At the close of the
Oedipus Tyrannus the situation is
Situation at the end of the Tyrannus. |
briefly this. By the fact of the guilt which has been brought home to him Oedipus is tacitly considered to have forfeited the throne. His two sons being still young boys, their maternal uncle, Creon, succeeds to the direction of affairs. The selfblinded Oedipus, in his first agony of horror and despair, beseeches Creon to send him away from Thebes. Let him no longer pollute it by his presence: let him perish in the wilds of Cithaeron, as his parents would have had it. Creon replies that he cannot assume the responsibility of acceding to the wish of Oedipus: the oracle at Delphi must be consulted. If Apollo says that Oedipus is to be sent away from Thebes, then it shall be done.
Sophocles supposes a long interval—some twenty years,
Events of the interval between the plays. |
perhaps—between the two dramas of which Oedipus is the hero. As the exile himself says,
395“
"'Tis little to uplift old age, when youth was ruined."” We have to make out the events of this interval, as best we can, from stray hints in the
Coloneus1.
The promise with which Creon pacified Oedipus at the end of the
Tyrannus does not appear to have been fulfilled. The oracle was not consulted as to whether Oedipus should remain at Thebes. He remained there; and, as the lapse of time softened his anguish, the blind and discrowned sufferer learned to love the seclusion of the house in which he had once reigned so brilliantly. Creon continued to act as regent. But at last a change took place in the disposition of the Thebans, or at least
in Creon's. A feeling grew up that Thebes was harbouring a defilement, and it was decided to expel Oedipus. There is no mention of an oracle as the cause; indeed, the idea of a divine mandate is incompatible with the tenor of the story, since Oedipus could not then have charged the whole blame on Thebes. One circumstance of his expulsion was bitter to him above all the rest. His two sons, who had now reached manhood, said not a word in arrest of his doom.
But his two daughters were nobly loyal. Antigone went forth from Thebes with her blind father,—his sole attendant,— and thenceforth shared the privations of his lot, which could now be only that of a wandering mendicant. Ismene stayed at Thebes, but it was in order to watch the course of events there in her father's interest. We hear of one occasion, at least, on which she risked a secret journey for the purpose of acquainting him with certain oracles which had just been received. The incident marks the uneasy feeling with which the Thebans still regarded the blind exile, and their unwillingness that he should share such light on his own destiny as they could obtain from Apollo.
Oedipus had now grown old in his destitute wanderings, when a sacred mission sent from Thebes to Delphi brought back an oracle concerning him which excited a lively interest in the minds of his former subjects. It was to the effect that the
welfare of Thebes depended on Oedipus, not merely while he lived, but also after his death. The Thebans now conceived the desire of establishing Oedipus somewhere just beyond their border. In this way they thought that they would have him under their control, while at the same time they would avoid the humiliation of confessing themselves wrong, and receiving him back to dwell among them. Their main object was that, on his death, they might secure the guardianship of his grave.
The new oracle obviously made an opportunity for the sons of Oedipus at Thebes, if they were true to their banished father. They could urge that Apollo, by this latest utterance, had condoned any pollution that might still be supposed to attach to the person of Oedipus, and had virtually authorised his recall to his ancient realm. Thebes could not be defiled by the presence of a man whom the god had declared to be the arbiter of its fortunes.
Unhappily, the sons—Polyneices and Eteocles—were no longer in a mood to hear the dictates of filial piety. When they had first reached manhood, they had been oppressed by a sense of the curse on their family, and the taint on their own birth. They had wished to spare Thebes the contamination of their rule; they had been desirous that the regent,—their uncle Creon,—should become king. But presently,—
371“
"moved by some god, and by a sinful mind,"”—compelled by the inexorable Fury of their house,—they renounced these intentions of wise selfdenial. Not only were they fired with the passion for power,
The strife between the sons. |
but they fell to striving with each other for the sole power. Eteocles, the younger
2 brother, managed to win over the citizens. The elder brother, Polyneices, was driven out of Thebes. He went to Argos, where he married the daughter of king Adrastus. All the most renowned warriors of the Peloponnesus became his allies, and he made ready to lead a great host against Thebes. But, while the mightiest chieftains were marshalling their followers in his cause, the voices of prophecy warned him that the issue of his mortal feud depended on the blind and aged beggar whom, years before, he had coldly seen thrust out from house and home. That side would prevail which Oedipus should join.
This is the moment at which our play begins. The action falls into six principal divisions or chapters, marked off, as usual, by choral lyrics.
The scene, which remains the same throughout the play, is at Colonus, about a mile and a quarter north-west of Athens. We are in front of a grove sacred to the Furies,—here worshipped under a propitiatory name, as the Eumenides or Kindly Powers. While the snow still lingers on distant hills (
v. 1060), the song of many nightingales is already heard from the thick covert of this grove in the Attic plain; we seem to breathe the air of a bright, calm day at the beginning of April
3. The blind Oedipus, led by Antigone, enters on the left hand of the spectator. He is in the squalid garb of a beggar-man,— carrying a wallet, wherein to put alms (
v. 1262); the wind plays with his unkempt white hair; the wounds by which, in the prime of manhood, he had destroyed his sight, have left ghastly traces on the worn face; but there is a certain nobleness in his look and bearing which tempers the beholder's sense of pity or repulsion. The old man is tired with a long day's journey; they have heard from people whom they met on the way that they are near Athens, but they do not know the name of the spot at which they have halted. Antigone seats her father on a rock which is just within the limits of the sacred grove. As she is about to go in search of information, a man belonging to Colonus appears. Oedipus is beginning to accost him, when the stranger cuts his words short by a peremptory command to come off the sacred ground. "To whom is it sacred?" Oedipus asks. To the Eumenides, is the reply. On hearing that name, Oedipus invokes the grace of those goddesses, and declares that he will never leave the rest which he has found. He begs the stranger to summon Theseus, the king of Athens,
72“
"that by a small service he may find a great gain."” The stranger, who is struck by the noble mien of the blind old man, says that he will go and consult the people of Colonus; and meanwhile he tells Oedipus to stay where he is.
Left alone with Antigone, Oedipus utters a solemn and very beautiful prayer to the Eumenides, which discloses the motive of his refusal to leave the sacred ground. In his early manhood, when he inquired at Delphi concerning his parentage, Apollo predicted the calamities which awaited him; but also promised him rest, so soon as he should reach
89“
"a seat of the Awful Goddesses."” There he should close his troubled life; and along with the release, he should have this reward,—power to benefit the folk who sheltered him, and to hurt the folk who had cast him out. And when his end was near, there should be a sign from the sky. Apollo and the Eumenides themselves have led him to this grove: he prays the goddesses to receive him, and to give him peace.
Hardly has his prayer been spoken, when Antigone hears footsteps approaching, and retires with her father into the covert of the grove.
The elders of Colonus, who form the Chorus, now enter the orchestra. They have heard that a wanderer has entered the grove, and are in eager search for the perpetrator of so daring an impiety. Oedipus, led by Antigone, suddenly discovers himself. His appearance is greeted with a cry of horror from the Chorus; but horror gradually yields to pity for his blindness, his age, and his misery. They insist, however, on his coming out of the sacred grove. If he is to speak to them, it must be on lawful ground. Before he consents, he exacts a pledge that he shall not be removed from the ground outside of the grove. They promise this. Antigone then guides him to a seat beyond the sacred precinct. The Chorus now ask him who he is. He implores them to spare the question; but their curiosity has been aroused. They extort an answer. No sooner has the name OEDIPUS passed his lips, than his voice is drowned in a shout of execration. They call upon him to leave Attica instantly. He won their promise by a fraud, and it is void. They refuse to hear him. Antigone makes an imploring appeal.
