"When thou seest such sights, utter no haughty word against the gods
and be not roused to pride, if thou art mightier than another in
strength or store of wealth. One day can bring down or exalt all
human state, but the gods love the prudent and hate the sinners."
A band of mariners from Salamis enter as the chorus; they are Ajax'
followers who have come to learn the truth. They are confronted by
Tecmessa, Ajax' captive, who confirms the grievous rumour, describing
his mad acts. When the fit was over, she had left him in his tent
prostrate with grief and shame among the beasts he had slain, longing
for vengeance on his enemies before he died.
The business of the play now begins. Coming forth, Ajax in a long
despairing speech laments his lot--persecuted by Athena, hated of Greeks
and Trojans alike, the secret laughter of his enemies.
Where shall he go? Home to the father he has disgraced? Against Troy,
leading a forlorn hope? He had already reminded Tecmessa with some
sternness that silence is a woman's best grace; now she appeals to his
pity. Bereft of him, she would speedily be enslaved and mocked; their
son would be left defenceless; the many kindnesses she had done him cry
for some return from a man of chivalrous nature, Ajax bade her be of
good cheer; she must obey him in all things and first must bring his son
Eurysaces. Taking him in his arms, he says:--
"If he is my true son, he will not quail at the sight of blood.
But he must speedily be broken into his father's warrior habit
and imitate his ways. My son, I pray thou mayest be happier than
thy sire, but like him otherwise, then thou shalt be no churl.
Yet herein I envy thee that thou canst not feel my agonies. Life
is sweetest in its careless years before it learns joy and pain;
but when thou art come to that, show thy father's enemies thy
nature and birth. Till then feed on the spirit of gladness,
gambol in the life of boyhood and gladden thy mother's heart."
He reflects that his son will be safe as long as Teucer lives, whom he
charges on his return to take the boy to his own father and mother to be
their joy. His arms shall not be a prize to be striven for; they should
be buried with him except his shield, which his son should take and
keep. This ominous speech dashes the hopes which he had raised in
Tecmessa's heart, even the Chorus sadly admitting that death is the best
for a brainsick man, born of the highest blood, no longer true to his
character.
Ajax re-enters, a sword in his hands. He feels his heart touched by
Tecmessa's words and pities her helplessness. He resolves to go to the
shore and there bury the accursed sword he had of Hector, which had
robbed him of his peace. He will soon learn obedience to the gods and
his leaders; all the powers of Nature are subject to authority, the
seasons, the sea, night and sleep. He has but now learned that an enemy
is to be hated as one who will love us later, while friendship will not
always abide. Yet all will be well; he will go the journey he cannot
avoid; soon all will hear that his evil destiny has brought him
salvation. This splendid piece of tragic irony is interpreted at its
surface value by the Chorus, who burst into a song of jubilation. But
the words have a darker meaning; this transient joy is but the last
flicker of hope before it is quenched in everlasting night.
A messenger brings the news that Teucer, Ajax' brother, on his return
to the camp from a raid was nearly stoned to death as the kinsman of the
army's foe. He inquires where Ajax is; hearing that he had gone out to
make atonement, he knows the terror that is to come. Chalcas the seer
adjured Teucer to use all means in his power to keep Ajax in his tent
that day, for in it alone Athena's wrath would persecute him. She had
punished him with madness for two proud utterances. On leaving his
father he had boasted he would win glory in spite of Heaven, and later
had bidden Athena assist the other Greeks, for the line would never
break where he stood. Such was his pride, and such its punishment.
Tecmessa hurries in and sends some to fetch Teucer, others to go east
and west to seek out her lord. The scene rapidly changes to the shore,
where Ajax cries to the gods, imprecates his foes, prays to Death, and
after a remembrance of his native land falls on his sword.
The Chorus enter in two bands, but find nothing. Tecmessa discovers the
body in a brake, and hides it under her robe. Distracted and haunted by
the dread of slavery and ridicule, she gives way to grief. Teucer enters
to learn of the tragedy; after dispatching Tecmessa to save the child
while there is yet time, he reflects on his own state. Telamon his
father will cast him off for being absent in his brother's hour of
weakness whom he loved as his own life. Sadly he bears out the truth of
Ajax utterance, that a foe's gifts are fraught with ruin; the belt that
Ajax gave Hector served to tie his feet to Achilles' car--and Hector's
sword was in his brother's heart.
The plot now appeals to fiercer passions. Menelaus entering commands
Teucer to leave the corpse where it is, for an enemy shall receive no
burial. He strikes the same note as Creon:--
"It is the mark of an ill-conditioned man that he, a commoner,
should see fit to disobey the powers that be. Law cannot prosper
in a city where there is no settled fear; where a man trembles and
is loyal, there is salvation; when he is insolent and does as he
will, his city soon or late will sink to ruin."
