The whole play is an example of intrigue. The episode of the pseudo-merchant[357] is the most brilliant feat of Sophocles in this department. It reveals to Philoctetes that he is being pursued by the Greeks, without arousing his suspicion of Neoptolemus, and so gives occasion for the transfer of the bow when the sufferer’s fit seizes him; it conveys a strong reminder of urgency to Neoptolemus; and it enables Odysseus to learn how his plot progresses. Odysseus merely by telling of his promise to capture Philoctetes is in a fair way to fulfil it, as it throws his prey into the arms of Neoptolemus. One apparent fault of construction is of a type which we have already noted. It is vital that Philoctetes, before his first consent to leave the island, should know his friend’s real purpose of taking him to Troy. But why is he told of it? The merest beginner in duplicity would surely postpone such a revelation until the victim was at sea. But Sophocles chooses to tighten his plot up in order to give the situation in one picture.
Dio Chrysostom in one of his most valuable essays[358] sets up a comparison between the plays on Philoctetes composed by the three tragedians. The work of Sophocles is the latest, and two peculiarities help us to see how far his originality went. Firstly, as a companion to Odysseus he introduces, not Diomedes as Euripides had done, but a figure new to the Trojan war, an ingenuous lad whose sympathy brings out what gentleness remains in the sufferer’s heart. Secondly, the chorus consists of Greek sailors, not of Lemnian natives as in the two other playwrights. Sophocles will have no Lemnian visitors because for him it is a cardinal fact that Philoctetes all these years has been alone save for a chance ship. Thus we gain for a moment a glance into the actual thoughts of Sophocles: he has made up his mind that his Philoctetes must be quite solitary. So essential is this that he falsifies known facts. Lemnos, he says in the second line of his play, is “untrodden, uninhabited by men,” whereas, both in the times supposed and in the poet’s own day, it was a populous place. This, then, gives an invaluable indication of the extent to which Sophocles felt himself free to re-model his subject-matter. On the play itself it throws light. The question is to be studied not from the point of view of the Greek army, but from that of their potential helper, soured as he is by a more extreme suffering than Æschylus and Euripides had imagined.
The picture thus conceived is painted with splendid power. Romantic desolation makes itself felt in the opening words of Odysseus, and this sense of the frowning grandeur of nature to which Philoctetes in his despair appeals[359] is everywhere associated with the pathos of lonely suffering. “While the mountain nymph, babbling Echo, appearing afar, makes answer to his bitter cries.”[360] All that he says, from his first exclamation of joy at hearing again the Greek language to the noble speech in which he bids farewell to the bitter home which use has made something like a friend, is instinct with this mingling of romance and pathos. Deserted by all men he has yet found companions whom in his misery he addresses; his hands, his poisoned foot, his eyes, his bow, and the familiar landscape, vocal with the “bass roar of the sea upon the headland”.[361] Closer even than these is his eternal unseen companion, Pain, whom he found at his side on first awakening after the departure of the Greek host: “When my scrutiny had traversed all the land, no inhabitant could I find therein save Sorrow; and that, my son, could be met at every turn”.[362]
It has been suspected that the play contains allusions to contemporary politics, that the poet is thinking of Alcibiades’ return from exile. In 410—the year before this play was produced—he had gained credit from the naval victory of Cyzicus. Some, moreover, have seen in Odysseus the cynical politician of the day. Other passages read like criticism of the public “atmosphere” at Athens in the closing years of the great war. The dramatist is making deliberate comments on contemporary Athenian politics, but he assuredly did not choose the whole theme of Philoctetes merely because of Alcibiades’ restoration.[363]
The Œdipus Coloneus[364] (Οἰδίπους ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ) or Œdipus at Colonus was according to the customary view produced in 401 B.C., three years after the poet’s death, by his namesake and grandson. The background represents the grove of the Furies at Colonus, a village near Athens. Œdipus, exiled from Thebes, an aged blind wanderer, enters led by his daughter Antigone. They obtain the favour of King Theseus and the citizens, Œdipus promising that after his death his spirit shall defend Athens. Ismene, his daughter, brings news that an oracle has said that in the struggle between Thebes and the Seven led by Polynices, son of Œdipus, that side shall win which has possession of Œdipus. Both parties are now eager for his support, but he curses both his sons. Creon, King of Thebes, enters, and failing to gain aught but reproaches, carries off the two girls, and is about to seize the father also when he is checked by the arrival of Theseus, who rescues the maidens. Polynices next comes to beg his father’s aid, but is sent to his doom with curses. Then a peal of thunder announces to Œdipus that the moment of his passing is at hand. He bids farewell to his daughters, and, watched only by Theseus, descends to the underworld; the place of his burial is to be known to none save Theseus and his successors. Ismene and Antigone in vain beg to be shown the spot, and finally Antigone resolves to seek Thebes that she may reconcile her brothers.