In answer to her appeal, the Chorus say that they pity both father and daughter, but fear the gods still more; the wanderers must go.
Oedipus now speaks with powerful eloquence, tinged at first with bitter scorn. Is this the traditional compassion of Athens for the oppressed? They have lured him from his sanctuary, and now they are driving him out of their country,—for fear of what? Simply of his name. He is free from moral guilt. He brings a blessing for Athens. What it is, he will reveal when their king arrives.—The Chorus agree to await the decision of Theseus. He will come speedily, they are sure, when he hears the name of Oedipus.
At this moment, Antigone descries the approach of her sister Ismene, who has come from Thebes with tidings for her father. Ismene tells him of the fierce strife which has broken out between her brothers,—and how Polyneices has gone to Argos. Then she mentions the new oracle which the Thebans have just received,—that their welfare depends on him, in life and death. Creon will soon come, she adds, in the hope of enticing him back.
Oedipus asks whether
his sons knew of this oracle. "Yes," she reluctantly answers. At that answer, the measure of his bitterness is full: he breaks into a prayer that the gods may hear him, and make this new strife fatal to both brothers alike. And then, turning to the Chorus, he assures them that he is destined to be a deliverer of Attica: for his mind is now made up; he has no longer any doubt where his blessing, or his curse, is to descend. The Chorus, in reply, instruct him how a proper atonement may be made to the Eumenides for his trespass on their precinct; and Ismene goes to perform the prescribed rites in a more distant part of the grove.
Here follows a lyric dialogue between the Chorus and
Oedipus. They question him on his past deeds, and he pathetically asserts his moral innocence.
Theseus now enters, on the spectator's right hand, as coming from Athens. Addressing Oedipus as "son of Laïus," he assures him, with generous courtesy, of protection and sympathy; he has himself known what it is to be an exile. Oedipus explains his desire. He craves to be protected in Attica while he lives, and to be buried there when he is dead. He has certain benefits to bestow in return; but these will not be felt until after his decease. He fears that his sons will seek to remove him to Thebes. If Theseus promises to protect him, it must be at the risk of a struggle. Theseus gives the promise. He publicly adopts Oedipus as a citizen. He then leaves the scene.
Oedipus having now been formally placed under the protection
of Athens, the Chorus appropriately celebrate the land which has become his home. Beginning with Colonus, they pass to themes of honour for Attica at large,—the olive, created by Athena and guarded by Zeus,—the horses and horsemanship of the land, gifts of Poseidon,—and his other gift, the empire of the sea. Of all the choral songs in extant Greek drama, this short ode is perhaps the most widely famous; a distinction partly due, no doubt, to the charm of the subject, and especially to the manifest glow of a personal sentiment in the verses which describe Colonus; but, apart from this, the intrinsic poetical beauty is of the highest and rarest order
4.
As the choral praises cease, Antigone exclaims that the moment has come for proving that Athens deserves them. Creon enters, with an escort of guards.
His speech, addressed at first to the Chorus, is short, and skilfully conceived. They will not suppose that an old man like himself has been sent to commit an act of violence against a powerful State. No; he comes on behalf of Thebes, to plead with his aged kinsman, whose present wandering life is truly painful for everybody concerned. The honour of the city and of the family is involved. Oedipus should express his gratitude to Athens, and then return to a decent privacy
777“
"in the house of his fathers."”
With a burst of scathing indignation, Oedipus replies. They want him now; but they thrust him out when he was longing to stay.
777“
"In the house of his fathers!"” No, that is not their design. They intend to plant him somewhere just beyond their border, for their own purposes.
787“
"That portion is not for thee,"” he tells Creon,
788“
"but this,—my curse upon your land, ever abiding therein;—and for my sons, this heritage—room enough in my realm, wherein — to die."”
Failing to move him, Creon drops the semblance of persuasion. He bluntly announces that he already holds one hostage; —Ismene, who had gone to perform the rites in the grove, has been captured by his guards;—and he will soon have a second. He lays his hand upon Antigone. Another moment, and his attendants drag her from the scene. He is himself on the point of seizing Oedipus, when Theseus enters,—having been startled by the outcry, while engaged in a sacrifice at the neighbouring altar of Poseidon.
On hearing what has happened, Theseus first sends a message to Poseidon's altar, directing the Athenians who were present at the sacrifice to start in pursuit of Creon's guards and the captured maidens.—Then, turning to Creon, he upbraids him with his lawless act, and tells him that he shall not leave Attica until the maidens are restored. Creon, with ready effrontery, replies that, in attempting to remove a polluted wretch from Attic soil, he was only doing what the Areiopagus itself would have wished to do; if his manner was somewhat rough, the violence of Oedipus was a provocation. This speech draws from Oedipus an eloquent vindication of his life, which is more than a mere repetition of the defence which he had already made to the Chorus. Here he brings out with vivid force the helplessness of man against fate, and the hypocrisy of his accuser.—Theseus now calls on Creon to lead the way, and show him where the captured maidens are,—adding a hint, characteristically Greek, that no help from Attic accomplices shall avail him. Creon sulkily submits,—with a muttered menace of what he will do when he reaches home.
Exeunt Theseus and his attendants, with Creon, on the spectator's left.
The Chorus imagine themselves at the scene of the coming
fray, and predict the speedy triumph of the rescuers,—invoking the gods of the land to help. A beautiful trait of this ode is the reference to the
1049“
"torch-lit strand"” of Eleusis, and to the mysteries which the initiated poet held in devout reverence.
At the close of their chant, the Chorus give Oedipus the
welcome news that they see his daughters approaching, escorted by Theseus and his followers. The first words of Antigone to her blind father express the wish that some wonder-working god could enable him to see their brave deliverer; and then, with much truth to nature, father and daughters are allowed to forget for a while that anyone else is present. When at last Oedipus turns to thank Theseus, his words are eminently noble, and also touching. His impulse is to salute his benefactor by kissing his cheek, but it is quickly checked by the thought that this is not for him; no, nor can he permit it, if Theseus would. The line drawn by fate, the line which parts him and his from human fellowship, is rendered only more sacred by gratitude.
At this point we may note, in passing, a detail of dramatic economy. The story of the rescue would have been material for a brilliant speech, either by Theseus, or, before his entrance, by a messenger. But the poet's sense of fitness would not allow him to adorn an accident of the plot at the cost of curtailing an essential part,—viz., the later scene with Polyneices, which must have been greatly abridged if a narrative had been admitted here. So, when Antigone is questioned by her father as to the circumstances of the rescue, she refers him to Theseus; and Theseus says that it is needless for
him to vaunt his own deeds, since Oedipus can hear them at leisure from his daughters.
There is a matter, Theseus adds, on which he should like to consult Oedipus. A stranger, it seems, has placed himself as a suppliant at the altar of Poseidon. This happened while they were all away at the rescue, and no one knows anything about the man. He is not from Thebes, but he declares that he is a kinsman of Oedipus, and prays for a few words with him. It is only guessed whence he comes; can Oedipus have any relations at Argos? Oedipus remembers what Ismene told him; he knows who it is; and he implores Theseus to spare him the torture of hearing
that voice. But Antigone's entreaties prevail. Theseus leaves the scene, in order to let the suppliant know that the interview will be granted.
