Oedipus Rex: Man And God, Iii

[Music] [Music] in the last lesson we saw edus in action discovering the truth about the murder of lot and also about his own identity We examined the character of edus as it is revealed in those scenes and we discussed Aristotle's theory about the character of the tragic hero the one fault in the otherwise good and great man which brings him to disaster I suggested at the end of the lesson that there seems to be more involved than the character of the hero good or bad the story of edus from beginning to end is concerned with the gods as well as men it was the god Apollo who prophesied that edus would kill his father and marry his mother Apollo made this prediction to lios and Jaster and then to edifus himself and at one dramatic turning point after another in the play the Prophecies of the god Apollo are the subject under discussion this must seem rather strange to you for prophecies are not something we are used to as a part of religion we don't expect God to tell us the future and we don't have human prophets like tyresius and yet we have our prophets and our prophecies they may not look like tyresius but we consult [Music] them this is an electronic calculating machine it can solve very complicated mathematical problems it can also predict the future if fed the right information it can predict the cause of an aircraft or a missile it can even predict economic or population Trends such machines are constantly being improved and some of our engineers make what sounds like fantastic claims for them they think that such machines may eventually be able to predict the results of an ction or even of a war if the machines ever do become that efficient we shall have something like what the Greeks of Sophocles time believed they had in the Oracle of the god Apollo the priests of Apollo in the name of the god predicted the future and gave advice on private and public matters to all who came to ask for it the record shows that although they made some mistakes they had a very high proportion of correct predictions well we don't believe that God foretells the future to us and our machines have not yet reached the point where we are willing to trust them on matters of policy but there are many situations in our lives today which face us with prophecies and which will help us understand the feelings of the audience that watched the performance of edus the king we too like edus in the play are up against prophecies let's take an example very close to your own experience at many universities and schools every student is assigned on the basis of past work a predicted grade the average he or she will probably make during their school or college career fortunately many students manage to beat the prophecy and do better or maybe worse but a surprising number fulfill it or come very close outside of school there there are other Prophecies of all kinds that face us with the problem of a predicted future a doctor for example May prophesy that his patient has only a few years or even months to live usually he is right that we have all heard of cases fortunately where the patient was written off in this way but survived and lived to a ripe old age no matter who or what the prophet is the person concerned goes on hoping that he or she can beat the prophecy and tries to do so we believe in spite of everything we are told that nobody and nothing can tell us what we are going to do we believe that our will is free and if the scientists ever do succeed in perfecting a machine that will predict the results of elections the party which is supposed to lose will probably work all the harder because it is supposed to lose and that extra effort may make it win let's hope so anyway edus too like us in the same circumstances tries to beat the prophecy about what he will do when he hears it at Deli he resolves never to go back to Corinth so that it cannot come true he does everything he can to avoid fulfilling the prophecy but there is an important difference between his situation and the modern examples we looked at if we beat the prophecy and prove that the prophet was wrong we show up a machine a teacher or a doctor but the prophecies edus was trying to beat were made by a God and that means that the whole question of the truth of religion was involved in his attempt to prove the prophecies false if edus had succeeded he would have shown that Apollo did not know the future that Apollo knew no more than a human being l in fact if edus had succeeded he would have destroyed a basic article of Greek religious belief that the gods know the future this helps us to understand how the play besides providing excitement and action also raises the great questions of the day in the age of Sophocles the old religious view of man's life and his relation to the gods was being boldly and successfully challenged and this particular point on which the action of the play turns the Prophecies of the Gods this was the main target of all the new thinkers scientists and philosophers who questioned the old beliefs all those inquiring minds which were at work in the Athens of Sophocles concentrated their most damaging attacks on this particular point the claim that the gods knew the future and predicted it by means of human profits from the point of view of men like the philosopher protagoras who believed in man's ability to shape his own destiny and dismissed the gods as something hardly worth discussing Divine prophecy was nonsense and from the point of view of the Greek Atomic theorists whose teaching tended to present the world as a chaos Divine prophecy was nonsense thus when Sophocles chose edus as his subject for play he was taking a stand in the great debate of his time for the story of edifus turns on this whole question of divine prophecy the play is the story of a man who rejects prophecy and therefore religion and who finds out that he was wrong Sophocles makes edus represent the ideas of man's greatness and dignity which were being advanced in the Athens of his own time the same ideas which are a powerful force in the world today edus is bold Progressive critical like the Athenian scientists and philosophers qualities which win the sympathy of our own scientific age edus believes like protagonist and like many of us in the power of the human intelligence to solve all human problems and like protagoras and the scientists of the fifth century before Christ he has a questioning and skeptical attitude towards the gods Sophocles has also made edus a figure representative of all the great social and scientific achievements of Athenian democracy it was fifth century Athens that gave Western Europe its first real