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How do you come to know yourself? What does this mean and how is this task accomplished? Most importantly, do you really want to know?
The quest for self-knowledge lies at the heart of human experience and it is a quest surrounded by questions.
Some of them are addressed in one of most famous Greek myths, the myth of Oedipus, immortalized in a trilogy of plays by Sophocles from the 5th century BCE.
In this podcast I tell the story of Oedipus and reflect on the connection between this story, the contemporary quest for self-knowledge and authenticity, and the patron deity of Greek tragedy and theater, the god Dionysus.
Here is a transcript of this program:
Knowing Thyself: the Greek Myth of Oedipus transcript 061319
Hello everyone and Welcome to Myth Matters, a biweekly podcast of storytelling and conversation about mythology and why it’s important to our lives today. I’m your host and personal mythologist. Catherine Svehla. Thank you so much for joining me. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours. You are part of this story circle.
Know thyself. These famous words were inscribed over the door to the temple of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi Now, at first blush, it might seem pretty straight forward- Know yourself— but any reflection at all reveals the complexity and the mystery surrounding this. Is it a command for one thing, or a request? How is this task accomplished? What does it mean?
Know Thyself. What type of knowledge? What is the self? This existential problem lies at the heart of human experience and yet it’s surrounded by questions. Some of them are addressed in one of the most famous Greek myths, the myth of Oedipus, which was immortalized in a trilogy of plays written by Sophocles and performed in the fifth century, BCE. These plays– Oedipus Rex or Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone—were the greatest word of Sophocles and many consider them to be the definitive works of Greek tragedy.
I want to tell you the myth of Oedipus, the portion that is in the play Oedipus the King, today. Now you may have heard of Oedipus or have some familiarity with his story. It’s often discussed as a battle between a man and fate contained in oracles and prophecies. Since many of us today are disinclined to give very much weight to this, the story seems to be a relic from the past. The myth of Oedipus fascinated Freud, who said it was a cornerstone of human psychology. So if you are familiar with Freud’s Oedipal complex, you may have some familiarity with the myth. Freud’s idea is that the individual is basically caught up in deep ambivalence about parents and sexual drives, and that these perpetually shape us.
Of course the field of psychology has evolved and there are lots of other theories now and personally, I think Freud’s fascination with Oedipus says more about him maybe than it does about the fundamental drives of human nature. But in any event, I really honor his insight, one that he shared with C.G. Jung, that what we call psychology today has its roots in mythology. The realities and experiences described in psychology first come to us in the form of myth, and the images and the stories that bridge the gap between ego consciousness and everything else.
But I’m going to stop there with the concepts and tell you the myth. Then we’ll unpack the ways this story may illuminate for us today, the mystery in this statement “know thyself.”
The myth of Oedipus:
And so it was that a terrible plague struck the great kingdom of Thebes. Food crops were withering on the vines and stalks, the animals were dying, the women were barren, and many who fell sick were not recovering. The citizens gathered outside the palace of their king Oedipus to plead with him to take action. “You have saved us before. You must do it again,” they cried. Oedipus was completely responsive to their requests. “I weep along with you, “ he told them. “As your king, it is my duty to bring an end to our troubles and I’m at my wits end. So I have sent my brother in law Creon to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi to learn how to help the city. And I pledge to you, I will do whatever Apollo commands.”
Creon returned with a message from the Oracle. We are harboring a murderer,” he told Oedipus, “someone who committed a gross crime and the plague will end when we have removed this murderer from our midst. This person killed Laius, who was our king before you came along, and until his murderer is caught and expelled we will be doomed.”
“Well when was Laius killed?” Oedipus asked. “Oh that happened shortly before you arrived, “Creon told him. “And where and how did this take place?” asked Oedipus. “As far as we know,” said Creon, “Laius was killed by a group of thieves on the road, on his way to consult an oracle.” “Well did you investigate this when it happened?” asked Oedipus. “It’s going to be kind of hard to go back all of these years and follow a trail that’s this cold.” “Well,” said Creon, “we didn’t really have much information to go on. Everyone in his party was killed except for one servant, and he didn’t have much to say other than that they had been beset upon by robbers. We were preoccupied with the scourge of the Sphinx, as you may recall, for it is the Sphinx that brought you to the Kingdom of Thebes.”
