John Dryden - Delphi Poets Series

by John Dryden

  Through all the inmost chambers of the sky,

  May there not be a glimpse, one starry spark,

  But gods meet gods, and jostle in the dark!

  These blemishes, however, are entitled to some indulgence from the reader, when they occur in a work of real genius. Those, who do not strive at excellence, will seldom fall into absurdity; as he, who is contented to walk, is little liable to stumble.

  Notwithstanding the admirable disposition of the parts of this play, the gradual increase of the interest, and the strong impassioned language of the dialogue, the disagreeable nature of the plot forms an objection to its success upon a British stage. Distress, which turns upon the involutions of unnatural or incestuous passion, carries with it something too disgusting for the sympathy of a refined age; whereas, in a simple state of society, the feelings require a more powerful stimulus; as we see the vulgar crowd round an object of real horror, with the same pleasure we reap from seeing it represented on a theatre. Besides, in ancient times, in those of the Roman empire at least, such abominations really occurred, as sanctioned the story of Œdipus. But the change of manners has introduced not only greater purity of moral feeling, but a sensibility, which retreats with abhorrence even from a fiction turning upon such circumstances. Hence, Garrick, who well knew the taste of an English audience, renounced his intention of reviving the excellent old play of “King and no King;” and hence Massinger’s still more awful tragedy of “The Unnatural Combat,” has been justly deemed unfit for a modern stage. Independent of this disgusting circumstance, it may be questioned Whether the horror of this tragedy is not too powerful for furnishing mere amusement? It is said in the “Companion to the Playhouse,” that when the piece was performing at Dublin, a musician, in the orchestra, was so powerfully affected by the madness of Œdipus, as to become himself actually delirious: and though this may be exaggerated, it is certain, that, when the play was revived about thirty years ago, the audience were unable to support it to an end; the boxes being all emptied before the third act was concluded. Among all our English plays, there is none more determinedly bloody than “Œdipus,” in its progress and conclusion. The entrance of the unfortunate king, with his eyes torn from their sockets, is too disgusting for representation. Of all the 122 persons of the drama, scarce one survives the fifth act. Œdipus dashes out his brains, Jocasta stabs herself, their children are strangled, Creon kills Eurydice, Adrastus kills Creon, and the insurgents kill Adrastus; when we add to this, that the conspirators are hanged, the reader will perceive, that the play, which began with a pestilence, concludes with a massacre,

  And darkness is the burier of the dead.

  Another objection to Œdipus has been derived from the doctrine of fatalism, inculcated by the story. There is something of cant in talking much upon the influence of a theatre on public morals; yet, I fear, though the most moral plays are incapable of doing much good, the turn of others may make a mischievous impression, by embodying in verse, and rendering apt for the memory, maxims of an impious or profligate tendency. In this point of view, there is, at least, no edification in beholding the horrible crimes unto which Œdipus is unwillingly plunged, and in witnessing the dreadful punishment he sustains, though innocent of all moral or intentional guilt, Corneille has endeavoured to counterbalance the obvious conclusion, by a long tirade upon free-will, which I have subjoined, as it contains some striking ideas. But the doctrine, which it expresses, is contradictory of the whole 123 tenor of the story; and the correct deduction is much more justly summed up by Seneca, in the stoical maxim of necessity:

  Fatis agimur, cedite Fatis;

  Non solicitæ possunt curæ,

  Mutare rati stamina fusi;

  Quicquid patimur mortale genus,

  Quicquid facimus venit ex alto;

  Servatque sua decreta colus,

  Lachesis dura revoluta manu.

  Some degree of poetical justice might have been preserved, and a valuable moral inculcated, had the conduct of Œdipus, in his combat with Laius, been represented as atrocious, or, at least, unwarrantable; as the sequel would then have been a warning, how impossible it is to calculate the consequences or extent of a single act of guilt. But, after all, Dryden perhaps extracts the true moral, while stating our insufficiency to estimate the distribution of good and evil in human life, in a passage, which, in excellent poetry, expresses more sound truth, than a whole shelf of philosophers:

  The Gods are just —

  But how can finite measure infinite?

  Reason! alas, it does not know itself!

  Yet man, vain man, would, with this, short-lined plummet,

  Fathom the vast abyss of heavenly justice.

  Whatever is, is in its causes just,

  Since all things are by fate. But purblind man

  Sees but a part o’the chain; the nearest links;

  His eyes not carrying to that equal beam,

  That poises all above. —

  The prologue states, that the play, if damned, may be recorded as the “first buried since the Woollen Act.” This enables us to fix the date of the performance. By the 30th Charles II. cap. 3. all persons were appointed to be buried in woollen after 1st August, 1678. The play must therefore have been represented early in the season 1678-9. It was not printed until 1679.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE.

  PROLOGUE.

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

  ACT I.

  ACT II.

  ACT III.

  ACT IV.

  ACT V.

  EPILOGUE.

  PREFACE.

