Passive obedience to the future is alien to the heroes of Sophocles, who themselves want to be the creators of their own destiny, and are full of strength and determination to defend their right. All ancient critics, starting with Aristotle, called the tragedy "King Oedipus" the pinnacle of the tragic skill of Sophocles. The time of its setting is unknown, approximately it is determined by 428 - 425 years. BC In contrast to previous dramas, compositionally close to the diptych, this tragedy is one and closed in itself. All its action is centered around the main character, who defines each separate scene, being its center. But, on the other hand, there are no casual and episodic characters in Oedipus the King. Even the slave of King Lai, who once, on his orders, carried away a newborn baby from his home, subsequently accompanies Lai on his last fatal journey; and the shepherd, who then took pity on the child, begged and took him with him, now arrives in Thebes as an ambassador from the Corinthians to persuade Oedipus to reign in Corinth.

The myths of ancient Greece. Oedipus. The one who tried to comprehend the secret

Sophocles took the plot of his tragedy from the Theban cycle of myths, which was very popular among the Athenian playwrights; but with him the image of the main character, Oedipus, overshadowed the entire fateful history of the misfortunes of the Labdakid clan. Usually the tragedy "King Oedipus" is attributed to analytical dramas, since its entire action is built on the analysis of events related to the hero's past and directly related to his present and future.

The action of this tragedy of Sophocles opens with a prologue, in which a procession of Theban citizens is sent to the palace of King Oedipus with a plea for help and protection. Those who came are firmly convinced that only Oedipus can save the city from the plague raging in it. Oedipus calms them down and says that he has already sent his brother-in-law Creon to Delphi to learn from the god Apollo about the cause of the epidemic. Creon appears with the oracle (answer) of the god: Apollo is angry with the Thebans for harboring the unpunished assassin of the former king Lai. Before the audience, King Oedipus vows to find the culprit, "whoever is the murderer." Under the threat of severe punishment, he orders all citizens:

Do not bring him under your roof and with him
Don't speak. To prayers and sacrifices
Do not admit him, nor to the ablutions, -
But drive him out of the house, for he -
The culprit of the filth that afflicted the city.

The Athenian audience, Sophocles' contemporaries, knew the story of King Oedipus from childhood and treated it as a historical reality. They knew well the name of the killer Lai, and therefore the performance of Oedipus in the role of avenger for the murdered took on a deep meaning for them. They understood, following the development of the tragedy, that the tsar could not act otherwise, in whose hands the fate of the whole country, of all the people infinitely loyal to him. And the words of Oedipus sounded like a terrible self-curse:

And now I am a champion of God,
And the avenger for the deceased king.
I curse the secret killer ...

King Oedipus summons the soothsayer Tiresias, whom the chorus calls the second seer of the future after Apollo. The old man takes pity on Oedipus and does not want to name the criminal. But when the angry king throws in his face the accusation of aiding the murderer, Tiresias, also beside himself with anger, declares: "You are the godless defiler of the country!" Oedipus, followed by the chorus, cannot believe in the truth of divination.

The king has a new assumption. Sophocles narrates: after the Thebans lost their king, who was killed somewhere during a pilgrimage, the brother of the widowed queen, Creon, was to become his legal successor. But then Oedipus, unknown to anyone, came, solved the riddle Sphinx and saved Thebes from the bloodthirsty monster. The grateful Thebans offered their savior the hand of the queen and proclaimed him king. Didn't Creon harbor a grudge, did he decide to use the oracle to overthrow Oedipus and take the throne, choosing Tiresias as an instrument of his actions?

Oedipus accuses Creon of treason, threatening him with death or lifelong exile. And he, feeling innocently suspected, is ready to throw himself with a weapon at Oedipus. The chorus doesn't know what to do in fear. Then the wife of King Oedipus and sister of Creon, Queen Jocasta, appears. The audience knew about her only as a member of an incestuous union. But Sophocles portrayed her as a strong-willed woman, whose authority in the house was recognized by everyone, including her brother and husband. Both are looking for support in her, and she is in a hurry to reconcile the quarreling and, having learned about the cause of the quarrel, ridicules the belief in predictions. Wishing to back up her words with convincing examples, Jocasta says that sterile faith in them ruined her youth, took her firstborn from her, and her first husband, Lai, instead of the death predicted to him at the hands of his son, became a victim of a robbery attack.

Jocasta's story, calculated to appease King Oedipus, is in fact disturbing to him. Oedipus recalls that the oracle, who predicted parricide and marriage with his mother, forced him many years ago to leave his parents and Corinth and go on a journey. And the circumstances of Lai's death in Jocasta's story remind him of one unpleasant adventure during his wanderings: at a crossroads, he accidentally killed a driver and some old man, according to Jocasta's description, similar to Lai. If the murdered was really Laem, then he, the king Oedipus, who cursed himself, is his murderer, therefore he must flee from Thebes, but who will accept him, an exile, even if he cannot return to his homeland without the risk of becoming a paricide and mother's husband ...

Only one person can resolve doubts, an old slave who accompanied Lai and fled from death. Oedipus orders to bring the old man, but he left the city long ago. While the messengers are looking for this only witness, a new character appears in the tragedy of Sophocles, who calls himself a messenger from Corinth, who arrived with the news of the death of the Corinthian king and the election of Oedipus as his successor. But Oedipus is afraid to accept the Corinthian throne. He is frightened by the second part of the oracle, in which marriage with his mother is predicted. The messenger naively and from the bottom of his heart hastens to dissuade Oedipus and reveals to him the secret of his origin. The Corinthian royal couple adopted a baby, whom he, a shepherd in the past, found in the mountains and brought to Corinth. The child's mark was pierced and tied legs, which is why he received the name Oedipus, that is, "plump."

Aristotle considered this scene of "recognition" to be the pinnacle of Sophocles' tragic skill and the culmination of the entire tragedy, and he especially emphasized the artistic device, which he called vicissitudes, thanks to which the culmination is carried out and the denouement is prepared. Jocasta was the first to understand the meaning of what had happened and, in the name of saving Oedipus, makes a last vain attempt to keep him from further investigations:

If life is sweet to you, I pray to the gods,
Don't ask ... My torment is enough.

Sophocles endowed this woman with tremendous inner strength, who is ready to bear the burden of a terrible secret until the end of her days. But King Oedipus no longer listens to her requests and prayers, he is absorbed in one desire to reveal the secret, whatever it may be. He is still infinitely far from the truth and does not notice the strange words of his wife and her unexpected departure; and the choir, keeping him in the dark, glorifies the relatives of Thebes and the god Apollo. With the arrival of the old servant, it turns out that he really witnessed the death of Lai, but, in addition, he, having once received an order from Lai to kill the child, did not dare to do this and handed it over to some Corinthian shepherd, whom now, to his embarrassment, he recognizes the messenger from Corinth standing before him.

