This play is so messed up that a part of me says that it has to be based on true events. It is sort of like one of the arguments that people use regarding the authenticity of the Bible: every character (with the exception of Jesus Christ) is so flawed that one cannot consider that the stories have been made up. In particular we see the heroes of the Israelite nation, that being Abraham, Moses, and David, warts and all. However when us consider the Grecian myths we suddenly discover similar things here.

The story of Oedipus is that his parents received a prophecy that their child would kill his father and marry his mother, Laius, Oedipus' dad, and king of Thebes, pinned the child's legs together and left him to die on Mount Cithaeron. However, unbeknownst to him a shepherd found the boy, took him into his care, and then sent him to the city of Corinth to be raised by the king and queen there. However, years later when Oedipus had come of age, during a feast a man got too drunk and blurted out that Oedipus' parents weren't his true parents. Despite their pleading Oedipus left Corinth and travelled to Delphi to ask the oracle the truth. The Pythian Oracle, as usual, did not give him a straight answer and simply repeated the prophecy to Oedipus. As such, he decided not to return to Corith but to flee so as not to kill whom he believed where his parents.

However on his way out of Delphi he is confronted by a rather arrogant man who demanded that Oedipus move out of the way. Oedipus tells him to bugger off and a fight ensures resulting in Oedipus' victory. He then arrives at Thebes while the city is being tormented by a sphinx who has a riddle that nobody knows the answer, but Oedipus correctly guesses it, kills the sphinx, and when word is brought about Laius' death Oedipus marries Jocastra, and lives happily ever after.

Actually they don't because without realising it the prophecy has been fulfilled. Further a great crime has been committed, and since a father murderer is living in Thebes the entire city is struck with a plague. Oedipus, who has become king, and is the hero of the city, decides to investigate. However his investigations quickly uncover a truth that is hidden from him and upon learning of this truth, namely that he killed Laius, who turns out to be his father, and married his wife, Jocastra, who turns out to be his mother, he is struck with the guilt of what has come about, Jocastra kills herself and Oedipus rips out his eyes and exiles himself from Thebes.

Well, I have just told you the plot of the play without actually saying anything about the themes in the play. Well, there are two reasons why I outlined the plot, one being that it is a very complicated plot, and secondly to demonstrate how messed up everything is. This is not a simple Hollywood plot where everything is resolved in the end and everybody goes away happy. In fact it does not seem that there was really anything that Oedipus could have done to get himself out of the mess that he found himself in. In fact it seems that the more he attempts to get out of it the deeper the hole that he digs for himself, but it is not as if he could avoid doing it. He flees because he doesn't want the prophecy to come true, but there is a lot that he does not know and a lot that he is not being told. His step parents are not telling him the truth, and in hiding the truth, they are also making the prophecy come true. As for Laius, once again, everything that he does only serves to make the prophecy come true. While he attempts to kill his son, this fails because of the compassionate nature of humanity. It is the shepherd's compassion that prevents him from leaving Oedipus alone on Cithaeron.

The essay question that I answered on this play involved the question of fate and freewill. However there really does not seem to be any freewill here. Every decision that Oedipus makes only brings the revelation closer to being revealed. As a good king he simply cannot ignore the plague, and as a good king, he cannot do anything but seek justice and cleanse the city, despite the fact that he is the root cause of the problem. Despite the curse that he calls on the perpetrator, he must suffer the punishment himself, despite the pleas to the contrary. Oedipus is a just king, but despite his actions it is only when the fog is cleared and the truth comes out that he discovers that he is the perpetrator. Hey, he didn't even realise that the guy that he encountered at the crossroads was the king of Thebes, and his father.

Aristotle in his Poetics writes that characters in a drama should have a fatal flaw, but nobody seemed to have told Sophocles that. Granted Ajax may have had a fatal flaw, but Ajax is not Shakespeare, and is dealing with an issue that has nothing to do with his character. Ajax is dealing with PTSD (though not by that name) and Oedipus does not seem to have that fatal flaw. In reality, other than killing Laius at the crossroads (though some could argue that he did so in self-defense), Oedipus has done nothing wrong. In fact, if he had not investigated the cause of the plague then he would have been negligent. No, it is not Oedipus that has done anything wrong, but rather his ancestors. Laius is cursed and I believe that going up the ancestral chain further we come to a situation where an ancestor fed human flesh to another human, mostly as payback (I can't remember off hand who it was, it could have been Thyestes, but it could have been somebody else - one of Agamemnon's line is also guilty of a similar offense). In a sense then it is not the actions of Oedipus that brings about his suffering and downfall, but that of his father, and of his father's father. Poor Oedipus is only caught in the middle.

