Oedipus Rex

okay I'm going to start the class I apologize for the uh starting late uh in the background here you will see a actually you can't even see it because the light oh dear um well I don't really want you to watch it anyway what I want you to note is that the actors this is this was a a depiction at the Royal Shakespeare company here in Stratford back in 1957 though um and uh the actors are all wearing masks um which is an interesting thing to do in a modern day theater totally unnecessary for the purposes of amplification but uh trying to present a play that would be a little bit closer to the way in which the original would be presented but with uh significant numbers of actors you can't even see a thing with that let me see if I can I'm going to turn it off because otherwise you'll watch that and not listen to me but uh I'll post this link to the website if you want to watch the play a play is meant to be performed and seen so we're reading it and obviously it's a different experience but if you take what I said already let me blank this just to remove all uh distractions uh if you take what I said earlier this drama is um there's not a lot of action in the sense of on stage um spectacle it is dramatic in the sense that it is words that lead to actions and the actions are the main um purpose of this particular drama a character's uh the character on stage is led by by his character to perform a particular action and that particular action is the is the subject of our observation so the the Epic gave us narrative there's a lot of narrative a lot of Storytelling by Homer and he was telling us a story of of a great mansus who did things that are worthy of remembrance and expected us to learn lessons from that through mesis representation imitation imitating adicus in his uh in his mind and in his uh uh comportment and in his character likewise on stage here we're also seeing actions but the focus is on the actions because there's movement on the stage there's no narrative the narrator which appears here at the beginning is very short I mean what does it say here at the beginning even does it even doesn't have anything yeah scene in front of the Palace of edus at thieves to the right of stage near the altar stands the priest with a crowd of children edus emerges from the central door and then after that we have a whole series of speeches just one speech after the night it's dialogue so it's language that is spoken through performers in which we don't see the faces of the individuals but we hear their words and it's the words that matter not what we see but what we hear now this this is intimately connected with action also for Aristotle who as I said regards this particular play as the best example of a tragedy and the tragedy as the most important type of uh poetic production and there's something about the influence of that view Aristotle being the sort of the founder of classicism the the classical way of looking at human nature which connects uh our our thoughts and our words to our human nature and this becomes very important once we come into christology that is the theory of uh or the theology related to who Christ is because Jesus is the logos of God the word of God and we we see Jesus primarily through his speech but also through his actions and his speech and his actions are unified unlike the fa the Pharisees who speak and whose actions contradict what they say Jesus has an Integrity between word and action so there's a strong emphasis in The Classical period prior to Christianity of something that Christianity is going to make extraordinarily strong emphasis of even stronger than the uh classical age because they're going to say that God himself takes on flesh the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we've seen his glory full of grace and truth now when John writes that John has seen him in person however he speaking to an audience in his in the scriptures who have never seen him they're not going to be able to be called Apostles because they're not eyewitnesses of uh Jesus and his Earthly bodies however they will see him when they hear about what he's done and when they believe in him there's a sense in which you know Jesus more intimately through the word than you do if you saw him face to face there are many people who saw Jesus face to face in his lifetime and yet denied who he was even though they could see it they had empirical evidence today people ask for empirical evidence of things in his day they had a lot of empirical evidence that he was who he said he was and yet they denied that he was what he claimed to be namely God in their presence and this is God acting in history and so forth so there I think there's a strong uh this is a providential in my opinion a providential working of the classical tradition such that God is preparing the GRE Greek mind the Western mind to uh emphasize the importance of the Incarnation and specifically of the importance of language in that and this is why I think the uh study of literature is so important in at Christian liberal arts college Christian University uh because there is a strong emphasis on the word we're all about words and words matter um in our day they don't seem to matter they don't seem to have a lot of um people are careless with their words they speak carelessly um there was a time when uh in Canadian public life I know because I grew up in it when people didn't swear that much um they use also sort it's a pejorative language um we call Natives Indians um I don't even know what we call black people actually I had black friends we didn't I didn't use pejorative language but you know the nword stuff like that I never we never said that but still it's there but those sorts of identity group uh words these days are absolutely forbo you may not use those words you can't use that right back when I grew up we called Italians I'm not even going to give you the whole list there's a whole list of different groups different nationalities and all with slang words for describing those people and we use them all the time and nobody blinks I mean if it sort of bugs you but it's not doesn't go particularly deep and yet swearing was regarded as something you did off the school campus and so forth you don't do in the Public Square nowadays you can't use any of those uh identity group marking words you it's you cannot use them at all and yet I hear F bombs everywhere so there's something that's happened in the in the shifting of language so that we think that those grouping those words that we use to identify groups based on visible characteristics is more important than our moral nature which is when we swear there's a there's a moral component there's a sense of of of vulgarity which is why you use the word to shock right that's the f bomb uh I simply note that because I wanted to say something about language here and how it's used it has shifted over the course of my lifetime I'm in my 50s uh it's not that I don't know the words I grew up with words all around me I was uh just like but nowadays I hear people in Authority using them on television uh in media in in government academics sometimes cool pastors want to show that they know bad words wow aren't you cool um a general degradation of uh language in connection with morality we're happy to do that and yet we won't tolerate basic that's because we' reduced human nature uh and moved it away from language and connected it more with