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The Endless End of the Oedipus Rex
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
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In a recent paper I have studied the power play of notions such as tukhē (‘chance’) and telos (‘finality’) in the Oedipus Tyrannus, and in particular I have tried to show how these two principles are responsible for shaping different and overlapping narratives in the text. While the narrative of telos corresponds broadly speaking to the voice of Apollo the Father, the narrative of tukhē accommodates itself in the void and absence of the Father's voice. The encroachment of these two narratives upon one another not only outlines different visions of paternity—which is the central theme in the play—but also creates suspense and imprints an indecisive direction into the action of the play. In particular the narratives spun around tukhē, i.e. those that emphasize the mere accidentality of events, their mere human causation without any ultimate goal, resist the teleological thrust of the play, its divine finality—the necessary accomplishment of the oracles and of the prophecies— and accordingly also the ‘closure’ of the play. By closure of the play I understand the end of the play in accordance with the teleological premises that have been created during the action.
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References
1. Pucci, P, ‘Reading the Riddles of Oedipus Rex’, in Pucci, (ed.), Language and the Tragic Hero: Essays on Greek Tragedy in Honor of Gordon Kirkwood (Atlanta 1988), 131–54.Google Scholar
2. Loraux, N., ‘L’empreinte de Jocaste’, L’écrit du temps 12 (1986), 35–54Google Scholar; Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (Cambridge 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pucci, P., ‘The Tragic Pharmakos of the Oedipus Rex’, Helios 17 (1990), 41–49Google Scholar.
3. Roberts, D. H., ‘Sophoclean Endings: Another Story’, Arethusa 21 (1988), 177–96Google Scholar, has called attention to the fact that all of Sophocles’ extant plays undermine in some way the ‘ending’ (or the ‘closure’) by allusions to events that pertain to the main characters and yet will occur later outside the actual stage.
4. Dawe, R. D., Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge 1983), 232.Google Scholar
5. This designation ho telēn justifies my emphasis on the specific workings of a divine telos in the play. The same verb is associated with Apollo once before in the play: at 797 Oedipus says that he ran away from Corinth in the hope of forestalling the telos of the oracles. A verb with similar meaning is used by Teiresias at 377 to state Apollo’s capability to accomplish what he wants. In particular, the oracles state without hesitation that the events they predict must necessarily happen. They do not state a mere foresight, but a ‘must’ (khrē, del). Analogously, the recipients of the oracles consider the foreseen events as necessity; see 791, 825, 854, 995. There are also, besides these explicit expressions, countless ways of imprinting the mark of Apollo’s telos in the events. In line 723 the prophetic voices ‘have mapped out’ (diorisan) the future. These voices map out a space, outline a bios. (Oedipus will, for an instant, trust the beneficial Tukhē to have mapped out for him his destiny [1083]). All sorts of stylistic means imprint the telos of the oracle in the text. At 928 Jocasta, for instance, is defined as Oedipus’ ‘wife and mother’ by a tricky placement of the two words. On ‘fate’ in Oedipus Tyrannus, see Brody, J., ‘Fate’ in Oedipus Tyrannus: A Textual Approach (Buffalo 1985)Google Scholar.
6. On the frequency of the chiasmus in the Oedipus Rex, see Pucci, P., ‘On the Eye and the Phallus’, in Bowersock, G. et al. (eds.), Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to B.M.W. Knox (Berlin and New York 1979), 130–33.Google Scholar
7. If we compare Oedipus’ self-blinding to the more radical reaction of Ajax and Heracles (in Euripides’ Heracles) when they, discovering that they have been shamelessly humiliated by the gods, decide to kill themselves, we realize that Oedipus’ act is a sign of only a partial recognition of his defeat. Though he considers himself ‘cursed and hated by the gods’ (1345f.) he nevertheless continues to live and to want to be master of his life, following his moira.
8. The list of the saviours begins in line 48 where Oedipus is supposed to be the rescuer of Thebes; it continues at 80f. where tukhē is invoked together with Apollo: ‘Lord Apollo, by some saving chance may Creon come bright …’ Then in line 150 Apollo again will be invoked as saviour, and later (304) Teiresias is asked to save Thebes and all its inhabitants, etc., etc. Meanwhile, as Oedipus curses the piteous herdsman who saved him, Thebes and the plague have disappeared from his concern and ours.
