Elizabeth W. Scharffenberger
Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus dramatizes the final day of its titular character’s life. When the tragedy begins, Oedipus, the former king of Thebes, and his daugh- ter Antigone arrive in a secluded grove.1 It is clear that they have been wandering on foot for a long while; although they perceive that they are close to the city of Athens, they do not know exactly where they are. After Antigone helps the blind and fatigued Oedipus sit on a rock in the grove, a man arrives and tells the pair that they have trespassed on ground sacred to the Eumenides (literally, “Kindly Ones”), the dreaded goddesses of the underworld who are also called Erinyes (“Furies”). The man urges father and daughter, whose identities he does not know, to leave the sanctuary, but Oedipus refuses, declaring that the place is one from which he will never depart. The whole territory, the man explains, is sacred to the god Poseidon; it is named after Colonus, the community’s founder and epony- mous hero, and is now governed by Athens’ king Theseus.2 Oedipus asks to meet with Theseus, claiming that he is able to confer a great benefit on the king and his
1 Edmunds (1996) 39–83 and van Nortwick (2015) 81–113 offer helpful reconstructions of Sophocles’ dramaturgy and use of theatrical space in Oedipus at Colonus. 2 In the 5th century BC, the deme of Hippeios Colonus (“Colonus of the Horses”) had long been incorporated into the citystate of Athens. Situated approximately a mile outside Athens’ urban center, it was Sophocles’ birthplace. The location in the deme of a sanctuary of Poseidon Hippeios (“Poseidon Lord of Horses”), which Sophocles represents as being near the sacred grove of the Eumenides (Oedipus at Colonus 888–9, 898, 1157–8), is attested by Thucydides 8. 67. 2 (late 5th century BC). Many scholars believe that the Eumenides’ grove and Oedipus’ grave were also historical landmarks, although perhaps not widely known landmarks, but others maintain that these sites are Sophocles’ inventions. The existence of a hero cult of Oedipus in Colonus is attested by much later authors (Valerius Maximus 5. 3. 3 (1st century AD), Pausanias 1. 30. 4 (2nd century AD), but it is not clear that there was such a cult site in the 5th century BC, and Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus provides the first literary testament to an association of the Theban Oedipus with the deme of Colonus in Attica. See Edmunds (1981) and (1996) 87–101, Kelly (2009) 41–5, and Hesk (2012) 176–8 for overviews of scholarly controversies and speculations concerning the association of Oedipus with Colonus in the classical period (5th–4th centuries BC). Kelly and Hesk discuss the possibility that Sophocles “invented” a sanctuary of the Eumenides in Colonus in order to evoke two actual Oedipus cults: one at Colonus, associated with Demeter and Athena, and the other on the Areopagus hill in Athens, associated with the Eumenides.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004300941_006 Oedipus at Colonus 327 city. But the man insists that he will first bring word to the local inhabitants, so that they can decide whether the wanderers will be permitted to stay in the grove or forced to leave. After the man’s departure, Oedipus prays to the Eumenides, asking for their favor and affirming that Apollo had prophesied that their sacred precinct would offer him “rest” after long suffering, and that portents—earth- quake, thunder, and lightning—would further guide him to his final resting place.3 Benefits, Oedipus asserts, will accrue to those who accept him at his death, but he adds that ruin will befall those who drove him out of his native city. Upon arriving, the chorus of elderly men from Colonus demand that Oedipus leave his seat in the sacred grove. At Antigone’s urging and with her help, Oedipus abandons the sacred rock and takes up a new seat, as the old men assure him of his safety in their midst. The chorus’s curiosity quickly leads them to dis- cover the visitors’ identities, and to realize that the wretched man before them is the famous Oedipus, who killed his father Laius, the former king of Thebes, and married his mother Jocasta. The first impulse of the old men is to recoil in hor- ror at the name of Oedipus; fearing that they will be harmed by the pollution of his terrible crimes of parricide and incest, they insist that he leave immediately despite their earlier welcome. Antigone and Oedipus struggle to convince them that Oedipus deserves special pity because he committed his crimes in ignorance and without the intention of causing harm. Oedipus also recalls Athens’ reputa- tion as a refuge for injured and helpless, and he asserts once again that, despite his wretched appearance, he is able to give great benefits to the community that receives him. With considerable reluctance, the old men agree to let their king determine how to respond to Oedipus’ request for sanctuary. At this moment, Antigone spies a new arrival—not Theseus, who has been summoned at the chorus’s behest, but Oedipus’ second daughter Ismene. Ismene brings terrible news from Thebes: Eteocles and Polyneices, Oedipus’ sons, have fallen into a bitter dispute over the sovereignty of Thebes; the younger brother Eteocles has forced the elder Polyneices into exile, and Polyneices now travels
3 There were several traditions concerning the timing of Oedipus’ death and the location of his grave; see Kamerbeek (1984) 2, Edmunds (1996) 95, and Kelly (2009) 37–9 for overviews. In the Homeric epics and other poetry dating to the archaic period (8th–6th centuries BC), as in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes (467 BC) and Sophocles’ Antigone (late 440s BC), Oedipus is said to have died and been buried in Thebes before the war between his sons, Eteocles and Polyneices. At Oedipus the King 1436–7 (late 430s or early 420s BC), Sophocles has Oedipus beg Creon to exile him from Thebes, but the tragedy’s final verses (1515–23) do not make it clear that Creon will grant his request. In Euripides’ Phoenician Women (ca. 409 BCE), Oedipus survives his sons and tells Antigone at the end of the tragedy (1708–10) that Apollo had prophesied that he would go to Athens and die there. Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus is the first literary testament for Oedipus’ death at Colonus.