The choral ode which fills the pause glances forward rather than backward, though it is suggested by the presage of some new vexation for Oedipus. It serves to turn our thoughts towards the approaching end.—Not to be born is best of all; the next best thing is to die as soon as possible. And the extreme of folly is the desire to outlive life's joys. Behold yon aged and afflicted stranger,—lashed by the waves of trouble from east and west, from south and north! But there is one deliverer, who come to all at last.
Polyneices now enters,—not attended, like Creon, by guards,
but alone. He is shedding tears; he begins by uttering the deepest pity for his father's plight, and the bitterest selfreproach.—Oedipus, with averted head, makes no reply.— Polyneices appeals to his sisters; will they plead for him? Antigone advises him to state in his own words the object of his visit.—Then Polyneices sets forth his petition. His Argive allies are already gathered before Thebes. He has come as a suppliant to Oedipus, for himself, and for his friends too. Oracles say that victory will be with the side for which Oedipus may declare. Eteocles, in his pride at Thebes, is mocking father and brother alike.
1340“
"If thou assist me, I will soon scatter his power, and will stablish thee in thine own house, and stablish myself, when I have cast him out by force."”
Oedipus now breaks silence; but it is in order to let the
Chorus know why he does so. His son, he reminds them, has been sent to them by their king.—Then, suddenly turning on Polyneices, he delivers an appalling curse, dooming both his sons to die at Thebes by each other's hands. In concentrated force of tragic passion this passage has few rivals. The great scene is closed by a short dialogue between Polyneices and his elder sister,—one of the delicate links between this play and the poet's earlier
Antigone. She implores him to abandon his fatal enterprise. But he is not to be dissuaded; he only asks that, if he falls, she and Ismene will give him burial rites; he disengages himself from their embrace, and goes forth, under the shadow of the curse.
A lyric passage now follows, which affords a moment of
relief to the strained feelings of the spectators, and also serves (like a similar passage before, vv. 510—548) to separate the two principal situations comprised in this chapter of the drama.— The Chorus are commenting on the dread doom which they have just heard pronounced, when they are startled by the sound of thunder. As peal follows peal, and lightnings glare from the darkened sky, the terror-stricken elders of Colonus utter broken prayers to averting gods. But for Oedipus the storm has another meaning; it has filled him with a strange eagerness. He prays Antigone to summon Theseus.
As Theseus had left the scene in order to communicate with the suppliant at Poseidon's altar, no breach of probability is involved in his timely re-appearance. Oedipus announces that, by sure signs, he knows his hour to have come. Unaided by human hand, he will now show the way to the spot where his life must be closed. When he arrives there, to Theseus alone will be revealed the place appointed for his grave. At the approach of death, Theseus shall impart the secret to his heir alone; and, so, from age to age, that sacred knowledge shall descend in the line of the Attic kings. While the secret is religiously guarded, the grave of Oedipus shall protect Attica against invading foemen; Thebes shall be powerless to harm her.—
1540“
"And now let us set forth, for the divine summons urges me."” As Oedipus utters these words, Theseus and his daughters become aware of a change; the blind eyes are still dark, but the moral conditions of blindness have been annulled; no sense of dependence remains, no trace of hesitation or timidity; like one inspired, the blind man eagerly beckons them on; and so, followed by them, he finally passes from the view of the spectators.
This final exit of Oedipus is magnificently conceived. As the idea of a spiritual illumination is one which pervades the play, so it is fitting that, in the last moment of his presence with us, the inward vision should be manifested in its highest clearness and power. It is needless to point out what a splendid opportunity this scene would give to an actor,—in the modern theatre not less than in the ancient. It shows the genius of a great poet combined with that instinct for dramatic climax which is seldom unerring unless guided by a practical knowledge of the stage.
The elders of Colonus are now alone; they have looked their last on Oedipus; and they know that the time of his end has come. The strain of their chant is in harmony with this moment of suspense and stillness. It is a choral litany for the soul which is passing from earth. May the Powers of the unseen world be gracious; may no dread apparition vex the path to the fields below.
A Messenger, one of the attendants of Theseus, relates what
befell after Oedipus, followed by his daughters and the king, arrived at the spot where he was destined to depart. Theseus was then left alone with him, and to Theseus alone of mortals the manner of his passing is known.
The daughters enter. After the first utterances of grief, one
feeling is seen to be foremost in Antigone's mind,—the longing to see her father's grave. She cannot bear the thought that it should lack a tribute from her hands. Ismene vainly represents that their father's own command makes such a wish unlawful,— impossible. Theseus arrives, and to him Antigone urges her desire. In gentle and solemn words he reminds her of the pledge which he had given to Oedipus. She acquiesces; and now prays that she and Ismene may be sent to Thebes: perhaps they may yet be in time to avert death from their brothers. Theseus consents; and the elders of Colonus say farewell to the Theban maidens in words which speak of submission to the gods:
1777“
"Cease lamentation, lift it up no more; for verily these things stand fast."”
In the
Oedipus Tyrannus a man is crushed by the discovery
Relation of the Coloneus to the Tyrannus. |
that, without knowing it, he has committed two crimes, parricide and incest. At the moment of discovery he can feel nothing but the double stain: he cries out that
OT 1345“
"he has become most hateful to the gods."” He has, indeed, broken divine laws, and the divine Power has punished him by bringing his deeds to light. This Power does not, in the first instance, regard the intention, but the fact. It does not matter that his unconscious sins were due to the agency of an inherited curse, and that he is morally innocent. He has sinned, and he must suffer.
In the
Oedipus Coloneus we meet with this man again, after the lapse of several years. In a religious aspect he still rests under the stain, and he knows this. But, in the course of time, he has mentally risen to a point of view from which he can survey his own past more clearly. Consciousness of the stain is now subordinate to another feeling, which in his first despair had not availed to console him. He has gained a firm grasp, not to be lost, on the fact of his moral innocence. He remembers the word of Apollo long ago, which coupled the prediction of his woes with a promise of final rest and reward; and he believes that his moral innocence is recognised by the Power which punished him. Thinking, then, on the two great facts of his life, his defilement and his innocence, he has come to look upon himself as neither pure nor yet guilty, but as a person set apart by the gods to illustrate their will,—as sacred. Hence that apparently strange contrast which belongs to the heart of the
Oedipus Coloneus. He declines to pollute his benefactor, Theseus, by his touch,—describing himself as one with whom “
"all stain of sin hath made its dwelling"”
(1133). Yet, with equal truth and sincerity, he can assure the Athenians that he has come to them
287“
"as one sacred and pious,"”—the suppliant of the Eumenides, the disciple of Apollo (
287).
In the
Oedipus Tyrannus, when the king pronounces a ban on the unknown murderer of Laïus, he charges his subjects that no one shall make that man “
"partner of his prayer or sacrifice, or serve him with the lustral rite"”
(239 f.). Ceremonial purity thus becomes a prominent idea at an early point in the
Tyrannus; and rightly so; for that play turns on acts as such. In the
Oedipus Coloneus we have a description of the ritual to be observed in the grove of the Eumenides; but, as if to mark the difference of spirit between the two plays, it is followed by the striking words of Oedipus, when he suggests that a daughter shall officiate in his stead:—“
"I think that one soul suffices to pay this debt for ten thousand, if it come with good-will to the shrine"”
(497). When eternal laws are broken by men, the gods punish the breach, whether wilful or involuntary; but their ultimate judgment depends on the intent. That thought is dominant in the
Oedipus Coloneus. The contrast between physical blindness and inward vision is an under-note, in harmony with the higher distinction between the form of conduct and its spirit.