identity groups now there's a deep problem with that that I'm not going to get into here because that's it's too big a topic and it's too off topic here simply it's simply to point out that language is important um and Truth is connected with language Jesus is the logos of God he is also the way the truth and the life and logos is connected to logic probably obviously even if you don't know Greek the word logic comes from logos and so along with the word is a reasoning so there's a rational way of looking at life that allows you to distinguish truth from falsehood and this is essential to Christian Behavior if we want to be not only uh conformed to the pattern of this world as it says in Romans 12 to but transformed by the renewal of our minds then we're going to have to distinguish truth truth from falsehood that means we're going to have to use language correctly not just the way it is used popularly where you need to be able to think about it um that's my challenge to you here in first year English is to start to think about developing the ca the thing that you came here to do or even if you didn't come here to do I'm going to give you what you didn't come here to do and maybe you'll like what you didn't know you were coming here to do and end up valuing the thing you had no idea you were getting into um but that's what I'm qualified to do is to teach you in those ways and I think they are valuable and the university is uniquely suited to doing that but this uh play edus is all about identity I said that last time and the identity is specifically related to edus as I said last time there's a little bit of a play on his name it could be oo who am I this is a man who claims to or or demonstrates that he has solved the riddle of the spank so he's a wise man and yet he has no idea who he even is he doesn't know his own identity so there's something very ironic about this play which Aristotle says is about human nature furthermore it's not just about edus he says that is a it's a teaching in the action of the drama of edifus Rex we have some sort of profound teaching on human nature and I can tell you in the ancient world this is a a a live issue one of the uh cynic uh diogenes went through the streets with a lamp up high right in the middle of the day sunny day Athens you can imagine what it's like glaring sunlight with a lamp lit and he's walking around people ask him whatat are you doing and he said I'm I'm trying to see if I can find a man' and is obviously a a joker in some ways but he he is embodying now he's embodying a certain attitude to uh a philosophical attitude to the problem of people living their lives which is they don't even know who they are they don't know who they are and they're trying to solve the riddle of the world and yet they have not solved the Riddle That is most important which is who are they like what does it mean to be a human being and what does it mean to live a worthy human life clearly human beings are different than animals because we're bothered by such questions we the fact that we ask such question distinguishes this I have a cat at home I love my cat my cat looks out the window all the time he looks deep in thought he is not deep in thought that is that animal is not deep in thought we like to think he is every once in a while we imagine him and we we talk on his behalf and whatever and he meows and you know he's saying something he's not saying anything there's no articulate speech coming from his mouth it's a meow he has different meows okay but I mean not that many it's the I want food meow I want to be petted meow whatever recognition when you walk in the room meow it's a little different but there's no articulate sound he's not thinking about anything he is not going to try and represent the world around him he's not trying to express himself through ART he's not going to build anything new there's no evolution of his mind because he doesn't have a mind not a rational mind he is not bothered by existential problems of the fact he's going to die doesn't bother him he's afraid of death but he's not thinking about the uh the atrocity that comes with that the sense that it's wrong sense there's a tragedy when a life is lost that animals don't think about that we have no indication that they do we anthropomorphize them when we do that but this play is about that those sorts of things it's about uh deeply religious questions at a religious Festival Festival of dionisis Aristotle says that it is says something profound about human nature and the tragedy in a sense teaches us the very sort of subject matter that philosophy does because it deals with universal truths so as I said to you when I came to the university years ago and started studying literature I didn't I don't even know how I ended up in the classroom it was just I like to read books was about it but I didn't want to study English I but when I came into study literature I found there's a lot more here than I expected in the tradition of literature not the stuff we read in school which gets worse by the Year by the way but but in the great books of the western tradition um profound questions being asked and this man edius um is remarkable says Aristotle because he illustrates something about us that we see particularly clearly because he has certain qualities and and one of the qualities is that he's better than us so we sense the fall of the man because we see how high he is this is a good man he's a king but he's also Noble in his character he wants to solve the problems of the city and he's willing to go to any lengths he said even if it hits his own house he's willing to go to that length to solve the problem and he means it and we believe it and the crowd loves him because here's a man of integrity so there's the there's irony in this play do you know what I mean by irony he says one thing and the audience understands the opposite here's and so they the crowd senses we sense I mean we you like edus at first oh this is a good man he is a good man actually no he is a very very bad man extraordinarily bad man but he doesn't even know it Christians can have a field day with this they have no idea the depravity of sin they think that they're upright moral good in some cases by the lights of the world they certainly are these are good people but are how are they aware of the problem of sin you say that like his arrogance ultimately like because he very like rigid about like wanting to know the truth he the arrogance it's not well arrogance is is a good word the word that Aristotle uses specifically I'm going to write down here is hubris oops that's not going to work try it again that's the Greek word it's Pride it's not arrogant it's he thinks he's he's able he is an aristocrat he's also got strong character and he's committed to the best things he willing to leave his family it's not only it's not any man who's going to get up and leave a a family of a of a king and a queen and wander off to avoid doing a bad deed he'll probably try and stay there and do it because he gets the the benefits of being in power he's willing to leave that all behind it's a bit like Abraham in in that sense he wanders away he walks away from his City so he thinks so he thinks but in fact he walks into the trouble that he's trying to avoid again irony there are levels of irony throughout the play there's constant irony one of them is his name this is what this is why it's such a a profound