Teucer answers that Ajax never was a subject, but was always an equal.
He fought, not for Helen, but for his oath's sake. The dispute waxes
hot; the calm dignity of Teucer easily discomfits the Spartan braggart,
who departs to bring aid. Meanwhile Tecmessa returns with the child whom
Teucer in a scene of consummate pathos bids kneel at his father's side,
holding in his hand a triple lock of hair--Teucer's, his mother's, his
own; this sacred symbol, if violated, would bring a curse on any who
dared outrage him. While the Chorus sing a song full of longings for
home, Agamemnon advances to the place, followed by Teucer. The King is
deliberately insolent, reviling Teucer for the stain on his birth. In
reply the latter in a great speech reminds him that there was a time
when the flames licked the Greek ships and there was none to save them
but Ajax, who had faced Hector single-handed. With kindling passion he
hurls the taunt of a stained birth back on Agamemnon and plainly tells
him that Ajax shall be buried and that the King will rue any attempt at
violence. Odysseus comes in to hear the quarrel. He admits that he
had once been the foe of the dead man, who yet had no equal in bravery
except Achilles. For all that, enmity in men should end where death
begins. Astonished at this defence of a foe, Agamemnon argues a little
with Odysseus, who gently reminds him that one day he too will need
burial. This human appeal obtains the necessary permission; Odysseus,
left alone with Teucer, offers him friendship. Too much overcome by
surprise and joy to say many words, Teucer accepts his friendship and
the play ends with a ray of sunlight after storm and gloom.
Once more Sophocles has filled every inch of his canvas. The plot never
flags and has no diminuendo after the death of Ajax. The cause of the
tragedy is not plainly indicated at the outset; with a skill which is
masterly, Sophocles represents in the opening scene Athena and Odysseus
as beings purely odious, mocking a great man's fall. With the progress
of the action these two characters recover their dignity; Athena has
just cause for her anger, while Odysseus obtains for the dead his right
of burial. We should notice further how the pathos of this fine play is
heightened by the conception of the "one day" which brought ruin to a
noble warrior. Had he been kept within his tent that one day--had this
fatal day been known, the ruin need not have happened. "The pity of it",
the needless waste of human life, what a theme is there for a tragedy!
The _Ajax_ has never exercised an acknowledged influence on literature.
It was a favourite with the Greeks, but modern writers have strangely
overlooked it. For us it has a good lesson. Here was a hero, born in an
island, who unaided saved a fleet when his allies were forced back
on their trenches and beyond them to the sea. His reward was such as
Wordsworth tells of:--
Alas! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.
We remember many a long month of agony during which another island kept
destruction from a fleet and saved her allies withal. In some quarters
this island has received the gratitude which Ajax had; her friends
asked, "What has England done in the war, anyhow?" If it befits anybody
to answer, it must be England's Teucer, who has built another Salamis
overseas, just as he did. Our kindred across the oceans will give us the
reward of praise; for us the chastisement of Ajax may serve to reinforce
the warning which is to be found on the lips of not the least of our own
poets:--
"For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord."
The _Electra_ is Sophocles' version of the revenge of Orestes which
Aeschylus described in the _Choephori_ and is useful as affording a
comparison between the methods of the two masters. An aged tutor at
early dawn enters the scene with Orestes to whom he shows his father's
palace and then departs with him to offer libations at the dead king's
tomb. Electra with a Chorus of Argive girls comes forward, the former
describing the insolent conduct of Clytemnestra who holds high revelry
on the anniversary of her husband's death and curses Electra for saving
Orestes. Chrysothemis, another daughter, comes out to talk with Electra;
she is of a different mould, gentle and timid like Ismene, and warns
Electra that in consequence of her obstinacy in revering her father's
memory Aegisthus intends to shut her up in a rocky cavern as soon as he
returns. She advises her to use good counsel, then departs to pour on
Agamemnon's tomb some libations which Clytemnestra offers in consequence
of a dream.
The Queen finds Electra ranging abroad as usual in the absence of
Aegisthus. She defends the murder of her husband, but is easily refuted
by Electra who points out that, if it is right to exact a life for a
life, she ought to suffer death herself. Clytemnestra prays to Apollo
to avert the omen of her dream, her prayer seemingly being answered
immediately by the entry of the old tutor who comes to inform her of
the death of Orestes, killed at Delphi in a chariot race which he
brilliantly describes. Torn by her emotions, Clytemnestra can be neither
glad nor sorry.
"Shall I call this happy news, or dreadful but profitable? Hapless
am I, if I save my life at the cost of my own miseries. Strong is
the tie of motherhood; no parent hates a child even if outraged by
him. Yet, now that he is gone, I shall have rest and peace from his
threats."
