The Oedipus Cycle: Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone

by Sophocles

  838 you refused me When Oedipus first pleaded to be exiled (see Oedipus the King, 1629–1630), Kreon refused, saying he needed first to consult the gods. Here Oedipus suggests that Kreon acted arbitrarily without such a consultation.

  909 She’s mine Oedipus asked Kreon to assume guardianship of Antigone and Ismene in Oedipus the King, but Antigone has hardly been under his protection, since for many years she’s been wandering with Oedipus, more or less acting as his guardian.

  921–922 My city, / our city is attacked! The issue here is not a physical attack by the Theban raiding party but the violation and abduction of Antigone, who, like Oedipus, is a suppliant under Attic protection.

  927 daughters for crutches The word translated as crutches, skeptroin, literally means scepters. Blundell writes, “Since scepter is in origin a staff or walking stick, the same word in Greek is used for both. Sophocles exploits this ambiguity to create a pathetic contrast between Oedipus’ helplessness (here and at [Greek] l. 1109) and his sons’ bid for the royal scepter of Thebes ([Greek] 425, 449, 1354). There is also a nice dramatic irony in [K]reon’s words, since as it turns out, Oedipus will not need the support of these ‘scepters’ any longer” (1990, 55). At 462, 484, and 1416, I translate skeptroin in its singular form as “scepter,” “power and a kingdom,” and “your throne and your power,” respectively.

  930 though I remain their king The kingship of Thebes remains unclear throughout the play. We’re told earlier that Eteokles has reneged on his agreement with Polyneikes to relinquish the throne. But does Eteokles still rule? Kreon seems to assert here that he’s in power, as we assumed he would be at the end of Oedipus the King. See note to 398.

  933–935 turned your back . . . self-destructive fury In Oedipus the King, Sophocles portrays Oedipus as full of rage and fury, a man who quickly turns in anger on his friends (especially at 760–790, where Kreon, Jokasta, and the Leader attempt to calm him down to no avail). Undoubtedly, Oedipus’ two most self-destructive acts are the killing of Laios and his own self-blinding. In the Kolonos, Oedipus’ anger loses its self-destructive power as it’s transformed into a power that helps his new friends the Athenians and harms his enemies, a category that now includes both his sons.

  943 You might—unless our king stops you Some scholars and translators attribute this line to Kreon, changing “our” to “your” as justifiably sarcastic under the circumstances.

  945–951 Goddesses . . . the curse . . . as miserable as my own When Oedipus invokes the Eumenides in their role as guarantors of curses, he avoids calling them Kindly Ones (see 1109 and 1521). Ancient Greeks commonly cursed their enemies with the same “evils” that had been inflicted on them. The Greek word ata means both prayer and curse; a curse was simply a malicious or retaliatory prayer. At the end of Antigone’s life, she asks that her oppressors suffer a punishment equivalent to hers (Antigone, 1021–1022).

  949 Let the Sun, who sees all there is Helios, the sun god, sometimes associated with Apollo, rode a golden chariot across the sky, a perfect vantage point from which to take in everything that happens on Earth.

  978 the two I have left At this point, having disowned his sons, he’s effectively given them up as dead. Antigone will similarly treat Ismene as nonexistent after she refuses to help bury Polyneikes (Antigone, 95ff.).

  1017 permanent residence Theseus makes Kreon an offer he can’t refuse: bring the girls back unless he wants to be taken prisoner.

  1029 morally toxic father-killer The Greek word translated “morally toxic” is anagnon, which in Jebb’s words “refers to the taint of murder aggravated by union with the wife of the slain” (1886, 152). Kreon implies that Oedipus’ crimes are present in his physical person and contagious. Oedipus himself agrees; at 1241 he will shrink back from his own instinctual gesture to shake Theseus’ hand.

  1031 Council of Mount Ares The ancient Athenian Council of Areopagos, which met on a hill near the Acropolis, had jurisdiction over murder and matters of impiety; it imposed penalties including fines, exile with loss of property, and death, and its judgments were final.

  1048–1050 none of which / I chose . . . whole life Oedipus continues with increasing conviction to plead his case: because he was ignorant of the identity of his father and mother when he committed patricide and incest he believes that he is not responsible for or guilty of the crimes.

  1050 ancestors The House of Labdakos. See note to 242–244.

