Ordinary People Under the Oracle: How does King Oedipus make contemporary people aware of and face fate?

Reporter | Intern Shen Lu Edit | Pan Wenjie Huang Yue

In March 2020, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that COVID-19 could be called a global pandemic. In fact, the theme of plague has long appeared in ancient Greek drama. The King of Oedipus begins with the plague in the city of Thebes, and in 430 BC, when the Athenian tragedy writer Sophocles's Oedipus King was staged, Athens was suffering from the worst plague in history. When the epidemic comes, human beings have to face the challenges of nature and rethink the fate of individuals under the influence of the epidemic.

What does the tragedy of Oedipus's fate have for us who face disaster today? A few days ago, in a game called "Who Am I?" In the activity of "Know Yourself in the Classical World", Luo Jinlin, a contemporary director and artist and former vice president of the Central Academy of Drama, Yin Yali, director of the Greek Research Center and diplomat of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, and Luo Tong, a scholar of Sino-Greek cultural exchanges and independent director, talked about the drama "Oedipus King", starting from ancient Greece, and discussed how contemporary people should understand and face fate.

The tragedy of Oedipus in the play mainly revolves around the oracle of Apollo who "killed the father and married the mother". Because Apollo, the son of Zeus, facilitated Zeus's contact with man, the position of Apollo's oracle in the hearts of the Greeks was unshakable. For the unknowable future, human beings always have the hope of seeking peace of mind in miracles. Therefore, Yin Yali believes that for the ancient Greeks, the oracle was not only a harbinger of the future, but also a spiritual pillar that unites people's hearts. The oracle itself, however, is often ambiguous, depending on the listener's interpretation. For example, Yin Yali said that according to records, a general from ancient Greece came to Delphi to pray for the oracle before a march, and the priest said that the oracle of Apollo indicated that "you will stand out and be carried back", and the general was full of confidence, thinking that he would return triumphantly on this expedition and be carried back surrounded by people. As a result, in the war, the general was unfortunately killed in battle and was "carried back" in another way.

In this regard, Luo Tong pointed out that delphi's oracle had clearly stated that it was the hardest thing to know yourself. Apollo once said: Man, before you enter the apse to pray for the answer to your question, you must first recognize yourself, read yourself, figure out your situation, needs, and abilities, and discern who you really are, so that my oracle will be beneficial to you. When believers deviate from their understanding of themselves, they cannot properly understand the oracle of Apollo. In King Oedipus, the first words of the Thebes king Creon after his return from the temple of Apollo are: "All embarrassing things will become good if they are carried in the right direction." But the crux of the matter is, what exactly is the "right direction"?

Fu Shouxiang, a postdoctoral fellow in art at the Communication University of China, once said in the article "The Modernity of the Theme of Destiny and the Spirit of Tragedy" that the enveloping of irrational original desires and the blind spot of one-sided rationality are the root causes of human nature that cause Oedipus to deviate from the so-called "right direction". The author argues that the Apollo oracle runs through the entire play from beginning to end, and Apollo himself never appears in the story, so what really contributes to the realization of the oracle is the every behavioral choice of the person involved. Why didn't Oedipus notice the age difference from the queen at the beginning? Why did the queen ignore Oedipus's obvious swollen feet? Why did Oedipus, who succeeded to the throne, have no doubt about the deeds and causes of death of the old king, and did not start an investigation until after the outbreak of the plague? Even the queen, under Oedipus's questioning, had already guessed about the oracle and would plead bitterly. Both sides consciously or unconsciously ignored the possible omens and stepped into the river of destiny. If all this is interpreted as human ignorance, then the tragedy of Oedipus's fate actually comes from the blinding of desire in the human subconscious, and because it is subconscious, it is "innocent". As Belgaev analyzed, "Man deceives not only others, but also himself." ”

Fu Shouxiang saw that the arrogance and persistence of self-rationality also invisibly hindered Oedipus from knowing himself. In Corinth, Oedipus took the initiative to respond to the curse of the oracle; later, when confronted with the mystery of the Sphinx, "an animal with four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs at night; the legs are at their most incompetent", he solved the mystery of "man" with superhuman observation and judgment, but he only guessed that the answer to the puzzle was "man", but he was unable to dig deeper into "what man is" from beginning to end, let alone contemplate the self. Faced with the Prophet's refusal to say the true murderer of the old king, he angrily mocked the Prophet as the creator of all evil; in the face of his wife Iokaste's pleas, begging him not to pursue it any further, he dismissively thought that the queen was merely worried that his possible lowly status would affect her nobility. He turns a blind eye to the attitudes of those around him and turns a deaf ear to the opinions of others, always following his own reason and judgment, but moving closer to the end of the oracle.

Nevertheless, in the face of the second revelation of the truth, Oedipus's choice still provides spiritual support for the reader. When he couldn't choose the ending, at least he chose his posture of facing the ending. In Luo Jinfeng's view, Oedipus was the tragedy of his fate because he failed to go in the right direction, but this is also the greatness of Oedipus. His attachment to the truth is not only for individual considerations, but also for the pressure of finding the source of the plague and the collective responsibility of saving the city-state. The ancient Greeks believed that the most painful thing for people was blindness, and after learning everything, he resolutely decided to goug out his blind eyes, punish himself and exile himself, rather than using death to escape his guilt. "Humanity needs the spirit to write its own trajectory heroically in the face of a doomed end." In this sense, King Oedipus is worthy of a "perfect tragedy."

Borrowing from Aristotle's definition of tragedy in Poetics, Luo jinlin pointed out that tragedy is an imitation of serious, complete, and certainly important behavior, designed to cause pity or fear. What kind of plot will inspire the audience to feel pity and fear? Aristotle believed that mercy arises from unhappiness that should not be, and that fear stems from misfortune that people like us do. In King Oedipus, the tragedy of Oedipus lies not in the inherent evil of human nature, but in the mistakes committed unconsciously by man, who, like thousands of viewers, is just an ordinary man under the oracle.

Precisely because the drama never depicts individual people, but human behavior, the audience has the opportunity to reflect on their own virtues, the truth, goodness, beauty and false evil and ugliness of people through the people in the play, and this is the function of the drama - Aristotle called "katharsis". Luo Jinlin believes that Katasis is the mission of directing the drama, and the audience's emotions are vented, the soul is purified, the sentiment is cultivated, and the human spirit is sublimated in the process of watching the drama.

To this day, human beings' self-inquiry has never stopped, which is one of the reasons why ancient Greek dramas have been able to resonate with viewers through thousands of years. At the end of the event, a male audience member surnamed Hu said that he had just become a father, and he named his son Ah You, which is a transliteration of who are you, "Under the influence of the epidemic, my life is now at a crossroads, and I also hope that my son can recognize himself in the future." ”

Resources:

1. (Ancient Greece) by Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Chen Zhongmei. The Commercial Press.1996.7.

2. Classics of Ancient Greek Tragedy. Translated by Luo Niansheng. Beijing:Writers Publishing House.1998.]

3. Fu Shouxiang. King Oedipus: The Modernity of the Theme of Fate and the Spirit of Tragedy[J].World Literature Review, 2006(01):232-237.