One might wonder what was so appealing about a story that everybody knows. Well, it is the same with us. When we look through the video store at all the movies available we discover that the plots of each and every one of those movies are pretty much the same. It is not the question of the plot, but how we get to the ending, and how the movie ends. We pretty much know that in around 90% of the movies available the good guys win and the hero gets the girl. We know that so we don't watch the movie for that, but rather how they get there, and how the good guys win. This was the same for the Greeks, and it is fortunate that we have versions of the Electra from the three great playwrights. In this we can see how the actual event differs and how each of the playwrights treated the subject. No doubt with Oedipus, both Aeschylus and Euripides would have explored different themes, and painted Oedipus in a different light, so that despite knowing the outcome, we arrive there through a different method.

This is a rather unusual play in that while it is connected with the main Theban epic, it does not seem to sit well within the epic cycle. Rather it seems to be an attempt by Sophocles to explore some of the unanswered questions that arose within both the Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannos, particularly as whether Oedipus was truly guilty of his actions (he was not as they were done in ignorance) as well as how Creon basically became a jerk. I say that because in Oedipus Tyrannos he seems to be a rather decent person, but in the Antigone he is a brutal tyrant. We also have interactions with Polynicies, one of Oedipus' sons and the one who fled Thebes after his brother Etocles took the throne, and then returned with an army in an attempt to retake it.

The play sits between Oedipus Tyrannos and the Antigone, though it was probably the last play that Sophocles wrote. In fact he never saw it performed as he had died, though I suspect that since it was written around the time that Athens finally fell to the Spartans that the annual Dionysia was probably cancelled. However it was performed, and it also became one of the seven plays of Sophocles that have survived down to modern times. A friend of mine considers this to be her favourite Greek play, however I am still a little confused with it because it really does not seem to deal with any particular legend, and I got the impression that my Classical Studies lecturer didn't particularly think much of it either.

The play is set in Colonus, which was a small village outside of Athens (though I did a Google Maps search and found that it is now a suburb of Athens that lies to the Northwest of the Acropolis, just slightly to the west of the main Athens Railway station, though I doubt you will find any ancient ruins there). The village itself is located in Attica which means that it comes under the jurisdiction of Athens, though quite possibly during the Peloponesian War it was located outside of the Long Walls and as such would have been overrun by the Spartans.

When Oedipus arrives he is chided by the inhabitants for despoiling a sacred site, and this sets the tone of the entire play. Oedipus has been tainted with sin in that he had committed patricide (the murder of one's father) and incest, and even mentions that his daughters are also his sisters, and his sons are equally his brothers. It sort of creates a really strange, and somewhat unnatural, relationship with his children/siblings. However one of the ideas that I get out of this play is the that the Greeks considered incest (and to an extent patricide) wrong. Still, I am personally not convinced that Oedipus did anything wrong, though I have discussed this in detail previously under Oedipus Tyrannos, so there is no need for me to go over old ground here. However, there is still the idea of incest, which seems to play a significant role in this play, and that is because both Ismene and Antigone are major characters. However for some reason Creon arrives at Colonus to take them back, and forcefully that that.

I guess this is about Oedipus' coming to terms with his fate, and in a way allowing him to be cleansed. He does begin to go through a cleansing ritual, but unfortunately this is interrupted when Creon arrives and forcefully removes Ismene, who is going out to collect the pure spring water that is required in the ritual. Theseus also makes an appearance in this play as king of Athens. This confuses me a bit since in other plays (by Euripides) he is king of Athens during Heracles' reign in Thebes. However I guess that is not the point, but rather, like in Heracles Furens, Theseus once again plays the role of the psychologist and friend who helps Oedipus come to terms with his past. Unlike Herakles, who suffered from combat trauma and PTSD, Oedipus suffers from guilt and a persecution complex. This, honestly, is not surprising. Simply put, somebody in heaven must seriously hate this guy because as I have repeatedly said: he has done nothing wrong, he was only a victim of destiny.