  1145–1202 Oh let us . . . help this land and our people! In this rousing ode, the Old Men imagine the action and outcome of the skirmish that ensues when Theseus and his troops set out to free Antigone and Ismene from the Thebans.

  1148 Pythian shore The Old Men name two possible points, both on the Bay of Eleusis, where Theseus’ horsemen could overtake Kreon’s men, who had fled with the kidnapped daughters. The first, the “Pythian shore,” would be reached via Daphni, a town in a mountain pass about six miles from Kolonos. Daphni was the site of a temple to Apollo, who is sometimes called Pythian.

  1149–1154 torch-lit beaches . . . rites for the dead The second interception point would be at the sacred town of Eleusis, where an annual torch-lit procession was held in honor of Demeter and Persephone—the “two great queens” of the underworld (see note to 749–750). Eleusis was about five miles south of the Pythian shore. The Eleusinian rites, known as the Mysteries, were tightly guarded secrets kept from all but initiates. The priests who carried out the initiations and enforced the pledge of secrecy were always members of the family of Eumolpidae.

  1162–1163 snowy / rock in the town of Oea The Old Men now propose a third escape route for Kreon’s men. Jebb cites an ancient scholiast who identifies the “snowy rock” as an outcrop of Mount Aigaleos near the Athenian rural district or deme of Oea, several miles northwest of Kolonos (1886, 1059n).

  1172 Athena Athena, also a goddess of horses, shared an altar at Kolonos with Poseidon, presumably the altar where Theseus has been making sacrifices.

  1175 goddess Rhea Poseidon was the son of Kronos and Rhea.

  1198–1199 Apollo, / bring Artemis Apollo, the god whose weapon of choice was the bow and arrow, was the brother of Artemis, the goddess of hunting.

  1294–1316 Father, please hear me . . . repay it. Antigone’s substantial speech is noteworthy in several respects. It demonstrates her intense sisterly concern for Polyneikes. In asking her father to show compassion, she invokes the damage the family curse has inflicted by having parents punish their children. Antigone fears that Oedipus’ cruelty will affect others besides Polyneikes. She’s right; Oedipus rejection of Polyneikes will have a role in Antigone’s own death.

  1326–1369 Anyone who craves . . . northern mountains In this starkly unsentimental and keenly detailed picture of aging, the Old Men remind the audience of an implied alternative to accepting one’s painful final years. Death and the ultimate home of the dead, Hades, become a wished-for release. The outlook resembles that of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy.

  1344–1350 By any measure . . . place he came from The sentiments in this famously pessimistic Greek proverb—the story goes back at least to the archaic period—belong to Silenus, the leader of the satyrs in Dionysos’ band of revelers. When asked (while drunk), “What’s best?” he answered, “Never to be born at all.” Second best, if one was unlucky enough to be born, was to go back wherever one came from as quickly as possible. Easterling (52–53) writes, “Death never ceased to be a defining feature of tragedy in Greek tradition; it is perhaps not an accident that the presiding deity of the festivals which included tragedy [i.e., Dionysos] should have such strong connexions with the world of the dead.” See translators’ introduction passim for examples of the Dionysiac influence on Athens’ great theater festival.

  1389 Respect In the Greek, aidos. Many scholars and translators use “Mercy” here, but I follow Blundell in interpreting Respect as the goddess that Polyneikes personifies as an attendant of Zeus (1990). The tenor of Polyneikes’ speech suggests that
he is appealing precisely for respect rather than begging for mercy. Oedipus counters and rejects Polyneikes’ invocation by personifying Justice as Zeus’ attendant at 1508.

  1395 Will you deny me with silent contempt? As a suppliant, Polyneikes is due the honor of an answer to a request, but as both Theseus and Antigone explain, at 1291–1293 and 1294–1316, Oedipus is not bound to grant the request. Oedipus might be silent for the moment, but he unleashes his wrath at 1480ff.

  1415–1416 elder son . . . to inherit your throne Since primogeniture was not customary in ancient Greece, Polyneikes’ argument loses some of its force.

  1420 persuaded Thebes to back him Polyneikes implies that Eteokles manipulated the Thebans into backing him—a tactic, writes Blundell, that democrats in Sophocles’ time would have approved of (1990, 139n). The word literally translated as persuade, peisas, often euphemistically connotes bribery, writes Knox (1982, 1467n).