Solving the mystery of this murder was going to be a difficult task, but Oedipus had no choice and it occurred to him to send for Tiresias the blind prophet. No one knew the hidden minds of the God’s better than Tiresias. When the prophet arrived at the palace, he explained his predicament. Tiresias, however, asked to be sent home. “You’re going to have to do this without my help. I really, I, I can’t help you,’ he said. Oedipus pressed him. “You can’t refuse the king,” he said. “I need to know whatever you know.”
Tiresias said, “well, you don’t actually want to know what I know.” “So then you do know something Tiresias,” Oedipus said. “How dare you not tell me. I am your King.” “Well, I don’t know what good it is to have the ability to see the truth when the truth brings nothing but pain,” said the prophet. “That’s not for you to decide,” said the king. “What needs to happen will happen regardless of whether or not I speak,” said Tiresias. “You can really do it without me.”
Now they began to argue and Oedipus got angry and started to insult the old prophet. “How dare you, he said. “You are blind, that’s for sure. But you’re blind in more ways than one if you don’t see your duty here old man.” “Well I don’t know why you would insult me,” said Tiresias, “and your rage actually provides you with the answer that you seek. Yes, I’m blind and so are you. Do you know your lineage my King? No, you don’t. And the curse of ruining your mother and father will fall on you yet.” “How dare you,” said Oedipus, “and how can you speak so cryptically? I hear the insults that are buried there. “Okay,” said the prophet, “I’ll be clear. You are the murderer that you seek.” “What?” said Oedipus, “I don’t think I understood you. Say that again. “You are the man,” said Tiresias, “that you seek.”
“Oh,” said Oedipus, “now you’ve gone way too far. Way Too far. I am the king and I am the one who saved the city. Remember the problem of the Sphinx? Where were you with your secret knowledge and wisdom when the Sphinx, that terrible monster, was terrorizing the great city of Thebes? You did nothing. When Thebes suffered under that plague, the city was held captive by this man-eating monster who refused to leave until someone answered her riddle, and I alone could solve that puzzle. When she asked ‘What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening,’ I knew the answer was ‘man.’ But where were you? You didn’t know anything. Some prophet you are.”
“Well, your parents trusted me,” said the prophet. “Now what’s that supposed to mean?” said Oedipus. “We both know that I grew up in the distant city of Corinth, so how could you have known my parents? You’re just getting more and more absurd old man. Get out of my sight.” “I wouldn’t be here except that you called for me my king, but I will leave you with this. The murderer is here in the city all right. He passes for a foreigner, but he is native born and although he’s rich and powerful now he’ll soon be a beggar. Let’s see what you think of prophecies and prophets when this one comes to pass.”
Tiresias left the king in a rage and a state of confusion. Maybe the prophet doesn’t want to speak because he’ll reveal guilt, he thought. Did he conspire against King Laius? Did he conspire against King Laius with Creon, I wonder? Oh no, they are conspiring against me to try and pin this murder on me, but that will never work. No one will ever believe them. Creon, my brother in law, I’ve given him some share of power, but I bet he wants it all, to be king in the place of his brother long dead although I earned the privilege with my astute, heroic deed.
In this state of mind Oedipus had Creon brought to him. He made his accusations and Creon was flabbergasted and then insulted and then deeply angered at the accusation. He attempted to reason with the king. He pointed to his long loyalty, and he pointed to the right of the prophet to speak his mind. “The right of free speech, which may have been irritating Oedipus, I admit, but it had nothing to do with me,” said Creon. But Oedipus would have none of it and he raged and ranted and in the end Creon raised his voice too “You can’t condemn me without appeal,” he said. “Oh yes, I can,” said the king.
