Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Q83MYTH Greek Mythology: lecture 4 The Theban Cycle 1 Foundation Hesiod Catalogue of Women (cf. Apollonius Argonautica 1.735ff) ‘Of Zethos and Amphion. Hesiod and some others relate that they built the walls of Thebes by playing on the lyre.’ Euripides Heracles 29ff ‘Before the sons of Zeus, those white-horsed charioteers Amphion and Zethus, ruled this city of seven bastions, the throne was held by one Lycus, husband of Dirce.’ Pindar Pythian 3.88ff The Muses sang at the wedding of Cadmus & Harmonia in Thebes; the gods feasted them & gave wedding gifts. Hdt. 2.145 ‘From the birth of Dionysus, son of Semele, daughter of Cadmus, to the present day is a period of about 1000 years only; from Heracles the son of Alcmena, about 900 years...’ Early kingship Euripides Bacchae (405BC) Dionysus arrives in Thebes disguised as a mortal. Cadmus has handed kingship to his grandson Pentheus, who forbids the worship of D. C and Teiresias dress up in bacchic gear and join the Maenads on Cithaeron; P is enraged and has D arrested. But he causes an earthquake and breaks free, and persuades P to spy on the bacchants, including his mother Agave. P dresses up as a woman and hides in a pine tree, but D betrays him and the Maenads uproot the tree and tear him to pieces. C returns with the body and A recognises her dead son. D prophesies the sack of Thebes, the exile of A and her sisters, and the transformation to snakes and immortalisation of C and Harmonia. 1 Pindar Olympian 2.38-40 ‘...from that day when his fated son met and killed Laios and fulfilled the oracle declared long ago at Pytho.’ The House of Labdacus Homer, Odyssey 11.271ff ‘I saw the beautiful Epikaste, Oidipodes’ mother, who in the ignorance of her mind had done a monstrous thing when she married her own son. He killed his father and married her, and the gods soon made it all known to mortals. But he, for all his sorrows, in beloved Thebes continued to be lord over the Kadmeians, while she went down to Hades of the gates, the strong one, knotting a noose and hanging sheer from the high ceiling...’ [Cinaethon] Oedipodeia Oedipus’ children were born to Euryganea...Sphinx’s riddle: ‘there is on earth a two-footed and four-footed creature with a single voice, and three-footed, changing its form alone of all creatures that move in earth, sky, or sea. When it walks on the most legs, then the strength of its limbs is weakest’...Sphinx devoured Haemon. Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus (429-20BC) Oedipus is king in Thebes and married to Jocasta, widow of Laius. A plague strikes the city, so O sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to Delphi for an oracle. The Thebans must banish or kill L’s murderer to lift the curse. They send for the seer Teiresias, who, after trying to refuse, tells O that he is L’s killer. He is angry and accuses T of conspiracy with C to take the throne. J intervenes, citing the unreliability of oracles – L received one that he would be killed by his own son, and look what happened. A servant who witnessed the killing is sent for. O fears he may be the killer after all – after receiving an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother, he fled from Corinth and quarrelled with a man on the road, killing him. As J prays, a messenger arrives with the news that Polybus, O’s father, is dead – but that he was not his father after all. O is a foundling, received by the messenger from L’s servant as an exposed baby. J realises the truth and exits; the servant arrives, and he and the messenger realise O was not only the exposed baby, but also the murderer...J hangs herself and O blinds himself with her brooch-pins, and begs to be cast out of the land. C confines him until the god’s will is revealed. 2 Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus (401BC?) After many years, Oedipus is exiled from Thebes. He and his daughter, Antigone, arrive at Colonus near Athens and take shelter in the grove of the Eumenides. He explains to the Chorus that his presence will bless the city. His other daughter, Ismene, arrives with the news that his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, have rebelled against Creon’s regency and each other, and that E has cast out P, who has gone to Argos to raise an army. Theseus, king of Athens, grants O sanctuary, but C arrives to bring him home – an oracle has confirmed that he must be buried at the border of Thebes to prevent war with Athens. O refuses and curses C and Thebes, but C kidnaps the girls and tries to force him before Th rescues them. P arrives and begs for help – he has an oracle that says victory may be granted by O’s patronage. O refuses – his sons did nothing to prevent his banishment – and curses P. A thunderbolt summons O to his death, and he exits to die in secrecy, becoming a benevolent protector of Athens against Thebes. His daughters ask to be returned home. Bibliography: W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, Cambridge MA 1982, pp. 106-114. L. Edmunds, Oedipus: The Ancient Legend and its Later Analogues, Baltimore 1985, esp. pp.1-57. W. Hansen, Classical Mythology: A Guide to the Mythical World of the Greeks and Romans, Oxford 2004, pp. 247-49, 297-99. T. Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore 1993/1996, pp. 467-530. J. R. March, The Creative Poet: Studies of the Treatment of Myths in Greek Poetry, BICS Supplement 49, London 1987, pp.119-54 (good collation of sources but tends to make sweeping assumptions; read with care). F. I. Zeitlin, ‘Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama’, in J. J. Winkler, & F. I. Zeitlin (eds.) Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social Context, Princeton 1990, pp. 130-67. 3