The Oedipus of this play. |
The Oedipus whom we find at Colonus utters not a word of self-reproach, except on one point; he regrets the excess of the former self-reproach which stung him into blinding himself. He has done nothing else that calls for repentance; he has been the passive instrument of destiny. It would be a mistake to aim at bringing the play more into harmony with modern sentiment by suffusing it in a mild and almost Christian radiance, as though Oedipus had been softened, chastened, morally purified by suffering. Suffering has, indeed, taught him endurance (
στέργειν), and some degree of caution; he is also exalted in mind by a new sense of power; but he has not been softened. Anger,
(855)“
"which was ever his bane"”, blazes up in him as fiercely as ever; Creon rebukes him for it; his friends are only too painfully conscious of it. The unrestrained anger of an old man may easily be a very pitiful and deplorable spectacle; in order to be that, it need only be lost to justice and to generosity, to reason and to taste; but it requires the touch of a powerful dramatist to deal successfully with a subject so dangerously near to comedy, and to make a choleric old man tragic; Shakspeare has done it, with pathos of incomparable grasp and range; Sophocles, in a more limited way, has done it too. Throughout the scene with Polyneices there is a malign sublimity in the anger of the aged Oedipus; it is profoundly in the spirit of the antique, and we imply a different standard if we condemn it as vindictive. The Erinys has no mercy for sins against kindred; the man cannot pardon, because the Erinys acts through him. Oedipus at Colonus is a sacred person, but this character depends on his relation to the gods, and not on any inward holiness developed in him by a discipline of pain. Probably the chief danger which the
Oedipus Coloneus runs with modern readers is from the sense of repulsion apt to be excited by this inexorable resentment of Oedipus towards his sons. It is not so when Lear cries—
“
No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both,
That all the world shall—I will do such things,—
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I'll weep;
No, I'll not weep.
”
Sophocles has left it possible for
us to abhor the implacable father more than the heartless children. The ancient Greek spectator, however, would have been less likely to experience such a revulsion of sympathy. Nearer to the conditions imagined, he would more quickly feel all that was implied in the attitude of the sons at the moment when Oedipus was expelled from Thebes; his religious sense would demand a nemesis, while his ethical code would not require forgiveness of wrongs; and, lastly, he would feel that the implacability of Oedipus was itself a manifestation of the Fury which pursued the house.
On the part of the gods there is nothing that can properly be called tenderness
5 for Oedipus; we should not convey a true impression if we spoke of him as attaining to final pardon and peace, in the full sense which a Christian would attach to those words. The gods, who have vexed Oedipus from youth to age, make this amend to him,—that just before his death he is recognised by men as a mysteriously sacred person, who has the power to bequeath a blessing and a malison. They further provide that his departure out of his wretched life shall be painless, and such as to distinguish him from other men. But their attitude towards him is not that of a Providence which chastises men in love, for their good. They are the inscrutable powers who have had their will of a mortal. If such honour as they concede to him at the last is indeed the completion of a kindly purpose, it is announced only as the end of an arbitrary doom. If it is the crown of a salutary, though bitter, education, it appears only as the final justice (
1567) prescribed by a divine sense of measure. In the foreground of the
Oedipus Coloneus a weary wanderer is arriving at his goal; but the drama is only half appreciated if we neglect the action which occupies the background. While the old man finds rest, the hereditary curse on his family continues its work. At the very moment when he passes away, the Fury is busy with his sons. The total impression made by the play as a work of art depends essentially on the manner in which the scene of sacred peace at Colonus is brought into relief against the dark fortunes of Polyneices and Eteocles.
Here it becomes important to notice an innovation made by Sophocles. In the epic version of the story, as also in the versions adopted by Aeschylus and Euripides, Oedipus cursed his sons at Thebes, before the strife had broken out between them.
6 He doomed them to divide their heritage with the sword. Their subsequent quarrel was the direct consequence of their father's curse. But, according to Sophocles, the curse had nothing to do with the quarrel. The strife which broke out between the sons was inspired by the evil genius of their race, and by their own sinful thoughts
7. At that time Oedipus had uttered no imprecation. His curse was pronounced,
after the breach between them, because they had preferred their selfish ambitions to the opportunity of recalling their father
(421)8. Long before, when he was driven from Thebes
(441), he had felt their apathy to be heartless; but he had uttered no curse then. There is a twofold dramatic advantage in the modification thus introduced by Sophocles. First, the two sons no longer appear as helpless victims of fate; they have incurred moral blame, and are just objects of the paternal anger. Secondly, when Polyneices—on the eve of combat with his brother—appeals to Oedipus, the outraged father still holds the weapon with which to smite him. The curse descends at the supreme crisis, and with more terrible effect because it has been delayed.
The secondary persons, like the hero, are best interpreted
by the play itself; but one or two traits may be briefly noticed. The two scenes in which the removal of Oedipus is attempted are contrasted not merely in outward circumstance—Creon relying on armed force, while Polyneices is a solitary suppliant—but also in regard to the characters of the two visitors. It is idle to look for the Creon of the
Tyrannus in the Creon of the
Coloneus: they are different men, and Sophocles has not cared to preserve even a semblance of identity. The Creon of the
Tyrannus is marked by strong self-respect, and is essentially kind-hearted, though undemonstrative; the Creon of this play is a heartless and hypocritical villain. A well-meaning but wrongheaded martinet, such as the Creon of the
Antigone, is a conceivable development of the
Tyrannus Creon, but at least stands on a much higher level than the Creon of the
Coloneus. Polyneices is cold-hearted, selfish, and of somewhat coarse fibre, but he is sincere and straightforward; in the conversation with Antigone he evinces real dignity and fortitude. In the part of Theseus, which might so easily have been commonplace, Sophocles has shown a fine touch; this typical Athenian is more than a walking king; he is a soldier bred in the school of adversity, loyal to gods and men, perfect in courtesy, but stern at need. Comparing the representation of the two sisters in the
Antigone with that given in this play, we may remark the tact with which the poet has abstained here from tingeing the character of Ismene with anything like selfish timidity. At the end of the play, where the more passionate nature of the heroic Antigone manifests itself, Ismene is the sister whose calm common-sense is not overpowered by grief; but she grieves sincerely and remains, as she has been throughout, entirely loyal.
A word should be added on the conduct of the Chorus in regard to Oedipus. Before they know who he is, they regard him with horror as the man who has profaned the grove; but their feeling quickly changes to compassion on perceiving that he is blind, aged, and miserable. Then they learn his name, and wish to expel him because they conceive his presence to be a defilement. They next relent, not simply because he says that he brings benefits for Athens,—though they take account of that fact, which is itself a proof that he is at peace with the gods,—but primarily because he is able to assure them that he is “
"sacred and pious"”
(287). They then leave the matter to Theseus. Thus these elders of Colonus represent the conflict of two feelings which the situation might be supposed to arouse in the minds of ordinary Athenians,—fear of the gods, and compassion for human suffering,—the two qualities which Oedipus recognises as distinctly Athenian (
260 n.).