So Sophocles shows that everything secret becomes apparent. A herald appears on the orchestra, who has come to announce to the choir about Jocasta's suicide and about the terrible act of Oedipus, who stuck gold pins from Jocasta's robes into his eyes. With the last words of the narrator, King Oedipus himself appears, blind, drenched in his own blood. He himself carried out the curse with which, in ignorance, he branded the criminal. With touching tenderness, he says goodbye to the children, entrusting them to the care of Creon. And the choir, suppressed by what happened, repeats the ancient saying:

And you can call happy, without a doubt, only that
Who has reached the limits of life, without knowing the misfortunes in it.

The opponents of King Oedipus, against whom his great will and immeasurable mind were given, are the gods, whose power is not determined by human measure.

For many researchers, this power of the gods seemed so overwhelming in the tragedy of Sophocles that it overshadowed everything else. Therefore, based on it, the tragedy was often defined as the tragedy of fate, transferring even this controversial explanation to the entire Greek tragedy as a whole. Others sought to establish the degree of moral responsibility of the king of Oedipus, speaking of crime and inevitable punishment, not noticing the discrepancy between the first and the second, even within the limits of modern Sophocles' ideas. It is interesting that, according to Sophocles, Oedipus is not a victim who passively awaits and accepts the blows of fate, but an energetic and active person who fights in the name of reason and justice. In this struggle, in his confrontation with passions and suffering, he emerges victorious, assigning himself punishment, himself carrying out punishment and overcoming his suffering in this. The younger contemporary of Sophocles Euripides, in the finale of a one-story tragedy, Creon ordered his servants to blind Oedipus and drove him out of the country.

Oedipus's daughter, Antigone, leads her blind father out of Thebes. Painting by Jalaber, 1842

The contradiction between the subjectively unlimited possibilities of the human mind and the objectively limited limits of human activity, reflected in Oedipus the King, is one of the characteristic contradictions of the time of Sophocles. In the images of the gods opposing man, Sophocles embodied everything that could not be explained in the world around him, the laws of which were still almost unknown to man. The poet himself has not yet doubted the goodness of the world order and the inviolability of world harmony. In spite of everything, Sophocles optimistically asserts the human right to happiness, believing that adversity never overwhelms the one who knows how to resist them.

Sophocles is still far from the art of the individual characteristics of modern drama. His heroic images are static and are not characters in our sense, since the heroes remain unchanged in all life's vicissitudes. However, they are great in their integrity, in freedom from all accidental. The first place among the wonderful images of Sophocles rightfully belongs to the king Oedipus, who became one of the greatest heroes of world drama.

"The ups and downs ... there is a change of events to the opposite ... So, in" Oedipus "a messenger who came to delight Oedipus and free him from fear of his mother, declaring to him who he was, achieved the opposite ..." (Aristotle. Poetics, ch. 9, 1452 a).

The term of Sigmund Freud - "Oedipus complex" has long entered our everyday life. With the light hand of Freud, we are accustomed to the fact that all men from early childhood should experience secret sexual love for their own mother and, on the contrary, carefully hide hatred-jealousy of the father and the latent desire to kill him in order to have undivided possession of the mother's body. In addition, Freud, creating his concept of the inner life of a person, added, based on the logic of his own thought, to the “Oedipus complex” also the “castration” complex, when the child secretly fears that the father will learn his thoughts about love for his mother and, as punishment, castrate his.

If only Sophocles could know how Freud, and then the entire XX century, use his tragedy! In fact, the tragedy of Sophocles is unusually far from Freud's interpretations.

First, because Freud's ideas are addressed to the deeply intimate, secret sexual life of man. This life hides away from human eyes, it is shameful and suppressed by the personality. Even alone with himself, a person does not always dare to be aware of such feelings and thoughts that Freud looks for in the recesses of his subconscious. In Sophocles' Oedipus the whole action, on the contrary, takes place publicly, in front of the inhabitants of Thebes. They come to the palace of King Oedipus, observe what is happening, participate in public action, participate in the words and actions of the characters and sympathize with the unfolding tragedy, finally express their opinion and judge King Oedipus, his wife-mother Jocasta and Creon, brother of Jocasta, who is in the finale the play becomes king of Thebes instead of Oedipus.

Secondly, the problematic that Freud learned from Sophocles, or, more precisely, from the myth of King Oedipus, is deeply alien to Sophocles, a true citizen of Athens who professed the ideals of democracy, civil patriotism and responsibility for his own actions. Let us recall that Sophocles was elected one of the ten strategists of Athens, that is, the highest official of the state, among other strategists responsible to the citizens of Athens for war and peace, for politics and the welfare of the fatherland. The moral and civic ideals of Sophocles are very far from the sexual themes of Freud.

Finally, at the center of the tragedy "King Oedipus" is a problem that Freud would certainly have treated with complete indifference - this is the problem of knowing the truth. It was for the sake of truth that King Oedipus renounced his well-being, almost cloudless happiness, from the Theban throne and from the children conceived by him together with his wife-mother Jocasta in sin. What is meant?

The tragedy unfolds at the moment when Thebes was struck by a terrible disaster: the plague is raging everywhere, taking with it countless tribute - human lives - destroying the "shoots of luxurious pastures", tormenting them with the "torment of the fire". The priest of Zeus, led by a delegation of the inhabitants of Thebes, tells about this to King Oedipus. He asks the king to find some solution to save the city from troubles, it was not for nothing that Oedipus defeated the Sphinx twenty years ago and delivered Thebes from evil, as a reward for his salvation became the king instead of Laia, who was killed by robbers. Note that the main plot event - the death of Oedipus' father - happened 20 years ago. In a word, everything happened back then, in a long past time, and the prophecy of the Delphic oracle came true long before the start of the play. The fates of the heroes have already taken shape. There is little to do: they have to turn around in front of the audience.

King Oedipus, taking care of the well-being and happiness of the Theban inhabitants, sends his wife's brother Creon to Delphi, to the god Apollo, so that he will open, as Oedipus says, "with what prayer, what service I will save our city from destruction." In other words, King Oedipus from the first lines of the tragedy is shown by Sophocles as a caring father who cares about his subjects. Public service is the root of the actions of King Oedipus.

Returned from Delphi Creon the first invites King Oedipus to avoid publicity and retell the oracle's speech in private in the palace. Oedipus categorically rejects this proposal, since he has nothing to hide in front of his citizens. After all, he does not solve personal, but social problems. He, as we would say now, transparent in their actions to civil society. His words are the essence of his deeds.

I am ready to speak in front of everyone - and also

And, entering the house, alone with you.

Say in front of everyone: their misfortune is my soul

It torments you more than your own sadness.

