'With What Eyes': Learning to See Tragically at Colonus
Socrates asks us to
consider two states of the soul that look the same to those who see
someone in them, and that feel the same for someone experiencing
them. A person stumbles and gropes about, because the eyes the soul
are bewildered and can find no familiar object on which to focus, no
anchor of safety on which to rest. It may be that one has stepped
down from the light into darkness. Or it may be that, 'having turned
from darkness to day [one] is dazzled by excess of light' (Republic
7.518). Genuine learning does not happen without disorientation. As
one takes the first steps out into a fuller, bigger, brighter, realer
reality, things turn out not to be what and where you always thought
they were; things that you thought were solid give way when you lean
on them; you bump into objects you didn't know were there, you
stumble about in 'a region of unlikeness'. In extreme cases—which
we all may be headed for—the very ground seems to give way beneath
our feet, and we are suspended flailing in a horrifying free-fall. If
we can bear this state of disorientation, suffer through it, then,
slowly, a new and deeper ground will rise out of the darkness to
support us, things will come into new focus, we will live a different
life, conversant with mysterious realities. We will draw near to
sources of blessing and power to which many are oblivious.
Think of Oedipus at
the beginnings and ends of his two tragedies. At the beginning of
Oedipus Rex he appears an almost god-like figure, hearing the
cries of his people with great-hearted sympathy, poised to become
their savior for a second time. At the end of the play, the ground
has been swept out from under his feet—his life, as he has now
discovered, is not the life he thought it was. The most familiar and
basic realities—mother, father, marriage, home, city, daughters,
sons—turn a countenance of horror toward him which bansishes all
comfort, all stability, all peace from his world. For his
relationship to each of these basic human realities has concealed a
horrible, perverting secret. Most horrible of all, that secret is
somehow he himself, who he is, what he is—and there is nowhere he
can go to escape it. We leave him at the end of the play cast down
from his former serene authority, flailing about in the face of his
fate, his eyes bleeding from self-inflicted wounds—wanting to look
upon the world no longer. Though in an agony more excruciating than
despair, he does 'not choose not to be'. He does not despair. There
is something of the proud and great-hearted king still in him,
something that cannot be beaten into quiet submission and despair. He
suffers a rapture of agony and disorientation, humiliation and shame,
but he goes on. He does not choose not to be. It looks like he has
been plunged in darkness, but could it be he is taking the first
steps 'from darkness to day, dazzled by excess of light'?
At the opening of
Oedipus at Colonus, we see an old man, beggar, vagabond, with
no home or city to call his own, an oucast 'from whom men shrink,'
polluted as he is by incest and parricide. He has suffered twenty
years of hunger, weather, sleeping out of doors—relying on the
charity of strangers—consoled only by the presence of his loving
daughter, on whom he must lean for support and guidance. Instead of
eyes, uncanny pitted hollows gape upon his face. And yet he is
unbowed by all his calamities. In the slow passage of time, he has
achieved an inner quiet in which he takes pride; “suffering and
time, / vast time, have been instructors in contentment, / which
kingliness teaches too,” he says (Colonus, 6-8). At the end of the
play, he exits, not guided or leaning on others, but leading them (as
far as they can follow), by means of an inspired second sight, into
the sacred darkness at the heart of the cosmos, crossing the
threshold of mystery to a place of blessedness, honor, and power into
which heaven or earth, opening with love, receives him. He now sees
aright. He is no longer dazzled by the darkness or excessive light of
reality, but moves through its dimensions with a marvelous liberty
and assurance.
How has he arrived
at this almost god-like condition, so different from that which he
seems to possess at the beginning of Oedipus Rex?
I want to return briefly to what seems to me a crucial turning point
in the first play, one without which the events of the second play
could never have happened. Having realized the full horror of his
actions, Oedipus rushes with wild frenzy into the house, where he
finds his wife Jocasta—whom he now knows as his mother also—swaying
dead from the roof beam. His drawn sword is in his hand. But instead
of taking his life, he drives Jocasta's brooches into first one eye,
then his other. The chorus of Thebes' old men does not understand or
approve: “I cannot say your remedy was good.” they say, “You
would be better dead than blind” (Rex,
1368). But Oedipus defends his action, protesting, “What I have
done here was best done—don't tell me otherwise, do not give
further counsel. I do not know with what eyes I could look upon my
father, when I die and go under the earth, nor yet my wretched mother
...” (Rex, 1370
ff.). This is a sublime response. For one thing, we see that Oedipus
is thinking of the afterlife, the otherworld. Unlike the chorus who
only want to rid the city of pollution, put it away, put it out of
sight, out of mind as fast as possible, Oedipus knows that realities,
the truth of things, cannot simply be dismissed. “I do not know
with what eyes I could look upon my father ...” “With what eyes?”