In came Oedipus’s wife, the Queen Jocasta, who was also the widow of king Laius. “Why are you two shouting at each other?” she said. “Calm down please. You’re creating a scandal at a time that is already difficult enough and whatever this is, it has to be a misunderstanding.” “My queen,” said Oedipus, “the prophet Tiresias has charged me with Laius murder and that is obviously not the case. And I am sure that your brother Creon here put him up to it, and that the two of them are involved in this and …”
“Oh,” said Jocasta, “please, please, please. This all started with a prophet and prophecies? Don’t mind any of that. All prophecies are false and I’ll tell you how I know this. An Oracle once came to Laius, and I’m not going to say it was from the Delphic God Apollo himself, it was from his ministers. But this oracle declared that Laius was doomed to perish by the hand of his own son, a child that should be born to him by me. But as we all know, as reports affirm, Laius was murdered one day by highway men. No natives were present. At a spot where three roads meet. As for this child, this prophesied murderer, it was but three days old when Laius took it with its ankles pierced and pinned together, and gave it to shepherds to be cast away on the trackless mountainside. So this prophecy could not come about. Don’t think about it my King, don’t worry.”
“Jocasta,” said Oedipus, “some memories and wild confusion came into my soul as I heard you speaking.” “Well, what do you mean?” she asked. “What has shocked and startled you?” “I thought,” said Oedipus,” that I heard you said that Laius was murdered at the meeting of three roads.” “Yes. That was the story at the time and is still the story, “she said. “Where did this happen? Do you know the place?” he asked. “Phocis the land is called,” she said, “there’s a place where branch roads from Delphi and Dalus meet.” “And how long has it been since this murder took place?” “It was just a little while, “ she said, “before you were proclaimed our country’s ruler that we got the news. “Oh,” said Oedipus. “And can I ask you, what was the build and height of Laius? How old was he?” “Oh, he was tall,” she said, “his hair was lightly strewn with silver and he was not unlike you in form.”
“Oh no,” said Oedipus, “I think. I think…” “What do you think? said Jocasta. “I’m looking at your face and you’re, you’re scaring me.” “Oh, I have a bad feeling,” said the king, “that in the end, this prophet will not prove to be so blind after all. I have to ask you one more question to resolve my doubt.” “I’m afraid to answer it,” said the queen, “but ask me and I will answer it.” “Did he have a few attendants or a whole train of armed retainers with him like a prince?” asked Oedipus. “He went with a small group,” said Jocasta. “They were but five in all, one of them was a herald and Laius was riding in a mule car.” “Oh no,” said Oedipus. “Now I really have a bad feeling. And who carried this report back?”
“A serf, a sole survivor returned,” she said. “Is he here?” asked Oedipus?” “No,” she answered. “As soon as he came back and he saw that you were the new king, he begged me to be sent off to a post, to go back to work as a shepherd in our most distant fields. And I granted his wish. He was an honest slave and… I can see that you’re worried my king. Please tell me why.”
Oedipus told Jocasta that a long time ago when he was still the prince of Corinth, he overheard someone mention at a banquet that he was not really the son of the King and Queen of Corinth. This greatly troubled him so he traveled to the Oracle of Delphi. This oracle would not answer him about his parentage, but did tell him that he would murder his father and sleep with his mother. Trembling with this terrible news, Oedipus fled and he did not go home. Oh no. He would never return there for fear of fulfilling this oracle. And it was then, on this journey that would take him to Thebes, that Oedipus was confronted and harassed by a group of travelers at a place where three roads meet. Out of fear and anger, and in a spirit of self-defense, he killed them all.
“I need to question the servant who survived, “he told Jocasta. “If he says it was a band of robbers and not a single man, then it couldn’t have been me. Otherwise, I don’t know.” “Well, okay,” said Jocasta. “But however that plays out, the prophecy about Laius’s death did not come true because his son did not kill him. That son died as a baby.”
Oedipus sent for the man who survived the attack, a shepherd, in the hope that he would not be identified as the murderer. In the meantime, Queen Jocasta decided to take wreaths and incense to the temples and pray for a happy ending to all of these troubles. Her servants were rather surprised as she wasn’t one to supplicate the gods. When she stepped outside the palace, she met a messenger who had just arrived from Corinth. He had just arrived from Corinth with big news– to inform King Oedipus that his father, Polybus was dead and that the city of Corinth had asked Oedipus to come and rule there in his place.
