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Where three roads meet: a neglected detail in the Oedipus Tyrannus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Stephen Halliwell
Stephen Halliwell*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Extract

‘There is surely more than geography involved in the extraordinary stress laid in the play on the importance of the branching road.’ So writes the latest editor of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus, R. D. Dawe, who proceeds to mention the ‘sexual significance … (the junction of the human trunk and legs)’ which ‘people tell us’ is to be discerned behind the references to the cross-roads where Oedipus met and killed his father. Dawe finds it difficult to make up his mind whether quasi-Freudian symbolism is properly to be attributed to Sophocles, and in adopting an equivocal position he cites only one further factor, that ‘the imagery of crossroads is common enough representing a point where a crucial decision has to be made’.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 106 , November 1986 , pp. 187 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1986

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References

1 Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Cambridge 1982) 3 Google Scholar. I am not sure who Dawe's ‘people’ are. There seems to be no comment on this detail of the Oedipus saga in any of Freud's discussions, but for a psychoanalytical interpretation see der Sterren, D. Van, Oedipe: une étude psychanaiytique (French transl., Paris 1974) 71–8Google Scholar. According to Jung, C. G., Symbols of transformation (Engl, transl., London 1956) 371 Google Scholar, cross-roads are symbolic of the mother and for this belief see also Gould, T., Oedipus the King (New Jersey 1970) 156 Google Scholar (cf 92–3 for a reference to Hekate).

2 Knox, B., in Sophocle ed. Romilly, J. de (Fond. Hardt XXIX, [1983]) 182 Google Scholar, denies that the three roads are of much significance, and observes that the killing could have occurred ‘just as well on one road’; but he misses the implication of this last remark. Knox had earlier, in Oedipus at Thebes (London 1957) 91 Google Scholar, referred without elucidation to the ‘terrible significance’ of the τρίοδος. Lamer, , RE XII 494 Google Scholar, is both pedantic and, in view of OT 1398 ff., wrong to suggest that the parricide occurs only in the vicinity of the cross-roads. Segal, C., Tragedy and civilisation (Cambridge, Mass. and London 1981) 221–2Google Scholar stresses the importance of the bestial, unnatural atmosphere of the place and the encounter (and cf. 368 f. on roads in the OC).

3 On Greek cross-roads see Hopfner, T., RE Vila 161–6Google Scholar, and for comparative evidence the article by MacCulloch, J. A. in the Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, ed. Hastings, J. (Edinburgh 1908–1926) vol. 4, 330 ffGoogle Scholar. For the link with Hekate (found in Sophocles himself in fr. 535 Radt and Pearson = 492 N2, with which cf. Ar. fr. 515 PCG = 500–01 Kock) see e.g. Heckenbach, RE VII s.v. ‘Hekate’, esp. 2775, and Kraus, T., Hekate (Heidelberg 1960)Google Scholar. On Hekate and Persephone: Soph. Ant. 1199 and Eur. Ion 1048, with Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (Oxford 1974) 155–7Google Scholar. For various references to religion at cross-roads see Eur. Supp. 1212, Ar. Pl. 594–7 fr. 209 PCG = 204 Kock, Plato Phaedo 108a 5. Leg. xi 933b 3, Thphr, . Char, xvi 5, 14 Google Scholar, Callim. Hymn 6.114, and cf. Parker, R., Miasma (Oxford 1983) 30 fGoogle Scholar.

4 Cf. the story about Socrates at Cic. Div. i 54.123, where the symbol of a τρίοδος is combined with Socrates' divine voice.

5 For a connection with Orphic beliefs see Guthrie, W. K. C., Orpheus and Greek religion 2 (London 1952) 176 Google Scholar, though Guthrie misses the point about cross-roads on earth. Plato may also here be using Pythagorean symbolism of the forking road, for which see Cumont, F., Lux Perpetua (Paris 1949) 278 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Cf. Thphr, . Char, xvi 5 Google Scholar, Paus. x 5.2.

7 Bonner, R.J. and Smith, G., The administration of justice from Homer to Aristotle ii (Chicago 1938) 277 fGoogle Scholar, argue that the passage reflects archaic practice. Dodds, E. R., The ancient concept of progress (Oxford 1973) 72 Google Scholar refers indefinitely to ‘actual Greek practice’.