  1421–1422 the Fury who stalks you / strengthened his case Polyneikes, with characteristic tactlessness, blames the ancient curse on Oedipus for the quarrel between the brothers.

  1428–1429 seven companies / of spearmen to fight Thebes Polyneikes has convinced six Argive warlords to join his attack on the seven gates of Thebes and put him back in power. They will not succeed. Here Polyneikes presents his strategy for the assault, presumably hoping for his father’s approval. The most colorful of the seven participants are noted below. Also see Antigone, note to line 20.

  1435 Amphiaraos Amphiaraos, once the king of Argos, was a seer who refused to take part in the ill-fated siege against Thebes until his wife Eriphyle shamed him to join the battle. (Polyneikes had bribed her to do so with a golden heirloom necklace that belonged to his family.)

  1441 Kapaneus Kapaneus, who boasted that nothing could stop him from scaling the walls of Thebes to set its houses on fire, was struck down for his arrogance by a thunderbolt from Zeus. See Antigone, 148ff.

  1444 Atalanta Atalanta, the late-life mother of Parthenopaios, was disowned by her father and raised in the woods by a she-bear in Arcadia. She swore never to marry unless the successful suitor outran her in a footrace. In some versions of the myth, Milanion, who fathered her son, met Atalanta’s conditions by dropping three golden apples along the route of a race, each of which she stopped to pick up. He thereby overtook her.

  1457 fountains of home Springs, the source of fresh water essential for life, were considered symbolic of the land and often protected by nymphs.

  1459–1460 I’m a beggar . . . but so are you Polyneikes overlooks a crucial difference between Oedipus’ status as beggar and exile and his own: Oedipus brings with him a helpful “gift” for his benefactor; Polyneikes only pleads for help.

  1498–1499 The blood you shed will defile you . . . as he dies Oedipus means that the brothers will defile each other by committing simultaneous fratricide.

  1500–1522 I cursed you both . . . Ares the Destroyer Oedipus imagines his curses (in the Greek, arai) almost as having physical force. He speaks of them as allies, as fellow fighters in his campaign to teach his sons to respect their parents. Jebb writes, “The arai, when they have once passed the father’s lips, are henceforth personal agencies of vengeance” (1886, 1375n). Tartaros is the part of the underworld where evildoers are punished for their crimes. The native spirits Oedipus summons are the Eumenides in their punitive mode.

  1508 Justice Oedipus responds to Polyneikes’ personification of Respect at 1389 by invoking Justice, a goddess who can be expected to carry out Zeus’ will without mitigation.

  1538–1539 don’t dishonor me . . . Perform the rituals In Antigone, she will honor her brother by performing the burial rites he requests, but by doing so she risks her own life.

  1580–1628 We’ve just seen . . . Zeus! In this choral ode, the gods begin their final and benign intervention in Oedipus’ life. The heightened musical energy from song and wind instruments accompanies Oedipus’ understanding and acceptance that he is being called to his death.

  1594 That was thunder! O Zeus! In Apollo’s original oracle, thunder and lightning were two of the three signs that would announce Oedipus’ death and transformation.

  1652 My life is weighted to sink down This ancient image is of a balance scale in which Zeus decides the outcome of life-or-death matters by weighting the scale so that it sinks the doomed person or people.

  1698 Hermes As the messenger of Zeus, one of Hermes’ duties was to escort the souls of the dead to the underworld.

  1708 unseen goddess Persephone, queen of the underworld, was called the unseen goddess, perhaps because her husband’s name, Hades, literally means “unseen.”

  1711 Aidoneus Aidoneus is a longer version of Hades’ name. The Old Men address him tentatively because he is notoriously resistant to prayer. See Antigone, 857, where Kreon makes a jibe at Antigone by snidely suggesting she pray to Hades to save her life.

  1715 house of Styx A reference to the River Styx that runs through the underworld.

  1719 Earth Goddesses! The Eumenides.

  1721 Savage guard-dog! Cerberus, the monstrous three-headed dog who stands guard at the entrance to the underworld, was said to be docile to those who entered but to devour all who attempted to leave.

  1743 steep brass steps See note to 65.

