“… because the oracle laid the same curse upon us before our birth as upon him. It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so.”
Sigmund Freud
1. “What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?”
2. The answer to the previous riddle is ‘man,’ and was given by Oedipus. According to one version of the story, Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle that his son would slay him. Accordingly, when his wife, Jocasta, bore a son, he had the baby exposed (a form of infanticide) on Cithaeron. (Tradition has it that his name, which means ‘Swollen-Foot,’ was a result of his feet having been pinned together, but modern scholars are skeptical of that etymology.) A shepherd took pity on the infant, who was adopted by King Polybus of Corinth and his wife and was brought up as their son. In early manhood Oedipus visited Delphi and upon learning that he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother, he resolved never to return to Corinth.
3. Traveling toward Thebes, he encountered Laius, who provoked a quarrel in which Oedipus killed him. Continuing on his way, Oedipus found Thebes plagued by the Sphinx, who put a riddle to all passersby and destroyed those who could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle, and the Sphinx killed herself. In reward, he received the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen, his mother, Jocasta. They had four children: Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, and Ismene. Later, when the truth became known, Jocasta committed suicide, and Oedipus (according to another version), after blinding himself, went into exile, accompanied by Antigone and Ismene, leaving his brother-in-law Creon as regent.
4. Homer related that Oedipus’s wife and mother hanged herself when the truth of their relationship became known, though Oedipus apparently continued to rule at Thebes until his death. [1]
5. Although the story of Oedipus is powerful on its own, it looks like a self- fulfilling prophecy. The term refers to the socio-psychological phenomenon of someone ‘predicting’ or expecting something, and this ‘prediction’ or expectation comes true simply because one believes it will, and their resulting behaviors align to fulfil those beliefs. This suggests peoples’ beliefs influence their actions. [2]
6. In other words, the prophecy of the oracle was fulfilled by the father of Oedipus, who was convinced to abandon his child, and later on by Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother, even though he didn’t know.
7. Is our destiny unavoidable, or do we use some supposed fate as an excuse in order to justify our misdeeds? For example, in ancient Sparta, if a Spartan baby was judged to be unfit for its future duty as a soldier, it was most likely abandoned on a nearby hillside. Left alone, the child would either die of exposure or be rescued and adopted by strangers. [3]
8. The same custom could have been in use in Mycenaean Thebes. Oedipus could have been born deformed, with swollen feet, and for that reason he may have been abandoned by his parents, while the story that his feet were swollen because he had been tied by the feet may have been an excuse.
9. One way or another, since Oedipus survived, it was expected to reclaim the throne, even if he had to kill his father. But how come he married his mother? In fact incest was common within royal families in ancient times. Several of the Egyptian Pharaohs married their siblings and had several children with them. For example, Tutankhamun married his half-sister Ankhesenamun, and was himself the child of an incestuous union between Akhenaten and an unidentified sister-wife. [4]
10. In that sense, the claim that Oedipus didn’t know that Jocasta was his mother could have been a retrospective interpretation in order to justify the incest, because such an action was morally condemned later on.
11. In fact a possible relationship of the myth with ancient Egyptian customs becomes more apparent considering the Sphinx. It is estimated that the ancient Egyptians carved the giant statue into the limestone around 2500 BCE.
12. As time passed the statue was given less attention and, after a few centuries, desert sands covered the Great Sphinx up to its neck. Legends claim that visitors would press their ear to the statue’s lips seeking wisdom. Around 1400 BCE an Egyptian prince, on a hunt, came to rest in the shadow of the Sphinx. While napping he heard the Sphinx tell him it would make him ruler of Egypt ahead of his older brothers if he promised to clear the sand away. On waking the prince vowed to keep the bargain. Sure enough, as the story goes, he ascended the throne as Pharaoh Thutmose IV and quickly had the statue uncovered.
13. Historians believe that Thutmose IV concocted the dream to cover up murder. Thutmose had his brother killed so that he could gain the crown. While the Egyptian people might not have been able to forgive Thutmose the slaying for personal gain, they could overlook it if it seemed like it was the will of the gods. [5]
14. In fact, the symbol wasn’t limited to Egypt, but was also found in ancient Phoenician, Syrian, and Greek societies. The period when the Sphinx was restored overlaps with the Mycenaean period. It is possible therefore that the Mycenaean Greeks incorporated the story of the Sphinx into their own myth, and it is also possible that the name Oedipus is the Greek version of the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose.
15. Saying this, there is another possible relationship between the name of Oedipus and the Sumerian hero Adapa, who unknowingly refused the gift of immortality. The story, commonly known as ‘Adapa and the South Wind,’ is known from fragmentary tablets from Tell el-Amarna in Egypt (around 14th century BC) and from finds from the Library of Ashurbanipal, Assyria (around 7th century BC). Adapa was an important figure in Mesopotamian religion. His name would be used to invoke power in exorcism rituals. He also became an archetype for a wise ruler. In that context, his name would be invoked to evoke favorable comparisons. [6]
16. Although the character of Adapa is different from that of Oedipus, the stories of Oedipus, Adapa and of the restoration of the Sphinx seem to come from the same period. Therefore it is possible that there used to be a packet of myths, which circulated all around the ancient word, were adopted to local customs, and were variously interpreted.
17. Whatever the origin of the myth might have been, its powerful impact was scientifically expressed by the Freudian Oedipal complex. Also known as the Oedipus complex, it is a term used by Sigmund Freud in his theory of psychosexual stages of development to describe a child’s feelings of desire for his or her opposite-sex parent and jealousy and anger toward his or her same-sex parent.
18. Freud first proposed the concept of the Oedipal complex in his 1899 book The Interpretation of Dreams. The concept became increasingly important as he continued to develop his concept of psychosexual development. [7]
19. However, it seems that there isn’t any recorded case where someone killed his father in order to marry his mother. In fact, Freudian representation of the Oedipus complex is little or not at all supported by empirical data. The classic theory of the Oedipal drama has fallen out of favor in today’s society, having been criticized for its ‘negative implications’ towards same sex parents. [8]
20. Incidentally, in the previous painting it is implied that Oedipus finally fell in love with the Sphinx. The Caress (1896) was one of Fernand Khnopff’s more enigmatic works, although the term is a relative one when it comes to an oeuvre in which enigma is the default position. The combination of a young male, a feline female and the trappings of antiquity suggests Oedipus and the Sphinx, although the Sphinx of mythology is a far more threatening presence. [9]
21. Is the lust for power and immortality, and the fulfillment of our deepest desires and fantasies, the essence of our inescapable fate, with its multiple versions? Although Oedipus may have known nothing about his secret wishes until they were fulfilled, he later on justified his crimes in the name of the oracle and of the will of the Gods. Is fate a reality which we had better be aware of? Or is fate a way to justify our misdeeds? Should we follow a self- fulfilling destiny and seek ultimate knowledge? Or would we rather be wise and pretend ignorance in order to live a happier life?
22. Finally, Oedipus seems to be a tragic person, who, although was destined to become a king, became a tyrant, and who, unable to break the chains of destiny, surrendered to all primordial passions.
[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy]
[3]: [https://www.history.com/news/8-reasons-it-wasnt-easy-being-spartan]
[4]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incest]
[5]: [http://www.unmuseum.org/sphinx.htm]
[6]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapa]
[7]: [https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-an-oedipal-complex-2795403]
[8]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_complex#Criticism]
[9]: [http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2012/12/13/caresses-by-fernand-khnopff/]
1/13/2020
Image: Caresses (1896) by Fernand Khnopff, a Symbolist depiction of Oedipus and the Sphinx
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Fernand_Khnopff_002.jpg]
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