The Seven Basic Plots - Christopher Booker [378]
By this point Oedipus has come to suspect that he himself might have been Laius's killer, but has no idea yet that Laius was his father. But then comes the second stage, when Oedipus recalls Jocasta saying her husband had been killed by a whole gang of robbers, and that there had been a witness, a shepherd, who escaped. Confirming this, Jocasta brightens. A fig for this divination, she cries, and sends for the man to repeat his story. First, however, a messenger arrives from Corinth, to announce that Polybus has died a natural death. Oedipus is ecstatic. No longer need he worry about the oracle's prediction that he would kill his father. However, the messenger, only trying to reassure him further, then gives Oedipus the shattering news that Polybus had not been his father anyway. He, the messenger, knew this, because it was he himself who had handed over Oedipus to Polybus as a baby. He had been given the child by one of Laius's servants, the very shepherd now on his way to the court. At this Jocasta finally realises the truth and screams in horror that Oedipus must abandon his search. But saying `I must pursue this trail to the end, he brutally waves her aside. `Oh lost and damned' she cries, leaving the stage. `This is my last and only word to you forever!'
By this point Jocasta can see the whole truth of what has happened, but Oedipus is still blind to his true parentage. Thus begins the third stage, when the shepherd arrives to provide the clinching evidence. He had been ordered to kill the baby, he reveals, because an oracle had foretold that King Laius would be killed by his son. The baby was Laius's own, and he had not had the heart to leave it to die, so he had passed it to this man from Corinth. The icy fear that has been creeping up on Oedipus finally closes round his heart. `Oh light' he cries, `never may I look on you again'.
With this third revelation the whole truth is out, and we then hear it reported what this has led to offstage. Oedipus has rushed distracted into the palace to confront Jocasta, only to find her swinging from the rope with which she has killed herself. He has snatched down one of the gold brooches on her dress and driven its point repeatedly into his eyeballs until his face streams with blood. None of this, of course, has been shown directly, but we then see the state to which it has reduced Oedipus. He stumbles blindly back out into the sunlight, expressing total horror at how he has been guilty of `all human filthiness in one crime compounded'. He wishes for nothing but death, to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
At this point Creon enters, to take charge. He makes clear he has not come to reprove Oedipus for his misdeeds. He rejects Oedipus's plea that he should be instantly banished. He has already called for Oedipus's two young daughters, Antigone and Ismene, and Oedipus pleads with Creon to look after them, since with so cursed a father, no one will ever want to marry them. As Oedipus turns back towards the palace, his arms round the girls, Creon orders that they must stay behind. Oedipus protests, but Creon insists: `command no more. Obey. Your rule is ended: The chorus points the moral by observing how `this was Oedipus, the greatest of men; he held the key to the deepest mysteries and was envied by all men for his great prosperity'. But `no one can be called happy until that day when he carries his happiness down to the grave in peace'.
Thus ends the mighty drama which Coleridge described as `one of the three most perfect plots ever planned' and which Aristotle, in the Poetics, mentions more often than