  Though it be dangerous to raise too great an expectation, especially in works of this nature, where we are to please an insatiable audience, yet it is reasonable to prepossess them in favour of an author; and therefore, both the prologue and epilogue informed you, that Œdipus was the most celebrated piece of all antiquity; that Sophocles, not only the greatest wit, but one of the greatest men in Athens, made it for the stage at the public cost; and that it had the reputation of being his masterpiece, not only among the seven of his which are still remaining, but of the greater number which are perished. Aristotle has more than once admired it, in his Book of Poetry; Horace has mentioned it: Lucullus, Julius Cæsar, and other noble Romans, have written on the same subject, though their poems are wholly lost; but Seneca’s is still preserved. In our own age, Corneille has attempted it, and, it appears by his preface, with great success. But a judicious reader will easily observe, how much the copy is inferior to the original. He tells you himself, that he owes a great part of his success, to the happy episode of Theseus and Dirce; which is the same thing, as if we should acknowledge, that we were 125 indebted for our good fortune to the under-plot of Adrastus, Eurydice, and Creon. The truth is, he miserably failed in the character of his hero: If he desired that Œdipus should be pitied, he should have made him a better man. He forgot, that Sophocles had taken care to show him, in his first entrance, a just, a merciful, a successful, a religious prince, and, in short, a father of his country. Instead of these, he has drawn him suspicious, designing, more anxious of keeping the Theban crown, than solicitous for the safety of his people; hectored by Theseus, condemned by Dirce, and scarce maintaining a second part in his own tragedy. This was an error in the first concoction; and therefore never to be mended in the second or the third. He introduced a greater hero than Œdipus himself; for when Theseus was once there, that companion of Hercules must yield to none. The poet was obliged to furnish him with business, to make him an equipage suitable to his dignity; and, by following him too close, to lose his other king of Brentford in the crowd. Seneca, on the other side, as if there were no such thing as nature to be minded in a play, is always running after pompous expression, pointed sentences, and philosophical notions, more proper for the study than the stage: the Frenchman followed a wrong scent; and the Roman was absolutely at cold hunting. All we could gather out of Corneille was, that an episode must be, but not his way: and Seneca supplied us with no
new hint, but only a relation which he makes of his Tiresias raising the ghost of Laius; which is here performed in view of the audience, — the rites and ceremonies, so far his, as he agreed with antiquity, and the religion of the Greeks. But he himself was beholden to Homer’s Tiresias, in the “Odysses,” for some of them; and the rest have been collected from Heliodore’s “Ethiopiques,” 126 and Lucan’s Erictho. Sophocles, indeed, is admirable everywhere; and therefore we have followed him as close as possibly we could. But the Athenian theatre, (whether more perfect than ours, is not now disputed,) had a perfection differing from ours. You see there in every act a single scene, (or two at most,) which manage the business of the play; and after that succeeds the chorus, which commonly takes up more time in singing, than there has been employed in speaking. The principal person appears almost constantly through the play; but the inferior parts seldom above once in the whole tragedy. The conduct of our stage is much more difficult, where we are obliged never to lose any considerable character, which we have once presented. Custom likewise has obtained, that we must form an under-plot of second persons, which must be depending on the first; and their by-walks must be like those in a labyrinth, which all of them lead into the great parterre; or like so many several lodging chambers, which have their outlets into the same gallery. Perhaps, after all, if we could think so, the ancient method, as it is the easiest, is also the most natural, and the best. For variety, as it is managed, is too often subject to breed distraction; and while we would please too many 127 ways, for want of art in the conduct, we please in none. But we have given you more already than was necessary for a preface; and, for aught we know, may gain no more by our instructions, than that politic nation is like to do, who have taught their enemies to fight so long, that at last they are in a condition to invade them.

  PROLOGUE.

  When Athens all the Grecian slate did guide,

  And Greece gave laws to all the world beside;

  Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit,

  Supreme in wisdom one, and one in wit:

  And wit from wisdom differed not in those,

  But as ’twas sung in verse, or said in prose.

  Then, Œdipus, on crowded theatres,

  Drew all admiring eyes and list’ning ears:

  The pleased spectator shouted every line,

  The noblest, manliest, and the best design!

  And every critic of each learned age,

  By this just model has reformed the stage.

  Now, should it fail, (as heaven avert our fear!)

  Damn it in silence, lest the world should hear.

  For were it known this poem did not please,

  You might set up for perfect savages:

  Your neighbours would not look on you as men,

  But think the nation all turned Picts again.

  Faith, as you manage matters, ’tis not fit

  You should suspect yourselves of too much wit:

  Drive not the jest too far, but spare this piece;

  And, for this once, be not more wise than Greece.

  See twice! do not pell-mell to damning fall,

  Like true-born Britons, who ne’er think at all:

  Pray be advised; and though at Mons you won,

  On pointed cannon do not always run.

  With some respect to ancient wit proceed;

  You take the four first councils for your creed.

  But, when you lay tradition wholly by,

  And on the private spirit alone rely,

  You turn fanatics in your poetry.

  If, notwithstanding all that we can say,

  You needs will have your penn’orths of the play,

  And come resolved to damn, because you pay,

  Record it, in memorial of the fact,

  The first play buried since the woollen act.

  DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

  Œdipus, King of Thebes.

  Adrastus, Prince of Argos.

  Creon, Brother to Jocasta.

  Tiresias, a blind Prophet.

  Hæmon, Captain of the Guard.

  Alcander,

  Diocles,

  Pyracmon,}

  }

  }Lords of Creon’s faction.

  Phorbas, an old Shepherd.

  Dymas, the Messenger returned from Delphos.

  Ægeon, the Corinthian Embassador.

  Ghost of Laius, the late King of Thebes.

  Jocasta, Queen of Thebes.

  Eurydice, her Daughter, by Laius, her first husband.

  Manto, Daughter of Tiresias.

  Priests, Citizens, Attendants, &c.

  SCENE — Thebes.

  ACT I.

  SCENE I. — The Curtain rises to a plaintive Tune, representing the present condition of Thebes; dead Bodies appear at a distance in the Streets; some faintly go over the Stage, others drop.

  Enter Alcander, Diocles, and Pyracmon.

  Alc. Methinks we stand on ruins; nature shakes

  About us; and the universal frame

  So loose, that it but wants another push,

  To leap from off its hinges.

  Dioc. No sun to cheer us; but a bloody globe,

  That rolls above, a bald and beamless fire,

  His face o’er-grown with scurf: The sun’s sick, too;

  Shortly he’ll be an earth.

  Pyr. Therefore the seasons

  Lie all confused; and, by the heavens neglected,

  Forget themselves: Blind winter meets the summer

  In his mid-way, and, seeing not his livery,

  Has driven him headlong back; and the raw damps,

  With flaggy wings, fly heavily about,

  Scattering their pestilential colds and rheums

  Through all the lazy air.

  Alc. Hence murrains followed

  On bleating flocks, and on the lowing herds:

  At last, the malady

  Grew more domestic, and the faithful dog

  Died at his master’s feet.

  Dioc. And next, his master:

  For all those plagues, which earth and air had brooded,

  First on inferior creatures tried their force,

  And last they seized on man.

  Pyr. And then a thousand deaths at once advanced,

  And every dart took place; all was so sudden,

  That scarce a first man fell; one but began

  To wonder, and straight fell a wonder too;

  A third, who stooped to raise his dying friend,

  Dropt in the pious act. — Heard you that groan?[Groan within.

  Dioc. A troop of ghosts took flight together there.

  Now death’s grown riotous, and will play no more

  For single stakes, but families and tribes.

  How are we sure we breathe not now our last,

  And that, next minute,

  Our bodies, cast into some common pit,

  Shall not be built upon, and overlaid

  By half a people?

  Alc. There’s a chain of causes

  Linked to effects; invincible necessity,

  That whate’er is, could not but so have been;

  That’s my security.

  To them, enter Creon.

  Cre. So had it need, when all our streets lie covered

  With dead and dying men;

  And earth exposes bodies on the pavements,

  More than she hides in graves.

  Betwixt the bride and bridegroom have I seen

  The nuptial torch do common offices

  Of marriage and of death.

  Dioc. Now Œdipus

  (If he return from war, our other plague)

  Will scarce find half he left, to grace his triumphs.

  Pyr. A feeble pæan will be sung before him.

  Alc. He would do well to bring the wives and children

  Of conquered Argians, to renew his Thebes.

  Cre. May funerals meet him at the city gates,

  With their detested omen!

  Dioc. Of his
children.

  Cre. Nay, though she be my sister, of his wife.

  Alc. O that our Thebes might once again behold

  A monarch, Theban born!

  Dioc. We might have had one.

  Pyr. Yes, had the people pleased.

  Cre. Come, you are my friends:

  The queen my sister, after Laius’ death,

  Feared to lie single; and supplied his place

  With a young successor.

  Dioc. He much resembles

  Her former husband too.

  Alc. I always thought so.

  Pyr. When twenty winters more have grizzled his black locks,

  He will be very Laius.

  Cre. So he will.

  Meantime, she stands provided of a Laius,

  More young, and vigorous too, by twenty springs.

  These women are such cunning purveyors!

  Mark, where their appetites have once been pleased,

  The same resemblance, in a younger lover,

  Lies brooding in their fancies the same pleasures,

  And urges their remembrance to desire.

  Dioc. Had merit, not her dotage, been considered;

  Then Creon had been king; but Œdipus,

  A stranger!

  Cre. That word, stranger, I confess,

  Sounds harshly in my ears.

  Dioc. We are your creatures.

  The people, prone, as in all general ills,

  To sudden change; the king, in wars abroad;

  The queen, a woman weak and unregarded;

  Eurydice, the daughter of dead Laius,

  A princess young and beauteous, and unmarried, —

  Methinks, from these disjointed propositions,

  Something might be produced.

  Cre. The gods have done

  Their part, by sending this commodious plague.

  But oh, the princess! her hard heart is shut

  By adamantine locks against my love.

  Alc. Your claim to her is strong; you are betrothed.

  Pyr. True, in her nonage.

  Dioc. I heard the prince of Argos, young Adrastus,

  When he was hostage here —