Polynicies also makes an appearance in this play. He was kicked out of Thebes when his brother Etocles took the throne. Both Creon and Polynicies want Oedipus to return to Thebes, most likely to settle the dispute between the two brothers, and both become incredibly hostile and agitated when he refuses to do so. Creon even goes to the extent of kidnapping his daughters to attempt to bring him back. We see a very nasty Creon in this play, and this extends much further when we get to Antigone. We obviously know what happens: Polynicies raises and army and attacks Thebes, and in the ensuring battle, loses and dies, but not before killing Etocles. What happens afterwards I shall leave for when I finish Antigone (and you can also refer to Seven Against Thebes).

The play ends with Oedipus' death and his ascension to the Blessed Realms. Oedipus' death is actually incredibly dignified, and deserving of a man who fate has simply turned around and slapped him in the face. One thing I noted is that even Creon, for as much of a prick that he is, recognises Oedipus' benevolent rule in Thebes. Unfortunately nothing like that comes about again. I am doubtful that it is Oedipus that is cursed, but rather the city itself (and it has probably something to do with the father of Laertius feeding human flesh to his enemy: another very, very, bad thing in Greek society). One thing I am not willing to do is to link this tragedy to Athens' hatred of Thebes, and vice versa. Okay, Creon and Theseus come to blows, and it is ordained there that Thebes and Athens were to become enemies, but this is what they call rewriting the past. It is very interesting that Oedipus went to the Blessed Realms, since that is a reward set aside for only the greatest of heroes (Achilles being one of them), so I guess for a man who suffered as much as Oedipus did, it is probably the gods (and in particular Zeus) turning around and saying, 'hey, this didn't happen because of anything you did, but rather the actions of your ancestors, so because you suffered so in life you will be rewarded in death'.

This is probably the closest of all of the Greek tragedies to a Shakespearian tragedy. This is due to the end of the play having a huge bodycount and the action of the play is driven by one person's fatal flaw (not that I actually believe in the fatal flaw argument, but that is beside the point). However it is not Antigone who has the fatal flaw in this play but rather Creon, the king of Thebes. Unfortunately we cannot really look to Oedipus at Colonus to see the beginning of Creon's downfall because this play is not the final part of a trilogy, at least in the Aeschylan sense of a trilogy, though it is noticeable that when the copyists chose seven plays of Sophocles to preserve for posterity three of the Theban plays were kept which in a sense formed a trilogy, and in this trilogy we see Creon go from being a loyal servant of Oedipus to a ruthless tyrant that believes that he is the state and that his words are not to be disobeyed.

First I will discuss the term Harmatia, which is Aristotelian in origin, at least from his text on drama (The Poetics). I shall also look at the action of the play and finish off by discussing the main theme, which is the struggle between loyalty to one's family and loyalty to one's state. Well, no, I will finish off by looking at Creon's character, and how his actions bring about such a sticky end.

The concept of Harmatia is regularly found in the Bible where it has been translated into our word sin. Now, as I think about the concept of Harmatia I am somewhat torn between suggesting that Harmatia and sin are two different ideas, or that our modern understanding of sin does not exactly weigh with how the modern church translates and preaches it. The modern church preaches sin as being rebellion against God (of which we are all guilty), and then goes on to bombard us with what constitutes sin. However, to the Greeks, or at least to Aristotle, Harmatia is a fatal character flaw. Now that concept does not alienate sin because sin, in an of itself, is a fatal character flaw that we have inherited from Adam and Eve. This fatal character flaw of ours is our desire to live independently, and we see this more and more as we meet with people and associate with them. I also see it rampant throughout the church as people try to push God into a box and tell him what sin is rather than letting him demonstrate sin to them.