“Well, this is wonderful news,” thought queen Jocasta. If Polybus died of natural causes, then the oracle about Oedipus murdering his father is yet another prophecy that will not becoming true. She called Oedipus outside to hear the news, and he did rejoice with her too, until he thought about his mother. “it gives me great comfort to know that my father is dead, odd as that may seem,” he said to Jocasta, “but that’s only one half of the prophecy. I am still afraid to go home because there’s still the part about sleeping with my mother.”
The messenger standing nearby overheard this exchange. He was eager to ease Oedipus’s mind. “You don’t need to worry about that,” he said. “Is this oracle why you stayed away from your home in Corinth? Why you never came back?” “Yes,” said Oedipus. “Well you need not have worried,” said the messenger, “and you can stop now because Polybus and his wife Merope are not your biological parents. I know this because I am the shepherd who brought you to Corinth as an orphaned infant, to give to king Polybus for adoption as he had no children.”
“What?” said Oedipus. “Now tell me exactly how this came to pass.” “One day long ago I was tending my sheep on the mountains when another shepherd came to me carrying a baby with its ankles pin together, and I unpinned and soothed the child and took care of him for a little while, and then had the thought to take him to King Polybus” the messenger said, “who adopted him.” “Hmm. Yes, I have these scars,” said Oedipus.
Was it possible, he thought, that he was a commoner, perhaps even the son of slaves? Well, that would be kind of a relief given all of these dire prophecies and it would not take away from his great deeds. But he needed to know for sure. He needed to know his lineage, however humble. “Who was the other shepherd?” he asked the messenger. “The other man was a servant of Laius, “ he replied.
Oedipus ordered that the shepherd be found and brought forth to testify, but Jocasta was beginning to suspect a terrible truth.” I beg you my husband,” she said, “please don’t seek any more information. We know enough. We’re safe from the prophecies.” “I really want to get to the bottom of this Jocasta,” said Oedipus. “I beg you,” she said, “please humor me and stop questioning.” “What, are you afraid that your honor will be ruined by news that your husband is a slave,” he said. “Nothing can make me other than I am.” “Oh, I wish that you would never discover the truth,” cried Jocasta and she ran back to the palace.
Unperturbed, Oedipus waited for the arrival of the shepherd who handed him off on that mountain years ago. He was brought to Oedipus, who questioned him. “It was a long, long time ago, and my memory is poor,” said the shepherd. “I really don’t think I can help you.” “Maybe being tied to a post or whipped or something like that will jog your memory,” said Oedipus, and finally the man admitted that the child that he handed off to this messenger/shepherd from Corinth did in fact come from the house of Laius. “Was this baby slave born or a child of the king,” asked Oedipus. “He was supposedly a child of the king, but only your wife, the queen really knows,” said the shepherd. “And how is that, did she give the baby to you?” said Oedipus. “Yes,” said the shepherd, “it was Jocasta who gave me the infant and ordered me to kill it.” “But why would a mother do such a thing?” asked Oedipus. “Because,” the shepherd said, “it had been prophesized that the child would kill his father and dishonor his mother. But once they gave me the baby, I pitied the child. And it seemed to me that the prophecy could be avoided just as well if this child were to grow up in a foreign city, far from his two parents. So I passed this baby on to the shepherd in Corinth.”
Oh woe, woe. Now Oedipus understood his true parentage and he was horrified. Screaming that he saw the truth, he ran back into the palace, calling for a sword so that he might kill himself. There he discovered Jocasta, who had run back to the palace bedroom and hung herself. Oedipus, finding her dead, took down the body and pulled the pins from her robe. He stabbed out his own eyes. “I accused the blind prophet,” he cried, “and now I am blind, as I have been blind to the truth about myself.” Weeping and bleeding, he begged to be exiled. “I’ve ruined everything and everyone,” he cried. “I myself am the felon. Oh I must bear the heavy weight of my loathsome crimes and the guilt, the guilt, the terrible guilt.”
