Justice and Death in Sophocles

Justice and Death in SophoclesAuthor(s): L. S. ColchesterSource: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1942), pp. 21-28Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/636719 .

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JUSTICE AND DEATH IN SOPHOCLESI REGARDED aesthetically the Oedipus Coloneus is unsatisfactory. The plot is episodic, consisting of a series of incidents which, except that they involve a single hero, and are derived from the previous history of that hero or his ancestors, are unrelated. That is to say, while Sophocles has in all his other plays combined the two to perfection, he has here given his content precedence over his art. The aim of this paper is to consider one or two aspects of that subject-matter, which seemed to him to be so important.

I In all his extant plays Sophocles, like the author of Job, is trying to find the

solution to the problem of evil and its relation to the Deity.2 Far from preaching 'a pious resignation to God's will as inscrutable and inevitable ',3 he is endeavouring to explore the whole problem of divine retribution, developing it from the same starting-point as Aeschylus. Sophocles' Zeus has been analysed as a composition of three different conceptions: (a) the old Homeric god, (b) the god of the Athenians of his day, (c) a supreme deity of truth and justice.* Sophocles' reason and senti- ment united in visualizing the deity as the tast (c), while experience pointed to the arbitrary and hostile interference of a tyrannical god. And so he put into the mouths of his characters expressions denouncing the gods as the authors of evil. The Chorus in the Philoctetes exclaim,

o 7TraaLzLac OWV,S

and Neoptolemus,

ovs)v irotrbwv OavpLaarov 4ldO? OEicl yap, EC7TEp Kay)TC 9 pOVW3,

KaC ia 7ra"ara

KECa rpZv

S ai3rv 7

rr dpao'qOvOS XPvS T ,

Kac vrv

a 'roVwi

&IXa KrJsE/1Ovwv,

oVK EO dLs od O OEv ToV /aLEAE

toy i~L rIpdOTEpov rdvs' d7l Tpola TEjvaC 7• Oa~V dTaOE •r "4-xg (,6

I must acknowledge my indebtedness to the Editors and to Mr. W. F. J. Knight of University College, Exeter, for their kind and helpful criti- cism. I should perhaps say that army life pre- vents me from dealing more fully with several points which require more adequate treatment; and a number of references must pass unchecked.

2 I cannot subscribe to the views of some distinguished scholars who do not regard So- phocles as a thinker. Dr. J. T. Sheppard has shown in the Introduction to his edition of the Tyrannus, pp. xxv, etc., that he actually ran counter to the popular notions of his day with regard to sin, guilt, and retribution. Sophocles does not consider Oedipus guilty of the parricide and incest, because they were committed un- wittingly and innocently (v. infra, p. 22, n. 2); but he is guilty of his own self-inflicted injuries, because they were perpetrated consciously, even if under extenuating circumstances. To advance deliberately upon a contemporary code is not

the act of a man who never thought. I submit that whereas Aeschylus supplied an

answer in the Oresteia and presumably in the Prometheia, and Euripides ends every one of his plays on a mark of interrogation, Sophocles leaves all the questions unanswered until in the O.C. he answers not only the problem of Oedipus, the greatest conflict of all, but also that of Philo- ctetes, Electra, and the rest.

a G. M. Sargeaunt, Classical Studies, London, 1929, p. 123.

4 Evelyn Abbott, Hellenica,2 1898, p. 31. This applies equally, I think, toApollo and the rest: the idea of 'Deity' is apparent in Sophocles. 'Often, instead of naming any special deity, the poet speaks vaguely of Oo'dE, d Ods, Oeol, 8ail wov -words which seem to be used, without much difference of meaning, for the divine power; but which have the effect of emancipating us entirely from the old mythology' (ibid. 41).

s Soph. Phil. '77. 6 Ibid. 191.



22 L. S. COLCHESTER

and Philoctetes, rrov XP~T 'lEac -aa, roD a' awvEwv, orav 7dGL~cvTO1J~ EV Ep Ka•KOVS ;I

To Zeus and Apollo Sophocles appears, not unnaturally, to attach the blame in particular: the one being father of gods and men, the other lord of the Delphic oracle,2 which is of no little importance in the plots of Sophocles. So Hyllus concludes,

tLEydahovS ptzv 1o80a vovs Oavcdrovs,

noAA& ~E nT •Tra KaL KaLvoraG7.