The Oedipus-myth at Colonus. |
The connection of Oedipus with Colonus was no invention of Sophocles. He found the local legend existing, and only gave it such a form as should harmonise it with his own treatment of the first chapter in the Oedipus-myth. It is unnecessary to suppose that, when he composed the
Oedipus Tyrannus, he contemplated an
Oedipus at Colonus. As a drama, the former is complete in itself; it is only as an expression of the myth that it is supplemented by the latter.
But why, it may be asked, should the King of Thebes have been connected by an ancient legend with this particular place in Attica? The primary link was a cult of the Eumenides at Colonus, which must have been still older than the association of Oedipus with that spot. This cult was itself connected, as the play indicates, with the existence at or near Colonus of a rift or cavernous opening in the ground, supposed to communicate with the under-world. The worship of the Eumenides at Colonus was identical in spirit with their worship at the Areiopagus, where a similar "descent to Hades" was the physical origin. The ancient rigour which required that bloodshed, whether deliberate or not, should be expiated by blood, was expressed by the older idea of the Erinyes, the implacable pursuers. The metamorphosis of the Erinyes into the Eumenides corresponds with a later and milder sense that bloodshed is compatible with varying degrees of guilt, ranging from premeditated murder to homicide in self-defence or by accident. Athenian legend claimed that this transformation of the Avengers took place in Attica, and that the institution of the court on the Areiopagus marked the moment. The claim was a mythical expression of qualities which history attests in the Athenian character, and of which the Athenians themselves were conscious as distinguishing them from other Greeks. It was Athenian to temper the letter of the law with considerations of equity (
τοὐπιεικές); to use clemency; to feel compassion (
αἰδώς) for unmerited misfortune; to shelter the oppressed; to restrict the sphere of violence; and to sacrifice,—where no other Greeks did,—at the altar of Persuasion
9. This character is signally impressed on the
Oedipus Coloneus, and is personified in Theseus. The first session of the tribunal on the Hill of Ares was, in Attic story, the first occasion on which this humane character asserted itself against a hitherto inflexible precedent. Orestes slew his mother to avenge his father, whom she had slain; and the Erinyes demanded his blood. He is tried, and acquitted,—but not by the Erinyes; by Athene and her Athenian court. The Erinyes are the accusers, and Apollo is counsel for the prisoner. Then it is,—
after the acquittal of Orestes,—that Athene's gentle pleading effects a change in the defeated Avengers
10. They cease to be the Erinyes: they become the Benign or Majestic goddesses (Eumenides, Semnae), and are installed, as guardian deities of Attica, in a shrine beneath the Areiopagus. Henceforth they are symbols of the spirit which presided over the Attic criminal law of homicide (
φόνος),—so remarkable for its combination of the unbending religious view, in which bloodshed was always a pollution, with a finely graduated scale of moral guilt, and with ample provision for the exercise of clemency.
Oedipus was a passive Orestes,—like him, the instrument of an inherited destiny, but, unlike him, a sufferer, not a doer; for his involuntary acts, as he could justly say, were in reality sufferings rather than deeds. The Eumenides of Colonus could not refuse to admit his plea, commended to them, as it was, by Apollo. His was a typical case for the display of their gentler attributes. And, as Greek religion was prone to associate the cult of deities with that of mortals in whom their power had been shown, it was natural that the Eumenides and Oedipus should be honoured at the same place. A chapel which Pausanias saw at Colonus was dedicated jointly to Oedipus and Adrastus, —a further illustration of this point. For Adrastus was another example of inevitable destiny tempered by divine equity; he shared in the Argive disasters at Thebes; but he was personally innocent; and, alone of the chiefs, he survived.
The grave of Oedipus in Attic ground is to form a perpetual safeguard for Attica against invaders. It is interesting to observe ancient traces of an exactly opposite feeling with regard to his resting-place. According to a Boeotian legend
11, Oedipus died at Thebes, and his friends wished to bury him there; but the Thebans refused permission. His friends then carried the body to ‘
"a place in Boeotia called Ceos,"’ and there interred it. But ‘
"certain misfortunes"’ presently befell the people of Ceos, and they requested the friends of Oedipus to remove him. The friends next carried him to Eteonus, a place near the frontier between Boeotia and Attica, and buried him by night, without knowing that the ground which they chose for that purpose was sacred to Demeter. The matter having become known, the people of Eteonus sent to Delphi, and asked what they were to do. Apollo replied that they must not ‘
"disturb the suppliant of the goddess"’ (Demeter). Oedipus was therefore allowed to rest in peace, and the place of his burial was thenceforth called the
Oedipodeum. We see how this Boeotian dread of his grave, as a bane to the place afflicted with it, answers to the older conception of the Erinyes; just as the Attic view, that his grave is a blessing, is in unison with the character of the Eumenides. It is only when the buried Oedipus has become associated with a
benevolent Chthonian power,—namely, with Demeter,—that he ceases to be terrible.
In the Attic view, ‘
"the suppliant of the Benign Goddesses"’
at Colonus had not only become, like them, a beneficent agency, but had also been adopted into an Attic citizenship outlasting death. Sophocles expresses this feeling by the passage in which Theseus proclaims his formal acceptance of the new Athenian
(631). The permanent identification of Oedipus with Attica is strikingly illustrated by a passage of the rhetor Aristeides, about 170 A.D.
12 He is referring to the men of olden time who fell in battle for Greece; the souls of those men, he says, have become guardian spirits of the land; “
"aye, and protect the country no less surely than Oedipus who sleeps at Colonus, or any whose grave, in any other part of the land, is believed to be for the weal of the living."” We remember how, by command of oracles, the relics of Theseus were brought from Scyros to Athens, and those of Orestes from Tegea to Sparta,—victory in war being specially named, in the latter instance, as dependent on the local presence of such relics. So, too, the grave of the Argive Eurystheus in Attica was to be a blessing for the land (
Eur. Her. 1032). Nor did this belief relate merely to the great heroes of mythology; a similar power was sometimes ascribed to the graves of historical men. Thus, as we learn from Aristeides, the tomb of Solon in Salamis was popularly regarded as securing the possession of that island to Athens.
The topography of the play, in its larger aspects, is illustrated by the accompanying map
13. The knoll of whitish earth known as Colonus Hippius, which gave its name to the deme or township of Colonus
14, was about a mile and a quarter N.W.N. from
the Dipylon gate of Athens. The epithet Hippius belonged to the god Poseidon, as horse-creating and horse-taming (see
on 715); it was given to this place because Poseidon Hippius was worshipped there, and served to distinguish this extramural Colonus from the Colonus Agoraeus, or "Market Hill," within the walls of Athens
15. In the absence of a distinguishing epithet, "Colonus" would usually mean Colonus Hippius; Thucydides calls it simply Colonus, and describes it as "a sanctuary (
ἱερόν) of Poseidon." His mention of it occurs in connection with the oligarchical conspiracy of 411 B.C., when Peisander and his associates chose Colonus, instead of the Pnyx, as the place of meeting for the Assembly which established the government of the Four Hundred. It is a fair, though not a necessary, inference from the historian's words that the assembly was held
within the sacred precinct of Poseidon, with the double advantage for the oligarchs of limiting the numbers and of precluding forcible interruption
16. The altar of Poseidon in this precinct is not visible to the spectators of our play, but is supposed to be near. When Pausanias visited Colonus (c. 180 A.D.), he saw an altar of Poseidon Hippius and Athene Hippia. A grove and a temple of Poseidon had formerly existed there, but had perished long before the date of his visit. He found, too, that divine honours were paid at Colonus to Peirithous and Theseus, to Oedipus and Adrastus: there were perhaps two shrines or chapels (
ἡρῷα), one for each pair of heroes
17. He does not mention the grove of the Eumenides, which, like that of Poseidon, had doubtless been destroyed at an earlier period.
About a quarter of a mile N.E.N. of the Colonus Hippius
rises a second mound, identified by E. Curtius and others with the “
"hill of Demeter Euchloüs"”
(1600). When Oedipus stood at the spot where he finally disappeared, this hill was "in full view" (
προσόψιος). Traces of an ancient building exist at its southern edge. Similar traces exist at the N.W. edge of the Colonus Hippius. If, as is likely, these ancient buildings were connected with religious purposes, it is possible that the specially sacred region of the ancient Colonus lay between the two mounds
18.
The grove of the Eumenides may have been on the N.
Probable site of the grove. |
or N.E. side of the Colonus Hippius. But the only condition fixed by the play fails to be precise, viz. that a road, passing by Colonus to Athens, skirted the grove,—the inner or most sacred part of the grove being on the side furthest from the road. The
roads marked on our map are the ancient roads
19. It will be observed that one of them passes between Colonus Hippius and the hill of Demeter Euchloüs, going in the direction of Athens. There is no reason why the wandering Oedipus should not be conceived as entering Attica from the N.W.;
i.e., as having passed into the Attic plain round the N. end of Aegaleos. And, in that case, the road in question might well represent the route by which Sophocles, familiar with the local details of Colonus in his own day, imagined Oedipus as arriving. Then Oedipus, moving towards Athens, would have the grove of the Eumenides on his right hand
20, if, as we were supposing, this grove was on the N. side of the Colonus Hippius. The part of the grove furthest from him (“
τοὐκεῖθεν ἄλσους”
505) would thus be near the remains of the ancient building at the N.W. edge. When Ismene is sent to that part of the grove, she is told that there is a guardian of the place (“
ἔποικος”
506), who can supply her with anything needful for the rites.
In this play the sanctities of Colonus are closely associated with those of the neighbouring Academy. To the latter belonged the altar of Prometheus (
56, see map), the altar of the Muses (
691), and the altar of Zeus Morios (
705). The sidechannel of Cephisus shown in the map may serve to illustrate the word
νομάδες in
v. 687,—which alludes to a system of irrigation, practised in ancient as in modern times, by artificial canals.
When Oedipus knows that his end is near, he leads his
friends to a place called the
καταρράκτης ὀδός, the "sheer threshold," “
"bound by brazen steps to earth's roots."”
Soph. OC 1591 There can be no doubt that this "threshold" denotes a natural fissure or chasm, supposed to be the commencement of a passage leading down to the nether world. Such a chasm exists at the foot of the Areiopagus, where Pausanias saw a tomb of Oedipus in the precinct of the Eumenides. Near this, at the S.W. angle of the Acropolis, was a shrine of Demeter Chloë
21. Are we to suppose, then, that Sophocles alludes to the chasm at the Areiopagus, and that "the hill of Demeter Euchloüs" means this shrine of Demeter Chloë on the slope of the Acropolis? This view
22—which the coincidence might reasonably suggest—seems to present insuperable difficulties. At
v. 643 Theseus asks Oedipus whether he will come to Athens or stay at Colonus. He replies that he will stay at Colonus, because it is the scene appointed for his victory over his foes (
646). But the victory was to take place at his grave (
411); which the poet therefore supposed to be at or near Colonus,—not at Athens. If, then, in the time of Sophocles an Areiopagus-legend already claimed the grave of Oedipus, the poet disregarded it. And, when the grave was to be associated with Colonus, it would be strange to send Oedipus so far for the purpose of vanishing at the Areiopagus. The brevity of the choral ode which separates the final exit of Oedipus (
1555) from the entrance of the Messenger (
1579) implies, as does the whole context, that Oedipus passed away somewhere near the grove—not at a distance of more than a mile and a half, as the other theory requires. Then the phrase “
Εὐχλόου Δήμητρος πάγος”
(1600) applies to the knoll far more naturally than to a shrine at the foot of the Acropolis. Referring to a tomb of Oedipus which he saw in the precinct of the Furies at the Areiopagus,
Pausanias says: “
"On inquiry, I found that the bones had been brought from Thebes. As to the version of the death of Oedipus given by Sophocles, Homer did not permit me to think it credible."”
23 (since the
Iliad buries Oedipus at Thebes). Thus Pausanias, at least, understood Sophocles to mean that the grave was somewhere near Colonus. It did not occur to him that the Colonus-myth as to the grave could be harmonised with the Areiopagus-myth. Sophocles adopts the Colonus-myth unreservedly; nor can I believe that he intended, by any deliberate vagueness, to leave his hearers free to think of the Areiopagus. The chasm called the
καταρράκτης ὀδός must be imagined, then, as not very distant from the grove. No such chasm is visible at the present day in the neighbourhood of Colonus. But this fact is insufficient to prove that no appearance of the kind can have existed there in antiquity
24.
Sophocles accurately defines the position of the “
"sheer threshold"” by naming certain objects near it, familiar, evidently, to the people of the place, though unknown to us
25. Here it was that Oedipus disappeared. But the place of his “
"sacred tomb"”
(1545) was to be a secret, known only to Theseus. The tomb, then, was not at the spot where he disappeared, since that spot was known to all. The poet's conception appears to have been of this kind. At the moment when Oedipus passed away, in the mystic vision which left Theseus dazzled, it was revealed to the king of Athens where the mortal remains of Oedipus would be found. The soul of Oedipus went down to Hades, whether ushered by a conducting god, or miraculously drawn to the embrace of the spirits below (
1661); the tenantless body left on earth was wafted by a supernatural agency to the secret tomb appointed for it. As in the
Iliad the corpse of Sarpedon is borne from Troy to Lycia by “
"the twin-brothers, Sleep and Death,"” so divine hands were to minister here. When Theseus rejoins the desolate daughters, he already knows where the tomb is, though he is not at liberty to divulge the place (
1763).
The ground on which the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus
stands is called “
"the Brazen Threshold, the stay of Athens"”
(57). How is this name related to that of the spot at which Oedipus disappeared, — “
"the sheer threshold"”
(1590)? One view is that the same spot is meant in both cases. We have then to suppose that in verses 1-116 (the "prologue") the scene is laid at the
καταρράκτης ὀδός, "the sheer threshold"; and that at
v. 117 the scene changes to another side of the grove, where the rest of the action takes place. This supposition is, however, extremely improbable, and derives no support from any stage arrangements which the opening scene implies. Rather the "Brazen Threshold" of
v. 57 was a name derived from the particular spot which is called the "sheer threshold," and applied in a larger sense to the immediately adjacent region, including the ground on which the grove stood. The epithet "brazen" properly belonged to the actual chasm or "threshold," — the notion being that a flight of brazen steps connected the upper world with the Homeric "brazen threshold" of Hades. In its larger application to the neighbouring ground, "brazen" was a poetical equivalent for "rocky," and this ground was called the "stay" or "support" (
ἔρεισμα) of Athens, partly in the physical sense of "firm basis," partly also with the notion that the land had a safeguard in the benevolence of those powers to whose nether realm the "threshold" led.