I say this because the list of sins seems to get longer and longer and we, as humans and those of us who call ourselves Christian, seem to think that sin is made up of our actions as opposed to our desire to rule ourselves. I guess the best explanation is that our actions, especially our selfish actions, are merely a symptom of this character flaw of ours. The Bible is correct when it says that the wages of sin is death, because as we see, especially in Antigone, that Creon's Harmatia leaves him desolate and alone, and as he says from his own lips, it is as if he were dead. Now, the Greek concept of death, the absence of life, and the removal of ourselves from this world, is somewhat different to the Biblical concept of death. In fact our modern understanding of death is more in line with the Grecian view. However the biblical view is that death is more to do with the break down of our relationships, particularly our relationship with God, than it is with the absence of life. To the Bible life is defined by relationships, and when we drive our relationships apart we are little more than dead. In fact it has been suggested that higher suicide rates occur among truly lonely people than it does among people who are surrounded by friends. That, though, is only speculation. However, consider this: even when we are surrounded by friends we can still be alone, especially if these so called friends of ours only seek us out for company and, in their self centred view of the world, seek to only have us by their side to make them feel good and important than really doing anything that is remotely friendly.

Now, the play itself is set after the Theban war, where Etocles and Polyneices killed each other after Polyneices attacked Thebes with his army to remove his brother and set himself up as king. Creon, by default, becomes king and his first order of business is to give Etocles a state funeral while leaving the body of Polyneices exposed. To be exposed was the worst thing that you could do to a corpse in the Ancient Greek world. A proper burial meant that you would at least have a half decent afterlife, while being exposed suggests that you would be left wondering the earth as a ghost, and a tormented one at that. Antigone, the sister of Polyneices, is horrified at this and seeks to bury him, much to Creon's displeasure, so he orders her executed. However the play is not as simple as that because Creon's son is in love with Antigone, and when he finds her dead, he kills himself, and in a fit of grief over the death of her son, Creon's wife also kills herself.

Now one of the main themes that comes out of this play is the struggle between one's loyalty to the state and one's loyalty to one's family and the dilemma that one will face when the state passes a law of which you do not approve. The question that is raised is: do you dishonour the state by breaking the law and honouring your family, or do you dishonour your family by upholding the law even when the law is unjust. In a way, there was nothing wrong with Creon's law, since Polyneices was a traitor, and treachery is seen as one of the worst crimes to commit (even today, though the definition of treason has become very ambiguous in the globalised, interconnected world). However, he was still family, and not only that, Etocles' ascension to the throne was dubious at best. The entire war was not so much about a deposed monarch seeking reinstatement, but rather a family quarrel between two brothers.

We still face these dilemmas today, though not to the same extent. The question of whether the drug laws are just is one of them (and I do believe that they are, even though they can be considered to be an outworking of the Nanny State). While it is true that people should be left to make their own decisions, we demonstrate time and time again that we are actually not capable of doing so, therefore the state actually does need to step in to protect us from ourselves. Then there is the war that the state embarks on that many members of the state disapprove of, and as a loyal soldier to the state, do you obey the state by embarking on a quasi-legal adventure, or do you uphold your morals by refusing, and face punishment or even gaol.

Creon mentions a number of times that he, as the king, is the state, and thus his laws are to be obeyed. However, ironically enough, the Chorus objects to this. Now the Chorus does play an important role in Greek tragedy, and usually represents what the Greeks call the 'Oklos', or the crowd. Crowd is actually a rather bad translation as my understanding of the Oklos is that it is a crowd that acts as a single entity and has a single mindset. Now, this is not always the case in Greek tragedy as at times the Chorus will split and then argue with itself, in a way representing division amongst the people. It is a shame that we do not actually see Choruses in plays any more (or not playing a major role as they did in Greek drama).

Now Creon, having become king, has pretty much become corrupted by power. Yet I am not entirely convinced that it is corruption at such an early stage of his reign. In a way, he is the new king, and he wants to stamp his authority on the city, or, as the Greeks called it, the Polis (I won't go into details of the meaning of this word as I have already spent too much time translating Oklos). For him to be disobeyed will suggest that he does not actually have the character to be a king. A king that is not obeyed and not respected is not actually a king because he has no authority. As such Creon wants to make sure that his authority sticks so when this law is broken he is forced to act. However, he is not caught in a dilemma deciding whether it is right to punish Antigone or not - he has already made up his mind, set the path that he wants to travel, and travels down it. However, it ends very, very badly for him, and this is emphasised at the conclusion when the prophet Tiresieus arrives and passes on the message from the gods. He has acted against the proper way and is now to be punished and there is no way to escape from it.