Hearing so circumstantial a proof of her brother's death, Electra is
plunged into the depths of misery.
But soon Chrysothemis returns in a state of high excitement. She has
found a lock of Orestes' hair and some offerings at the tomb. Electra
quickly informs her that her elation is groundless, for their brother
is dead; she suggests that they two should strike the murderers, but
Chrysothemis recoils in horror from the plot. Then Orestes enters with
a casket in his hand; this he gives to Electra, saying it contains the
mortal remains of the dead prince. In utter hopelessness Electra takes
it and soliloquises over it. Seeing her misery, Orestes cannot refrain;
gently taking the casket from her he gradually reveals himself. The
tutor enters and recalls him to their immediate business. Electra asks
who the stranger is and learns that it is the very man to whom she
gave the infant boy her brother. The three advance to the palace which
Orestes enters to dispatch his mother, Electra bidding him smite with
double force, wishing only that Aegisthus were with her mother.
The end of Aegisthus himself is contrived with Sophoclean art. He comes
in hurriedly to find the two strangers who have proof of Orestes' death.
Electra tells him they are in the palace; they have not only told her of
the dead Orestes, but have shown him to her; Aegisthus himself can see
the unenviable sight; he can rejoice at it, if there is any joy in it.
Exulting, he sings a note of triumph at the removal of his fears and
threatens to chastise all who try henceforth to thwart his will. He
dashes open the door, and there sees the Queen lying dead. Orestes bids
him enter the palace, to be slain on the very spot where his father was
murdered.
Fortune has been kind in preserving us this play. The great difference
between the art of Sophocles and that of Aeschylus is here apparent.
Only one man has ventured to paint for us Aeschylus' Clytemnestra;
Leighton has revealed her, stern as Nature herself, remorseless, armed
with a sword to smite first, then argue if she can find time to do so.
Sophocles' Clytemnestra is a woman, lost as soon as she begins to reason
out her misdeeds. She prays to Apollo in secret, for fear lest Electra
may overhear her prayer and make it void. But the crudity of Aeschylus'
resources did not satisfy Sophocles, whose taste demanded a contrast to
heighten the character of his heroine and found one in the Homeric story
that Agamemnon had a second daughter. Aeschylus' stern nature did not
shrink from the sight of a meeting between mother and son; Sophocles
closed the doors upon the act of vengeance, though he represents Electra
as encouraging her brother from outside the palace. The Aegisthus
incident maintains the interest to the end in the masterly Sophoclean
style of refined and searching irony. The tone of the play is singular;
from misery it at first sinks to hopelessness, then to despair, and
finally it soars to triumphant joy. Such a dangerous venture was
unattempted before.
The most lovable woman in Greek literature is the heroine of the next
play, the _Trachiniae_, produced at an uncertain date. Deianeira had
been won and wed by Heracles; after a brief spell of happiness she found
herself left more and more alone as her husband's labours called him
away from her. For fifteen months she had heard no news of him. Her
nurse suggests that she should send her eldest son to Euboea to seek him
out, a rumour being abroad that he has reached that island. The mother
in her loneliness is comforted by a band of girls of Trachis, the
scene of the action. But her uneasiness is too great to be cheered; she
describes the strange curse of womanhood:--
"When it is young it groweth in a clime of its own, plagued by no
heat of the sun nor rain nor wind; in careless gaiety it builds up
its days till it is no longer maid, but wife; then in the night it
hath its meed of cares, terrified for lord or children. Only such a
one can know from the sight of her own sorrows what is my burden
of grief."
But there is a deeper cause for anxiety; Heracles had said that if he
did not return in fifteen months he would either die or be rid for ever
of his labours; that very hour had come.
News reached her that Heracles is alive and triumphant; Lichas was
coming to give fuller details. Very soon he enters with a band of
captive maidens, telling how his master had been kept in slavery in
Lydia; shaking off the yoke, he had sacked and destroyed the city of
Eurytus who had caused his captivity, the girls were Heracles' offering
of the spoils to Deianeira. Filled with pity at their lot, she looked
closely at them and was attracted by one of them, a silent girl of noble
countenance. Lichas when questioned denied all knowledge of her identity
and departed. When he had gone, the messenger desired private speech
with Deianeira. Lichas had lied; the girl was Iole, daughter of Eurytus;
it was for her sake that his master destroyed the city, for he loved
the maid and intended to keep her in his home to be a rival to his wife.
Lichas on coming out was confronted by the messenger, and attempted to
dissemble, but Deianeira appealed to him thus:--
"Nay, deceive me not. Thou shalt not speak to a woman of evil heart,
who knoweth not the ways of men, how that they by a law of their
own being delight not always in the same thing. 'Tis a fool who
standeth up to battle against Love who ruleth even gods as he will,
and me too; then why not another such as I? Therefore if I revile
my lord when taken with this plague, I am crazed indeed--or this
woman is, who hath brought me no shame or sorrow. If my lord
teacheth thee to lie, thy lesson is no good one; if thou art
schooling thyself to falsehood in a desire to be kind to me, thou
shalt prove unkind. Speak all the truth; it is an ignoble lot for a
man of honour to be called false."
Completely won by this appeal, Lichas confesses the truth.
During the singing of a choral ode Deianeira has had time to reflect.
The reward of her loyalty is to take a second place. The girl is young
and her beauty is fast ripening; she herself is losing her charm. But no
prudent woman should fly into a passion; happily she has a remedy,
for in the first days of her wedded life Heracles had shot Nessus, a
half-human monster, for insulting her. Before he died Nessus bade her
steep her robe in his blood and treasure it as a certain charm for
recovering his waning affection. Summoning Lichas, she gives him strict
orders to take the robe to Heracles who was to allow no light of the sun
or fire to fall upon it before wearing it. After a short interval, she
returns in the greatest agitation; a little tuft of wool which she had
anointed with the monster's blood had caught the sunlight and shrivelled
up to dust. If the robe proved a means of death, she determined to slay
herself rather than live in disgrace. At that moment Hyllus bursts in to
describe the horrible tortures which seized Heracles when he put on the
poisoned mantle; the hero commanded his son to ferry him across from
Euboea to witness the curse which his mother's evil deed would bring
with it. Hearing these tidings Deianeira leaves the scene without
uttering a word.
The old nurse quickly rushes in from the palace to tell how Deianeira
had killed herself--while Hyllus was kissing her dead mother's lips
in vain self-reproach, bereft of both his parents. Heracles himself
is borne in on a litter, tormented with the slow consuming poison. In
agony, he prays for death; when he learns of the decease of his wife and
her beguilement by Nessus into an unintentional crime, his resentment
softens. In a flash of inspiration the double meaning of the oracle
comes over him, his labour is indeed over. Commanding Hyllus to wed Iole
he passes on his last journey to the lonely top of Oeta, to be consumed
on the funeral pyre.
The Sophoclean marks are clear enough in this play--the tragic moment,
the life and movement, the splendid pathos, breadth of outlook and
fascination of language. Yet there is a serious fault as well, for
Sophocles, like the youngest of dramatists, can strangely enough make
mistakes. The entry of Heracles practically makes the play double,
marring its continuity. The necessary and remorseless sequence of events
which is looked for in dramatic writing is absent. This tendency to
disrupt a whole into parts brilliant but unrelated is a feature of
Euripides' work; it may perhaps find a readier pardon exactly because
Sophocles himself is not able to avoid it always. But the greatest
triumph is the character of Deianeira. It is such as one would rarely
find in warm-blooded Southern peoples. She dreads that loss of her power
over her husband which her waning beauty brings; she is grossly insulted
in being forced to countenance a rival living in the same house after
she has given her husband the best years of her life; yet she hopes on,
and perhaps she would have won him back by her very gentleness. This
creation of a type of almost perfect human nature is the justification
of a poet's existence; it was a saying of Sophocles that he painted men
as they ought to be, Euripides painted them as they are.
The rivalry of the younger poet produced its effect on another play with
which Sophocles gained the first prize in 409. _Philoctetes_, the hero
after whom it is named, had lit the funeral pyre of Heracles on Oeta and
had received from him his unconquerable bow and arrows. When he went
to Troy he was bitten in the foot by a serpent in Tenedos. As the wound
festered and made him loathsome to the army he was left in Lemnos in the
first year of the war. An oracle declared that Troy could not be taken
without him and his arrows; at the end of the siege, as Achilles and
Ajax were dead, Philoctetes, outraged and abandoned, became necessary to
the Greeks. How could they win him over to rejoin them?
