OEDIPUS'S ARGUMENT THAT HE DESERVES DIVINE FAVOR

Oedipus's attempt to persuade the chorus of Athenian elders that he deserves divine rewards is remarkably successful. As a consequence of his arguments, the elders declare not only that they feel pity for Oedipus (254—5), but that it is right to pity him since he “is deser­ving of pity” (461); urge their king Theseus to grant him refuge (629—30); accuse Creon of acting unjustly against Oedipus both now, in attempting to seize him, and before, in exiling him (824—5); defend Oedipus in his dispute with Polyneices (1346—7, 1397—8); and finally pray that the gods reward him (1565—7).

When the Athenian elders first discover who Oedipus is, they react with horror and disgust and assume that the gods share their reaction (232—6). When Antigone begs for mercy, the old men soften, but still assume that the gods will punish them if they do not drive Oedipus out (254—7). As the play opens, the Athenians take it for granted that the crimes of Oedipus render him abhorrent to gods and men. This conviction is shared by Oedipus's countrymen, the Thebans, his brother­in-law Creon, and even his own sons, who drove him into exile some time after his crimes were revealed, “never to return again, since I am a father­killer” (600-1; see 437-44, 599-600, 765-771, 1354-61).1^{[52] [53] [54]} It is true that, according to Ismene, oracles have recently revealed to the Thebans that Oedipus’s physical presence near Thebes will confer on that city a mysterious, divine strength (385—94). This report suggests, as Ismene observes, that the gods, who for so long seemed to torment Oedipus, may now favor him (394).

As the play unfolds, however, we quickly learn that Oedipus has become convinced that the gods are, in truth, his champions. When the Athenian elders demand that he leave their land lest the gods punish them for harboring such a criminal, Oedipus boldly declares that the gods will punish them for expelling him! “Therefore, strangers, I beseech you, in the name of the gods, just as you also caused me to stand up, so save me, and do not honor the gods but then refrain from giving the gods their due. But believe that they look upon the pious

drove him into exile themselves (599—601, 1354—6; see 429—30). Perhaps he means to suggest that their acquiescence in the Thebans’ decision to exile him was tantamount to complicity in that decision, just as he later argues to Poly- neices that his decision to exile his blind father was tantamount to patricide (1354-61).

¹⁴ Nevertheless, since Creon only mentions Oedipus’s crimes after he has first sought unsuccessfully to persuade Oedipus to come with him; after he has then seized Oedipus’s daughters, tried to seize Oedipus himself, and quarreled with the chorus; and after Theseus has appeared and denounced Creon’s violence, Creon may exaggerate the degree to which he expected the Athenians to view Oedipus with horror.

¹⁵ 427-44, 765—71, 1195—1200; see Oedipus the Tyrant 1182—5, 1265—79, 1327—1415, 1432—41, 1515—21; Oedipus at Colonus 431—44, 765—71, 1130—8, 866—7, 1197—1200.

one of mortals and also look upon the impious ones, and that there has never yet existed an escape for the impious one of mortals” (275—81). Oedipus's confidence here that the gods will reward those who help him and punish those who harm him is astounding. In the first place, it would seem that his crimes would render him hateful to the gods. But furthermore, as Oedipus and his daughters observe, it would seem that the gods have cruelly mistreated him, by concealing from him the identity of his parents and by leading him to encounter and kill his father and then journey to Thebes, to wed his mother, notwithstanding his efforts to avoid doing so (962, 964—5, 252—4, 394). Oedipus and his daughters here depict the gods as either mysterious beings, who harm or benefit mortals for reasons that are not evident to human beings, or as capricious beings, who destroy human beings without reason, but who then may whimsically raise them up from misfortune. But in either case, how can Oedipus be confident that the gods are now on his side?

The basis of Oedipus's confidence that the gods favor him is his argument that he deserves their favor. He is sure that the gods will reward him, not primarily because he trusts in oracles, but rather because he is convinced that Justice, who, he believes, sits with Zeus, demands that he be rewarded (1380—2). It is Oedipus's faith in the justice of the gods and his argument that justice demands that he be rewarded that, together, form the basis of his confidence in the gods' favor.

There are three distinct parts of Oedipus's overall argument that he deserves the favor of the gods. Most clearly, Oedipus argues that he does not deserve to be blamed for patricide and incest because he committed these crimes unknowingly and hence involuntarily.

Each part of Oedipus's argument is evident in his first speech to the chorus. “And yet how am I evil in my nature, I who, having suffered, retaliated, so that even if I had acted wittingly, not even in that case would I have become evil? But as it is, knowing nothing, I came where I came, but those at whose hands I suffered were knowingly attempting to kill [me]” (270—4). Oedipus argues that, because he did not know that Laius and Jocasta were his parents, and hence did not knowingly commit incest and patricide, he cannot justly be held responsible for these crimes. This is an argument that Antigone alludes to in her speech to the chorus (238—40) and that Oedipus repeats a number of times throughout the play (521—3, 525—6, 548, 974—7). Indeed, because the crimes he committed were committed in ignorance, and hence involuntarily, Oedipus does not speak of them as crimes in this play but rather as, at most, errors or mistakes (437—44; but see 966—8). Since he cannot be justly held responsible for such involuntary actions, Oedipus suggests, he will not be punished by the gods, ruled as they are by Zeus, with whom sits “Justice” (see 1085—6, 1382).^[55]

Oedipus, however, does not limit himself to making the argument, specific to his own peculiar case, that, given his ignorance of his parents, he cannot be justly blamed for committing patricide and incest. It is not altogether clear why he believes this argument is in need of a supplement.

By raising the question “And yet how am I evil in my nature, I who, having suffered, retaliated, so that even if I had acted wittingly, not even in that case would I have become evil?” (270—2), Oedipus boldly suggests that it would not have been evil for him to have killed his father wittingly if it were necessary to do so to preserve his own life (see 546). Later he asks Creon: “If someone immediately, here, standing beside you, were attempting to kill you, the just one, would you inquire if the one trying to slay you were your father, or would you make him pay right away? I think, if indeed you love to live, you would make the guilty one pay the price and you would not look around for what is just” (992—6). The love of life is so powerful that it simply overrides all moral considerations, Oedipus suggests, including the prohibition on patricide.

This would seem to be a singularly shocking argument, especially given the tremendous importance the ancient Greeks placed on reverence for one's parents (see Winnington-Ingram 1980, 262). In the Crito, for example, Plato presents the laws of Athens as arguing that it is “not pious to do violence either to mother or to father,” apparently under any circumstances (51c2; see Aristophanes Clouds 1325—41, 1374—90, 1420, 1443—50). In the Laws, Plato's Athenian Stranger presents the argument that, since our parents are the creators of our being, since they are the ones who brought our “nature...

Nevertheless, Oedipus denies that even this fundamental moral duty can override the love of oneself. He suggests that, given our nature, any human being must be excused even for having knowingly committed so terrible a crime as killing his father if he was led to do so by the desire to preserve himself. “For what noble (eσθλθζ) man is not dear to himself?” (Oedipus at Colonus 309). Oedipus suggests here that no man is so noble that he can overcome his self-love and sacrifice or transcend his self­interest. Therefore, human beings who are driven by the apparently compelling love of self cannot be justly held responsible for their actions. Accordingly, when Oedipus declares that neither incest nor patricide was “chosen by myself” (523), he may mean not only that he did not con­sciously choose to sleep with his mother and kill his father because he did not know who they were, but also that, so compelling is the desire for self-preservation in the human heart, he simply had no choice but to kill his father once he believed his own life was threatened.

One may take Oedipus's argument here one step further. Oedipus never explicitly uses his argument concerning self-preservation and self­love to excuse the crime of incest, but only argues that he does not deserve to be punished for that crime since he did not know who his mother was (see 266—74, 525—6, 978—87). However, it might be possible to argue that Oedipus was led to commit incest out of a desire, not for self-preservation, but to rule Thebes successfully, and hence out of self-love broadly understood. For even though Oedipus was offered rule over Thebes as a reward for having vanquished the Sphinx, as a young foreigner his rule might well have seemed illegitimate unless he had also married the widowed queen. It was presumably out of fear that his rule would be crippled by doubts about its legitimacy that the Thebans “bound” Oedipus to accept the “gift” of a wedding with Jocasta (525—6, 539—41). The thesis, then, that human beings, given their nature, are compelled to act, not only in order to preserve their lives but in order to secure what they believe to be their self-interest broadly understood, would seem to lead to the conclusion that Oedipus would not deserve to be punished for committing either incest or patricide, even if he had known the identity of his parents. And Oedipus himself does hint at such a broad interpretation of his thesis. “For what noble man is not dear to himself?” (309). 1⁷

1 ⁷ For expressions of this thesis concerning self-interest and justice that were quite possibly familiar to Sophocles and his Athenian audience, consider

Oedipus's arguments that he cannot justly be blamed for his crimes both because he committed them unwittingly and therefore involun­tarily, and, above all, because he committed patricide out of self-defense and therefore involuntarily, lead to the conclusion that he does not deserve to be punished. For it would be manifestly unjust to blame him for committing crimes he could not know he was committing and could not avoid committing. But Oedipus's arguments do not lead to the conclusion that he positively deserves divine rewards. For why should he merit reward for simply following the evidently irresistible human impulse to defend one's life and pursue one's self-interest? Indeed, Oedipus's thesis here implies that, since human beings are compelled by their nature to follow what they believe to be in their self­interest, they cannot ever deserve to be punished or rewarded for their actions. Humans may be pitied for failing to see where their true interests lie. They may be admired for the intelligence with which they discern and pursue their self-interest. But, since they are not free to transcend their self-interest, they cannot reasonably be held morally responsible and hence deserving of reward or punishment for doing what they do.

Evidently because Oedipus senses this implication of his thesis, he also sets forth an argument that he positively deserves to be rewarded by the gods. This argument is based on his contention that, not only has he not been responsible for great injustice, but that he has been a victim of great injustice. Oedipus goes so far as to claim that “my deeds are more what I have suffered than what I have done” (266—7). Throughout the play, Oedipus draws attention to the evils he has suffered (521—3, 537, 595, 872—3, 891—2, 896). Indeed, in his very first words in the play he reminds Antigone — who is fully aware of his sufferings, since

Thucydides 1.75—76.2, 3.44—45, 4.61, 5.105. In these passages, Athenian envoys at Sparta, the Athenian Diodotus, the Syracusan statesman Hermo- crates, and the Athenian ambassadors at Melos all contend that human beings are compelled by their nature to pursue what they perceive to be in their self­interest, regardless of the contrary demands of justice. As Whitman observes, “The plays of Sophocles are not the works of one who stood apart from his age” (1971, 240). For post-Sophoclean discussions of this thesis, see Plato Meno 77b2-78b8, Laws 86θd1-861e1; Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1109b30- 1114b25, 1135a15-1136b14, 1145b2-1152a36.

“on account of time I do not need to learn this” (22) — that he is “a blind old man,” “a wanderer,” who asks for little and receives still less, evidently from hard-hearted witnesses of his travails (1—8). Yet, as Theseus points out, others too have suffered evils. Theseus himself has endured as much as any man the hardships and dangers of being a stranger in a strange land (560—6). More broadly, the lot of all human beings is a hard one, vulnerable as we are to pain and sorrow (566—8). Accordingly, when Oedipus asserts, “I have suffered, Theseus, terrible evils upon evils,” Theseus asks, “For what is your affliction, which is greater than what is in accordance with being human?” (595, 598). Why should Oedipus's suffering, however undeserved, lead him to believe that he deserves divine rewards?

