National and Other Identities

National and Other Identities

The year 429 BC marked a turning-point for Athens. In that year Pericles, after thirty years as the Athenian leader, succumbed to the plague that ravaged Athens. From that moment Athens' power visibly declined. In the same year Sophocles staged what many consider to be his greatest tragedy, Oedipus Tyrannos (Oedipus the King). It is sometimes

seen as the playwright's warning to his countrymen about the perils of pride and power, but its central theme is the problem of

identity. The play opens with a plague. But this one ravages Thebes, not Athens. We soon learn that it has been sent by the gods because of an unsolved murder long ago, that of the Thcban king, Laius. Shortly after that murder on the road to Delphi Oedipus arrived in Thebes and freed the city from the terror of the Sphinx by correctly answering her riddles. Oedipus became king, married the widowed queen, Jocasta, and had with her four children, two boys and two girls. At the beginning of the play Oedipus promises that he will discover the unclean presence that has brought the plague and must be banished. He sends for the blind seer, Teiresias; but Teiresias only answers darkly that he, Oedipus, is the unclean presence who must

be sent into exile. Oedipus suspects that Teiresias has been put up to such an accusation by Jocasta's scheming brother Creon. But Jocasta heals their quarrel and reveals that her former husband, Laius, was murdered by robbers at a place 'where three roads meet'. This stirs Oedipus' memory of a moment when he killed some strangers. One man, however, survived, and on his return to Thebes begged to be sent away to the pastures. Oedipus sends for him. He must find out what happened to Laius.

A messenger arrives from Corinth and brings the news that Polybus, the king of that city and Oedipus' father, has died.

This prompts Oedipus to reveal why he left Corinth long ago, never to NATIONAL AND OTHER IDENTITIES

return. It was because of an oracle from Delphi, which said that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Even now he cannot return to Corinth for fear of marrying his mother, Merope. But the Corinthian messenger has a surprise for Oedipus. He is not, after all, the son of the king and queen of Corinth. He was a foundling given to the royal couple because they were childless, and he was given to them by none other than the messenger himself long ago when he was a shepherd on Mount Cithaeron. If the

messenger had not received him from his counterpart, the Theban shepherd, Oedipus would have died of exposure, his little feet swollen from the thongs that pierced them: hence his name, Oedipus (Swollen-foot). Who is this Theban shepherd, and where did he get the child with the pierced feet? Jocasta has realized the terrible truth and begs Oedipus to desist. He refuses. He must find out 'who he is'. Jocasta rushes out and hangs herself. Oedipus exults: Let all come out, however vile! However base it be,

I must unlock the secret of my birth. The woman, With more than woman's pride, is shamed by my low origin.

I am the child of Fortune, the giver of good, And I shall not be shamed. She is my mother;

My sisters arc the Seasons; my rising and my falling March with theirs. Born thus, I ask to be no other man

Than that I am, and will know who I am.1 The Theban shepherd is now brought in. He turns out to be the

same man who fled when Laius was murdered, and the very man who gave the baby to the Corinthian messenger on Mount Cithacron long ago, rather than let it die of exposure. Reluctantly at first, in mounting terror later, the Theban shepherd reveals the truth: he was the trusted servant of Laius and Jocasta; they gave him the baby to expose on Mount Cithaeron; it was because of an oracle; the baby was the child of Laius and Jocasta . . . Oedipus rushes out, finds Jocasta hanging from the ceiling and blinds himself. The rest of his life becomes one long quest, first in Thebes, then in exile with Antigone, for the meaning of his strange destiny; until, in the grove of the Eumenides in Colonus outside Athens, the earth itself swallows him up, and by that act he hallows NATIONAL AND OTHER IDENTITIES Athens for ever. That was the poet's last thought, in 406 BC, at the end of his long life