KO2)"EV rto!Wv I •7 ZE4S.3

Apollo is responsible for Orestes' matricide:

KaAw~s, 'Arro'AAwv EL KaAw~s E'GE'U~TLUEv.4

And Oedipus exclaims, 'AnOcA~wv Ta~ 'j~v, 'Arn?A~v, t~lioL, d KaKa KaKa rTEXAV EtLc• ErI' qa TarOEa.5

Such was the logical position for Sophocles, but one which he was unwilling to accept: while protesting with all his vigour against God, his whole being is craving to embrace God. And so, much as Euripides did, he treats the notions with which he most wants to find fault by exposing them without comment to the consideration of his audience. It is because of this that he has been interpreted as unreservedly a believer in the established order, who accepted without question any iniquities the gods might choose to commit.

II

In the Oedipus Coloneus Sophocles finds at last the solution to his problem. Misfortunes are heaped upon Oedipus: so far the play is probably the most terrible that the poet wrote. It has reached a climax in the angry scene between the aged father and his son; and, in a passion, father curses son. And then comes the solution: the culminating point in the life of Oedipus; the culminating point in the life of Sophocles.

'And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.'6 Just that. Oedipus, despite his offences and his apparently Heaven-sent calamities, is beloved of the Gods: Zeus and Apollo, the very gods who before appeared so hostile,7 confer

x Soph. Phil. 451. 2 Evelyn Abbott tried to show that, although

oracles have caused repeated catastrophes in Sophocles, not they but the persons themselves have been the true cause of their calamity. He observes that although the oracle foretold Oedi- pus' parricide and incest, Oedipus is, in fact, guilty, because 'o0i0' dp6v, oi0"' lacrop6v he slays a man in his haste and takes to wife the queen of Thebes' (Hellenicaz, p. 39). But Oedipus had no reason to doubt that Polybus and Merope were his parents, nor cause to abstain from marriage altogether, or from avenging an insult, especially in self-defence (OC. 992-5). Cf. Schol. OC. 960: T. OVTL d OItwovS, EL

'LS cKpL•WS, 3.d7f~oL, catKOS ILEV OVK EaT LV, ~7tV)7S SE Kai 7TEpL7TaO7js.

3 Trach. 1276.

* El. 1424.

s OT. 1329. 6 Genesis, v. 24.

SThere is another reconciliation of opposites apparent in Sophocles' use of thunder. Thunder and tempest are important poetical symbols of tragedy and evil, as has been well shown by Prof. G. Wilson Knight, The Shakespearian Tempest, London, 1932, and elsewhere. The most obvious uses of it occur in King Lear, Macbeth, the Gospel account of the Crucifixion (observe that Bach has made the Thunder and Lightning the central feature of the S. Matthew Passion), and, in Greek Tragedy, the PV. and Hippolytus.

In Lear Shakespeare uses Tempest in the same way as Sophocles uses Thunder. Tempest- Thunder ordinarily symbolizes evil and cata- strophe, but in Lear the tempest is kind in comparison with man's cruelty. This shows that the symbol may be 'equivalent to its opposite in the sense that any contrast is a comparison ', In the OC. the Chorus tremble at the thunder,



JUSTICE AND DEATH IN SOPHOCLES 23

the ultimate reward of some special sort of personal immortality; for he, like Arthur and Elijah, is transported to another life, without passing through the intermediate stage of death.

III

Such has always been my reading of the play; but as many editors suppose that Oedipus died an ordinary death, if under strange circumstances, it appears to be necessary to argue the point. I think that Rohde' shows convincingly that no other interpretation is possible than that he is transported below in the same manner as Amphiaraus. Oedipus knows beforehand that the end of his life on earth is near, and supposes that he will die; similarly the messenger takes it for granted that he died:2 but Theseus, who is the only one to know the facts of the case, uses no word signifying death.