Creon says that the Delphic oracle calls to bring the murderer of the Theban king Laia to account: "washing away the blood with blood - that blood that hail overwhelms ours." Thus, only one circumstance will save the city from the plague: the death or expulsion of the king's killer from the city. From this moment, the tragic consequence of Oedipus begins, which leads to his self-blinding and the death of his wife and mother Jocasta.

The choir of the Theban elders grieves and cries over the death of fellow citizens in the "embrace of the plague" (remember Pushkin's "Feast during the plague"), Oedipus tries to find out the name of the killer Laia from the Coryphaeus. He advises Oedipus to send for the blind soothsayer Tiresias, famous for his miracles and knowledge of the secrets hidden by people. Already before this, Oedipus, on the advice of Creon, sent messengers to the elder Tiresias.

Tiresias, the second after Creon, does not want to reveal the truth to Oedipus. He came, but wants to leave immediately. Oedipus again insists, demanding from Tiresias to speak out and reveal the truth. A skirmish takes place between them, during which Tiresias is trying with all his might to keep Oedipus from knowing the truth, since this desire to learn the truth, in his opinion, is only a consequence of the unreasonable stubbornness and senseless anger of King Oedipus. Moreover, the blind Tiresias hints to King Oedipus that to seek the truth is like being blind with anger or losing his mind. Why should a person, blinded by his own folly, know where his fateful lot will lead? Isn't it better to run away from knowing the future?

Oedipus stubbornly goes to meet his fate: he accuses Tiresias of indifference to the fate of Thebes, reproaches him for lack of civil feeling, even for treason. All in order to find out the killer Laiya, that is, to face the fact of his own crime. After all, it is Oedipus himself who kills his father, fulfilling the Delphic prophecies.

Knowledge, knowledge! A heavy burden

When, to the detriment of those who know, you are given!

Haven't I tasted that science enough?

But I forgot - and came here!

What's this? How sad is your speech!

Tell me to leave; so we will carry it easier,

I am my knowledge, and you are your lot.

No citizen should reason like that,

No son; you are nourished by this land!

Out of place, it seems to me, your speech.

So, so that I do not experience the same ...

(Going to leave.)

Oh, for God's sake! You know - and you leave?

We are all supplicants at your feet!

And everyone is insane. No i won't open

Your troubles, not to say - yours.

What's this? Do you know - and you are silent? Do you want

Betray me - and destroy the country?

Tiresias I want to spare both of us. To what

Insist? My lips are silent.

Really, the dishonest old man - after all, a stone

You are capable of bringing in a rage! - your answer

Do you hide, not bowing to requests?

You blaspheme my stubbornness. But closer

Yours to you: did you not notice him?

How shameful your speech is for the city!

Is it possible to listen to her without anger?

What will come true will come true and so.

Why be silent? Tell me what will happen!

I said everything and the wildest anger is yours

Will not rip the words out of my soul.

Nevertheless, in spite of his stubborn unwillingness to reveal the truth to Oedipus, Tiresias, in the course of a further passionate and angry dispute, accuses Oedipus that he is the murderer of his father and that he lives “in a vile communion with his own blood”, “he himself does not smell it! " He mercilessly predicts exile from Thebes and blindness to Oedipus who did not believe in the word of truth: "And instead of light, darkness will cover you."

The metaphor of blindness is the central metaphor for tragedy. Truth blinds Oedipus. He is ready to unjustly and undeservedly send Creon to death, believing that he insidiously persuaded the blind soothsayer Tiresias to express all this nonsense. That is why, according to Oedipus's guess, Creon advises Oedipus to send for Teiresias. Creon, it seems to Oedipus, planned to overthrow him from the throne and take the Theban throne in place of him, Oedipus, the legitimate king.

Creon is saved from death by his sister Jocasta. Oedipus expels Creon from Thebes. And again we see a kind of prediction, a prophecy that will be fulfilled with Oedipus himself. If the first prediction - the appearance of the blind elder Tiresias - predicts the blindness of Oedipus, then the second prediction - the expulsion of Creon - portends again the expulsion from the city of Oedipus himself, albeit voluntary.

The third character who in every possible way keeps Oedipus from knowing the truth is his wife Jocasta. Sophocles has a rock motif. Jocasta tells Oedipus how in Delphi Laius, her husband, received a prediction that he would be killed by his son. Then Lai ordered, according to the commentators of the tragedy "King Oedipus," "to pierce the baby's tendons at the ankles and tie the legs with a rawhide belt. The legs that were inflamed and swollen as a result of this barbaric operation allegedly gave the child's saviors a reason to call him Oedipus: the Greeks derived this name from the verb “swell” and the noun “leg”. Oedipus - “with swollen legs.” Jocasta only knows that her three-day-old son's father, “having fettered the joints of his legs, threw the mountains with the hand of a slave in the desert!” Jocasta doubts the prediction of the Delphic oracle, because Laius was killed by robbers at the crossroads of three roads, and Apollo did not force “the baby to stain his hands with paricide”. “The fear was in vain, instilled in Lai,” Jocasta laments.

Jocasta's story gives new impetus to the investigation of Oedipus. "At the crossroads, where two roads converged on the third" - this spatial coordinate, marked by Jocasta, almost convinces Oedipus that he really is the killer of his father. He asks Jocasta to clarify the external portrait of the first husband ("Mighty; the head was barely silvery; // And he looked like you"), and loses almost the last doubts that Tiresias was right in his accusations.

Every dramatic work, of course, has its own conventions. The tragedy of Sophocles did not escape this either. For 20 years of family life, the spouses never mentioned previous events: Jocasta allegedly did not say anything about the death of her first husband before, Oedipus did not say anything about his murder of the traveler, with whom they quarreled at the crossroads of three roads. For the first time, he told Jocasta that he had left his parents from Corinth, the Corinthian king Polybus and his wife Merope, because he heard from a drunken guest that he, Oedipus, was “a fake son of his father”. Doubts consumed him so much that he went to Delphi to the Delphic oracle of Apollo and received terrible prophecies from God: he, they say, would kill his own father and live with his mother, with whom he would give birth to many children in a criminal marriage. That is why he fled from his parents in Corinth - to avoid the prophecy. It was then that he killed the traveler on the road:

When I was already close to the crossroads,

A cart is coming towards me, I see;

The herald runs before her, and in the cart

The master himself, as you described to me.

And he and this by the power of me

Trying to get out of their way.

The driver pushed me - I'm in the hearts

Hit him. Seeing the old man,

Seizing an instant when with a cart

I drew level - to my head

He struck me with a double flick.

However, He paid more: on a grand scale

I hit him on the forehead with my staff.

He fell on his back, right on the road;

We had to interrupt for them and others.