I recently saw a performance of this play (which was cool because I hardly see any Greek plays being produiced) and have written my thoughts on the performance, and the play as a whole, on my blog.

    When we come to Aeschylus we must remember that this is drama at its most primitive. This is because the works of Aeschylus are the oldest form of drama that remains extant. It appears that Aeschylus wrote most of his plays as trilogies, and unfortunately we only have one play of this trilogy available. It is difficult to know what exactly was the reason why only seven plays of Aeschylus were chosen to be preserved, and why these particular plays were chosen. The only complete trilogy we have is the Orestea, however it is clear, of the other four plays that we have, at least three of them are parts of a trilogy.
    It is suggested that this one is the final part of a trilogy most likely dealing with the story of Oedipus. I am not quite convinced that this is the final play because it appears that the end of this play will then follow on to the despite between Antigone and Creon (as the king is named in the Sophoclean play) over whether it is lawful or unlawful for Antigone to bury her brother. I suspect that the first play dealt with Oedipus returning to Thebes and discovering that he has inadvertently fulfilled the prophecy by killing his father and marrying his mother, and then gouging his eyes out and sending himself into exile. This would be the second: it begins rather abruptly and ends rather abruptly. Unlike other plays, there is not much detail of what happened before, and there is a flagging reference at the end that things have not necessarily been solved.
    The play begins with the city of Thebes under siege. Oedipus had two sons: one of them is Etocles, who remained in the city and became king; the other is Polyneices, who after having a dispute with Etocles, went into exile, and returned with six heroes to attempt to depose his brother. A bulk of the play deals with Etocles conversing with either the chorus or soldiers, though the end has Antigone come in with Ismene. However, while there are at times three actors on the stage, only two of them ever converse. It does not appear that proper dialogue between multiple characters had at this stage been developed.
    Some have criticised this play for having nothing happen, and then refer to Shakespeare and say 'look at how much better he is'. This, in my opinion, is a very bad method of comparing plays. First of all, this is not Shakespeare, this is Aeschylus, and secondly, the two playwrights live at least 1000 years apart. By the time we arrive at Shakespeare a lot had changed and drama had developed significantly. Back here in the days of Aeschylus, drama was very much still an advanced form of storytelling, and we can see that in this play. Basically there is no action occurring on stage, it is all dialogue, but the dialogue is painting a picture of what is occurring off stage. There is no battle on stage: this is not what Greek drama was about. There was dancing, and that was the role of the chorus, and I also believe that most of the story was sung, not spoken.
    We do see a form of character interaction a couple of times in the play. Etocles is attempting to calm the chorus of Theban woman down so as not to cause a panic, and later Antigone is debating with the chorus about giving proper rights for Polyneices. The play also ends with a city divided. The chorus splits in two, and half go off to join the side that agrees that Polyneices should be exposed and left for the birds, while the other half agree with Antigone that Polyneices should be buried. However this dispute is not resolved at the end of the play, which is why I suspect that this is not the end but the middle.
    Still I found it more difficult to get into this play than I do with Euripides, but this is most likely because Euripides is the next generation of dramatist, where there are well developed character interactions and more debate among characters of ideas of woman's rights, human suffering, forgiveness, and repentance. While the three unities remain important, and the chorus is still present, we see that drama has made a step forward. Unfortunately we have very little else to assist us analysing how drama developed. Along with the three great tragedians, we also have the old comedy of Aristophanes, however after that we jump to a collection of fragments by Menander, and then to the farce of Terrance and Plautus. As for drama, there is a substantial gap of at least five-hundred years until we come to the writings of Seneca. After Seneca, we pretty much have nothing until the appearance of the mystery plays of the Middle Ages. However we know from the ruins that drama was incredibly popular: pretty much every ancient city in Roman times had a theatre. It is a shame that we have very little indication of what was actually performed in them.