play and laughable play at times you're just chuckling groaning even because he says things and he means them on one level and we understand them on a a different level in English this used to a characteristic of the English language was the use of irony to say one thing and mean the opposite that is large largely gone in Canada now you can't and maybe it's because of multiculturalism I don't know because it's irony is a difficult uh thing to grasp on in a second language you know you want to understand the primary meaning like the the sub meaning that one's really hard to convey it seems a little unfair it's like Insider baseball yes is sarcasm no but it's often connected with it it's not a form of irony sarcasm is literally the tearing of the Flesh and so that's a direct tearing like you're ripping somebody everyone knows you're ripping them what do they call it now burning that's that's sort of sarcasm Oho you got burned my kids say it that's sort of sarcasm although it's not even usually sarcasm it's just like think like culture is so dumb it's it's it's it's it's it's aggressive and attacking irony is not it's the opposite I appear to praise you when I'm actually inditing you so you can say aren't you brilliant right and with that tone aren't you brilliant and what everyone in the room is laughing is that I'm saying you're an idiot right and it's context specific then when I say to somebody you know somebody says something really um that everyone recognizes is dumb and the teacher says what a brilliant answer and everyone goes He meant the opposite right but it's a deliberate Awareness on the audience's part so there's a dramatic irony arises out of this so the audience and this and and we have to add dramatic irony to this it's dramatic irony because the audience is aware on one level what the actors are not so there's a discrepant awareness and this is why the play is again uh profound in some ways because it's showing us that even though we go through life talking in certain ways and thinking we understand things actually if we a took a step back and could walk watch ourselves we would see that it wasn't quite the way it appeared so the the stage is a way for us to learn in life without having to suffer all the consequences of it it's a teaching medium right edius line 50 edus the man at this point in the play right at the outside of the play this is a man who has murdered his father and uh has had incestous relations with his mother has children with him this is his speech I pity you children you have come full of longing he's speaking to the chorus now come full of longing but I have known the story before you told it only too well I know you are all sick yet there is not one of you sick though you are that is sick as I myself sick in the sense of moral he's is depraved he's he's blighted by there's not one of you now he says in the audience is oh this is the man edius that we found in Homer's Underworld the sort of proverbial figure of depravity he says it and what he means is I'm sympathizing with you you you're sick and because I care for you I am more sick than you I feel your pain again there's a sort of he's an actor remember the word in um that Jesus us of the Pharisees he calls them Hypocrites a hypocrite is an actor we're watching the actors on the stage they're not intentionally Hypocrites but there is an an element in which we see their hypocrisy and they don't see it profound way of presenting it the use of irony it it's it's used here throughout now I'm not going to be able to go through this exhaustively I'm tempted to put this on I'm going to put this on for two seconds because I I'm just sort of chuckling to myself can see edus there with the King scepter and so forth and all these characters I'll I'll stop it now you'll ignore me otherwise um but there is a um in in the tragedy a demonstration on stage of the importance of of action that displays something about human nature now one of the one of the things that is essential here is that we identify with the main figure and we admire him it's not good enough that we find oursel yeah he's a nice guy sympathetic we admire him we look up to him and that's the that's where we begin that's where the chorus begins they are thinking this is the man who he he's our savior more or less he's saved the city already this is the savior we look up to him we want him to um we want him to do what he alone can do and um he falls though not because of a moral fault per se although he there is a moral fault which is just what I said he murdered his father and incest with his mother but he's not aware of that he's not aware of that fact but he makes an error and I talked about this last time and this is Aristotle's word a hamartia he makes a fatal error and this leads him astray now it's not a weakness of character there's no weakness in edus character he's a strong WR character it's an error of Judgment of some sort he's judging on the basis of appearances he he's going on all the available information the best man amongst us uh if he were that good would make the same decision that edus made probably right it's not a moral weakness he doesn't have a moral weakness he's made an error on the basis of the best knowledge that he could possibly have and yet nonetheless does the worst possible thing the very thing he's trying to avoid now this in a fatalistic worldview which is the Greek's worldview there is no way for him to escape this this just adds to the problem for us there's no way that edus could not do what has happened in the play one because it's a historical event it's just recording that but that there's more than that it's prophesied that he will do this and then his parents first his parents and then he seeks to do everything in his power to seek to avoid the the horri Deed from happening because he's that good and his parents are that good and yet his parents and he are committed doing something that's that bad in trying to avoid it and so what we end up with is the view that the what is fated cannot be Escape for human beings it's a terrible sense that his Free Will is not that free after all it's not so free as to remove him from the problem of guilt and horrible conduct question why is the chorus split into two there's like the strop and the anstop strophy and antistrophe as I said it's the same course and the strophy and it's just referring to um a turning a strophy is a turning and the uh antistrophe is turning in the other way and they're probably as I say sort of dancing around on stage and they start when they're talking they're in the strophy they're probably shuffling side to side and going around the circle and then they go back the other way and it's so it's it's like a dialectic moving back and forth a little bit like a moral compass like depending on what's Happening yeah maybe they're just like maybe that's a representation of thinking on the one hand on the other hand then it comes an epode like that's what we do when we think look at both sides they maybe moving around there's a dam dramatic representation of this by the way in the ancient world um Plato's known for his Academy but Aristotle is known for his Lum and they walked around when they talked and Socrates is famous in his dialogues for walking and talking I walking is actually quite useful in you're thinking not quite sure why I don't know why but just it is lets you move you're you're physically moving your mind's thinking