It is evident that the cult of Oedipus owes much to Sophocles. There is little evidence for his survival at Colonus; and it is possible that the cult of him as a hero at Colonus is as much due to this play as Farnell supposes his cult on the Areopagus to be.3 Jebb observes without documentation that 'the connexion of Oedipus with Colonus was no invention of Sophocles. He found the local legend existing, and only gave it such form as should harmonize it with his own treatment of the first chapter in the Oedipus-myth.'4 No associations of Oedipus and Colonus occur in early writers;s and the only mention of an Oedipus-cult which is in any way reliable is in Herodotus,6 where, in obedience to an oracle, the Aegeidae established at Thera a temple to the furies of Laius and Oedipus. The Aegeidae came from Thebes, where, so far as is known, no Oedipus-cult existed' and he was still regarded 'as a mortal king of tragic history '.8 Farnell dismisses the account of his grave in the shrine of the Semnae on the Areopagus as 'probably an Attic fiction inspired by the Attic drama '.9 Schneidewin,'o in search of an origin of the myth employed by Sophocles, is obliged to suppose the existence of an unknown family cult to which the native poet brought general recognition.

With so many scholars endeavouring to trace an origin for the cult and finding none, we must conclude that the survival of Oedipus was invented by the poet to express his belief in a complete retribution during a future life. Notions concerning any form of after-life were at this time in Greece, except among the initiates of Eleusis, the Orphics, and the Pythagoreans, undeveloped and arbitrary.I

anticipating some great disaster; but instead it symbolizes the release of Oedipus from his earthly misfortunes. The suspense of the Athenian audience must have been as great as it was for the Chorus: for they too, as when they witnessed the PV., must have expected some still greater calamity, if such were possible, to befall Oedipus.

The similarities of Lear to the OC. have been well noticed by Prof. Ettore Bignone in Dioniso, Bollettino dell' Instituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, Syracuse, v. 1936, 154 ff.

x E. Rohde, Psyche, English tr., London, 1925,

p. 455, note 112. 2 Rohde, ibid., thinks that the Messenger also

refuses to admit that Oedipus has died. 3 L. R. Farnell, Greek Hero Cults and Ideas of

Immortality, Oxford, 1921, pp. 333-4. 4 R. C. Jebb, OC., Cambridge, 1928, p. xxvi. s Cf. Pausanias, i. 30. 4, who himself did not

believe Sophocles' version to be founded on fact, i. 28. 7; Apollodorus, iii. 5; Aristides, 'YTrp 7.v ETrdpPwVJ, p. 284 (ii. 230 Dindorf). Schneidewin, in the introduction to his edition of the OC., 9th ed., Berlin, 1909, p. 6, says: 'Pausanias sah bei Kolonos ein 7jpov des Oedipus; doch auch dies ki6nnte seine Griindung der sophokleischen Dichtung verdanken.'

6 Herodotus, iv. 149. 7 Farnell, Greek Hero Cults, p. 332. 8 Ibid., p. 334. 9 Ibid.

1o OC., ed. Schneidewin, p. 6. "I If anyone would object that this interpreta-

tion gives an expression of the 'miraculous' which is foreign to Greek thought or to the con- ventions of the drama (e.g. the deus ex machina), let him'reflect that those eyeballs which were lacerated with brooches regained their vision.



24 L. S. COLCHESTER

IV

It is desirable to discover whether this play has any other elements which are appropriate to the Mysteries, and to what extent Sophocles simply accepted as dogma the teaching of the Mystery religions on the 'loving-kindness of the divine power after death '.' He is known to have been keenly interested in the Mysteries and to have frequently used mystic formulae in the plays and fragments. He was even acknowledged as a Hero after his death, and was worshipped at the foot of the Areopagus under the name of AE•twv, in acknowledgement of his reception of the god Asclepius.2 It would not, then, be extraordinary to discover that he has employed either the form or the matter of mystical celebrations in his dramas. Professor George Thomson has shown in his magnificent edition of the Oresteia to what an extent allusions to the mysteries are made by Aeschylus.3 Owing to the strict secrecy observed, we should not expect to find in the drama all the details contributed by nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship and research, but only such information as was familiar to, and employed by, classical authors.* Such references are few: they are mostly idealized generalities, used figuratively. But such is the form in which they would be most likely to appear in Tragedy.