However, psychologically it is possible to motivate the unexpectedness of the story of the spouses, who lived together for 20 years and were silent, by their unwillingness to reopen the wound. Jocasta lost her son, barely giving birth to him. Oedipus became the murderer of several people. Only one slave escaped from the staff of Oedipus, who just told Jocasta about the attack of robbers on Laia. Note that these confessional stories of Jocasta and Oedipus occur again publicly, in the presence of the choir of the Theban elders. The luminary of the choir sympathizes with Oedipus:

And we are in alarm; all the same, as long as the witness (the same slave)

Not listened - do not lose hope!

Although Jocasta insists on disbelief in the "divination of God", and her baby, who died himself, could not kill her father, however, she carries a wreath of flowers and a handful of incense as a sacrifice and an offering to God to appease the Lycian Apollo. She prays to God that he would take the despondency from Oedipus, her husband and the king of Thebes.

The following testimony finally undermines Oedipus's faith in a successful solution of the case. From the Corinthian messenger, he learns that his father Polybus, the Corinthian king, or, rather, the one he considered his father, has died. The Messenger was a shepherd many years ago who gave Oedipus to Polybus and Merope, having received a baby from another shepherd who belonged to Laia. Polybus and Merope raised Oedipus as a son. This messenger many years ago untied the wounded legs of the baby Oedipus with his own hand.

Oedipus' last hope is a shepherd. Perhaps he will say that Oedipus is innocent, that all this is a mistake, a bad dream, an obsession, and the Delphic oracles are only false fortune-telling and deception.

Jocasta clearly understands: Oedipus is a criminal, but you can still stop, leave the square to the palace, stop this ridiculous investigation and continue living as if nothing had happened further, forgetting about everything that happened here. She makes a last desperate attempt to stop Oedipus, to save her husband and the father of her children, to save the people of Thebes from the inconceivable shame that will even fall on their just and merciful king.

If life is sweet to you, leave questions.

I pray to the gods - I already suffer. (...)

Oedipus, please obey me!

Obey? Do not find the kind?

But I care about your own good!

Now this blessing has long been a burden to me!

Oh, for a century you would not know who you are! (...)

Oh woe, woe! O ill-fated one is

My last greetings to you; sorry!

(Goes to the palace.)

It turns out that Jocasta already understood everything, before Oedipus. She fought, trying to take the unforgiving hand of fate away from Oedipus's head. It was all in vain. In the finale, we surmise that her last hello was actually her last, as she rushed into the palace to commit suicide. After all, she herself gave her son to her husband Laia for murder, so that later this son would kill her husband, become her second husband and the father of her four children. The marriage bed was polluted with the blood of murder and incest, the sin of incest. And she is to blame for everything. Oedipus's intransigence in the search for truth deprives her of her last hope: nothing can be returned, the prophecies have come true.

The shepherd brought by the servants of Oedipus persists more than others, not wanting to reveal the truth to Oedipus. He begs him to back down and not seek out this damned truth. The Corinthian messenger convicts him at a confrontation:

Now remember: did you not give

A baby for me to raise in those days?

Why ask about this now?

And here's what: this baby - here it is!

Cursed be your tongue! Shut up!

The shepherd is lying here, claiming that the messenger is lying. Oedipus threatens the shepherd with torture, forcing him to tell the truth. The very truth that everyone has long guessed, which Oedipus himself knows. The facts are all too obvious. They denounce Oedipus as a murderer and incest. But Oedipus now threatens the shepherd with death, if only he would finish his story, as a result of which the last hopes of Oedipus will finally collapse, and he will lose everything that he once had, but, most importantly, he will lose the happiness of living in harmony with his conscience.

Everything was done, it was revealed to the end!

Oh light! For the last time I see you:

My birth was wickedness,

Wickedness is a feat and wickedness is marriage!

V.N. Yarkho in the article "The Tragic Theater of Sophocles" quotes the phrase of one of the heroes of Aeschylus: "Better to be ignorant than wise." How wise is Oedipus, giving himself up to the end in search of the last truth? In his actions, he resembles the reasoning of the "underground hero" F.M. Dostoevsky from his famous "Notes from the Underground". He says that even if people calculate everything to the end, put their whole lives in order, compile logarithmic tables by which they should live, some gentleman with a malevolent, skeptical face will surely appear, who will send all these tables to hell, throw them into the abyss, just to live on their own, in spite of all these logarithmic tables, where his benefits are sketched.

Isn't King Oedipus like that? Why is he looking for the truth? What does he get when he gets to know her? More than twenty years ago, he killed his father, married his own mother and had children from her. He needed to find out that the Delphic oracles did not lie, that fate had happened a long time ago, that he became an instrument of this fate, despite the fact that he diligently avoided it and fled from fate in order to quickly approach it and justify the fatal prophecies.

The tragedy of Oedipus continues before the eyes of the people of Thebes. A household member who witnessed the tragedy along with other household members and servants tells the chorus of the Theban elders about the death of Jocasta and the self-blindness of Oedipus. In other words, suicide in the ancient world is a social act, devoid of any intimacy. This act is accompanied by passionate, stormy curses of Jocasta and curses of Oedipus himself and his eyes, which now do not want to see the world around him:

Household

Do you remember being in a frenzy of grief

She rushed off. From the passage she

She threw herself into her wedding chamber, with her hands

Clutching at my hair. And there

She closed the doors and called

To Laia, who died long ago,

Koria him: "Do you remember that night

An ancient secret? In it you are on your own

He gave birth to a murderer, and me, a spouse,

To the service of vile childbirth

Doomed his woeful flesh! "

She cursed her bed as well: “You

From husband - husband, and children from son

Judged to give birth! " And after that - the end.

But how she ended - I don't know.

There was a cry - Oedipus burst into the palace -

It was not up to her here. All behind him

We followed. He rushed about everywhere.

"Sword! Give me a sword! " So he called to us.

Then again: “Where is my wife, tell me ...

No! Not a wife is the finger of the maternal cornfield,

Double sowing that took - and me,

And from me the children of my embryo! " (...)

And, as if by the power of an unearthly slave,

On the closed door came, the axis

Took out of the deep nests - and broke

Inside peace. We follow him. And so

We see the queen hanging on a hook,

Still swinging in a fatal loop.

He stands, looks - suddenly with a wild sob

It grabs and from the hanging loop

Shoots gently. Here on the ground

Lies unfortunate. Then - oh, no!

A terrible thing happened then!

Oedipus rips off the gold buckle,

That she was wearing a robe on her shoulder,

And raising a sharp needle up,

It plunges into the eyes of the apple.