He was wailing about how he deserved the very worst when Creon arrived to lead him back into the palace. “I beg you,” said Oedipus, “please, please send me away from Thebes, and after I have gone look after my daughters Antigone and Ismene. They should not have been born into such a cursed family, innocent as they are.” Creon counseled that Oedipus should be kept in the palace until the oracles could be consulted regarding his fate.
And that is the end of Sophocles’ play. Oedipus really goes through the wringer. He finds out that the thing he most feared about himself, that he could be a person who kills his father and sleeps with his mother, is true. Once he gets the message from the oracle on that solitary trip that he makes as a prince of Corinth, well he spends his life running away from the possibility. Ironically, which is the position of Greek tragedy by the way, he literally runs right into it.
And the same is true for us. We can’t escape ourselves. There are a couple of different terms that we use for the fact of this situation. One of them is destiny, which we usually use when we’re talking about something good. We want to live out our destiny. And the other is fate, which is the word that’s commonly used when we’re talking about something bad, like what happens to Oedipus, but they’re the same thing. They both refer to a type of life and a set of possible outcomes that belong to, or follow from, our character.
In the case of Oedipus, one of the things that I notice is his anger. I notice how he rationalizes it. Other people see it for what it is, anger, rage that he doesn’t try very hard to control, but he rationalizes this as just a feature of his objective judgments. I also notice how this anger protects his egoic sense of self as a hero and a good man, and how it prevents reflection. He doesn’t examine. He rushes off head long with the first available self-serving conclusions. Again, referring to that trip that he makes to the oracle by himself, he goes there to discover his parentage. This is his question and yet when he hears the awful news, he doesn’t consider that he may be adopted. He doesn’t know who he is, but as soon as the specter of some awful answer to that appears, he abandons the inquiry.
As I mentioned, the Greeks had these words, “know thyself,” carved over the door at the oracle of Apollo in Delphi and the meaning can be read in various ways. For example, it might mean to know that you are not a god, that there are limits. This is one of the messages in the Greek tragedies, the hero’s fatal flaw is hubris and over reaching ego. Too much pride. When we hear a story like this, it’s easy to see the downside of that, but we can’t forget that that striving and reaching is also one of the things that we most applaud, and one of the messages in a story like this one is that it’s inherent to us. In other words, this long-standing cultural conversation about the balance between free will and fate, the questions about how much an individual can control in life and how much is ordained, was already taking place. So maybe we move too fast if we make the ego or that part of us that has aspirations, that reaches and strives and tries to shape life, the villain. Maybe it’s more complicated than that.
One of the themes repeated in this play, in this myth, is the metaphor of blindness, of being blind in various ways. I think that is worthy of some reflection. In the end, Oedipus is literally blind, but in the character of Tiresias we see that there are other ways of seeing. “Seeing” without literally seeing, seeing what’s hidden, seeing a truth behind the literal, seeing by listening, which is something that we note Oedipus doesn’t do very well. Oedipus persists in various forms of blindness throughout the play. His attachment to facts and finding out who’s at fault, for example, leads him to this ridiculous argument with Creon who has clearly been his loyal colleague and part of his family for years.
And there’s another form of blindness, what we now call attachment; attachment to a particular image of ourselves, which is a way that we fool ourselves. At the beginning of this program I suggested that there’s a deep relationship between mythology and psychology, that mythology is in fact a precursor to psychology, and mythology with all of its various stories and characters gives us this wealth of images and details and so a very complex landscape that we can explore and situate ourselves in. By contrast, the psychological language that we’ve created is fairly limited and stale, but we recognize terms like the “conscious,” the “unconscious,” the “shadow,” the “ego,” and in psychological language we could say that what Oedipus does is: he’s afraid. He’s afraid of what he doesn’t know about himself so he tries to repress all of it, the truth and his desire to know, and this gives rise to an attachment to his “persona,” that is his public face and public actions, and the meaning that he attributes to that persona.