code of law and method of legal procedure and in the play edifus acts as legal investigator prosecutor and judge it was the fifth Century which saw the real beginning of modern medicine and edus in the play is presented to us as a doctor thieves is suffering from a plague and edus tries to find a cure above all edus is typical of his century and of Athens in his energetic search for the truth that dedicated Scientific Drive that tries to bring light Into Darkness to make things clear to discover to reveal in the play he assumes the stature of man as the age of Sophocles had begun to think of him as the Lord and Master of the Universe the measure of all things and if man is the measure of all things how can anyone human or Divine predict what he will or will not do what we are now going to watch is a series of scenes from the play in which these attitudes of edifus are clear clearly shown the first one is a scene we have seen a part of before the quarrel between edus and tyresius the prophet of Apollo the King has accused the prophet of murder and as this scene opens tyresius replies by accusing edus here edus for the first time allows us a glimpse of his real attitude to prophecy I say you are the man you are searching for you you are the murderer of lios do you think you can say that twice and not pay for it should I say something more and make you angrier still say what you like it will all be meaningless I say that without knowing it you are living in shameful intimacy with your nearest of kin you cannot see the evil in which you live you think you can go on like this with impunity yes if truth has power it has except for you you have no power or truth you are blind your ears and mind as well as your eyes you are a pitiful figure the reproaches you fling at me all these people here will fling at you and before very long you live in one continuous night of Darkness tell me when were you a true Prophet when the Spinx chanted her riddle here did you come forward to speak the word that would Liberate the people of this town that riddle was not for anyone who came along to answer it called for prophetic Insight but you didn't come forward you offered no answer told you by the birds or the gods no I came no nothing edius I stopped the Sphinx I answered the riddle with my own intelligence that scene shows us The Pride edifus takes in his own intelligence the riddle of the Sphinx was just the kind of thing prophets like tyresius was supposed to deal with but it was edus who found the answer I know nothing edus I answered the riddle with my own intelligence this is more than a claim to superiority over tyresius as a man he is also claiming that his uned intelligence is superior to the divine inspiration of the prophet of Apollo in the next scene we shall see the process go one step forward edus has rejected with contempt the word of a human Prophet tyresius now we shall see jasta the queen treat with the same contempt a prophecy made by the god Apollo himself the prophecy that her child would kill his father and marry his mother this too is a scene we have seen before it is the scene in which Jocasta tries to comfort edus after tyresius has accused him but this time we can see that her words are also an attack on a prophecy of the god Apollo himself in God's name explain to me my Lord what was it that made you so angry cron says that I am the murer of myus on what evidence his own knowledge or on hearsay keeps his own lips clear of responsibility he sent a swindling Prophet to speak for him a prophet in that case rid your mind of fear and listen to me I can teach you something there is no human being born that is endowed with prophetic power I can prove it to you and in a few words a prophecy came to Li once I won't say from Apollo himself but from his priests it said that lias was fated to die at the hand of his own son a son to be born to him and me well lios so The Story Goes was killed by Foreign robbers at a place where three highways meet as for the sun three days after his birth lios fastened his ankles together and had him Cast Away upon the pathless mountain so in this case Apollo did not make the son kill his father all iOS die at his own son's hands as he had feared yet these were the definite statements of the prophetic voices don't pay any attention to prophecies God needs or seeks anything he will easily make it clear to us himself don't pay any attention to prophecies she is speaking of the prophecies made by Apollo to lios before long edus agrees with her the two of them reject not only the human Prophet tyresius but the Prophecies of the god Apollo and this means as we have seen that they reject the whole religious point of view the play now makes that point clear for the chorus which represents the people of Thieves is deeply disturbed by what it has heard a man who goes his overbearing way in word and action who fears no justice honors no temples of the Gods may an evil Destiny seize him and punish his ill hard Pride the man who makes profit by Injustice who acts without reverence and lays hands on the Untouchable in Madness may an evil Destiny seiz him and his ill Pride how shall such a man defend himself against God's arrows if such Deeds as these are honored and rewarded why should we join the sacred dance and worship I shall go no more in reverence to Deli the holy center of the earth nor to any temple in the world unless these propes come true for all men to point at them in Wonder oh Zeus King Of Heaven if you deserve this name ruler of all do not let your Everlasting power be deceived do not forget the old prophecies about lus are dying men reject them now Apollo is stripped of Honor everywhere the gods are defeated this States clearly the issues raised by the play if the prophecies are false then all religion is meaningless if edus and jasta are right what is the point of going to the temples to worship the gods if the prophetes are lies there are no gods edus and Jaster are wrong of course and we know it but the next scene seems to bring proof that they are right the Corinthian messenger arrives with the news that polybus the man edus thinks is his father has died in Corinth Apollo predicted that edifus would kill his father it looks as if this prophecy too has failed when joter hears the news she is triumphant both she and edus take it as a proof a final proof that Divine prophecy is worthless greetings to the noble wife of idus may you and your family be blessed forever the same blessing on you stranger for your kind words why have you come tell us what you want have you some news for us the people of Kus will make elus their King what is old polybus no longer on the the