthing facts which he might have left untouched. And the core of the tragedy is that this virtue of Œdipus, his insistence on knowing the truth, is the source of his downfall. Had he not sent for Tiresias, Tiresias would not have come forward. Had he not urged the prophet to reply, Tiresias would not have uttered his accusations. By these apparently mad charges, Œdipus is stung into accusing Tiresias of plotting with Creon. This in turn brings Creon to the palace. The anger with which he reviles Creon causes a dispute which draws Jocasta from the house. Then, to calm Œdipus, she gives him the dreadful “consolation”—that oracles have no weight—which first makes the king fear he may have done the deed which is plaguing Thebes. And so to the end. One exception to this sequence should be noticed. The arrival of the Corinthian messenger at this moment is purely accidental. Without it, the witness of the old retainer would have fastened upon Œdipus the slaying of Laius (not known to be the king’s father); and he would have gone forth from the city, but not as a parricide; moreover, the relation between him and the queen would have remained unknown. Judged by the standard of the whole play, this fact constitutes a flaw in construction. Why did not the poet contrive that the news of Polybus’ death should arrive, and arrive now, as the direct result of something said or done by Œdipus, just as the arrival of the old Theban, with his crushing testimony, is due to the king’s own summons? No doubt this occurrence is meant to mirror the facts of life, which include accidents as well as events plainly traceable to character.
At this point should be mentioned other possible faults, whether inherent in the drama or antecedent to it. Some of the preliminary facts are to a high degree unlikely. These points are three. First, Œdipus and Jocasta, though each separately has received oracular warning about a marriage, make no kind of inquiry at the time of their own wedding. Secondly, Œdipus all these years has never heard or inquired into the circumstances in which Laius was killed. Third, Jocasta has never yet been told of the incident at Corinth which sent Œdipus to Delphi; indeed she has apparently not even heard that he is the son of the king and queen of Corinth.[322] Within the play itself is the strange feature that when Tiresias accuses Œdipus of slaying Laius and hints darkly at greater horrors—hints which in spite of their obscurity might surely (one would think) have united themselves in the mind of Œdipus with the oracle of long ago—Œdipus is merely moved to fury, not to misgiving.[323] Now of the first three difficulties it must be owned that despite the palliatives suggested, they are irritating. These things are “impossible,” or, if not, they are oddly irrational, which is the same thing so far as the enjoyment of dramatic art is concerned. They are, however, to be explained thus. The unquestioning marriage of Œdipus and Jocasta is a datum of the legend with which the poet could not tamper. All that the dramatist could do he did—he placed the unlikely fact “outside the plot”[324] and dwelt on it as little as possible. Indeed, he hints at some sort of excuse—the confusion in Thebes owing to the oppression of the Sphinx.[325] Next, the postponement of explanations about the death of Laius and the exile of Œdipus from Corinth is a direct result of dramatic treatment. Just as Æschylus,[326] in order to handle dramatically a religious question, the bearings of which fill the whole of time, insists on contracting the issue to a single great instance, so Sophocles forces into the compass of one day’s happenings the life of years. In actuality, this tragedy would have been spread over a great lapse of time. The climax and the horror would have been much the same essentially, but the poet presents the whole in a closely-knit nexus of occurrence, so as to make the spectator feel the full impact undissipated by graduations.
The difficulty concerning Tiresias is of another sort. Œdipus’ apparent madness is not so great as it seems. Not only is he by his rank and superb self-confidence shielded from misgivings, not only is he already suspicious that the murderer must be some treacherous Theban,[327] but he has now lost his temper, and has just been furious enough to accuse Tiresias himself of complicity in the deed. It is therefore easy for him to assume that the prophet in his turn is only uttering his accusations as a wild insult.
It might also be asked, why is not the scene with Jocasta, in which she fortifies the king against soothsayers and oracles, not placed at the end of the Tiresias-episode? This question leads one to suppose that there is great importance in the quarrel with Creon which intervenes between the departure of Tiresias and the queen’s appearance. Its importance clearly is, partly to depict Œdipus more plainly, by contrast with his equable kinsman, but most of all to give force and impressiveness to the end of the play, in which Creon appears as king. After the appalling climax of the play, and the frightful return of the blind Œdipus, there is danger that Creon’s entry will fall flat.[328] But with faultless skill Sophocles has prepared the ground so well that when the agony is at its worst our interest is not indeed increased, but refreshed and relieved by the appearance of this man whom we have forgotten, but whom we recognize in a flash as being now the pivot of events. This admirable stroke reminds one of the return of Chrysothemis in the Electra, but it is far more powerful.
Another feat of dramatic power must be noted, marvellous even where all is masterly: the re-appearance of Œdipus after the climax. Nothing in Greek tragedy is more common than for a person after learning frightful news to rush within the doors in despair. But he does not return; a messenger tells the news of his fate. In this play news is indeed brought of the bloody deeds that have befallen. Then comes a sight almost too appalling for art: the doors open and the man of doom staggers into the light of day once more. Spiritually he is dead, but he may not destroy himself since he cannot go down to Hades where his father and mother dwell. He must live, surviving himself, as it were a corpse walking the upper earth. The waters of doom have closed over his head, but he re-appears.
Jocasta is more slightly drawn than Œdipus, yet what we have suffices. Two features are stressed by the poet—her tenderness for Œdipus and her flippant contempt in regard to the oracles. This last is clearly a dramatic lever of great power; through it the king is first brought to suspect that he is the guilty man. It has a strong and pathetic excuse. Because of the oracle, she was robbed of her child and yet all in vain—the infant not yet three days old was cast away, but none the less Laius was killed. It is precisely her rage against the oracle for cheating her which brings to Œdipus the knowledge that it has been fulfilled. Further than this Sophocles has not characterized the queen; he places an ordinary woman in a situation of extraordinary horror and pathos, leaving us to feel her emotions, without any elaboration of his own. To read the conversation between Œdipus and the Corinthian, with the short colloquy of Œdipus and Jocasta which follows, is to experience as perhaps nowhere else can be experienced that “purgation of pity and terror” which is the function of tragedy. It all centres for the moment in Jocasta, yet she says very little. We are required to imagine it for ourselves—the intertwined amazement, joy, loathing, despair, which fill the woman’s heart during the few minutes for which she listens in silence to the king and the messenger. To have lost her child at birth, then after mourning his death for many years at length to find that he lives, that he stands before her, mature, strong, and kingly, but her own husband; then to realize that not now but long ago did she recover him, yet did not know him but loved him otherwise—this even Sophocles has not put into speech. Only one hint of it comes to us in the queen’s last words:—
ἰοὺ, ἰού, δύστηνε· τοῦτο γάρ σ’ ἔχω