"There you are! There you are! Do not see you from now on

The horrors that I have endured - and those

What he himself did. From here in the pitch darkness

May you see those whose form is forbidden,

And don't recognize those you need! "

Why does Oedipus blind himself? He bears an unbearable burden of responsibility, blames himself for what he is not to blame for and what should have come true, regardless of his will. This is the artistic, truly tragic paradox of Sophocles. No one is to blame: neither gods nor people. So fate decreed. And you can't get away from her. Yet King Oedipus takes responsibility for himself. He blinds himself precisely because of a sense of civil and personal responsibility, he condemns himself to exile, saving Thebes from the plague, the cause of which is in his sin, predicted by the gods. This means that this tragedy is not only and not so much about the fate that happened long before the events of the tragedy, but about the tragedy of knowing the truth. Truth makes Oedipus free only in the sense that he must condemn and punish himself in a free act of self-blinding.

At the end of the 20th century, the famous Czech writer, now living in Paris, Milan Kundera, in the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" again refers to the tragedy of Sophocles. His hero, doctor Tomasz, after the events in Prague, when the “Prague spring” after many years of the communist regime suddenly gives people hope, writes an article about King Oedipus and the very sense of responsibility to which Sophocles calls upon his fellow citizens. Because of this article, he was subsequently, after the invasion of Prague by Russian tanks in 1968, kicked out of his job and deprived of the opportunity to practice, condemning him essentially to oblivion and death.

Kundera now, in the modern world, in our era, evaluates the act of King Oedipus not at all in Freudian, but in the spirit of Sophocles himself, so that the ancient tragedy still strikes with novelty and relevance, testifies to the immortality of the tragic collision of life that Sophocles opens in the ancient world in order to extend it into eternity and thereby send a message to us, distant descendants of Sophocles, in the XX and XXI centuries. Here are the words of Kundera from the novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being":

“And then Tomas again remembered the story of Oedipus: Oedipus did not know that he was living with his mother, and yet, having learned the truth, he did not feel innocent. He could not bear the sight of grief generated by his ignorance, gouged out his eyes and left Thebes blind.

Hearing the communists out loud to defend their inner purity, Tomas reflected: through the fault of your ignorance, this country may have lost its freedom for centuries, and you shout that you do not feel guilty? How can you look at the work of your hands? How does it not terrify you? Do you have eyes to see? If you were sighted, you should have blinded yourself and left Thebes! "

1. Parricide and incest
The king of Thebes, Cadmus, had a grandson, Laias, who was the direct heir to the royal throne. The young man had a disgusting character and disposition. He was distinguished by instability, cruelty, insidiousness and unpredictability of his actions. Once, the neighboring king Pelops invited young Laia to visit. Lai accepted the invitation and spent a very long time with Pelops, enjoying his hospitality. He indulged in unrestrained pleasures with young people of both sexes, which was commonplace for those times (this is not modern St. Petersburg for you!). Oedipus arranged such noisy and noble orgies that the god Mercury himself flew to them.
When the time came to leave the hospitable home of Pelops, Laius did a disgusting, heinous act. He kidnapped the son of Pelops Chrysippus, his lover, and took him to Thebes. Pelops was terribly angry and thought for a long time how to take revenge on Laia. Either go to war on Thebes, or impose a terrible curse on Laia? He did not want to fight the king of Thebes, and therefore turned to the gods with a request to punish Laia. Pelops presented the gods with great gifts, and the gods heard his requests. And the gods predetermined the fate of Laia: he had to die by the hand of his future son.
Meanwhile, Lai was serenely having fun in Thebes with his young lover, not knowing that a curse was imposed on him. A young, underage boy fascinated Laiya so much that he spent days and nights with him, overshadowing all other earthly joys. But soon Lai was fed up with Chrysippus, and orgies too, and decided to marry. Lai married the young beauty Jocasta, with whom he lived for a long time in Thebes. The marriage turned out to be strong, only they did not have children. Then Lai turned to the god Apollo with a simple everyday question - why does he have no children? The answer of God plunged Laia into horror: "You will have a son, and by his hand you will perish!"
Soon, Jocasta actually gave birth to a son. But his own life was dearer to Laia than the life of his son, and he decided to kill his newborn son. Lai took the baby from his wife, tied him hand and foot, pierced his feet with a knife, and ordered the slave to take the baby to the forest and throw him there, to be devoured by wild animals. But the slave disobeyed this cruel order and secretly handed the baby over to his friend - the slave of Tsar Polybus. Being childless, Tsar Polyb decided to raise the baby as his heir. He gave him the name Oedipus, which meant "plump," "with swollen legs."
Oedipus grew up happily and serenely in the house of Polybus and his wife Merope, considering them to be his parents. Years have passed. Oedipus grew up and matured. Once, during a feast, one of the drunken guests called Oedipus adopted. Oedipus was terribly surprised and demanded an explanation from his parents. But they were unable to reveal to Oedipus the secret of his birth. Then, in search of truth, Oedipus went to Delphi. On the way, he met a woman in whose mouth the god Apollo put the truth that Oedipus so wanted to know. The woman said to Oedipus: “You will kill your father. Marry your mother. From this marriage children will be born who will be cursed by gods and people. " Oedipus was horrified. He didn't know who his real parents were. So how can he avoid parricide and incest with his mother? What to do? What if his real parents are Polyb and Merope? Then he cannot return home, so as not to accidentally commit these terrible sins.
And Oedipus decided to become an eternal wanderer. He did not know where to go and chose a random path. This road led him to Thebes. It was destiny. The command of evil doom. As Oedipus approached Thebes, a rich chariot rolled out to meet him, accompanied by numerous servants. The warrior driving the chariot hit Oedipus with a whip to drive him out of the way. Oedipus responded with a blow of his staff, and he was about to get out of the way when the gray-haired old man, the owner of the chariot, hit Oedipus on the head with his staff. Then Oedipus lost his composure and gave the old man such a blow to the head with his staff that he fell dead to the ground. The old man's servants rushed at Oedipus, but Oedipus interrupted everyone. Only one slave managed to escape. This is how, without knowing it, Oedipus killed his father Laia. But, unaware of this, Oedipus did not feel any guilt for the murder of the old man and his slaves. After all, they were the first to attack him.
When Oedipus came to Thebes, he immediately heard two news that were on the lips of the inhabitants of the city. The first news was the assassination of King Laia by some stranger. The second news was about the terrible Sphinx, which settled near Thebes. The Sphinx demanded human sacrifice, and for disobedience he threatened to destroy the city and all its inhabitants. It is not known why, but the Sphinx was sent down to the city by the gods. The gods commanded the Sphinx to remain at Thebes until someone solved its riddle. Many inhabitants of Thebes tried to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, but could not, and died. Then Oedipus decided to tempt fate. He came to the Sphinx and declared that he was ready to solve its riddle. The Sphinx chuckled, confident that its riddle could not be solved, and said:
“All right, stranger, I’ll give you a riddle. Guess I'll leave the city. If you don't guess, I'll eat you.
“Make a guess,” answered Oedipus.
- Who walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?
- So simple? - Oedipus was surprised. And I thought that your riddle would be really very difficult.
- Well, then answer! - demanded the Sphinx.
- It's a man. In the morning, that is, in infancy, he crawls on all fours. During the day, that is, in maturity, he walks on two legs. And in the evening, that is, in old age, he often needs a crutch. Here's your third leg!
The Sphinx flapped its wings and threw itself off the cliff into the sea. So the gods decided. And Oedipus returned victorious to Thebes. The enthusiastic inhabitants of Thebes proclaimed Oedipus their new king. After becoming king, Oedipus had to marry the widow Laia Jocasta, that is, his mother, which he did not know. Oedipus married Jocasta, and she gave birth to two daughters and two sons. So the will of the gods, who decided to punish Laia, was fulfilled. Laia was severely punished by the gods. But why did they punish Oedipus so cruelly? There is no answer to this question. The gods are shyly silent, but mythology does not know.