9. I mention here only the vibrant analyses of Knox, B. in Oedipus at Thebes (New Haven 1957)Google Scholar and The Heroic Temper (Berkeley 1964)Google Scholar, and the inspired view of Oedipus as representative of human greatness and wretchedness in all their most radical registers by Vernant, J. P. in ‘Ambiguité et renversement. Sur la structure énigmatique d’ Oedipe Rot’, in Vernant, J. P. et Vidal-Naquet, P. (eds.), Mythe et tragédie en Grèce ancienne (Paris 1972), 101–31Google Scholar (English translation by Page|duBois: ‘Ambiguity and Reversal: On the Enigmatic Structure of the Oedipus Rex’, in New Literary History 9 [1978], 475–501).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. In Odyssey 5.105, Hermes, quoting the words of Zeus, defines Odysseus as the ‘most lamentable (oizurotatos) beyond other heroes’ of the epic poems known as Nostoi; and analogously in Iliad 1.417 Thetis defines Achilles as ‘lamentable(oizuros) beyond all men’. For the other features that support the comparison, see Pucci, P., Odysseus Polutropos (Ithaca and London 1987), 38.Google Scholar
11. Knox, Oedipus at Thebes (n. 8 above).
12. Roberts (n.3 above), 177–96; the quotation is from p. 190.
13. See for instance Said, Edward W., Beginnings (Baltimore 1975).Google Scholar
14. Against the authenticity of lines 1524–30, see Dawe, R. D.Studies in the Text of Sophocles I : Manuscripts and the Text (Leiden 1973)Google Scholar; in favour of the authenticity, see Calder, William M. III, ‘Oedipus Tyrannus 1515–30’, CP 57 (1962), 219–29Google Scholar; and in favour of the authenticity of 1524–25 see Douglas Olson, S., ‘On the Text of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus 1524–30’, Phoenix 43(1989), 189–95.Google Scholar
15. Wilamowitz, Tycho von, Die Dramatische Technik des Sophokles (Berlin 1917), 79Google Scholar.
16. Cf. Goodhart, S., ‘Leistas ephaske: Oedipus and Laius’ Many Murderers’, Diacritics (1978), 55–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17. For a reading of Trachiniae along these lines see Heiden, Bruce, Tragic Rhetoric: An Interpretation of Sophocles’ Trachiniae (New York 1989).Google Scholar
18. The metatheatrical endless end is perhaps announced in other passages as well as those we have mentioned, for instance at 424f. when Teiresias, after predicting Oedipus’ future calamities, i.e. the parental curse, the blindness, adds: ‘You do not perceive the multitude of other evils that will equate you to yourself and to your children.’ It is not a ‘multitude of evils’ that induces the peripeteia (the reversal) and Oedipus’ self-identification, especially since Polybus’ death is no trauma for Oedipus and Jocasta’s death occurs after the self-recognition. Again one is forced to infer that either Teiresias recklessly inflates Oedipus’ future calamities or that he is made to imply that after his self-recognition in this play, Oedipus will suffer evils that will continue the process of his self-demystification, evils analogous to those his children will suffer. We might immediately think of the reciprocal hatred between father and sons that we learn of in the Oedipus at Colonus. Another example of metatheatrical presentation of Oedipus occurs at the beginning of the play, in line 8 (ho pasi kleinos Oidipous kaloumenos) where the text does not need to say of Oedipus anything more than his name but nevertheless it enlarges the presentation to a whole somehow self-indulgent line: ‘by name Oedipus, famous to everybody’, or ‘called by everybody the famous Oedipus’ etc. The text probably assumes this equivocal freedom with its character because it is of course true that Oedipus, the tragic character, the dramatis persona, was a most famous mask in the Greek theatre. By using this innuendo, Sophocles would somehow be telling his audience: ‘Yes, here you have another re-enactment of the famous character.’
19. In the last moments of the play (1515–23) Creon’s answers (1519–21) to Oedipus’ pressing request to be sent to exile are indeed ambiguous. Knox recognizes this ambiguity, and he is aware of Creon’s unwillingness to fulfill the oracle, but in order to confirm Oedipus’ recovered inflexibility, he chooses to interpret that Oedipus has his way until the last line. But the text is ambiguous, and on the ground of these lines alone it cannot be decided with any certainty whether or not Creon is ready to comply with Oedipus’ wish. For even if Creon consents to Oedipus’ desire, this consent ‘can only be provisional—depending on the approval of the oracle—’ (Jebb). One thing is sure: Oedipus does not leave for exile, but enters his home! This final entrance, symbolizing Oedipus’ return to the place of his incest (as N. Loraux [n.2 above], 35–54 has shown) and the unnecessary decision by Creon to obtain a new oracle favor in my view the interpretation that Oedipus’ future is for the moment undetermined.
20. See note 2 above.