Not with these eyes
that have deceived me, luring me on to think that evils were goods,
that the monstrous horrors in which I have in fact been snared were
comforting, sweet, and noble relationships. With what eyes, then?
Oedipus's
act of self-mutilation, in fact, is a cry to the gods to grant him an
entirely new way of seeing, a resurrected sight that has passed
through destruction and calamity. In the midst of his darkness, he
grasps upon the seemingly flimsly hope, yet hope nonetheless, that
one day—in the underworld—he will encounter his mother and
father, his children, and be able to see and love them rightly,
though up to now everything has been wrong, wrong, wrong. Moments
later he says, “Yet I know this much: … I would not have been
spared from death, if not for some strange ... fate. Well, let my
fate go where it will” (Rex, 1455).
In
our play for today, Oedipus at Colonus,
the Tragic poet Sophocles, himself at the end of his life, returns to
his most famous and total Tragedy to see it anew, and reflect on what
Tragedy—the work of his life—most really and fully means. What is
it for? In the play, we see various ways of undergoing tragedy
represented by Antigone, Polyneices, and, of course, Oedipus
himself—as well as patterns of witnessing Tragedy, in the responses
of the citizens of Colonus, and the hero Theseus. Creon falls into
both categories, because he thinks he is witnessing a Tragedy when in
fact, through his unfeeling pride, he is falling into one of his own
making (a dire warning for us).
Like
Sophocles, Oedipus has been reflecting on Tragedy. For twenty years
he has been wandering through Greece, in his own inner darkness, led
on by a fate that—as he recognized in the earlier play, “goes
where it will”—all the while reflecting on the Tragic experiences
of his life. As any tired beggar might, the old king sits down to
rest on a kind of natural park bench made of stone within a cool,
dark grove. He does not know that he has stumbled on the grove of the
Furies.
Who
are these august, terrible ladies whose sacred grove he seems to have
violated? They are ancient, primordial goddesses, older than the
Olympians, daughters of that original Night that is at the beginning
of all things. The Night from which light and all things first came
into being, a night pregnant with possibility and mystery, the night
of creation and generation, but also the night of unmaking and
annihliation—a night that remains in background and waits to engulf
us all. The special domain of the Furies, the all-seeing ones, is to
haunt and pursue with calamity those who have committed sacreligous
violations, oath-breach, kin-slaughter, parricide, infanticide,
incest, cannabalism—Oedipus's own life has been well acquainted
with the Furies. Yet they are also called 'the Holy Ones', 'the
Kindly Ones'. In part, these are euphemisms, we call them 'the kindly
ones' because we hope they will be 'kindly' to us. But it's more than
that; for to those who regard them wisely and uprightly (to those who
dwell in sober recognition of possibilities terrible, as well as
possibilities deeply happy), they grant blessings: friendships and
homes and marriages with a fruitful and rich inner life, cities
capable of courageous action and self-defense, reverent communities
who stand in right relation to the divine. These blessings are
represented by the inhabitants of the Furies' grove: in this space of
shelter, protected from the sun, and immune to weather, dwell
clear-running water, blooming flowers, the singing nightingale, the
rooted olive tree 'planted by running streams,' the threshold of the
otherworld, and, in the end, Oedipus' himself.
Oedipus'
life has prepared him to receive the blessings of the Furies. When he
learns from the scandalized citizen of Colonus that he has stumbled
on the Furies' grove, he recognizes a providence in the action: “May
they be gentle to the suppliant. / For I shall never leave this
place” (Colonus,
44-5). This recognition is explained a few lines later in his prayer
to the Furies to let him remain in their covert: “For when [Apollo]
gave me oracles of evil,” he says “he also spoke of this: a
resting place, / after long years, in the last country, where / I
should find a home among the sacred Furies” (Colonus,
87 ff.). His whole life has been leading to this end, as he now sees.
In that very oracle which before seemed to have foretold him only
unspeakable horrors, he finds, after long reflection, a promise of
blessedness. And to the people, the audience that can rightly receive
him and his story—to those who can receive his Tragic wisdom—he
will become a transmitter, a conduit and conductor, of the Furies'
blessings. If we (the audience) reflect on his sufferings with
openness and generosity, with pity and fear and growing
understanding, his sufferings will deepen, strengthen, and bless our
lives.
How
then do we receive these blessed influences? In the citizens of
Colonus and in Theseus, their king, we find a pattern of how to
respond to the Tragic figure. When he first appears in Colonus,
Oedipus seems to the citizens little more than a vagabond, the refuse
of the earth—possibly a petty threat, likely harmless.