2. Expulsion from Thebes and death
We ended the first story about Oedipus with a rhetorical question: why did the gods punish Oedipus so cruelly? Since the gods did not deign us, mere mortals, to answer such a question unworthy of their status, we will try to put forward some version ourselves. As a matter of fact, only one assumption suggests itself: the gods punished Oedipus for the intention of his father Laia to kill his baby son. But should children be held accountable for the misdeeds of their parents? Again - a rhetorical question. And who will answer it?
Ancient Greek gods were "famous" for their cruelty, often excessive. (Although, can there be "dosed" Cruelty?). I do not exclude the fact that the cruelty of the gods served as an example to follow for many dictators who lived and live on earth. Among the Greek gods, the god Apollo was distinguished by special cruelty. It was Apollo who severely punished Oedipus for the act of his father, making him a father-killer and the husband of his own mother. But such a punishment seemed insufficient to Apollo, and he turned the life of Oedipus into cruel suffering.
For a short time Oedipus ruled Thebes in peace and prosperity. God Apollo sent a terrible disease to Thebes, which was later called the plague. The plague did not spare either people or animals. The city of Thebes turned into a huge cemetery. The streets and squares of the city were littered with the corpses of people and animals. The black death rushed around the city, mercilessly mowing down all living things. The once rich herds of livestock died out, the once fat fields have ceased to yield. Death and famine came to the city. In vain the inhabitants of the city brought sacrifices to the gods and prayed for their salvation. The gods were blind and deaf to the pleas of the inhabitants of Thebes. Then the townspeople turned their prayers to their king Oedipus. After all, he once saved the city from the Sphinx! Then Oedipus sent Creon, the brother of his wife Jocasta, to Delphi to ask Apollo to get rid of these terrible troubles. If Oedipus knew whom he was asking for mercy, he would certainly have turned to another god. When Creon returned to Thebes, he conveyed the words of Apollo to the inhabitants: "The disasters will end when the townspeople expel from the city the one who, by his crime, by the murder of Laia, brought these disasters to Thebes." Oedipus publicly swore an oath that he would find the murderer of King Laia and punish him. Of course, Oedipus did not know that he had sworn to find and punish himself. This is the kind of intrigue that Apollo started! (When I write my next detective story, I will put such an intrigue as the basis of the plot!) Since Oedipus did not have the skills of a detective, he turned to the inhabitants of Thebes with the question of how to organize the search for the villain? The people advised to ask the blind soothsayer Tiresias about this. They brought Tiresias to Oedipus, and the king asked the soothsayer to name the murderer Laia.
But Tiresias refused to give the name of the murderer. Oedipus forced him to do this, threatening him with reprisals. As they say, he asked for it himself! Tiresias publicly accused Oedipus of the murder of his father Laia and of incest with his own mother. Hearing this, Oedipus fell into a terrible anger and threatened to execute the soothsayer for false accusations. Apparently Oedipus forgot what the woman told him, whom he met many years ago on his way to Thebes. Remember? Apollo himself said through the lips of this woman: "You will kill your father and marry your mother." But the inhabitants of Thebes did not give offense to the soothsayer. They knew that the mouth of a blind man never defiled a lie. Here and Oedipus' wife Jocasta said her word. She told Oedipus how Lai was killed and how his only son was thrown into the forest. It is then that the first doubts begin to creep into the soul of Oedipus. And he exclaims, addressing no longer to Apollo, but to Zeus himself: “Oh, Zeus! What have you decided to doom me to? " The rhetorical question was asked again. But it seems that Oedipus had already foreseen what fate had in store for him. However, he found the courage to find out the whole truth to the end. Oedipus ordered to find the slave, who, on the orders of Laia, was to carry the baby to the forest. The old slave was found and brought to the king. And from the mouth of this old man the terrible truth sounded. Finally, Oedipus "got to the bottom" of the truth. He learned that he was the son of Laia and Jocasta, that he had killed his father and married his own mother. And his four children from Jocasta are his maternal brothers and sisters.
When Jocasta found out the whole truth, she could not survive all the horror and hanged herself. Oedipus was distraught with grief and gouged out his eyes with the buckle of his wife, and then for a long time he could not part with Jocasta, holding her on his knees.
The inhabitants of Thebes, fearing that the sins of Oedipus would bring on them even greater wrath of the gods, demanded his expulsion from Thebes. And the blind, decrepit Oedipus left Thebes, going into exile in a foreign land. His children turned away from him, except for Antigone, who followed their father. Led by Antigone, the unfortunate Oedipus traveled through many countries until he found his last rest in Athens. When Oedipus realized that his last hour had come, he decided to die alone. Without a groan or pain, he went to the kingdom of Hades, and none of the mortals knows how he died and where his grave is.
Author's reading of mythology by Alex Gore, 01/19/2013

Oedipus, Greek - the son of the Theban king Lai and his wife Jocasta, one of the most tragic heroes of Greek myths and dramas.

First of all, Oedipus owes his fame to Sophocles, who, using ancient Theban legends, in two of his tragedies created the image of Oedipus with unsurpassed skill, thanks to which Oedipus remains one of the greatest figures in Greek and world drama even today. Oedipus in the interpretation of Sophocles reminds us of the eternal impermanence of human happiness and appears as proof of the inevitability of fate, which inspires horror - true, only until we are relieved to remember that we do not believe in fate.