This play is simple in structure, superbly rich in execution. Œdipus dominates all the scenes, which reveal with piercing intensity his physical helplessness and the spiritual might which, marked at the opening, is overwhelming at the close. The poet’s task is not merely to portray the last hours of a much-tried man, but the novitiate of a superhuman Power. Œdipus at last reaches peace and a welcome from the infernal gods—he becomes a δαίμων. The terrific feature is that even in the flesh he anticipates his dæmonic qualities. In the interview between him and Polynices, the implacable hatred, the strength, the prophetic sight of the father, and the hopeless prayers, the wretchedness, the despair and moral collapse of the doomed son, are nothing but the presentation in human life of the actual dæmon’s power as prophesied for future generations. Before the close we feel that the aged exile’s sufferings, sombre wisdom, and simple burning emotions have already made him a being of unearthly powers, sundered from normal humanity; his strange passing is but the ratification of a spiritual fact already accomplished. But this weird climax is preceded by an equally wonderful study of the human Œdipus. The king who appears in the Œdipus Tyrannus can here still be recognized. Passionate anger still directs much of his conduct, as friend and foe alike remind[365] him. But even his faults are mellowed by years and contemplation; his very anger shows some gleam of a profounder patience. Throughout, the temper of Œdipus is like that of the heavens above him—gloom cleft by flashes of insight, indignation, and love. Unlike other aged sufferers, he does not dwell in the past; unlike the saint and martyr whom a Christian dramatist might have portrayed, he does not lean upon a future of glory or happiness. Nor again has he sunk into a senile acquiescence in the present; he is far from being absorbed by the loving tendance of his daughters. The centre of his life has shifted, but not to any period of time—rather to another plane of being. Still in the flesh, his human emotions as essential as ever, his life is growing assimilated to the non-human existence of the whole earth. And so it is that Œdipus meets “death” with cheerfulness; he is departing to his own place. At the last moment the blind man leads those who see to the place of his departure. What to them is dreadful and secret is to him the centre of his longing; the terrific figures who inhabit his new home are welcome friends—at the beginning of the play he addresses the Furies themselves as “sweet daughters of primeval Night”.[366] The whole drama at the end is full of this sense. In the farewell song of the chorus which commends the wanderer to the powers of Earth, there is an eerie precision and picturesqueness in the description of the lower world; the “infernal moor”[367] and the guardian hound gleam forth for an instant into strange familiarity.
The other characters are carved, though in lower relief, yet with richness and vigour. Theseus is the ideal Athenian gentleman,[368] suddenly called to show pity to a pair of helpless wanderers, then unexpectedly involved in battle with a neighbour state, and finally confronted with the most awful mysteries of divine government, without ever losing his courage or his discretion. Creon and Polynices, such is the immense understanding of the aged poet, share too in this nobility of mind. They can face facts; and whether villains or not, they are men of breeding. The “stranger” who first accosts Œdipus is a charming embodiment of that local patriotism to which we shall return in a moment. The two sisters are beautifully distinguished by the divergent experiences of years. Antigone’s wandering and hardship have made her the more intense and passionate; Ismene’s life in Thebes have given her comprehension of more immediate issues. It is through Antigone, moreover, who declares that she will seek Thebes and attempt to save her brothers, that the poet obtains one of his noblest effects. Overwhelming as is the story of Œdipus, his end does not close all; life goes on to further mysteries of pain and affection.
On the purely literary side the Œdipus Coloneus is certainly the greatest and the most typical work of Sophocles. The most celebrated lyric in Greek is the splendid ode in praise of Colonus—“our white Colonus; where the nightingale, a constant guest, trills her clear note in the covert of green glades, dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god’s inviolate bowers, rich in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by wind of any storm; where the reveller Dionysus ever walks the ground, companion of the nymphs that nursed him,”[369]—and of the whole land with its peculiar glories, the olive of peace and the steed of war. To this should be added that address of Œdipus to Theseus concerning the fickleness of all things earthly which is less the speech of one man than the voice of Life itself.[370] Noblest of all is the account of Œdipus’ last moments, a passage which in breathless loveliness, pathos, and religious profundity is beyond telling flawless and without peer. It is curious that Sophocles in this work which, more than any other, reveals his own poetic mastery should have definitely drawn attention to the power of language. At various crises in the play he speaks of the “little word”[371] and its potency. Œdipus reflects how his two sons for lack of a “little word” in his defence have suffered him to be thrust forth into exile; the nobility of Theseus, the sudden hostility of Thebes in days to come, the appearance of Polynices, are all matters of the “little word” which means so much. And in his marvellous farewell to his daughters, Œdipus speaks of the “one word” which has made all his sorrows vanish—“love”.
Every master-work of literature has a prophetic quality, and sending its roots down near to the deepest wells of life is instinct with unconscious kinships. The Œdipus Coloneus is rich in this final glory of art. The whole conception of the sufferer, aged and blind but gifted with spiritual sight, recalls the blind Milton’s sublime address to the Light which “shines inward”; and the thought adds charm to Sophocles’ description of the nightingale[372] which
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid