Oedipus at Colonus

Theseus and Oedipus’s first conversation in Scene 2 establishes The Hero as a Source of Collective Immortality. When he arrives, Theseus asks Oedipus what he needs, a question that would naturally be put to a suppliant, and Oedipus’s reply cryptically alludes to his future status as an immortal power. This is apparent in his initial response, for rather than expressing a want explicitly, Oedipus offers a gift: his own “battered body” (Line 576). An ancient Athenian audience would understand the significance of a hero’s battered body, for the allusion harkens back to the violent deaths of heroes in Homer’s Iliad and to the myth of Heracles, whose immortalization was said to have occurred at the moment of his death on a funeral pyre. They would also presumably know about the cult established in Oedipus’s honor in the very region in which the play is set. As much as the play is about Oedipus’s life and death, it is also about how he came to be a part of the immortal story of Athens itself.

But in Sophocles’s play, the heroes are alive in the world of myth, and Oedipus needs to reveal to Theseus what he has to gain by protecting Oedipus. This gain is not only the good reputation of Athens for fulfilling its sacred duty to protect suppliants but also the future protection of the city by an eternal power, the immortalized hero.

When Theseus asks for clarification about the nature of the gift Oedipus offers, he says that it will only be revealed fully after his death, again a reference whose significance the ancients would have understood. The value of heroes is that as long as each successive generation performs the rituals to honor them, they will continue to benefit them. Inside the narrative of the play, however, the cult does not yet exist, and Theseus struggles to understand what is being asked of him.

As their conversation continues, it becomes clear that though Thebes initially banished Oedipus, he is now choosing to stay away. His sons want to bring him back, so to keep his word to Oedipus, Theseus will have to fight for possession of his body. Since Oedipus has presented himself as a suppliant, Theseus is understandably confused, telling Oedipus that if his sons want him to return, he should do so. Evidently, Theseus has not yet grasped what is at stake, possession of a hero’s remains and thus his eternal power. This exchange illustrates The Significance of Place and Sanctuary. Even as he asks Theseus—and thus Athens—to provide him with sanctuary from his enemies, he promises to become a source of sanctuary for Athens itself in the future.

Theseus’s confusion invites more cryptic replies from Oedipus. In response to the suggestion that Oedipus return to Thebes, Oedipus laments the “dreadful wrongs” (Line 595) he has suffered. Seemingly aware of the curse on Laius, Theseus asks Oedipus whether these wrongs concern his “family’s ancient accidents” (Line 597), but Oedipus only repeats his familiar refrain from this section: His children banished him because he murdered his father, which created the pollution that brought on the plague mentioned in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus’s response leaves Theseus as uncertain as ever until Oedipus finally reveals his sons’ motives: They only want their father back because of an oracle that they will “be badly bloodied here some day” (Line 605), meaning in Athens.

This extended back-and-forth, which alternates between short exchanges between Theseus and Oedipus and longer speeches by the latter, can seem excessively drawn out, obtuse, and circular. Critically, however, their dialogue enables Sophocles to incorporate conditions of his historical present. In the world of myth, Thebes and Athens were not enemies but allies, as indicated by Theseus’s surprise that the two cities should ever be at odds. At this time in classical Athens, however, Thebes and Athens were enemies. Thebes had sided with the Persians when they invaded the Greek mainland in 480 BC and 479 BC, and they were allied with Sparta during the Peloponnesian war. Further, after Sparta defeated Athens, the Thebans had supported razing the city, killing all the men, and enslaving the women and children, a tragically routine consequence of war and an action that Athenians themselves took against Melos in 416 BC when that city refused to ally with them against Sparta.

Sparta did not choose that option, however, and Athens was saved from sharing the Melians’ fate. Thus, while it might seem peculiar to moderns that Athenians could, at that time, believe Oedipus had protected Athens, ancient Athenians present at the performance in 401 BC might have seen it differently. Perhaps Oedipus’s power had saved them from an even worse fate than losing the war. Not only were Athens’s men saved from slaughter and its women and children from enslavement, but their democracy had been restored in 403 BC.

Back in the world of the play, Oedipus’s revelation that Thebes and Athens will become enemies puzzles Theseus, but Oedipus explains that though “it may be pleasant weather now” (Line 616) the day may come when Thebans “discover some excuse for arms | to scatter solemn bonds of amity” (Lines 19-20). Everything in the material world is impermanent and mutable, Oedipus tells Theseus, for only the gods live outside of time, death, and decay.

At the end of their conversation, Theseus reiterates his question, asking Oedipus what he wants. Oedipus replies that Colonus is where he will “defeat the men who banished” him (Line 646). Theseus’s response that this is “quite a favor” (Line 647) suggests his dawning understanding that he is speaking to a future hero of Athens. The Chorus’s song celebrating the verdancy and abundance of Colonus ties the soon-to-be immortalized hero Oedipus to the sacred place where he will defeat Thebes by interring his body for Athens’s benefit.

In addition to speaking to historical conditions at the time of the play’s first performance, Oedipus’s prophecy of future strife between Athens and Thebes comes true within the narrative when Creon arrives. He claims to come in peace, wanting only to bring Oedipus home to his native land. Oedipus immediately accuses him of lying and is proven right when Creon reveals that he has brought an army not to attack Athens but to seize Oedipus and his daughters by force.

Oedipus’s accusation that Creon speaks well but dishonestly may reflect anxieties in Athens around the seductive power of rhetoric. In historical Athens, compelling speeches were believed to have lured Athenian leaders into fatal mistakes during the Peloponnesian war. Within the play, Theseus speaks plainly but truly while Creon speaks flatteringly but falsely. His men have already captured Ismene and, by the end of this section, Antigone as well.

When Theseus demands Creon release the women, Creon again uses his rhetorical prowess, arguing that Oedipus fathered his daughters with his own mother, a grave crime. This prompts Oedipus to defend himself on the grounds that the gods willed what happened to him, thus he is not to blame for his actions. This defense highlights The Interwoven Nature of Fate and Individual Will. Oedipus argues that he cannot be blamed for his actions because they were fated by the gods, but the question of whether fate absolves the individual of responsibility for his choices is not resolved in this dialogue. The Chorus neither agrees nor disagrees with Oedipus on this matter, and neither observes that Oedipus has here blamed Creon for banishing him, though earlier he blamed his sons for doing so. The salient issue is that Oedipus has sought sanctuary in Athens, offering his body as a gift, and Athens is observing the laws of the gods by providing sanctuary and accepting his gift. Across this section, characters appeal to the gods as the ultimate cause for their actions but do not acknowledge the choices they are making.