The tragic fate of the king's son Oedipus

The fate of Oedipus was predetermined by a terrible curse brought on by his father Lai, who kidnapped the young Chrysippus, the son of the Elide king Pelop, and became the cause of his death. This curse was supposed to haunt the Lai clan until the third generation, and its first victim was to be Lai himself, doomed to fall at the hands of his own son. Therefore, when a son was born to Lai, he ordered the slave to throw him in the forest on the slopes of Kiferon, so that wild animals would tear him to pieces. To be more faithful, he pierced his legs at the ankles and tied them with a belt. But the slave took pity on the child and gave him to a shepherd who he met by chance in the forest, and the shepherd brought the boy to his master, the childless Corinthian king Polybus. Polybus adopted the boy, gave him the name Oedipus (more precisely, Oidipus, that is, with swollen legs) and, together with his wife Merope, raised him as befits the heir to the throne. Oedipus, of course, considered Polybus and Merope his parents - and everything was in the best order, until one drunken Corinthian youth called Oedipus a foundling. Oedipus told Polybus and Merope about this, and from their reaction he guessed that they were hiding the truth from him. Then he went to Delphi to find out from the oracle how, in fact, things are with his origin. However, the pythia did not say anything to Oedipus about his past, but predicted the future to him: he would kill his father, marry his own mother, and she would give him sons, whom he would curse, wishing them death.

Shaken Oedipus decided to do everything to prevent the prophecy from coming true. The Pythia did not tell him the names of his parents, which means that they could well have been Polybus and Merope. In this case, Oedipus could not return to them - and he chose to remain a rootless tramp, so long as not to endanger the lives of his parents. But can a person escape his fate? Oedipus did not return to Corinth and went the direct route - to Thebes.

Oedipus in Thebes: killing a father, marrying a mother

In a narrow gorge near Parnassus, Oedipus met with a chariot, on which sat some noble old man. Oedipus made way, but this seemed not enough to the charioteer, he rudely ordered Oedipus to go into the roadside ditch and, for greater persuasiveness, whipped him with a whip. Oedipus responded with blow for blow and wanted to continue on his way, but then a worthy old man stood up and hit him with his staff. With all due respect to the gray hair, Oedipus could not resist and answered him in kind - unfortunately, the blow was too strong and the elder died on the spot. His companions pounced on Oedipus, but he killed them all, with the exception of one slave who escaped at the very beginning of the battle. The first part of the prophecy came true: an unfamiliar old man killed by Oedipus was his father Lai, who was heading to Delphi to ask the oracle how to rid Thebes of the monstrous Sphinx. Instead of Lai, a slave returned to Thebes, reporting that the king had died at the hands of robbers.

Arriving in Thebes, Oedipus delivered the city from the monster, as described in the article "Sphinx". The grateful Thebans proclaimed him their king, since the brother of Queen Jocasta, Creon, announced after the death of Lai that the one who would deliver Thebes from the Sphinx would become king. Oedipus settled in the royal palace and married Jocasta. Everything went exactly as the prophecy predicted: Jocasta bore him two daughters, Antigone and, and two sons, Eteocles and Polynices.

Exposing Oedipus

In the twentieth year of the successful reign of Oedipus, a pestilence plague began to rage in Thebes, accompanied by a crop failure. At the request of Oedipus, Creon went to Delphi to find out how to get rid of this calamity, and brought the answer to the Pythia: the Thebans must expel from their midst, who brought the punishment of the gods on the city.

But for that, the killer had to be found. Oedipus turned to the blind soothsayer Tiresias, but he flatly refused to give the name of the murderer, although he did not deny that he knew it. Oedipus asked, persuaded, threatened, but the blind old man was relentless. Finally, yielding to the insistence of the people and the threats of Oedipus, Tiresias declared: “So know, Oedipus, that you are the murderer of your father! And you, out of ignorance, married your own mother! "

Tiresias's calm confidence alarmed Oedipus. He summoned Jocasta to him, repeated the words of Tiresias to her and asked if Lai had a son and could he return to Thebes, as the prophecy claims? Yes, answered Jocasta, she gave birth to a son to Lai, but Lai ordered to carry the child to the forest, fearing the prophecy. The slave who took the child to be eaten by wild animals is still alive and can confirm her words.

The need for evidence indicates uncertainty: Oedipus sent for a slave. As soon as the servants left for him, an ambassador from Corinth appeared with the news of the death of King Polybus. In the soul of Oedipus, sorrow mingled with joy. He did not kill his father, escaped his fate - which means that other prophecies may turn out to be false!

The tragedy of Oedipus, Jocasta and their children

This was the last happy moment in the life of Oedipus, as the ambassador continued: the people of Corinth are inviting him to take the throne of Polybus, and so that he does not fear the prophecy given to him, Merope tells him to tell him that he is not her son and Polybus at all. Oedipus is a foundling, whom the slave of King Laius handed over to the Corinthian shepherd, who gave him to Polybus. At that moment I understood everything. With a terrible cry, she rushed into her bedroom and took her own life.

Before Oedipus had time to recover from this blow, another one followed. The slave brought in admitted that he did not follow Lai's order and actually gave the newborn to the shepherd of Tsar Polybus. He was the same companion of King Lai, who survived after the fatal skirmish in the gorge near Parnassus, when Oedipus accidentally killed his father. Furious with despair, Oedipus rushed into Jocasta's bedroom and found his wife and mother already dead. Oedipus pulled the gold pin out of Jocasta's dress and gouged out his eyes. He did not want to see the sunlight, which would show him the full depth of his fall, did not want to see either his children or his native Thebes anymore. In the struggle with fate, he lost everything, including hope.

The Theban people deeply sympathized with the tragedy of Oedipus, but this did not last long, since the hunger did not stop. People who had recently respected Oedipus for his wisdom, justice, and services to the city began to demand that he leave Thebes. Creon alone protected him and provided shelter in his palace. Finally, Oedipus was opposed by his own sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who were eager for power, and. He shared power with them, and Oedipus sent into exile as a man hated by the gods, bringing trouble to society.

Under the blows of fate and human ingratitude, the blind, helpless Oedipus reached the very bottom of the abyss of humiliation. Accompanied by his daughter Antigone, who voluntarily followed him into exile, Oedipus wandered for a long time through the forests and mountains, since people disdained him and the cities refused to accept him. Finally Oedipus came to Colon near Athens and made a halt in the forest, away from human dwellings. From the villagers, he learned that he was in the sacred grove of Eumenides, the pacified goddesses of vengeance. Oedipus accepted this news with relief, since he knew that here he was destined to leave this world - once Apollo in Delphi announced this to him. He recalled the further words of Apollo: the one who provides him with the last refuge and consolation will be rewarded a hundredfold. Therefore, Oedipus asked the peasants to bring him from Athens.

Meanwhile, the youngest daughter of Oedipus, Ismena, came to Colon and informed him that his sons had become implacable enemies. Eteocles, in alliance with Creon, expelled Polynices, who united with the Argives and led a formidable army under Thebes. Both camps want to win Oedipus to their side, since the Delphic pythia announced that the one on whose side Oedipus will be victorious in the struggle for Thebes. After Ismena, Creon appeared, then Polynices, but Oedipus did not give in to either their requests or threats. In the end, he cursed his sons with a terrible oath, wishing them to kill each other.