Odysseus his bitterest foe takes with him Neoptolemus, the young son
of Achilles. Landing at Lemnos, they find the cave in which Philoctetes
lives, see his rude bed, rough-hewn cup and rags of clothing, and lay
their plot. Neoptolemus is to say that he is Achilles' son, homeward
bound in anger with the Greeks for the loss of his father's arms. As he
was not one of the original confederacy, Philoctetes will trust him. He
is then to obtain the bow and arrows by treachery, for violence will be
useless. The young man's soul rises against the idea of foul play
but Odysseus bids him surrender to shamelessness for one day, to reap
eternal glory. Left alone with the Chorus, composed of sailors from
his ship, Neoptolemus pities the hero's deserted existence, wretched,
famished and half-brutalised. He comes along towards them, creeping
and crying in agony. Seeing them he inquires who they are; Neoptolemus
answers as he had been bidden and wins the heart of Philoctetes who
describes the misery of his life, his desertion and the unquenchable
malady that feeds on him. In return Neoptolemus tells how he was
beguiled to Troy by the prophecy that he should capture it after his
father's death; arriving there he obtained possession of all Achilles'
property except the arms, which Odysseus had won. He pretends to return
to his ship, but Philoctetes implores him to set him once more in
Greece. The great pathos of his appeal wins the youth's consent; they
prepare to depart when a merchant enters with a sailor; from him they
learn that Odysseus with Diomedes are on the way to bring Philoctetes by
force or persuasion to Troy which cannot fall without his aid. The mere
mention of Odysseus' name fills Philoctetes with anger and he retires to
the cave, taking Neoptolemus with him.
When they reappear, a violent attack of the malady prostrates
Philoctetes who gives his bow to Neoptolemus, praying him to burn him
and put an end to his agony. Noticing a strange silence in the youth,
suspicions seem to be aroused in him, but when he falls into a slumber
the Chorus takes a decided part in the action, advising the youth to fly
with the bow and to talk in a whisper for fear of waking the sleeper.
The latter unexpectedly starts out of slumber, again begging to be taken
on board. Again Neoptolemus' heart smites him at the villainy he is
about to commit; he reveals that his real objective is Troy. Betrayed
and defenceless, Philoctetes appeals to Heaven, to the wild things, to
Neoptolemus' better self to restore the bow which is his one means of
procuring him food. A profound pity overcomes Neoptolemus, who is in
the act of returning the weapon when Odysseus appears. Seeing him
Philoctetes knows he is undone. Odysseus invites him to come to Troy of
his own freewill, but is met with a curse; as he refuses to rejoin the
Greeks, Odysseus and Neoptolemus depart bearing with them the bow for
Teucer to use.
Left without that which brought him his daily food Philoctetes bursts
out into a wild lyric dialogue with the Chorus. They advise him to make
terms with Odysseus, but he bids them begone. When they obey, he recalls
them to ask one little boon, a sword. At this moment Neoptolemus runs
in, Odysseus close behind him. He has come to restore the bow he got
by treachery. A violent quarrel ends in the temporary retirement of
Odysseus. Advancing to Philoctetes, Neoptolemus gives him his property;
Philoctetes takes it and is barely restrained from shooting at Odysseus
who appears for a moment, only to take refuge in flight. Neoptolemus
then tells him the whole truth about the prophecy, promising him great
glory if he will go back to Troy which can fall only through him. In
vain Neoptolemus assures him of a perfect cure; nothing will satisfy the
broken man but a full redemption of the promise he had to be landed once
more in Greece. When Neoptolemus tells him that such action will earn
him the hatred of the Greeks, Philoctetes promises him the succour of
his unerring shafts in a conflict.
The action has thus reached a deadlock. The problem is solved by the
sudden appearance of the deified Heracles. He commands his old friend
to go to Troy which he is to sack, and return home in peace. His lot is
inseparably connected with that of Neoptolemus and a cure is promised
him at the hands of Asclepius. This assurance overcomes his obstinacy;
he leaves Lemnos in obedience to the will of Heaven.
Such is the work of an old dramatist well over eighty years old. It is
exciting, vigorous, pathetic and everywhere dignified. The characters
of the old hero and the young warrior are masterly. The Chorus takes an
integral part in the action--its whisperings to Neoptolemus remind
the reader of the evil suggestions of which Satan breathed into Eve's
equally guileless ears in _Paradise Lost_. But the most remarkable
feature of the piece is its close resemblance to the new type of drama
which Euripides had popularised. The miserable life of Philoctetes,
his rags, destitution and sickness are a parallel to the Euripidean
Telephus; most of all, the appearance of a god at the end to untie
the knot is genuine Euripides. But there is a great difference; of the
disjointed actions which disfigure later tragedy and are not absent from
Sophocles' own earlier work there is not a trace. The odes are relevant,
the Chorus is indispensable; in short, Sophocles has shown Euripides
that he can beat him even on his own terms. Melodramatic the play may
be, but it wins for its author our affection by the sheer beauty of a
boyish nature as noble as Deianeira's; the return of Neoptolemus upon
his own baseness is one of the many compliments Sophocles has paid to
our human kind.
Many years previously Sophocles had written his masterpiece, the
_Oedipus Tyrannus_. It cannot easily be treated separately from its
sequel. A mysterious plague had broken out in Thebes; Creon had been
sent to Delphi by Oedipus to learn the cause of the disaster. Apollo
bade the Thebans cast out the murderer of the last King Laius, who was
still lurking in Theban territory. Oedipus on inquiry learns that there
are several murderers, but only one of Laius' attendants escaped alive.