and it's just sort of the process of bodily movement and thinking seems to go well together just sitting in your cubicle in the library uh you seem to be going nowhere it's helpful go and and talk to somebody the dialogue is a part of that and and it helps to have you bounce your ideas off somebody yes especially if the person that you're talking to is a thinker and is going to push back being a sort of it's not an argument it's it's a sort of a debate and um historically this is a way of teaching but it's also a way in which the uh Western democracy was built up through debates parliament's there to debate you get one side the government presenting its policy and then you the opposition there to present a push back on the policy as enunciated and the point of that is that the outcome of it to get a better policy same thing happens in the courts of the law you get the the defense lawyer and you get the prosecution the prosecution is making the case that this man's guilty for whatever reason and the defense is saying no he's not bring the evidence for it and at the end of that a judgment comes out of it so it's an oppositional thing and know you hear nothing good about that in our world today is it's seen as you know argumentative and so forth It's not argumentative argumentative is just the form sometimes people think it's referring to the the character of the people they're argumentative they get you know angry and so forth that's not the point the point is through words to discern the truth and fals of the best policy you talk about it it's really easy to make decisions when you only when one person is involved I make a lot of very quick decisions that take a very long time to undo when somebody else points out to me how bad the decisions were so that's the point you meet together in a free Council without again Parliament no consequences free speech in Parliament can oppose policy you can use language to come about so that we move forward together come let us reason together says God so it's a part of the reasoning process now Aristotle sees this form as one that conveys knowledge and here it's an a particular type of knowledge but as I said um no I'm not going to turn that back on um and it provokes in US thoughtfulness about our very understanding of uh human reality and how to act and how to relate to the gods because this play um brings us in contact with the gods yet again it's the feast Festival of dionis um but fate determines it now this is really going to be important I'll say more about this when we move forward in a couple weeks to talk about a fatalistic worldview of the ancient world to a providential worldview which is a Christian worldview it's not the same thing at all not remotely the fates are blind the gods The Olympian gods have no control over them it's it's necessity that rules the day like the animals really nothing can change it there's nothing you can do as much as the Greeks understand the importance of reasoning and speech and freedom they're trapped in a fatalistic Universe in which speech and freedom and action actually don't matter they end up like Achilles in the Underworld anyway their ideals are better than their worldview they're trapped in a bad theology pretty much uh a providential order suggests that there's a God outside the created order who is omnipotent and is able to intervene and change things you can appeal to that God and he has the power to get involved in the created order and change things sometimes we call the Miracles but often we just see it as a a less obvious ordering of events hence we pray because there's a personal God to whom we can pray they pray here as well but the gods can't change anything they can't change what's faded no power not the same thing at all so that that as I say that I like to see the ancient world um the one that we're looking at for the next few weeks as creating the term terms of Engagement these are the this is how the conversation begins they give us the terms uh in which we can start thinking about these things CH Christians will come along and perfect what the classical age bequeath to them comes at just the right time I'll say about more about that right now um but where do we want to go with this so the story is revealed very slowly and uh rather extraordinarily and what we find is that edius um becomes more belligerent as time goes by because he starts hearing things that he doesn't like and doesn't believe and and the chief point of conflict at least the first point of conflict is when he pulls before him the figure that we've already mentioned of tyresius so he calls on tyresius because tyresius is a prophet don't you know and he is reputed for his wisdom and so they pull him in and he comes in at line 300 and edus says this to him tyresius you are versed in everything things teachable and things not to be spoken things of the Heaven and Earth creeping things you have no eyes but in your mind you know with what a plague our city is Afflicted my Lord this is edus speaking in you alone we find a champion and you alone one that can rescue us perhaps you've not heard the messengers but Feebas Apollo sent in answer to our sending an oracle declaring that our freedom from this disease would only come when we should learn the names of those who killed King laas and kill them or EXP expel them from our country do not begrudge us oracles from birds or any other way of Prophecy within your skill save yourself and the city save me redeem the debt of our pollution that lies on us because of this dead man we are in your hands pains are most nobly taken to help another when you have means and power the pollution the words the word the word used here is miasma it's a moral stain it's not just a disease there's something more here the gods are punishing us it's not just a physical Disease by the way the Greeks just like um the Christian age connected disease famine plagues with God's judgment these things don't are not just biological phenomena they're they're a sign of judgment Bible's unequivocal about it right there there is a connection between disease and judgment it's not incidental it's not individual per se it's it's more of a national scale a plague comes to a nation signs of judgment uh obvious places in The Exodus narrative where there are plagues right as as signs of judgment uh and so there's a moral attribute to a physical illness which um as I say the ancient world is pretty much unanimous in and so there is also an awareness that when there is a national disease epidemic there's a need for repentance perhaps on a national scale used to be the case that in Canada and the US they would have calls for repentance in such instances didn't happen a few years back you might have noticed as if there was no connection between the physical problem and moral problems but for there to be moral problems we'd have to recognize that there was morality and that morality was important to human nature and as I said the use of f bombs everywhere suggests that there is no awareness of that or rather whatever awareness is we laugh at it and parents will use it in front of their kids with no without blinking and then wonder why the kids get worse and they'll blame the schools for it which they're partly right in but doesn't it's not only there uh at any rate uh he appeals to tyresius as this figure who can heal him and tyrus's response immediately because he actually does know says alas how terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the man that's wise this I knew well but had forgotten it else I would not have come here so the immediate response of tyres is line 316 is to wish that he had not been brought forward at this point to solve this problem because he knows what the problem is and it's the man in front of him and he knows that the one thing the king does not want to hear is that the problem with the city is the king especially when the king uh will not accept that why because the wise King is a fool and fools don't want to hear the truth so tyresius the blind man sees very clearly that all this is going to mean is that he is going to suffer abuse for telling the truth and so he would rather not come I don't want to be here now this is a pagan use of the word Prophet but it carries much of the same weight that we find in the Old Testament use of prophets there a Prophet is a Navar the those that bear a burden prophets are not happy people they're grumpy because they get a lot of abuse for telling the truth they're going to get beaten and reviled and Prophets are never part of the establishment they're always outside the city you have to go in the wilderness to find them it's when the city goes down and when their culture is crushed that the prophets come forward and they only come forward because only at that point when there's no wisdom left in the city you go outside the city and find the prophets there uh tyresius does not want to be here and he knows how this is going to play out he's going to be pushed to tell what he does not want to tell because edius says I want the truth and tyresius effective effectively says you can't handle the truth you you do not want the truth that's the last thing you want and edus and this is the irony and this is part of the humor of it edius and is outraged because he thinks that the reason tyresius won't tell him is because he's a coward that's the only reason he fears consequences what sort of wimp are you I mean man up just tell the truth be a good man that so he sees it on one level he's judging falsely the reason why the prophet won't speak as well I'll read on so tyresius says oh I wish I'd never come here edus what is this how sad you are now you've come let me go home says tyres say it will be easiest for us both to Bear our several Destinies to the end if you will follow my advice edius you'd Rob us of this your gift of Prophecy you talk as one who had no care for law nor love for thieves who reared you yes but I see that even your own words miss the mark ham Marti they missed the mark even your own words therefore I must fear for mine for God's sake if you know of anything do not turn from us all of us kneel to you all of us here your suppliance all of you here know nothing I will not bring to the light of day my troubles mine rather than call them yours you what do you mean you know of something but refuse to speak would you betray us and destroy the city I will not bring this pain upon us both neither on you nor on myself why is it you question me and waste your labor I will tell you nothing you would provoke a stone tell us you villain tell us and do not stand there quietly unmoved and boing at the issue you blame my temper but you do not see your own that lives with in you it is me you CH who would not feel his temper rise at words like these with which you shame our city of themselves things will come though although I hide them and breathe no word of them since they will come tell them to me so there's just a back and forth just push push push push and here's a man that won't be pushed he will not tell him and it gets increasingly belligerent and edius becomes as I say the hubris of the man is is evident here a little bit a little bit but he's oblivious to it he thinks he has a man who's weak and who's who's not willing to take the consequences of his own actions of his speech he's not willing to take it that's not the issue it's much deeper than that and he's oblivious to the whole episode but the audience is aware of what's going on because again I say to you and and and the full effect of this is not obvious to you because you've read this for the first time and you don't know the story of who edus was before he came to the classroom I trust and the story of ancient thieves and the story of incestors is new to you but for the Greek audience U Sophocles is not making up a story that they don't know they know this this story it's a legend it's a legend to the Greeks they all know it what makes this a great place is his telling of the story it's the way he presents it and the way he puts the emphasis that makes it the great drama it's not the inventiveness of the tale the story the details of the story are well known as say I say that because in our day a a good drama is one which is very surprising we don't know where it's going to go and there's a little you know a real twist in the tale right at the end oh I didn't expect that you never get this in the ancient world you always know how it's going to end the story is already known yes hubus directly related with the like his Oblivion like yes he's blind okay not physically yeah clearly that's tyresius but he's blind to the whole uh moral effective moral the moral dimensions of actions and would you say it's h leading that blindness that's part of it for sure but it's huis on his part to think that he could avoid what the gods have decreed who who do you think you are you the gods have decreed that this is what's going to happen and you're going to avoid that like it's been faded Apollo is furious because you not just because you've done such a bad thing but because you think that you can avoid what's faded nobody can avoid what's faded not even the gods and here we have a man who has free will thinking that he can do whatever he wants and avoid consequence even though the gods have said it are you smarter than the gods his parents tried to avoid it why do they try to avoid it is it because they thought they were smarter than the gods or is it because what was prophesied was so heinous that they would do anything to avoid that happening and that is the latter that's why of course they would try and avoid this do you really want to do that and nobody wants to do that even a bad person wouldn't want to do that so of course they tried to avoid it so there's Hubris in the very idea and yet the very idea leads them to the outcome and Aristotle says that this teaches us something about human nature and I think he's right because I think it really reveals something about sin though the word hammera missing the Mark is doesn't have the U connotations in the Greek here that it does in scripture in scripture it's a moral missing of the mark moral Dimensions but moral dimensions are are in play here for sure but that's not he just he doesn't see it yes know SC that says the ways of man in his own eyes edus edus and his actions he's totally oblivious to everything he's he's just going on and doing what he thinks is right because he doesn't know better he doesn't know better yeah and and actually what the scriptures say on this is entirely correct everybody thinks they're doing the right thing actually it's not entirely true sometimes people do wrong things they know they're wrong yeah but in his case we see where yeah toally y y and then so this is the problem for the religious teachers in general and the good people the good people uh are upright