Death of Oedipus

As soon as Oedipus uttered the words of the curse, there was a thunderclap. It was a sign of the supreme guardian of fate, Olympian Zeus, that Oedipus could descend into the kingdom of shadows. Oedipus said goodbye to his daughters and summoned Theseus to him. He took an oath from the Athenian king to take care of Ismen, and as a reward for this good deed, he revealed to him the secret of the location of his grave, which would protect Athens more reliably than shields and city walls. Oedipus calmly said goodbye to the world and imperceptibly for all went into the gloomy, on the threshold of which the life of a mortal and his fate ceases.

“Not a single work of ancient dramatic creativity has left such a noticeable mark in the history of European drama as Oedipus the Tsar,” said the Soviet historian of ancient literature I. M. Troisky, and almost all literary critics agree with him. This is a truly magnificent work, incomparable in its simplicity and monumentality, characteristics of images, compactness and dynamism of action, a work that is as exciting today as it was millennia ago. Sophocles created the "King of Oedipus" in 429-425. BC NS.; he later returned to the Oedipus theme in the equally famous Oedipus at Colon, which he did not live to see (Sophocles died in 406 BC). Before him, the motives from the myth of Oedipus were developed by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey (Jocasta is called Epicasta), then the unknown author of Oedipodea - the first of three (or more) large poems of the so-called Theban cycle, then Aeschylus in tragedies "Lay" and "Oedipus", which, unfortunately, did not reach us. Of the Roman authors, the tragedy "Oedipus" was composed by Seneca (and in his youth and Caesar).

The image of Oedipus in world art

Like other images of the tragedies of Sophocles (Antigone, Electra), Oedipus prompted the authors of modern times to numerous adaptations and reworkings of the story about his fate: Oedipus by Corneille and Voltaire, Oedipus in Athens by V. Ozerov (1804), the satirical drama Tsar Shelley's Oedipus (1820), Hoffmannsthal's Oedipus and the Sphinx (1906), Cocteau's Oedipus King, A. Gide's Oedipus (1931), R. Bayer's Oedipus in Colon (1946). The story was used by Oedipus in his novel "Rubber Bands" by Robbe-Grillet (1953), the film "Oedipus the King" was directed by Pasolini (1967).

Ancient artists most willingly depicted Oedipus and the Sphinx. Large frescoes with Oedipus themes have been found in the ruins of ancient Hermopolis on the Nile (they date from the beginning of our era). Among the paintings of European artists, let us name two, created in the 19th century: "Oedipus and the Sphinx" by Ingres (1827) and the painting of the same name by G. Moreau.

The fate of Oedipus has also inspired a number of composers. The opera "Oedipus the King" was written by Leoncavallo, the opera "Oedipus and the Sphinx" (to the text of Hoffmannsthal) - R. Strauss, the opera "Oedipus" - Enescu (1931), the stage work "Oedipus King" - Orff (1959). The stage music for Sophocles' Oedipus in Colon was created by Mendelssohn-Bartholdi (1845), the opera-oratorio Oedipus the King was created by Stravinsky (1927). Among the works of Czech composers, the parody operetta "King Oedipus" by Kovarzovic (1894) with its unconventional interpretation deserves attention.

Oedipus complex and more

A whole literature has arisen about Sophocles' "King Oedipus", and in this connection we will allow ourselves a small remark. The magnificence of this work led cultural historians (especially in the 18th and 19th centuries) to over-generalize. Since Sophocles' "King Oedipus" is a "tragedy of fate", they often summed up the whole ancient tragedy under this definition, opposing it, for example, with Shakespeare's "tragedy of character." In reality, however, the creators of ancient tragedies developed the theme of fate relatively rarely. Allegations that the axis of this tragedy of Sophocles is the problem of the son's painful love for his mother are also exaggerated, because Oedipus, by the way, did not even know that Jocasta was his mother. The so-called "Oedipus complex" is only a category of modern psychology or psychoanalysis.

Stills of the film "King Oedipus" (Italy, 1967)

Sacrifice of King Oedipus

First letter "c"

Second letter "f"

The third letter "and"

The last beech letter "c"

The answer to the question "Sacrifice of King Oedipus", 6 letters:
sphinx

Alternative crossword questions for the word sphinx

Bald cat

Faithful guardian of the Egyptian pyramids

In Greek mythology, half-woman, half-lioness

It is this structure, which depicts the image of Pharaoh Khafre, was nicknamed by the Arabs the "Father of Horror"

Statue on Malaya Nevka

Stone guardian of the pyramids of Egypt

Figure near the pyramid

Definition of sphinx in dictionaries

Wikipedia Definition of a word in the Wikipedia dictionary
The Sphinx was a brothel in Paris in the 1930s-1940s. Along with Le Chabane and One-Two-Two, it was considered one of the most luxurious and famous Parisian brothels. The Sphinx is the first luxury brothel to open on the left bank of Paris. Because of his ...

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova. Meaning of the word in the dictionary Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I.Ozhegov, N.Yu.Shvedova.
-a, m. In Ancient Egypt: a stone statue of a lying lion with a human head; generally a sculptural image of such a figure. In ancient Greek mythology: a winged creature with the body of a lion, with the head and chest of a woman, who asked people unsolvable riddles ...

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998 The meaning of the word in the dictionary Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998
Sphinx (Sphinga) in Greek mythology, a winged half-woman, half-lioness who lived on a rock near Thebes; asked passers-by an unsolvable riddle and then, having received no answer, devoured them. The riddle of the sphinx ("who walks on 4 legs in the morning, two legs at noon, in the evening ...

Examples of the use of the word sphinx in literature.

Bald took the coin, twirled it in his hands, and suddenly spat on the avatar image Sphinx minted on the obverse.

His attire consisted of a blue kalaziris, a cloak and a veil in the shape of a bonnet, his face was hidden by a blue avatar mask. Sphinx.

She wore a male black vest belted at the waist over a short caftan with a standing collar and long narrow sleeves, black tights covered her legs, black leather gloves covered her legs, her head was covered with a fur beret with a feather, and her face was an avatar mask. Sphinx.

Duke Kroon sat on an ivory throne, to his right was the Princess Kriemhilda, to the left - a mysterious, for most of those present, Amorian emissary in an avatar mask Sphinx.

In old courtyards, along with useful and useless objects - gates, gazebos, spiral staircases, sheds, garages, Bakhchisarai fountains without water, silly sphinxes with broken noses hidden under wild grapes near a blank wall - along with them in the yard there is always a table for a goat.