In order to make the case that he deserves such rewards, Oedipus tries to argue not only that he has suffered terribly but that he has been the victim of great injustice, deliberately perpetrated by willfully evil men. Because he has suffered such wrong, if there is any justice in this world the gods must punish those who have wronged him so and must compensate him for what he has suffered (Bowra 1944, 314—15; Adams 1957, 161—2). But what exactly has he suffered? In the first place, Oedipus suffered deliberate injustice at the hands of his parents, who “were knowingly attempting to kill [me]” when they ordered him killed as a baby (274). Oedipus draws here an implicit contrast between his own crimes against his parents and theirs against him. His parents deserve to be blamed for their (attempted) crime because, as he points out, they knew he was their child and, he implies, they were not driven to kill him by any necessity but simply acted maliciously and wickedly. Similarly, Oedipus is victimized by Creon, who seizes his daughters, attempts to seize him, and then “voluntarily” speaks ill of him and Jocasta in front of the Athenians (985—6). Here, too, Oedipus suggests that Creon is an unjust and evil man who deserves to be blamed because he is freely choosing to inflict pain on Oedipus, out of sheer malice (1000—2, 761—83). Oedipus has also suffered exile from his own city. Finally, and most importantly, Oedipus has suffered at the hands of his own two sons, who deliberately and cruelly wronged their own father by driving him away from home and hearth, again, apparently, out of sheer malice: “When I, who sired them, was so dishonorably thrust out of my fatherland, they did not hinder this or defend me, but I was driven out by the two of them, I was sent out and proclaimed an exile.... [T]hen it was, after all that time, that the city drove me out of my land with violence, and they, sons of their father, who had the power to benefit their father, did not wish to act, but for want of a small word from them, I was driven out, an exile, a beggar, forever” (427—30, 440-4).

Accordingly, when Theseus asks him what distinguishes his suf­fering from that of other humans, Oedipus succinctly replies, “I was driven away from my land by my own seed” (599—600). Indeed, he goes so far as to accuse his son Polyneices of being a “murderer” (1361) of his own father, a would-be patricide, since “you yourself drove out your own father here and made me a man without a city... If I had not begotten these children to be my nurses, I would not exist, as far as you are concerned” (1356—7, 1365—6). By exiling their blind, helpless, father, his sons virtually condemned him to death, since it was a sheer accident that their sisters (and charitable strangers) kept their father alive. Oedipus is therefore not only innocent of patricide; he is himself a victim of willful and deliberate patricide. Oedipus himself is not evil, but his son Polyneices is a “most evil one,” indeed “most evil of evil ones ” (1354^, 1384).

Oedipus has thus been the victim of truly horrible and outrageous crimes. Therefore the gods must compensate him for his suffering. It is because of his belief in his innocence and in the outrageously unjust character of what he has suffered that Oedipus is confident he is “sacred and pious” and will be rewarded by just gods who always care for “the pious one of mortals” (287, 278—81). As Aristotle remarks in the Rhetoric, “For anger inspires confidence, since it is not committing in­justice but suffering injustice that makes us angry, and it is supposed that the divine helps those who have suffered injustice” (2.5.21—22; see also, for example, Thucydides 5.104, 7.77.1—4).