This view is more than a conjecture; it can be supported by ancient authority. Istros, a native of Cyrene, was first the slave, then the disciple and friend, of the Alexandrian poet Callimachus; he lived, then, about 240 B.C., or less than 170 years after the death of Sophocles
26. He is reckoned among the authors of
Atthides, having written, among other things, a work entitled
Ἀττικά, in at least sixteen books. In the later Alexandrian age he was one of the chief authorities on Attic topography; and he is quoted six times in the ancient scholia on the
Oedipus Coloneus. One of these quotations has not (so far as I know) been noticed in its bearing on the point now under discussion; it does not occur in the scholium on
v. 57, but on
1059, in connection with another subject ("the snowy rock"). It would appear that in the first book of his
Ἀττικά Istros sketched an itinerary of Attica, marking off certain stages or distances. Along with some other words, the scholiast quotes these:—“
ἀπὸ δὲ τούτου ἕως Κολωνοῦ παρὰ τὸν Χαλκοῦν προσαγορευόμενον: ὅθεν πρὸς τὸν Κηφισὸν ἕως τῆς μυστικῆς εἰσόδου εἰς Ἐλευσῖνα”. We do not know to what
ἀπὸ τούτου referred: but the context is clear. Two distances are here indicated: (1) one is from the point meant by
τοῦτο, "
along the Brazen Threshold, as it is called," to Colonus: (2) the second is from Colonus "in the direction of the Cephisus, as far as the road by which the Initiated approach Eleusis," —
i.e., as far as the point at which the Sacred Way crosses the Cephisus (see map). A third stage is then introduced by the words,
ἀπὸ ταύτης δὲ (
sc. τῆς εἰσόδου)
βαδιζόντων εἰς Ἐλευσῖνα, etc. Thus the course of the second stage is from N.E. to S.W.; and the third stage continues the progress westward. Hence it would be natural to infer that the unknown point meant by
τοῦτο, from which one set out "along the Brazen Threshold," was somewhere to the E. or N.E. of Colonus. At any rate, wherever that point was, the question with which we are chiefly concerned is settled by this passage. The "Brazen Threshold" was not merely the name of a definite spot. It was the name given to a whole strip of ground, or region, "along which" the wayfarer proceeded to Colonus. And this perfectly agrees with the manner in which Sophocles refers to it (
v. 57).
In order to understand the opening part of the play (as
Stage arrangements in the opening scene. |
far as
v. 201), it is necessary to form some distinct notion of the stage arrangements. It is of comparatively little moment that we cannot pretend to say exactly how far the aids of scenery and carpentry were actually employed when the play was first produced at Athens. Without knowing this, we can still make out all that is needful for a clear comprehension of the text. First, it is evident that the back-scene (the palace-front of so many plays) must here have been supposed to represent a landscape of some sort,—whether the acropolis of Athens was shown in the distance, or not. Secondly, the sacred grove on the stage must have been so contrived that Oedipus could retire into its covert, and then show himself
(138) as if in an opening or glade, along which Antigone gradually leads him until he is beyond the precinct. If one of the doors in the back-scene had been used for the exit of Oedipus into the grove, then it would at least have been necessary to show, within the door, a tolerably deep vista. It seems more likely that the doors of the back-scene were not used at all in this play. I give a diagram to show how the action as far as
v. 201 might be managed
27.
Antigone leads in her blind father on the spectators' left. She places him on a seat of natural rock (the "1st seat" in the diagram). This rock is just within the bounds of the grove; which evidently was not surrounded by a fence of any kind, ingress and egress being free. When the Chorus approach, Antigone and her father hide in the grove, following the left of the two dotted lines
(113). When Oedipus discloses himself to the Chorus
(138), he is well within the grove. Assured of safety, he is gradually led forward by Antigone
(173-191), along the right-hand dotted line. At the limit of the grove, in this part, there is a low ledge of natural rock, forming a sort of threshold. When he has set foot on this ledge of rock,—being now just outside the grove,—he is told to halt
(192). A low seat of natural rock,—the outer edge (
ἄκρου) of the rocky threshold,— is now close to him. He has only to take a step sideways (
λέχριος) to reach it. Guided by Antigone, he moves to it, and she places him on it (the "2nd seat" in the diagram:
v. 201).
The Attic plays of Euripides. |
Not only the local colour but the Athenian sentiment of the
Coloneus naturally suggests a comparison, or a contrast, with some plays of Euripides. It may be said that the especially Attic plays of the latter fall under two classes. First, there are the pieces in which he indirectly links his fable with the origin of Attic institutions, religious or civil, though the action does not pass in Attica; thus the
Ion,—of which the scene is at Delphi,— bears on the origin of the Attic tribes; the
Iphigenia in Tauris refers to the cult of Artemis as practised in Attica at Halae and Brauron. Then there are the more directly Athenian plays,— the
Supplices, where Theseus takes the part of the Argive king Adrastus, and compels the Thebans to allow the burial of the Argives slain at Thebes; the
Heracleidae, where the son of Theseus protects the children of Heracles,—as Theseus himself, in the
Hercules Furens (of which the scene is at Thebes), had induced their father to seek an asylum at Athens. If the Attic elements in the
Oedipus Coloneus are compared with those of the plays just mentioned, the difference is easily felt. In the first of the two Euripidean groups, the tone of the Attic traits is antiquarian; in the second, it tends to be political,—
i.e., we meet with allusions, more or less palpable, to the relations of Athens with Argos or with Thebes at certain moments of the Peloponnesian war. The
Oedipus Coloneus has many references to local usages,—in particular, the minute description of the rites observed in the grove of the Eumenides; it is a reflex of contemporary Attic life, in so far as it is a faithful expression of qualities which actually distinguished the Athens of Sophocles in public action, at home and abroad. But the poet is an artist working in a purely ideal spirit; and the proof of his complete success is the unobtrusive harmony of the local touches with all the rest. In
this respect the
Oedipus Coloneus might properly be compared with the
Eumenides,—with which it has the further affinity of subject already noticed above. Yet there is a difference. Contemporary events affecting the Areiopagus were vividly present to the mind of Aeschylus. He had a political sympathy, if not a political purpose, which might easily have marred the ideal beauty of a lesser poet's creation. Prudently bold, he deprived it of all power to do this by the direct simplicity with which he expressed it (
Eum. 693-701). The
Oedipus Coloneus contains perhaps one verse in which we might surmise that the poet was thinking of his own days
(1537); but it does not contain a word which could be interpreted as directly alluding to them.
The general voice of ancient tradition attributed the
The Coloneus ascribed to the poet's last years. |
Oedipus Coloneus to the latest years of Sophocles, who is said to have died at the age of ninety, either at the beginning of 405 B.C., or in the latter half of 406 B.C. According to the author of the second Greek argument to the play (p. 4), it was brought out, after the poet's death, by his grandson and namesake, Sophocles, the son of Ariston, in the archonship of Micon, Ol. 94. 3 (402 B.C.). The ancient belief is expressed by the well-known story for which Cicero is our earliest authority:—
“
"Sophocles wrote tragedies to extreme old age; and as, owing to this pursuit, he was thought to neglect his property, he was brought by his sons before a court of law, in order that the judges might declare him incapable of managing his affairs,—as Roman law withdraws the control of an estate from the incompetent head of a family. Then, they say, the old man recited to the judges the play on which he was engaged, and which he had last written,—the Oedipus Coloneus; and asked whether that poem was suggestive of imbecility. Having recited it, he was acquitted by the verdict of the court."”