He decides that he, the true Oedipus, is a good king, savior of the people, even hero, husband and father in an orderly lawful civilized kingdom. And there’s truth in that, but it’s not the only truth. This reminds me of a story that I told on this podcast when it was still called Myth in the Mojave, “Abu Kasem’s Slippers.” You can find that on Apple iTunes or Google Play or in the archives on bandcamp. In Abu Kasem’s Slippers, we have a merchant who insists that his stinginess and greed is actually this virtuous thrift. And as a result of that blindness about this quality in his self, he attracts trouble that is his undoing in a similar sort of a way.
Oedipus’s fear about who he might be keeps him from knowing himself, and that fear of knowing leads him to believe that he’s one particular set of things—that he knows “a” self and he only knows “a” self.
Now fear is one common good reason that we have for these attachments. Another deeper one I just alluded to is the belief that “I” is singular. It’s staying in the ego’s determined fantasy to be the only self, the only “me,” the sole seat of consciousness when in fact we are multiples, right? We are infused by all kinds of habitual moods and ways of being. We play many roles and there is a truth and substance to these things. They are real and when we accept this truth, that changes the nature of our inner conversation. It encourages reflection and then we have less investment in the ego and less fear. It’s easier to surrender. It’s easier to know thy self. Bearing in mind this notion of multiple selves.
Let’s make a quick turn to the Greek God Dionysus. Ancient Greek theater was dedicated to the honor of Dionysus and the annual play festivals, if you will, were dedicated to his honor. Now when I bring Dionysus in, you may immediately think of Bacchus, which then may lead you to the image of a degenerate drunk. That is part of our lack of understanding about Dionysus and the gifts and challenges that he brings to us.
Dionysus is the God who introduces us to the world of otherness, who makes us aware of the existence of others and of our connection to the others–that is everything and everyone that is not the ego self, that is not part of our sense of self. Dionysus brings us encounters with these others outside in the world and inside. C.G. Jung said that Dionysus is the archetype that frees us from the tyranny of the ego. As a result, in his connection to the theater, Dionysus is connected to the mask. What he teaches us is that our role-playing and the masks that we wear are not necessarily disguises. They are other aspects of self. So to know Dionysus is to accept our identification with these different masks, which means accepting our own complexity and contradictions.
So what happens to Oedipus? It might seem like he ends up as a kind of pathetic or tragic victim because his heroism is found to be empty, but there are other ways to be a player in the great drama of life. The story as it unfolds in the next play, Oedipus at Colonus— in brief– is this: Oedipus is cast out and wanders for 20 years, a blind beggar. But he’s not alone because his daughter Antigone goes with him, she guides him, she is his companion and they end up in a grove sacred to Dionysus. Over the years Oedipus moved away from the persona of conquering hero and that singular view of self. Through the ongoing presence of Antigone, his awareness of multiple roles is maintained. Yes, he is the man who killed his father and married his mother as prophesized and he is king, hero, father, son, blind man, beggar, brother, old man, all of it. His hubris and his folly are his, as are his honor and humility. And he achieved a kind of contentment as he comes to learn from his pain rather than run from it. And there’s feeling.
The love shared with his daughter and sister Antigone. Compassion for the suffering of all of the people involved, not merely himself. Acceptance and love for all of it–the drama and intensity and heartbreak and joy. To be an actor in your life, to be a participant doesn’t mean that you have to be a hero. That isn’t the only model or pattern with its emphasis on power and control and surmounting. It’s tremendously popular. It has taken over Western culture and yet there is more than one approach. This is the suggestion we get from the God Dionysus and it turns out that the ancient Greeks way back when were also questioning the heroic.
Maybe this story will fuel your own deconstruction of the tyranny of the hero in your life and open up pathways to greater self-knowledge and understanding.
That’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about today’s program. I’m very grateful to all of you who support the program by sharing it, and I’m doubly grateful to those of you who are able to provide some financial support to this podcast. I wanted to give a shout out this week to Maia in Isla Vista who sent me a check. Thank you, Maia. I really appreciate it and thank you for listening.
Please tune in next time and until then, happy myth-making and keeps the mystery in your life alive.