Oedipus's confidence that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods, then, rests fundamentally on two arguments. On the one hand, he does not deserve to be punished for his crimes because he committed them unknowingly and hence involuntarily and because he committed pat­ricide in order to satisfy his compelling desire for self-preservation and hence involuntarily. On the other hand, he has been the innocent victim of willful, culpable, outrageous crimes committed freely and maliciously by his parents, his countrymen, and his sons. Yet these two arguments contradict one another. For, as Sophocles shows in the play, those who inflicted suffering on Oedipus did not do so maliciously, as Oedipus claims, but rather in order to defend themselves from harm, just as Oedipus killed his father in order to defend himself from harm. Oedipus himself alludes to the fact that Laius heard from an oracle that he would “die at the hands of his children” (969—73). But if the desire for self-preservation is so compelling that it excuses Oedipus's killing of his father in self-defense, does it not also excuse his father's attempt to kill him as a baby after he heard from an oracle that his child would grow up to kill him? Similarly, when Oedipus attempts to show that Creon is “evil,” he explains that Creon seeks to abduct him in order to save Thebes “from evils” (784—6). But if the desire to defend himself from harm excuses Oedipus's killing of Laius, doesn't the desire to defend his city from harm excuse even Creon's brutal kidnapping of Oedipus and his daughters (see 387-409, 755-60, 848-52)? More­over, doesn't the desire for self-preservation also excuse the decision of Creon, Oedipus's sons, and the Thebans to send Oedipus off into exile after his patricide and incest were revealed? Would it not have been reasonable for them to believe, as Oedipus himself at one point believed, and as the Athenians themselves initially believe, that the gods demanded that he be exiled for his crimes and that they would punish Thebes for refusing to exile him (see 407, 431—44, 599—601, 765—71, 849—52, 228—36, 254-7)?¹⁸ Indeed, if, as Oedipus insists, it was not evil for him to kill his father in order to defend himself from harm, how can it be evil for Polyneices to send his father into exile in order to protect himself and his city from harm, especially if he thought that his sisters might care for him? And even if Oedipus argued that it was unreasonable for his son and the Thebans to believe that the gods would punish them for failing to exile him, would Oedipus still not have to concede, insofar as the Thebans exiled him in order to protect themselves from harm, that they must be excused since, however

1 ⁸ Scholars tend to be harshly critical of Creon. See Reinhardt 1979, 210—12; Whitman 1971, 207; Segal 1981, 378—81; Opstelten 1952, 116; Winnington-Ingram 1980, 251; Adams 1957, 171; Mills 1997, 181—2. But consider Bowra 1944, 335—6; Grene 1967, 161—3. mistaken their concern, they were driven to act as they did by the same irresistible impulse of self-love that has driven him to act? “For what noble man is not dear to himself?” (309).

In order to show that he does not deserve to be punished for his crimes, Oedipus argues that we humans are compelled by our nature to follow what we perceive to be our self interest, regardless of what justice otherwise demands, and therefore cannot be held responsible for our actions. But in order to show that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods, Oedipus argues that he has been the innocent victim of men who have freely chosen to act unjustly, out of sheer malice, that they therefore deserve to be punished, and that he deserves to be compen­sated by the gods. Oedipus's confidence that he deserves to be rewarded by the gods rests therefore on a contradiction, and hence is unreason­able. By invoking the thesis that the desire for self-preservation is compelling to excuse his own crimes, but then ignoring that thesis when denouncing the crimes of others, Oedipus tries to have his cake and eat it too.

While Oedipus insists on arguing that the desire for self-preserva­tion and the love of oneself is so compelling that it excuses his crimes, he refuses to recognize that it may excuse the crimes of others against him.¹⁹ He refuses to follow his argument to its deepest conclusion because to do so would require him to conclude that it is impossible for him, or for any human being, to deserve the divine reward of everlasting well-being. For how can we human beings deserve such a reward if we are truly incapable of resisting or transcending our self­interest even in regard to the most sacred of laws, the laws that protect the family?

To begin with, Oedipus attempts to reject reason completely in the name of a blind faith that the gods will reward him with everlasting well-being. But the doubts of others and, most importantly, his own doubts, eventually impel him to seek reasons to justify his faith that the

1 ⁹ See Grene 1967, 163—5; Winnington-Ingram 1980, 258—9; Reinhardt 1979, 216—19. Consider as well Wilson 1997, 178. I therefore must disagree with Whitman's claim that Oedipus's treatment of Polyneices “rests on the same absolute standard he had espoused” (1980, 211; see also Segal 1981, 383).

gods are not his enemies but his champions. In the end, however, even though Oedipus has recourse to argument to defend his hope for divine favor, he ultimately balks at fully accepting his own argument lest it undermine that hope. Oedipus follows reason insofar, but only insofar, as it can support his hope for immortality.