and they tend to think that they don't do wrong to anybody else and Jesus those are the people that Jesus particularly blasts because they think that they're exempt we can see who the immoral people are there's a prostitute there's a drunkard there's a whatever there's an adulterer we can see that they're they're the bad people we're not those people we can we we're right in our own eyes SC Andes goes to the scribes and the Pharisees one of whom prays and gives thanks that he's not like those people right yes before yep yes this will be in the 4th Century BC to our to our knowledge there's no awareness of this in Greece uh of the Hebrew scriptures although I I have said that Plato's philosophy suggests an acquaintance with the Old Testament Plato comes after this but it's around the same time but I'll say more about that when we look at Plato's Republic yes always first he doesn't take time to sit and think of what he's about to do he always keep up with so is it be it's because he's too quick to judge his swiftness he does seem like that way right um and the other thing you might have noticed and and you're right about the sense of being in a hurry is those instances are in terms of the way this is written are when the dialogue is starting to get heated the speeches get shorter and shorter and you can see just through the and this is when you're in an argument you don't give a big long speech because you're the person that's angry at you is not going to let you finish that speech you get a word in and then the word comes back and it's Bank bank bank bank right and that quick interaction uh conveys to the audience that the people are losing their temper a little bit and are speaking without thinking and edus is is pushed even though he's the Y wise edus and I think he probably is in some ways but this the situation pushes him to act very foolishly and speak foolishly you're correct that's a good observation yes would you say that Jaa went into it blind as well in terms of marrying her son and it's an extraordinary one right yeah CU she is a she is less um uh it's easier to sympathize with edus than it is with her knew she was destined to marry her son she knew that and and she had the son and sent him off right so you would have thought when your husband dies that you like there might be a light bulb that goes on first of all and then an next-man that comes in that sort of looks a lot like your ex-husband that maybe just the thought you might you know cuz she knew the whole story and he he didn't even know it right so we don't we feel more sympathy for no it's not about jaka it's not the tragedy of jaka it's tragedy of edus because at jaka we have even less like she's more culpable really she ought to have known would you say negligent the word good sure more more negligent yes I would for sure she has more knowledge right so of course but we're not focused on her and the play is not focused on her and Sophocles isn't interested in her as the primary figure he's interest interested in edifus who represents us because it and actually it's just such a great point because then you could think well why isn't it because this is a figure of Greater guilt because edius reflects more the human human nature in general which is we often get caught up in doing things without any advanced knowledge and yet we still do wrong things I mean could be part of it but it's a great it's a great observation she is definitely more complicit in the whole thing and we probably ought to judge her harshly jasta does ends up well how do she end up you've read this play how does she end up she kills herself edus doesn't do that he Le he lead exits the play like the man he describes as the uh solution to the riddle of the Spinx he goes off stage with a cane he's blinded and he goes off topping he gouges his own eyes out with brooches that are holding up his thing he goes off stage and he gouges his eyes out now he doesn't do it on stage he does it off stage the Greeks regard it as reprehensible to show violence on the stage they thought it was degrading to the audience which it is by the way watching violence is degrading it corrupts the people that watch it it's not that they are not aware of violence they get into violent conflicts all the time they're in Wars all the time but watching it on stage there's something about it that is traumatizing like trauma is literally a wound you can cause trauma to somebody by blunt force trauma but you can also do it by watching it has still has an effect on you my kids watch violence on screen they say I'm all right when I say you know I'm okay you're not okay actually you you're saying that because you put a brave face on it but actually I know you're not okay because I've watched this and it affects me I'm not saying I'm I'm traumatized by it to use the psychological language but it is watching violence causes a sort of wound now there's a way no way of avoiding it per se traumas come with life but being close to them makes you focus on the trauma and not on the teaching there and the the Greeks want us to focus on the wisdom that's taught and not to be distracted by the poor the the porn violence right you know our like the the video games and stuff like that excessively violent strong correlation between um psychotropic medicine and super violent video games and serial killers strong correlation it's not causation because not everyone does but strong correlations yes um things for mental it's prescribed foral mental illness yeah like they're me they're messing with certain things right messing they're regulating they can have side effects nobody ever talks about they always talk about the guns you know if we just got rid of the guns this wouldn't happen if only it were that simple I mean there you can make a case for getting rid of the guns but but that's not going to solve the problem there the problem is that everyone else has the guns they don't use the guns but this person does what what is it that leads this person to that and you can see a strong correlation there often um not much talked about because that presents a much more complex problem then and much more soul searching would go on at that point anyway um so VI violence is traumatic watching violence is traumatic and we can't yet we can't avoid trauma so how do we deal with trauma we present it off stage you do it off stage you have them come on and he comes on with a blindfold on and they're red where his eyes were and so you can see that it's happened but you didn't have to watch him literally eyes popping out of his head or some horrible thing like today they'd do a close-up CGI and you'd see blood splattering everywhere and so forth is that necessary not necessary at all you can get you get the idea because the point is to create a a sense of uh wisdom in the audience the other is just exciting them with violence there's a reason why people like violent Sports who doesn't like blood Sports I do and like fighting sure men like it anyway some women anyway some people don't but whatever the reason they do they we like violence most people that don't like violence don't like it because they're not they think that they're going to be on the end of it but they're happy to dish it out if they can it's product of sin to some degree um but this this uh tragedy gives us a higher knowledge than history itself says Aristotle once again it gives us a sort of awareness of universal U universals in