Tal Bachman: We Have Met the Enemy, part VI

Steyn On-line ^ | June 3, 2021 | Tal Bachman

[Twotone]

Continuing on from last time, Greek drama rooted itself in the same acceptance of human limitation as did Greek myth and history. I don't have space for a proper survey here, but we can at least examine a representative sample or two.

Let's start with the most famous Greek tragedy of all—Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. It's been big for 2400 years. No less a theatre critic than Aristotle rated it the best tragedy of all time (as of the 4th century BC). Let's see what it suggests about the worldview conveyed by the Greek playwrights.

When the play opens, the city of Thebes is in terrible crisis. The crops and livestock are dying. The women cannot conceive. A mysterious fever is killing off the city's residents. Thebes evidently labors under some sort of curse. In desperation, the citizens approach Oedipus, their king, begging him to do something to rescue them.

They have supreme faith in King Oedipus, you see. He is not only their king—he is their hero. And he's been their hero since the day he arrived in Thebes years earlier.

It was a young Oedipus, after all, who had first approached Thebes from his hometown of Corinth, only to find a cruel monster—the Sphinx—terrorizing the city. Anyone who answered her riddle could pass into the city. Anyone who didn't, the Sphinx devoured. The trick was, the Sphinx always won. No one could ever figure out the answer to the riddle. No one, that is, until young Oedipus wandered up.

[Nateman]

Tom Lehrer has an excellent song about Oedipus Rex.

[sauropod]

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