28.
The story of the recitation —not impossible. |
Plutarch specifies the part recited,—viz. the first stasimon, —which by an oversight he calls the parodos,—quoting
vv. 668-673, and adding that Sophocles was escorted from the court with applauding shouts, as from a theatre in which he had triumphed. The story should not be too hastily rejected because, in a modern estimate, it may seem melodramatic or absurd. There was nothing impossible in the incident supposed. The legal phrase used by the Greek authorities is correct, describing an action which could be, and sometimes was, brought by Athenian sons against their fathers
29.
As to the recitation, a jury of some hundreds of citizens in an Athenian law-court formed a body to which such a coup de théâtre could be addressed with great effect. The general spirit of Greek forensic oratory makes it quite intelligible that a celebrated dramatist should have vindicated his sanity in the manner supposed. The true ground for doubt is of another kind. It
appears that an arraignment of the aged Sophocles, by his son Iophon, before a court of his clansmen (phratores), had furnished a scene to a contemporary comedy
30; and it is highly probable that the comic poet's invention—founded possibly on gossip about differences between Sophocles and his sons —was the origin of the story. This inference is slightly confirmed by the words which, according to one account, Sophocles used in the law-court: “
εἰ μέν εἰμι Σοφοκλῆς, οὐ παραφρονῶ: εἰ δὲ παραφρονῶ, οὐκ εἰμὶ Σοφοκλῆς”. That has the ring of the Old Comedy
31. The words are quoted in the anonymous Life of Sophocles as being recorded by Satyrus, a Peripatetic who lived about 200 B.C., and left a collection of biographies. His work appears to have been of a superficial character, and uncritical
32. The incident of the trial, as he found it in a comedy of the time of Sophocles, would doubtless have found easy acceptance at his hands. From Satyrus, directly or indirectly, the story was probably derived by Cicero and later writers.
Internal evidence —supposed political bearings. |
It must now be asked how far the internal evidence of the play supports the belief that it belongs to the poet's latest years. Lachmann, maintaining the singular view that the
Oedipus Coloneus was “
"political through and through"” (“"durch und durch politisch"”), held that it was composed just before the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, with the purpose of kindling Athenian patriotism. Another conjecture is that the play was prepared for the Great Dionysia of 411 B.C., just after the Government of Four Hundred had been established by the assembly held at Colonus; that Colonus Hippius may have been "in some special sense the Knights' Quarter"; that hence the play would commend itself to a class of men among whom the new oligarchy had found most of its adherents; and that, after the fall of the Four Hundred, political considerations prevented a reproduction of the play, until, after the poet's death, it was revived in 402 B.C.
33 This is an ingenious view, but not (to my apprehension) a probable one. That the play would have been especially popular with the Athenian Knights need not be doubted; but it is another thing to suppose that the composition of the play had regard to their political sympathies in 411 B.C. In a time of public excitement any drama bearing on the past of one's country is pretty sure to furnish some words that will seem fraught with a present meaning. We may grant that such a meaning would sometimes, perhaps, have been found by an Athenian spectator of this play, and also that the poet's mind, when he wrote it, was not insensible to the influence of contemporary events. But it seems not the less true to affirm that, from the first verse to the last, in great things and in small, the play is purely a work of ideal art.
Character of the composition. |
Another species of internal evidence has been sought in the character of the dramatic composition. It has been held that the
Oedipus Coloneus shares certain traits with the
Philoctetes, the other play which tradition assigns to the latest years of Sophocles. One such trait is the larger scope given to scenic effects which appeal to the eye and the ear,—such as the pitiable garb of Oedipus, the personal violence of Creon, the scenery of Colonus, the thunder-storm. Another is the change from a severer type of tragedy, which concentrates the interest on a single issue—as in the
Tyrannus—to a type which admits the relief of secondary interests,—such as the cult at Colonus, the rescue of the maidens, the glory of Athens, the fortunes of Thebes. A third trait of similar significance has been recognised in the contemplative tendency of the play, which leaves the spectator at leisure to meditate on questions other than those which are solved by a stroke of dramatic action,—such as the religious and the moral aspects of the hero's acts, or the probable effect of his pleas on the Athenian mind
34. Akin to this tendency is the choice of subjects like those of the
Coloneus and the
Philoctetes, which end with a reconciliation, not with a disaster. And here there is an analogy with some of the latest of Shakspeare's plays,—the
Winter's Tale,
Tempest, and
Cymbeline, —which end, as Prof. Dowden says, with “
"a resolution of the dissonance, a reconciliation."”
35
It may at once be conceded that the traits above mentioned are present in the
Coloneus, and that they are among those which distinguish it from the
Tyrannus. The
Coloneus is indeed more picturesque, more tolerant of a distributed interest, more meditative; and its end is peace. But it is less easy to decide how far these traits are due to the subject itself, and how far they can safely be regarded as distinctive of the poet's latest period. Let us suppose for a moment that external evidence had assigned the
Coloneus to the earlier years of Sophocles. It would not then, perhaps, seem less reasonable to suggest that these same traits are characteristic of youth. Here, it might be said, we find the openness of a youthful imagination to impressions of the senses; its preference of variety to intensity, in the absence of that matured and virile sternness of dramatic purpose which can concentrate the thoughts on a single issue; its affinity to such themes as temper the darker view of human destiny with some gladness and some hope. In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that the latter view of the traits in question is actually more correct than the former, but merely to illustrate the facility with which considerations of this nature can be turned to the support of opposite hypotheses.
Another feature of the play which has been supposed to indicate the close of the fifth century B.C. is the prominence of the rhetorical element in certain places, especially in the scenes with Creon and Polyneices. We should recollect, however, that the
Ajax is generally allowed to be one of the earlier plays, and that the scenes there between Teucer and the Atreidae show the taste for rhetorical discussion quite as strongly as any part of the
Coloneus. Rhetoric should be distinguished from rhetorical dialectic. Subtleties of the kind which appear in some plays of Euripides are really marks of date, as showing new tendencies of thought. But the natural rhetoric of debate, such as we find it in the
Ajax and the
Coloneus, was as congenial to Greeks in the days of Homer as in the days of Protagoras.
Our conclusion may be as follows. There is no reason to question the external evidence which refers the
Oedipus Coloneus to the latest years of Sophocles. But no corroboration of it can be derived from the internal evidence, except in one general aspect and one detail,—viz. the choice of an Attic subject, and the employment of a fourth actor. The Attic plays of Euripides, mentioned above, belong to the latter part of the Peloponnesian war, which naturally tended to a concentration of home sympathies. An Attic theme was the most interesting that a dramatist could choose; and he was doing a good work, if, by recalling the past glories of Athens, he could inspire new courage in her sons. If Attica was to furnish a subject, the author of the
Oedipus Tyrannus had no need to look beyond his native Colonus; and it is conceivable that this general influence of the time should have decided the choice. In three scenes of the play, four actors are on the stage together. This innovation may be allowed as indicating the latest period of Sophocles
36.