the same way philosophy does so Aristotle gives this a very high praise and it purges pity and fear in the audience I can talk about that later but so this interaction between tyresius and edius leaves to uh tyresius leaving and um Creon com coming in accusing uh edus accuses tyresius of being set up by his brother-in-law Creon who would be the one who would probably come into the into Power if he weren't there so he's speculating the reason tyresius won't tell him the truth is because his brother-in-law is plotting against him to overthrow him and so when he calls Creon in Tyresa says Creon is no hurt to you but you are to yourself now that's only going to incite edius with anger like but it's not clear to edus what he means by that but he's just blaming like I'm attacking you so I'm going to I'm going to give you back and turn you're saying now you're no you're the problem no you're the problem like that that's how he takes it that's not what's going on but again he that's what he's imagining it's just a push in the chest type stuff edifus then gives a great long speech the chorus comes in and says this 404 we look at this man's word words says the chorus uh tyresius and yours my king and we find both have spoken them in Anger we need no Angry Words but only thought how we may best hit the God's meaning for us tyresius speaks and now a long speech if you are king at least I have the right no less to speak in my defense against you of that much I am master I am no slave of yours but loxius and so I shall not enroll myself with Creon for my Patron since you have taunted me with being blind here is my word for you you have your eyes but see not where you are in sin nor where you live nor whom you live with do you know who your parents are unknowing you are an enemy to kith and kin in death beneath neath the Earth and in this life a deadly footed double striking curse from father and mother both shall drive you forth out of this land with Darkness on your eyes that now have such straight Vision shall there be a place will not be Harbor to your cries a corner of kithon will not ring and Echo to your cries soon soon when you shall learn the secret of your marriage which steered you to a Haven in this house Haven no Haven after lucky voyage and of the multitude of other evils establishing a grim equality between you and your children you know nothing what's the Grim equality his children are his brothers and sisters it's a grim equality so muddy with contempt my words and crons misery shall grind no man as it will you so he he's prophesying about how this is all going to end up you're going to drive your you're going to be driven out of the city blind you are blind so it's it's actually for the audience what he said is abundantly clear like it it's almost a literal he means every word of what he said literally edus takes it to be figurative all figurative and not applying to him it is is it endurable that I should bear such words from him go and a curse go with you quick home with you out of my house at once I would not have come either had you not called me out he goes so out he goes cron comes in makes the accusation and there's a slow Revelation about details of the past cron will say something they'll send a messenger to try and find out what happened on the road Etc and they're trying to it's like a mystery and trying to get to the bottom of the mystery and gradually they send out Messengers and Messengers come back and as they come back they come back with details that are going to Enlighten them to the situation in front of them and the audience who is aware of the enormity of the trauma that's been caused and how it's been caused and who it's been caused by is slowly matched by edius himself who begins claiming to know everything even though he knows nothing and by the end when he knows when he knows everything blinds himself and leaves the stage and the audience watching the whole spectacle knows that in some ways it's not just a playo edus and that's what's so spellbinding about [Music] it anyway jasta comes in and has conversation with edius and I will skip over that I'll come with the messenger the messenger um comes in 9:25 might I learn from you sir where is the House of edius or best of all if you know where is the king himself of chorus this is his house and he is within doors this lady is his wife and mother of his children God bless you lady and God bless your household God bless edius Noble wife again the audience is aware that his wife's not Noble and again the irony throughout the whole play it's strong God bless you sir for your kind greeting what do you want of us that you have come here what have you come to tell me good news lady good for your house and for your husband what is your news who sent you to us I come from Corinth and the news I bring will give you pleasure perhaps a little pain too what is this news of double meaning the people of the ismith ismith will choose edus to be their King that is the rumor there because remember he left Corinth that's where he grew up he was adopted by the king and queen of Corinth and his mother and father are now dead and so they're looking for the son The Prince and the messengers that go out to find him and bring him back to be the king of Corinth so that's the story but isn't there King still old pbus no he is in the grave death has got him is that the truth is edius his father dead may I die myself if it be otherwise jasta to a servant be quick and run to the king with the news oh Oracles of the Gods where are you now it was from this man edus fled lest he should be his murderer and now he's dead in the course of nature and not killed by edus Ander edus dear jasta why have you sent for me listen to this man and when you here reflect what is the outcome of the Holy Oracles of the Gods jasta is cap is guilty of not just hubris here she's blaspheming like the the gods declared this and it hasn't come to pass she's mocking edus who is he what is his message for me he is from Corinth and he tells us that your father pbus is dead and gone what's this you say Sir tell me yourself since this is the first matter you want clearly told pbus has gone down to death you may be sure of it by treachery or sickness a small thing will put old bodies asleep so he died of sickness it seems poor old man yes and of age the long years he had measured haha oh dear dasto why should one look to the pithan Hearth the pithan is the delic Oracle pthan Apollo pythos the of Spear of the Python mentioned in in uh in the book of Acts as well where the python s is why should we go there and again the delic Oracle is renowned throughout the ancient world is the most famous of the Oracles of of the Greeks why should we go there now edius is also mocking Apollo why should one look to the birds screaming overhead they prophesied that I should kill my father but he's dead and hidden deep in Earth and I stand here who never laid a hand on on spear against him unless perhaps he died of longing for me and thus thus I am his murderer but they the oracles as they stand he's taken them away with him they dead as he himself is and worthless so here's the hubris the gods are wrong they've been proved wrong ha that I told you before now you did but I was misled by my fear then lay no more of them to heart not one but surely I must fear my mother's bed he says to his mother dasta dasta why should man fear since chance is all in all for him and he