Nevertheless, such people, beggars, outcasts, unexpected guests are
protected by the gods—and a good city must try to do what it can
for them. The lone stranger who first meets him challenges him for
tresspassing, yet is courteous and informative, clearly proud of his
little city and Theseus its Athenian King. He is interested in the
stranger and recognizes that there is something out of the ordinary
about him, “You're clearly well-born,” he says, “though
obviously unfortunate” (Colonus, 76). Aristotle tells us
that the tragic hero is someone “better than the average man,
though not preeminently good,” and a person who suffers a terrible
reversal of fortune. While not knowing his story, this citizen
bypasser already senses Oedipus's tragic stature.
Perhaps
because they appear in numbers—and a crowd is never as intelligent
as its individual members—when the whole chorus of the townsfolk appear their response to the stranger is far more extreme,
“Impious, blasphemous, shameless! / ... Not of our land!” they
cry, “... Vagabond! Vagabond!” (Colonus, 120 ff.) They are
indignant at his trespass, but they dread the inhabitants of the
grove that he has made his own, and so fear to remove him forcibly.
When they see him, they are initially struck with pity by his
blindness, and ask him to come down from the grove to give an
account. But, since they fear that he will contaminate them, they
make him remain at a distance, still half in the grove, to speak with
them. They are both attracted by pity and repelled by fear. His very
presence makes them experience contradictory emotions.
But
when they discover who he is, their repulsion is visceral and total.
This is not just fear, but horror. And remember that Oedipus is
horrible. He is polluted, unclean, 'one from whom men shrink'. Not
only does he have monstrous hollows in place of eyes, he married and
lay with his mother in love, re-entering the womb where his father,
whose blood was on his hands, begot him; his sons are his brothers,
his sisters are his daughters--”Away with you! Out with you! Leave
our country!” “Wind not further your clinging evil upon us!”
(Colonus, 226, 235-4)
Only
the beautiful and faithful daughter Antigone, Oedipus' fellow
sufferer, who has given up her life to care for him, manages to waken
their pity again—she pleads with them and helps them see Oedipus
not as grotesque monster, but a helpless man in need. Her eyes of
love intercede with them to have pity on the eyeless father whom she
has loved so selflessly. Such things as happened to Oedipus could
come upon all of us, she says, “You will never see a man in all the
world whom God has led to escape his destiny!” (Colonus,
237-50). This is a fellow human being like you and me—and what
happened to him, could happen to you. The young Saint Francis could
not bear to look upon, much less touch a leper, whose face and flesh
were so horribly disfigured. When he learned to see a fellow human
being in the leper, he took the first steps in the love of God. When
he kissed him, he was flooded with peace and consolation and a new
unshakable stability—and in the end he came to see, in the face of
leper, the face of Christ. Tragedy makes us look at horrors that
overtake and disfigure human life, things we recoil from, would
prefer not to look, possibilities we would prefer not think about. It
is okay, it is natural to feel revulsion (if you haven't felt it,
that means you're repressing it—you will feel it eventually), but we
must overcome that initial reaction and learn to look on monstrous
suffering with kindness and a desire to understand.
Now
the citizen-chorus is evenly poised between pity, fear, and
horror—they can do nothing but listen, while Oedipus tells his
story. He has gained new insight in twenty years, and now he can
boldly insist on his innocence—he did horrible things, but he
thought he was doing good and noble things—how could he have known
otherwise? His horrible acts were things he suffered, not things he
willed and performed. If the citizens of Colonus should add to his
suffering by rejecting him (as the citizens of Thebes have done),
they would commit a great injustice. Gesturing to the dark grove that
looms ominously behind himself, he says, “In reverence to your
gods, grant me this shelter. … Think, their eyes are fixed upon the
just, fixed on the unjust, too” (Colonus, 275 ff.). With the
Furies behind him, he warns them, “that he is one endowed with
powers beyond nature” (Colonus, 287-6). Hearing this, the
chorus allow that his is a weighty case, one that they are in no
position to judge; they are content to wait until their King arrives.
As
they wait, sitting and watching the blind Oedipus, their wonder and
their curiosity grows. Though still in horror, they are no longer in
shock—and their horror has been softened a bit by pity and awe.
After a long silence, they address Oedipus again, with gently probing
curiosity, “What evil things have slept since long ago, It is not
sweet to awaken, and yet I long to be told ...” (Colonus,
510 ff.) Line by line, they draw his story out from him. This
exchange is painful for him, and he suffers the old pain again in
having it teased out in the open like this. And yet, to share it with
a sympathetic audience is also healing. “You suffered” “Yes
unspeakbaly” “You sinned!” “No! I did not sin! … Before the
law—before God!--I am innocent!” We would like the sufferer to be
guilty, because then we could separate himself off from us in our
minds and hearts—we could pity him, yes, but from a position of
superiority and immunity, in which we do not really enter into his
fate with genuine compassion. Yet, bit by bit, these defences we
throw up to seal ourselves off from the suffering creature, must be
worn away, undermined, and we must see feelingly that we too are
vulnerable to Tragedy. If we do not, we can neither truly see our
world, or love each other genuinely, or act in it effectively—we
will always be shying away from, resisting the truth of our lives. If
you hide from the truth, the eyes of your soul will grow blind, your
world will grow dim; within its blankets of self-protection, your
heart will slowly, surely die. Watching a tragedy helps us be
vulnerable and open to the action of the truth. And the truth will
set you free.
