CRIME AND PUNISHMENT?

On the very surface, Oedipus the Tyrant appears to be a story of the triumph of justice over injustice. As the title of the play emphasizes, most unmistakably to its democratic Athenian audience, Oedipus is a tyrant — a man who ascends to power and rules outside the limits imposed by human and divine law.¹ He violates the most sacred of laws — the laws that protect the family — and commits the most atrocious and monstrous of crimes by killing his father and sleeping with his ^[12] mother.^[13] Through such crimes, Oedipus seems most clearly to violate those divine laws, which, the chorus declares, are “lofty ones, through heavenly aether born, whose only father is Olympus; nor did any mortal nature of men give birth to them, nor will forgetfulness ever put them to sleep; great is the god in them, and he grows not old.”^[14] Through such crimes, Oedipus seems most clearly to exhibit the hubris that, the chorus explains, begets a tyrant (873).^[15] The downfall of Oedipus the tyrant, therefore, seems, at first glance, eminently just and specifically a triumph of law over tyranny.

Yet a more careful reading of Oedipus the Tyrant calls into question this initial impression of the play as a simple condemnation of Oedipus. For Oedipus seems to be a truly great ruler, one who combines what no other Sophoclean hero combines: genuine wisdom with a genuinely noble devotion to others.^[16] When a cruel monster, the Sphinx, threat­ened Thebes with destruction unless someone could solve her riddle, it was Oedipus alone who had the wisdom to solve a riddle that even the soothsayers could not solve (390—400). But by saving Thebes, Oedipus displayed not only his wisdom but also his nobility. For Oedipus saved Thebes from destruction even though he was a foreigner and a wayfarer who had no evident interest in or obligation to Thebes.

To be sure, Oedipus does become the tyrant of Thebes as a direct consequence of saving the city from the Sphinx. But, as Oedipus emphasizes, he never asked the Thebans to make him their tyrant. The Thebans freely chose him to be their ruler, even though he was a young foreigner unknown to them, because he had saved their city from destruction (380—9; consider also Oedipus at Colonus 539—41). Oedipus did not acquire his tyrannical power in the usual manner, by force or wealth or guile (see Oedipus the Tyrant 540—1), but seems rather to have graciously accepted it as a recognition of his wisdom and nobility and to have generously and even selflessly agreed to devote himself to the good of his newly adopted city.

Oedipus's tyrannical rule over Thebes is, moreover, evidently superior to that of his predecessor, the hereditary king, Laius — whose murder the Thebans never even investigate during the many years after the intervening crisis of the Sphinx has passed^[18] — as well as to that of King Creon, who becomes ruler solely by reason of his family ties with Jocasta and Oedipus, who appears to be wholly indifferent to the public good in Oedipus the Tyrant, and whose rule quickly collapses into chaos as a consequence of his disastrous conflict with Antigone (see 124—36, 255—8, 264—8, 729—37, 754—64; and also 577—600; Antigone 155— 61). Since Oedipus became tyrant of Thebes, the city has evidently prospered under his rule for some fifteen years.

8 Oedipus's charge that Creon had Laius killed and is conspiring with Teiresias to overthrow him may seem foolish and unjust (see, for example, Lattimore 1958, 92; Vellacott 1971, 161; Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1988, 106; but for defenses of Oedipus, see Whitman 1971, 130—1; Benardete 2000, 129— 31). Indeed, at the end of the play, Oedipus himself decries his own treatment of Creon as “evil” (1419—21). Yet, given that Oedipus has no reason at the beginning of the play even to suspect that he has killed Laius or committed patricide and incest, his suspicion of Creon at the time is not unreasonable.

Furthermore, Oedipus appears to be greatly devoted to his family as well. Even though he was the heir to the throne of Corinth and, by his own account, the “greatest” man in the city, he left Corinth and thereby apparently sacrificed all of his hopes of ever becoming a ruler, in order to avoid fulfilling the Delphic Oracle's prediction that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother (774—97, 822—33, 991—1013). He evidently loves his wife, “dearest” Jocasta, and reveres her, he says, even more than he does the Theban elders (950, 772—3; see also 700, 800). And although Oedipus may seem somewhat indifferent toward his sons, he expresses what seems to be a profound fatherly love for, in his words, “what is dearest” to him, his daughters Antigone and Ismene, a love to which even Creon bears witness (1458—1514). Indeed, Oedipus's last words in the play are his plea to Creon: “Never take these girls from me” (1522).

Finally, even though Oedipus did commit patricide and incest, he did so unknowingly, since he had no idea that Laius was his father and Jocasta his mother.⁹ Once he learned from the Delphic Oracle that he would kill

626—30, 673—5). And Creon does in fact replace Oedipus and become ruler of Thebes without expressing any hesitation or reluctance about ruling whatso­ever, either in this play or in Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. Finally, as Oedipus points out to the chorus, even if he is not absolutely certain that Creon is conspiring against him, he cannot afford to investigate Creon at his leisure but must act swiftly to defend himself and his rule (618—21).

9 Oedipus repeatedly argues in Oedipus at Colonus that, since he committed patricide and incest unwittingly, he cannot be justly blamed for these crimes (see, for example, 270—4, 521—3, 546—8, and 962—99 as a whole). The Second Messenger in Oedipus the Tyrant also stresses the importance of the distinction between willing and unwilling acts (1227—31). On the case for Oedipus's “essential moral innocence,” see, for example, Dodds 1968, 18—22. Dodds, however, goes on to argue that, even though Oedipus knows he is morally innocent, he rightly punishes himself out of “a sense of guilt” (23—4; see Wilson 1997, 145—9). Consider as well Kitto 1958, and compare 47, 49—50, and 57—8 with 62—3. For an ingenious argument that Oedipus knowingly killed his father and slept with his mother and hence that “every disaster here sprang from human choice,” see Vellacott 1971, 238, and as a whole. In order to square this thesis with the overwhelming impression of the text that Oedipus is ignorant of these crimes, however, Vellacott asserts, without sufficient evidence and in somewhat contradictory fashion, both that Oedipus represses, in his own mind and heart, the knowledge of his guilt and his father and sleep with his mother, he made every effort, at considerable sacrifice, to avoid those whom he had every reason to believe were his parents.

How, then, can such a wise and noble ruler and human being deserve to suffer the terrible fate of discovering that he has committed patricide and incest; of losing his power, his city, and his beloved wife; and of living the rest of his life as a blind wanderer? How can Oedipus be justly held responsible for crimes he committed against his will? It would seem that, insofar as Oedipus is wise, noble, and wholly unde­serving of his downfall, Sophocles’ play does indeed, as Nietzsche suggests, teach us that the world is cruelly indifferent to human beings and fundamentally incomprehensible to human reason.¹⁰ But is it true that Oedipus is wise, noble, and in no way responsible for his downfall?