can clearly Forno nothing best to live lightly as one can unthinkingly as to your mother's marriage bed don't fear it before this in dreams too as well as oracles many a man is laying with his own mother but he to whom such things are nothing Bears his life most easily it's just a dream lots of men dream about that Sigman Freud underlined this in his copy of this by the way when he come up with the edus complex he underlined this many men in dreams uh has laay with their own mother I I haven't just saying but but Freud apparently whatever okay uh comes up with a whole psychology based on the again interesting that the uh the great tragedies and epics are read by psychologists social I mean all intellectuals they don't always come up with a theory of it related to human repression and explanations for human conduct based on repress sexuality and sex drives and so forth like Freud does who's a bit of a sicko but but it's an influential work and the irony to us is is patent because jasta is his mother who who he has slept with you don't need to worry about sleeping with because you know that's never going to happen when it already has happened all you say would be said perfectly if if she were dead but since she lives I must still fear though you talk so well jasta now not about edus edius is still worried about doing this because he has enough fear of the Gods which makes him a better man than his mother his mother has no fear why because she has learned from experience that although the gods prophesied that her baby was going to kill her husband and sleep with her they got rid of the baby the baby's dead as far as she's concerned so of course the gods aren't always right right she's good reason if if she's correct in thinking the baby's dead now the problem is the baby is not dead still in your father's death there's light of comfort great light of comfort but I fear the living who's the woman that makes you afraid marope old man pius's wife what about her frightens the queen in you a Terri terrible Oracle stranger from the gods can it be told or does the sacred law forbid another to have knowledge of it oh no once on a Time loxius said that I should lie with my own mother and take on my hands the blood of my own father and so for these long years I've lived away from Corinth it has been to my great happiness but yet it's sweet to see the face of parents this was the fear which drove you out of Corinth old man I did not wish to kill my father why should I not free you from this fear sir since I have come to you in all good will you would not find me thankless if you did why it was just for this I brought the news to earn your thanks when you had come safe home no I will never come near my parents son it's very plain you don't know what you're doing what do you mean old man for God's sake tell me if your homecoming is checked by fears like these yes I'm afraid that Feebas might prove right the murder and the incest yes old man that is my constant Terror do you know that all your fears are empty how is that if they are father and mother and I their son because pbus was no kin to you in blood what was not pbus my father no more than I but just so much how can my father be my father as much as one that's nothing to me neither he nor I begot you why then he did he call me son a gift he took you from these hands of mine aha from these hands of mine this is the messenger jasta sent out years ago she doesn't even recognize him this is the messenger that took the baby the little baby and gave him over and the reason and he knows us he was the one he this messenger is not no ordinary messenger did he love so much what he took from another's hand his childlessness before persuaded him was I a child you bought or found when I was given to him on sion's slopes in the twisting thickets you were found and why were you a traveler in those parts now jcast is sitting here on stage during this she's silent but you can imagine her watching and I don't know he staged this but you have her and everybody's looking at her as well so she's probably sitting there and if you're a good actor can't see her face I mean if you could and she's probably she's got to indicate in some ways that she's I mean is she wobbling like this at this thing like what on Earth because she's not speaking anyway you were a Shepherd hireling vagrant yes but at least at that time the man man that saved your life son what ailed me when you took me in your arms in that your ankles should be Witnesses why do you speak of that old pain I loosed you the tendons of your feet were pierced and fettered my swaddling clothes brought me a rare disgrace so that from this you're called your present name so when I said edus it could be swollen foot and so that that's why you're called this was this my father's or my mothers for God's sake tell me I don't know but he who gave you to me has more knowledge than I you yourself did not find me then you took me from someone else yes from another Shepherd who was he do you know him well enough to tell he was called laus's man you mean the king who reigned here in the old days yes he he was that man's Shepherd is he alive still so that I could see him you who live here would know that best do any of you here know of this Shepherd whom he speaks about okay so you can see that it's a gradual unveiling and it's just a little bit of information they're going to send for the other Shepherd the one that brought him too he comes there he confirms it jasto who then hears this knows immediately then it with this and she tries to discourage edus from learning the truth and she goes off backstage and kills herself she can't face the situation that it the prophecy has been fulfilled edifus is going to take a little longer the audience is a slow unveiling of the truth and yet the truth in this case is so painful that he can't bear it he doesn't want to look on his kids who are his siblings and he the most deplorable man that anyone has ever laid eyes on he can't even see himself and he wanders out of the city in Exile it's an extraordinary story and that and and what's extraordinary is not the story but the telling of the story the way it's told in the tragedy is what makes this the great tragedy of the western tradition According to Aristotle and there's argu there's a good argument to be made there is none like it never has been and maybe never will be does it speak to human nature as we understand it I think it does if you have any uh particularly I would have thought Christians would strongly agree with the moral view of human beings not knowing actually the full extent of who they are and that they are capable of a sort of a guilt that they are oblivious to and to some degree complicit in denying they suppress the truth and unrighteousness but they're without excuse because they know what the truth actually is in some ways that they're a God anyway I'm going to leave it off with that um next time essays come in and I think we deal with do we not deal with players Republic a question or a comment please

Channel: Dr Scott Masson

Views: 414

Keywords: #Christianity #culture, Oedipus Rex, classics (field of study), greek tragedy, humanities (field of study), oedipus complex, oedipus the king, oedipus the king (book), oedipus the king play, oracle of delphi, sophocles (author), the story of oedipus

Id: 33AQrGqibwo

Length: 75min 7sec (4507 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 03 2023