In discovering the culprit Oedipus promises the sternest vengeance on
his nearest friends, nay, on his own kin, if necessary. After a prayer
from the Chorus of elders he repeats his determination even more
emphatically, invoking a curse on the assassin in language of a terrible
double meaning, for in every word he utters he unconsciously pronounces
his own doom. With commendable foresight he had summoned the old seer
Teiresias, but the seer for some reason is unwilling to appear. When
at last he confronts the King, he craves permission to depart with his
secret unsaid. Oedipus at once flies into a towering passion, finally
accusing him without any justification of accepting bribes from Creon.
With equal heat Teiresias more and more clearly indicates in every
speech the real murderer, though his words are dark to him who could
read the Sphinx's riddle.
The Chorus break out into an ode full of uneasy surmises as to the
identity of the culprit. When Creon enters, Oedipus flies at him in
headlong passion accusing him of bribery, disloyalty and eventually of
murder. With great dignity he clears himself, warning the King of the
pains which hasty temper brings upon itself. Their quarrel brings out
Jocasta, the Queen and sister of Creon, who succeeds in settling the
unseemly strife. She bids Oedipus take no notice of oracles; one such
had declared that Laius would be slain by his own son, who would marry
her, his mother. The oracle was false, for Laius had died at the hands
of robbers in a place where three roads met. Aghast at hearing this,
Oedipus inquires the exact scene of the murder, the time when it was
committed, the actual appearance of Laius. Jocasta supplies the details,
adding that the one survivor had implored her after Oedipus became King
to live as far away as possible from the city. Oedipus commands him to
be sent for and tells his life story. He was the reputed son of Polybus
and Merope, rulers of Corinth. One day at a wine-party a man insinuated
that he was not really the son of the royal pair. Stung by the taunt he
went to Delphi, where he was warned that he should kill his father and
marry his mother. He therefore fled away from Corinth towards Thebes.
On the road he was insulted by an old man in a chariot who thrust him
rudely from his path; in anger he smote the man at the place where
three ways met. If then this man was Laius, he had imprecated a curse
on himself; his one hope is the solitary survivor whom he had sent for;
perhaps more than one man had killed Laius after all.
An ominous ode about destiny and its workings is followed by the entry
of the Queen who describes the mad terrors of Oedipus. She is come
to pray to Apollo to solve their troubles. At that moment a messenger
enters from Corinth with the tidings that Polybus is dead. In eager joy
Jocasta summons Oedipus, sneering at the truth of oracles. The King on
his appearance echoes her words after hearing the tidings-only to sink
back again into gloomy despondency. What of Merope, is she also dead?
The messenger assures him that his anxiety about her is groundless, for
there is no relationship between them. Little by little he tells Oedipus
his true history. The messenger himself found him on Cithaeron in his
infancy, his feet pierced through. He had him from a shepherd, a servant
of Laius, the very man whom Oedipus had summoned. Suddenly turning to
Jocasta, the King asks her if she knows the man. Appalled at the horror
of the truth which she knows cannot be concealed much longer she affects
indifference and beseeches him search no further. When he obstinately
refuses, bidding the man be brought at once, she leaves the stage with
the cry:
"Alack, thou unhappy one; that is all I may call thee and never
address thee again."
Oedipus by a masterstroke of art is made to imagine that she has
departed in shame, fearing he may be proved the son of a slave.
"But I account myself the son of Fortune, who will never bring me
to dishonour; my brethren are the months, who marked me out for
lowliness and for power. Such being my birth, I shall never prove
false to it and faint in finding out who I am."
The awful power of this astonishing scene is manifest.
The bright joyousness of the King's impulsive speech prepares the way
for the coming horror. When the shepherd appears, the messenger faces
him claiming his acquaintance. The shepherd doggedly attempts to deny
all knowledge of him, cursing him for his mad talkativeness. Oedipus
threatens torture to open his lips. Line by line the truth is dragged
from him; the abandoned child came from another--from a creature of
Laius--was said to be his son--was given him by Jocasta--to be
destroyed because of an oracle--why then passed over to the Corinthian
messenger?--"through pity, and he saved the child alive, for a mighty
misery. If thou art that child, know that thou art born a hapless man".