The
chorus is opening itself to this truth when Theseus appears to show
and teach them (and us) how finally to respond to the Tragic hero.
Theseus himself is a hero, he has battled down bandits, robbers, and
cruel outlaws. Though he himself was born in another city, he freely
took Athens' curse upon himself, delivered himself up into the
labyrinth, did battle with the horrifying Minotaur in the darkness,
prevailed, and so saved the city. Such a man has undergone himself
the depths of privation and uncertainty. Such a man fears nothing.
Nothing can unsettle him beacause he has given himself to his mission
so totally. He has left behind natural, self-protective impulses and
has made a venture, a gift of himself. He knows there are dangers,
and that victory and hapinness are not certain in our mortal life.
Because he does not hide from reality, he can act in accord with it.
He sees right. He acts decisively.
Even
if on my way I was not informed,
I'd
recognize you, son of Laius. The garments
and
the tortured face make plain your identity.
I
am sorry for you. And I should like to know what favor here
you
hope for from the city and from me. …
Tell
me. It would be something dire indeed
To
make me leave you comfortless, for I
too
was an exile. I grew up abroad,
And
in strange lands I fought as few men have
with
danger and with death.
Therefore
no wanderer shall come, as you do,
and
be denied my audience and aid.
I
know I am only a man; I have no more
To
hope for in the end than you have. (Colonus, 553 ff.)
Theseus
alone will see the mysterious end of Oedipus. It takes place
off-stage and neither we nor the citizens of Colonus (who stand in
for us in the play) are given this final vision. Yet we hear
something of it, and can receive something of its mysterious
blessing.
But in what manner
Oedipus perished,
no one of mortal men
Could tell but
Theseus. It was not lightning
Bearing its fire
from God, that took him off;
No hurricane was
blowing.
But some attendant
from the train of Heaven
Came for him; or
else the underworld
Opened in love the
unlit door of Earth.
For he was taken
without lamentation,
Illness or
suffering; indeed his end
Was wonderful if
mortal’s ever was. (Colonus, 1655 ff.)
Even Theseus, who
alone beholds this mystery, shades his eyes 'as if from something
awful, fearful and unendurable to see' (1650 ff.). If we want to be
prepared for an experience of the-more-than-human, the
more-than-natural, if we want to have hearts open to God, we must be
open to the wisdom of tragedy, we must create a place within our
minds, hearts, and cities to behold and dwell upon imgaes of the
utmost suffering to which our human state is vulnerable. We must
learn to see with clear and steady eyes of compassion. We must love
the sufferer that we meet even as we love ourselves, and in doing so,
we will recognize that we too are balanced precariously over an abyss
of possiblities, terrible, horrible some of them, and some of them
filled with divine blessing beyond what our minds can conceive.
Let us retrace the
reactions and responses of the people of Colonus to the Tragic figure
of Oedipus, and internalize their succession and pattern, so that we
can receive the same education in Tragedy that they do.
We challenge the
stranger courteously, and see that he seems like a noble man who has
undergone some nameless misfortune. Since he trespasses in places
that we would fear to tread, we are indignant and afraid of him—we
would like to write him off as a trespassing vagabond, and get the
proper authorities to take him away. But when we are reminded, by one
who loves and cares for him, that he is suffering something that we
could suffer too, we feel pity once more, and sit to hear the story.
Yet when we recognize the deep horror of his experience, we recoil
once more and more deeply, frantically wishing that this monster be
removed from our experience, yet dreading to do so ourselves for fear
of becoming contaminated or committing a terrible injustice. So we
sit and wait, helplessly poised between pity, fear, horror, and an
almost religious awe, and as we sit, we eventually grow quiet within,
and quietly looking on, we see another human being once more, and are
moved by curiosity and wonder, ready now to hear and imagine his
story more inwardly, putting ourselves in his place, acknowledging
that we are no position either to judge the suffferer or to seal off
our world from his. Suddenly, the possibilties of our world are
opened, deepened—life is more dangerous but also resonates with
divine voices. Now, we are ready to follow Theseus, the hero who
generously makes the lot of suffering humanity his business, and
receives the blessing of Oedipus for himself and his people.