throne no no no he's dead in his grave what did you say hbus is dead condemn me to death if I'm not telling the truth go quickly and tell your master oh Prophecies of the Gods where are you now pbus was the man edus feared he might kill and now he is dead a natural death and not by the hand of edus joter why have you sent for me listen to what this man has to say and see what has become of the Holy Prophecies of the Gods is he what does he have to say to me he's from Collin he came to tell you that your father polybus is dead is this true tell me yourself yeah that's what you want to hear first here it is a plain statement yeah he's dead and gone how killed by a traitor or Wasted by disease he was old it didn't take much to put him to sleep he died by disease then yes and the length of years he had lived why then jasta should we study Apollo's Oracle or gaze at the birds screaming over our heads these prophets who announced that I would kill my father pbus is dead buried below the ground and here I am in thieves I did not put hand to sword perhaps he died from longing to see me again that way it could be said that I was the cause of his death but there he lies taking with him all these prophecies I feared they are worth nothing is that not what I told you it is but I was led astray by fear now rid your heart of fear forever no I must still fear as who would not marriage with my mother fear why should man fear his life is governed by the operations of chance nothing can be clearly foreseen the best way to live is by hit and Miss as best you can man's life jasta says is governed by the operations of chance she is stating the lesson which all these Revelations seem to teach that Divine prediction is impossible nothing can be clearly foreseen the best way to live is by hit and miss as best you can according to her the whole universe is a chaos without plan order or meaning and the only way to live in it is unthinkingly like a dumb animal jasta is putting forward the extreme position which the theories of the atomic philosophers seem to suggest that the universe is a meaningless chaos a blind confusion of atoms which meet and combine and separate by pure chance everything had happened s in such a universe is unpredictable it has no pattern order or meaning this is the theory that lies behind jasa's speech but she is soon proved wrong by the events of the play which now crowed in upon her thick and fast this same Corinthian messenger who brought the news of the death of polybus makes another Revelation he reveals that edus is not the son of polybus at all we saw the scene in which Jocasta realizes that the prophecy has come true and we also saw how edus in his examination of the shepherd realized in his turn the full truth that he is the son of lios and Jaster that he has killed his father and married his mother that the prophecy of Apollo has been fulfilled in that terrible moment of Revelation his own Assumption of men's Supremacy and jaster's vision of the world as governed by chance are Shattered by the proof that the prophecies were true that there is a pattern in human events and that there is beyond man's understanding a divine power and a Divine knowledge edus as the chorus puts it after he goes into the palace intending to kill himself is an example his example teaches us that man's confidence in his own ability cre though that ability may be is an illusion if he abandons the idea of God this is the meaning of the play and it is brought home to us by the Prophecies of Apollo which face edus at every turn these prophecies are the expression of the knowledge and power of the Gods those Elements which edus and the human intellect of which he is so great a representative ignored and scorned but which are Tri triumphantly Vindicated in his self-discovery and fall what edus discovers is that compared to the knowledge possessed by the gods human knowledge even at its best is merely ignorance the play Then means something all right it is a tremendous reassertion of the view that man is subordinate to God but the trouble is it seems to go too far to leave no freedom at all for man Jaster thought that there was no order or design in the world that man had complete freedom because it made no difference what he did nothing made any sense she was wrong but the play now seems to give us a view of man's position which is just as cheerless it seems to suggest that all Human Action is fixed in advance edus found out that he had done exactly what the god predicted he would do the play seems to present a world in which man has no Freedom at all he simply plays A Part which has already been written for him down to the last word but this is not in fact what the play says for edus in one important respect was free he was free as we saw last time to find out or not to find out the truth one freedom is allowed him the free freedom to search for the truth about himself about the prophecies about God and this Freedom he makes full use of against the advice and appeals of others he pushes on searching for the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and in this search he shows all those great qualities which we admire in him courage intelligence perseverance the qualities that make human beings great this freedom to search and the heroic way in which edus uses it make the play not a dark picture of man's utter feebleness but on the contrary a heroic example of man's dedication to the search for truth this is perhaps the only human freedom but there could be none more noble edus is free then free to search but what does he find the truth finds is so terrible that he cannot face it it is the end of his power as a king of his normal existence as a man and he goes off to kill himself he has found the truth and it is his ruin this again makes the play seem like a message of Despair man's Freedom consists of the power to search to find the truth but if the truth is too terrible for him to face as it seems to be for edus what does that mean does it mean that man should not search for fear of what he will find that he should live in a state of blind ignorance and acceptance of his lot unthinkingly like a dumb Beast this is in fact the lesson the chorus seems to draw from the fall of edus after he goes off stage they sing Oh generations of men that must die I count your life as equal to nothing at all all edus has acted as if man were equal to the gods but this Cal song sees him as equal to zero is that what Sophocles means by his play it is still too early for us to say the play is not over yet there is one more Scene which we shall see and discuss in our last lesson perhaps that will give us the answer I [Music]