When the King rushes madly into the palace, the Chorus sings of his
departed glory. The horrors increase with the appearance of a messenger
from within, who tells how Oedipus dashed into Jocasta's apartment to
find her hanging in suicide; then he blinded himself on that day of
mourning, ruin, death and shame. He comes out a little later, an
object of utter compassion. How can he have rest on earth? How face his
murdered father in death? The memories of Polybus and Merope come upon
him, then the years of unnatural wedlock. Creon, whom he has wantonly
insulted, comes not to mock at him, but to take him into the palace
where neither land nor rain nor light may know him. Oedipus begs him
to let him live on Cithaeron, beseeching him to look after his two
daughters whose birth is so stained that no man can ever wed them. Creon
gently takes him within, to be kept there till the will of the gods is
known. The end is a sob of pity for the tragic downfall of the famous
man who solved the Sphinx' enigma.
No man can ever do justice to this masterpiece. It is so constructed
that every detail leads up inevitably to the climax. Slowly, and playing
upon all the deepest human emotions, anxiety, hope, gloom, terror and
horror, Sophocles works on us as no man had ever done before. It is a
sin against him to be content with a mere outline of the play; the words
he has chosen are significant beyond description. Again and again they
fascinate the reader and always leave him with the feeling that there
are still depths of thought left unsounded. The casual mention of the
shepherd at the beginning of the play is the first stroke of perfect
art; Jocasta's disbelief in oracles is the next; then follows the
contrast between the Queen's real motive for leaving and the reason
assigned to it by her son; finally, the shepherd in torture is forced
to tell the secret which plunges the torturer to his ruin. Where is the
like of this in literature? To us it is heart-searching enough. What was
it to the Greeks who were familiar with the plot before they entered the
theatre? When they who knew the inevitable end watched the King trace
out his own ruin in utter ignorance, their feelings cannot have remained
silent; they must have found relief in sobbing or crying aloud.
The fault in Oedipus is his ungovernable temper. It is firmly drawn in
the play; he is equally unrestrained in anger, despair and hope. He is
the typical instance of the lack of good counsel which we have seen was
to Sophocles the prime source of a tragedy. Indeed, only a headlong
man would hastily marry a widowed queen after he had committed a murder
which fulfilled one half of a terrible oracle. He should have first
inquired into the history of the Theban royal house. Imagining that the
further he was fleeing from Corinth the more certain he was to make his
doom impossible of fulfilment, he inevitably drew nearer to it. This is
our human lot; we cannot see and we misinterpret warnings; how shall not
weaker men tremble for themselves when Oedipus' wisdom could not save
him from evil counsel?
In 405 Sophocles showed in his last play how Oedipus passed from earth
in the poet's own birthplace, Colonus. Oedipus enters with Antigone,
and on inquiry from a stranger finds that he is on the demesne of the
Eumenides. At once he sends to Theseus, King of Athens, and refuses to
move from the spot, for there he is fated to find his rest. A Chorus
from Colonus comes to find out who the suppliant is. When they hear the
name of Oedipus they are horror-struck and wish to thrust him out. After
much persuasion they consent to wait till Theseus arrives. Presently
Ismene comes with the news that Eteocles has dispossessed his elder
brother Polyneices; further, an oracle from Delphi declares that Oedipus
is all-important to Thebes in life and after death. His sons know this
oracle and Creon is coming to force him back. Declaring he will do
nothing for the sons who abandoned him, Oedipus obstinately refuses
his city any blessing. He sends Ismene to offer a sacrifice to the
Eumenides; in her absence Theseus enters, offers him protection and asks
why he has come. Oedipus replies that he has a secret to reveal which is
of great importance to Athens; at present there is peace between her and
Thebes:
"but in the gods alone is no age or death; all else Time confounds,
mastering everything. Strength of the Earth and of the body wastes,
trust dies, disloyalty grows, the same spirit never stands firm
among friends or allies. To some men early, to others late,
pleasures become bitter and then again sweet."
The secret Oedipus will impart at the proper time. The need for
protection soon comes. Creon attempts to persuade Oedipus to return to
Thebes but is met by a curse, whereupon the Theban guards lay hold of
Antigone--they had already seized Ismene--and menace Oedipus himself.
Theseus hearing the alarm rushes back, reproaches Creon for his
insolence and quickly returns with the two girls. He has strange news to
tell; another Theban is a suppliant at the altar of Poseidon close by,
craving speech with Oedipus. It is Polyneices, whom Antigone persuades
her father to interview. The youth enters, ashamed of his neglect of his
father, and begs a blessing on the army he has mustered against Thebes.
He is met by a terrible curse which Oedipus invokes on both his sons. In
despair Polyneices goes away to his doom.
"For me, my path shall be one of care, disaster and sorrows sent me
by my sire and his guardian angels; but, my sisters, be yours a
happy road, and when I am dead fulfil my heart's desire, for while
I live you may never perform it."
A thunderstorm is heard approaching; the Chorus are terrified at its
intensity, but Oedipus eagerly dispatches a messenger for Theseus.