8 Plato seems nowhere to mention Hekate by name, though Leg. 914b 4 is surely a reference to her, and she must be included in a passage such as Leg. 854b 7.

9 Fr. 172 Mette = 173 N2.

10 Cf Soph. OC 1050 and Richardson (n. 3} 161–2.

11 Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge 1893) xviii–xixGoogle Scholar, followed by e.g. Letters, F., The Life and Work of Sophocles (London 1953) 205 Google Scholar.

12 On the topography see Robert, C., Oidipus i (Berlin 1915) 83 ffGoogle Scholar.

13 ξυναντιάƷειν (804), like συναντᾶν and -εσθαι, clearly implies an encounter from different directions: cf συναντόμενος of Oedipus at Pind. O. 2.39. Dawe (n. 1) on line 114 is also wrong to assert that Oedipus and Laius travelled to Delphi ‘at the same time': Sophocles’ version is not in this respect parallel to Euripides' at Phoen. 32–45.

14 Laius's purpose, if correctly supplied, would be the same as at Eur. Phoen. 35–7 (but cf. n. 13).

15 On the relation of these places to the ‘stage geography’ of the OT see O. Taplin in Sophocle (n. 2) 166–74.

16 Cf. Pind. P. 5.38, 6.9, and Soph. OC 157. The many νάπαι of Cithaeron (OT 1026) would be suitable for shrines: see Scully, V., The earth, the temple and the gods 2 (New Haven and London 1979) 29 Google Scholar, for Boeotian shrines of Heracles.

17 LSJ s.v. ‘πίνω’ III lists OT 1401, with Aesch. Sept. 737 and 821, Eum. 979 (for 980, and cf. Cho. 66, 400–02) alongside examples of the earth ‘drinking’ rain etc.: but the Aeschylean passages, like the Sophoclean, all involve killings between either kin or fellow citizens, and the language involved correspondingly carries the terrible implications of such spilt blood.

18 Il. xxiii 29–34, Od. xi 36 ff., 95 ff. For αιμακουρίαι cf. Pind. O. 1.90.

19 Aesch. Again. 1188 f, Cho. 577 f, Eum. 264–6, Soph. Aj. 843 f, Trach. 1054–6, fr. 743. At Hesiod Theog. 183 ff. the Erinyes are born from the blood of Uranos, caught by the Earth. For the drinking of blood by the dead cf. Aesch. Cho. 97, 164, Soph. El. 1417–21, OC 621–3 (or Oedipus as a Fury? cf. Electra at El. 784–6), Eur. Hec. 392 f, 534 ff. Hekate too is a drinker of blood, not surprisingly: Heckenbach (n. 3) 2776.

20 For Erinyes and crimes against parents see, in addition to the Oresteia, Hom. Il. ix 453 f., 569–72, Od. ii 134–6. Erinyes are also relevant to Oedipus's incest: cf. Hom. Od. xi 280. Brown, A. L., CQ xxxiv (1984) 280 Google Scholar, argues that Erinyes play no part in the OT, but he deals only with the explicit.

21 Some obvious instances are Athena's uncertain involvement in Ajax's suicide (esp. Aj. 749–55); the background of the family curse in Antigone; the relation between the oracles and the end of Trachiniae; and the obscurities surrounding Helenus's oracle in Philoctetes.

22 See Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles: an interpretation (Cambridge 1980) 205 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for some considerations on the other side Lloyd-Jones, H., The justice of Zeus (Berkeley 1971) 121–3Google Scholar.

23 On Hekate's relation to Apollo and Artemis (for Artemis and cross-roads cf. Plut. Mor. 170b) see Heckenbach (n. 3) 2769–71, Kraus (n. 3) 11–23. It would be wrong to press too hard the Olympian-chthonic distinction (locus classicus Isoc. 5.117) between deities such as Apollo and Hekate: see Nock, A. D., Essays on religion and the ancient world ii (Oxford 1972) 591–2, 599–601 Google Scholar.