  1744 a maze of crossing paths This might allude to the crossroads where Oedipus killed Laios and to the maze of fated events in his life.

  1746–1747 immortal pact that Theseus / made with Peirithous Before attempting to rescue Persephone from the underworld, Theseus and his friend Peirithous pledged their everlasting friendship at a place “where a bowl had been hollowed from a rock shelf.” But Hades trapped and detained them both. In most versions of the myth, Herakles rescued Theseus but left Peirithous to suffer the torments of the criminal dead.

  1748–1750 rock / of Thoricos . . . stone tomb These local landmarks (and their significance) would have been familiar to Sophocles’ audience. Although the exact location of the spot where Oedipus is transformed must remain a secret, the detailed geographical description adds credibility to the miraculous destination of Oedipus’ final journey.

  1758–1759 washed . . . white clothes customary Literally, “gave him the bath and the prescribed clothing.” Greek burial rituals included washing the corpse and dressing it in white garments. See Antigone introduction.

  1762 Zeus of the Underworld thundered A reference to Hades. Both Hades and the Olympian Zeus are the supreme gods of their respective realms below and above the Earth. The earthquake is the third and last of the signs that Apollo told Oedipus would signal his imminent death.

  1778 enormous voice called him Blundell suggests that the god who beckons Oedipus might be identified with Hermes, Persephone, or perhaps Hades himself (1990, 190n), but the anonymity of the god’s voice adds to the mystery.

  1818–1820 Earth’s lower world . . . welcoming kindness For a discussion of this passage, see Kolonos introduction, pp. 500–501.

  1924–1925 the Earth Powers / have shown us all so much grace Theseus reminds the grieving Antigone and Ismene that by allowing their father to die a painless death in this sacred grove, the gods of Hades have blessed both Oedipus and Athens.

  1936 Horkos The son of Eris, or Strife. His role is to witness and enforce oaths, and therefore to end contention and war by bringing mortals together in binding agreements.

  ANTIGONE

  Scene Antigone’s awareness of Kreon’s decree and Polyneikes’ unburied corpse suggests that she had left the palace to visit the city (and perhaps the battlefield). If so, she would enter from outside the palace gates.

  1–2 Born . . . womb The Greek word autadelphon, translated with koinon (kindred) as a single phrase “born like me from that same womb,” literally means “selfsame womb.” Koinon, subsumed into the phrase as “like me,” may also be rendered as “kindred” (Jebb) or “linked to me” (Lloyd-Jones). Antig-one’s first words to Ismene thus strike a chord that reverberates throughout the drama:
their shared family inheritance includes horrific misfortunes that go back to their conceptions and births. The Greek word kara is translated with the endearment “love.” Tyrrell and Bennett write, “Sophocles’ avoidance of a usual word for sister may also point to Ismene as less important to Antigone in that capacity than as a ‘wombmate’ . . . and also suggests the excessive closeness brought about by Oedipus, their common father and brother” (31).

  5–8 our lives . . . you and I haven’t seen and shared Antigone speaks of her sister and herself as united by common interests, as well as blood, until 94. After Ismene refuses to help bury Polyneikes (95–96), Antigone stops referring to herself and Ismene as a pair.

  9 new command Kreon, the girls’ uncle, Thebes’ military leader, or strategos, and now its new king, presumably declared this edict only hours earlier, as soon as the Argive army’s retreat was apparent.

  15 as if they were our enemies! This suggests that the bodies of all the dead Argive attackers have been left unburied. We later learn from Tiresias that this is indeed the case. Polyneikes fits both the category of philos, loved one or family member, and that of ekthros, enemy.

  20 the double blow After Oedipus departed Thebes in exile to Athens, his sons Eteokles and Polyneikes agreed to alternate as king. But Eteokles refused to step down at the end of his year and banished his brother. Polyneikes moved to Argos, married King Adrastos’ daughter, and solicited support for a campaign to regain power in his home city. He and six other Argive captains attacked the seven gates of Thebes. During the battle, the brothers apparently struck each other with simultaneous deadly spear thrusts, a mode of death that fulfilled the curse against his sons delivered by Oedipus in the Kolonos. (Aspects of this war are the subject of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes and Euripides’ Phoenician Women and The Suppliants.)

  24 past the gates Refers to the house gates, not the outer palace gates that lead to the town.