When the King arrives he hears the secret; Oedipus' grave would be the
eternal protection of Attica, but no man must know its site save Theseus
who has to tell it to his heir alone, and he to his son, and so onwards
for ever. The proof of Oedipus' word would be a miracle which soon would
transform him back to his full strength. Presently he arises, endued
with a mysterious sight, beckoning the others to follow him. The play
concludes with a magnificent description of his translation. A voice
from Heaven called him, chiding him for tarrying; commending his
daughters to the care of Theseus, he greeted the earth and heaven in
prayer and then without pain or sorrow passed away. On reappearing
Theseus promised to convey the sisters back to Thebes and to stop the
threatened fratricidal strife.
The _Oedipus Coloneus_, like the _Philoctetes_, the other play of
Sophocles' old age, closes in peace. The old fiery passions still burn
fiercely in Oedipus, as they did in Lear; yet both were "every inch a
king" and "more sinned against than sinning". Oedipus' miraculous
return to strength before he departs is curiously like the famous end
of Colonel Newcome. There are subtle but unmistakable marks of the
Euripidean influence on this drama; such are the belief that Theban
worthies would protect Athens, the Theseus tradition, and the recovery
of worn-out strength. These features will meet us in the next chapter.
But it is again noteworthy that Sophocles has added those touches which
distinguish his own firm and delicate handiwork. There is nothing
of melodrama, nothing inconsequent, nothing exaggerated. It is the
dramatist's preparation for his own end. Shakespeare put his valediction
into the mouth of Prospero; Sophocles entrusted his to his greatest
creation Oedipus. Like him, he was fain to depart, for the gods called.
Our last sight of him is of one beckoning us to follow him to the place
where calm is to be found; to find it we must use not the eyes of the
body, but the inward illumination vouchsafed by Heaven.
To the Athenians of the Periclean age Sophocles was the incarnation
of their dramatic ideal. His language is a delight and a despair. It
tantalises; it suggests other meanings besides its plain and surface
significance. This riddling quality is the daemonic element which he
possessed in common with Plato; because of it these two are the masters
of a refined and subtle irony, a source of the keenest pleasure. His
plots reveal a vivid sense of the exact moment which will yield the
intensest tragic effects--only on one particular day could Ajax die or
Electra be saved. Accordingly, Sophocles very often begins his play
with early dawn, in order to fill the few all-important hours with the
greatest possible amount of action. He has put the maximum of movement
into his work, only the presence ofthe Chorus and the conventional
messengers (two features imposed on him by the law of the Attic theatre)
making the action halt.
But it is in the sum-total of his art that his greatness lies; the sense
of a whole is its controlling factor; details are important, indeed,
he took the utmost pains to see that they were necessary and
convincing--yet they were details, subordinate, closely related, not
irrelevant nor disproportionate. This instinct for a definite plan
first is the essence of the classical spirit; exuberance is rigorously
repressed, symmetry and balance are the first, last and only aim. To
some judges Sophocles is like a Greek temple, splendid but a little
chilly; they miss the soaring ambition of Aeschylus or the more direct
emotional appeal of Euripides. Yet it is a cardinal error to imagine
that Sophocles is passionless; his life was not, neither are his
characters. Like the lava of a recent eruption, they may seem ashen on
the surface, but there is fire underneath; it betrays itself through the
cracks which appear when their substance is violently disturbed.
They, much enforced, show a hasty spark
And straight are cold again.
Repression, avoidance of extremes, dignity under provocation are the
marks of the gentle Sophoclean type and it is a very high type indeed.
For we have in him the very fountain of the whole classical tradition in
drama. Sophocles is something far more important than a mere influence;
he is an ideal, and as such is indestructible. To ask the names of
writers who came most under his "influence" is as sensible as to ask the
names of the sculptors who most faithfully followed the Greek tradition
of statuary. He is Classical tragedy. The main body of Spanish and
English drama is romantic, the Sophoclean ideal is that of the small
but powerful body of University men in Elizabeth's time headed by
Ben Jonson, of the typically French school of dramatists, of
Moratin, Lessing, Goethe, of the exponents of the Greek creed in
nineteenth-century England, notably Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater,
and of Robert Bridges. To this school the cultivation of emotional
expression is suspicious, if not dangerous; it leads to eccentricity, to
the revelation of feelings which frequently are not worth experiencing,
to sentimental flabbiness, to riot and extravagance. Perhaps in dread of
the ridiculous the Classical school represses itself too far, creating
characters of marble instead of flesh. These creations are at least
worth looking at and bring no shame; they are better than the spectral
psychological studies which many dramatists, now dead or dying, have
bidden us believe are real men and women.