In the Oedipus Coloneus Oedipus is represented as a wanderer: the references to his wanderings, the hardships endured through them, and the duration of them are numerous. He conforms here to the archetype of 'guilt-haunted wanderers ':s he is a parallel figure to Cain, the Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew, and many others. It is desirable, therefore, to discover why wandering should be so universally regarded as expiation for guilt. The resemblance between the Waste Land of Arthurian legend and the land of Thebes devastated by the Sphinx at the beginning of the Tyrannus has been observed.6 But Oedipus the Wanderer also corresponds to the seeker for the Grail: the analogy of Oedipus to the hero of the Parsifal legend leads one to suppose that this wandering is similar to, and perhaps identical with, that of initiation ceremonies.' So Thomsons and Tierney9 identify the wanderings of Orestes with the wanderings of the not yet initiated.

An examination of details peculiar to initiation ceremonies will show to what extent this applies to Oedipus. Passages in Plato, Themistius (pseudo-Plutarch), and Aristophanes'0 provide the following summary of the ceremony in the 1EAE-

0r)pLov :

x Hyperides ap. Stobaeus, 4, p. 134, Meineke; quoted and translated by Farnell, Greek Hero Cults, p. 392.

2 Farnell, op. cit., p. 259 and iefs. on p. 423; P. Foucart, Les Mystires d'Eleusis, Paris, 1900oo, p. 319.

3 In his latest book, Aeschylus and Athens, London, 1941, he traces the whole development of Tragedy from the ceremonies of initiation.

4 Or perhaps as Professor Thomson suggests (Aeschylus and Athens, p. 123): 'The main reason why our evidence for the actual content of the Eleusinian Mysteries is so slight is probably not that the secrets were so well kept, but that they were so well known. The habitual and casual familiarity with which such writers as Aeschylus and Plato allude to these matters pre- supposes in their public a general and intimate knowledge.'

s Maud Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry,

London, 1934, 55 ff. 6 C. B. Lewis, Classical Mythology and Arthu-

rian Romance, Oxford, 1932, P. 283. 7 Cf. W. F. J. Knight, Cumaean Gates, Oxford,

1936, passim. 8 George Thomson, Mystical Allusions in the

Oresteia, JHS. Iv, 1935, 25 ff. 9 Michael Tierney, The Mysteries and the

Oresteia, JHS. Ivii, 1937, 17 ff. 1o Full refs. are given in Farnell, Cults of the

Greek States, Oxford, 1896-1909, 11iii. 355-6. In what follows no rite is claimed specifically for either the Eleusinian or the Orphic mysteries. When so many elements are common to both, and our knowledge of either is so meagre, there seems to be no point here in making distinctions. Sophocles is known to have participated in both, and so his allusions to the Mysteries might presumably be generalized.




I. WANDERING : nAcivo& 7id ?rrp3i-a Kal 7rEp&SpoLaL KoroJecs.1

oXtoL 'E KaL

re•pedsovs roAAds.2 II. TERROR:

"id ELVd rravra, ApLK77 Kal Trpo4LoS KaL Lpcd KaL 6cc

" s.o

Trrproflv tjLL •:•PLE KTL

TY TOTv 7d.E

V1rTAOrEV a7cp, EL4aT.rJV.4

III. BRIGHT LIGHT:

dEK SE TOVTov T L OavJdOeLov algryVT7)OeV.s

ev.SaLova ,baccara tvoVIEvol 7TE Kat 7TO7TTEVOV7E V ayfl

Kaoapg,• KaOapotl

oV.~E Kal

aOciavTro" iot'rovt, 8 viV ocr4a rEpptL

•povrES dVOLaLaOiLO.V.6 LEjya ?5s '?S V7

IV. PLEASANT SCENERY:

''roo KaOapot Ka AELWVES' E~8'avTO.8 In addition to these four main points there are four other well-established facts, known to be associated with the Mysteries:

V. FASTING. It was customary not only to abstain from certain forbidden foods but to fast generally before initiation.9

VI. SILENCE. Silence had to be observed.'0 So in Aristophanes' Clouds, where a parody of the initiation ceremony takes place," Socrates tells Stre- psiades, EcfrJZjrLv Xpp4.I2

VII. SITTING. The candidate was required to sit.'3 When Strepsiades expresses a desire to be initiated, Socrates orders him, Kat0E TO&VVV.I4

VIII. 'RAPE OF THE MAID.' The chief part of the Eleusinian ceremony was a sacred drama, which, it is believed, depicted the Rape of Core, 'the sorrow of the mother, the return of the loved one, and the ultimate reconciliation'.'S Clement of Alexandria writes, Adl 8KaL Kop7q 3pafEa 2)&q EyEVE'crO?7V 4otVO p TKOV, ica& rqv rAadv?7V KaL 7TV

aperaylV KaG 7r nT VOOS aT;ratv 'EAEvci 3S8ovxEZ.'6

If we turn to the Oedipus Coloneus we find that all these eight points figure to a greater or less extent in the tragedy:

I. WANDERING. Particular references to the Wanderings and Hardships of Oedipus are numerous.' Oedipus actually appears on the stage dressed as a beggar.

II. TERROR. This element has, perhaps, no specific counterpart in the play. However, Creon inspires fear,'8 as Oedipus has already anticipated ;,9 and the capture of Ismene and Antigone must create considerable anxiety.

I Stobaeus from Themistius (Plutarch), De Anima, iv. Io7, Meineke.

2 Plat. Phaedo, lo8 A. 3 Themistius, loc. cit.

4 Plat. Phaedrus, 251 A. s Them., loc. cit. 6 Plat. Phaedrus, 250 c. 7 Plutarch, De Profect. Virt., p. 81 E. 8 Them., loc. cit. 9 Aristotle, 'AO. IoA. 56. Foucart, Mystires

d'Eleusis, pp. 284 ff., 295. 1o Refs. are given in Thomson, Oresteia, ii.

203-4.

"I Ar. Clouds, 250 ff. Iz Ibid. 263. '3 Thomson, Oresteia, ii. 243 gives refs. to

A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 219, 245, and J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena, pp. 229-30, and Lobeck, Aglao- phamus, p. 646. I4 Ar. Clouds, 254.

's Farnell, Cults, iii. 174. I6 Clem. Alex., Protrept., quoted by Farnell,

Cults, iii, p. 355, note 218 c. Cf. Foucart, op. cit. 460 ff.

'7 OC. 3 ff., 50, 123, 164, 347 ff., 444, 746, I359 ff. 1s OC. 730. 9 OC. 360.



26 L. S. COLCHESTER

III. BRIGHT LIGHT. The sudden burst of light is provided by the lightning, to which three distinct references are made.x Oedipus obeys the summons of the god, and follows, shielding his eyes,2 which have now regained their vision, as if from some marvel,3 the ToAAal Kat paKdpLaL OdaL, and

o'AdKA7?)pa ica• lT ~ ical i ~rpE,4j Kal E13&t4Lova

cbac;a'a of Plato.4

IV. PLEASANT SCENERY. The fair scenery is mentioned repeatedlys These descriptions, of course, refer to the site of Oedipus' disappearance, although, according to the account of Themistius, they are out of place in the sequence. However, perhaps, by comparing Themistius with Plato, we should assume that the Tr&OL

KaOapO, are identical with the

LaKaipLaL OEaL and ~eiSalpova dbcpLacra, from which he shielded his eyes.

V. FASTING. Reference to lack of food is made three times.6

VI. SILENCE. There are four references to silence: napaJJELf3dtJJEUOe cLi~6pK~ws~,

bOvror, *Aoyws

-; iis

E4po;AOoy Eoda povl8Sv.os

VII. SITTING. On three occasions at the beginning of the play Oedipus is

?EVTE'7s.7

mentioned as seated. 1 avs K seems a trivial point to make, but I am,

unable to think offhand of any other play in which the hero sits, or in which repeated allusion is made to that effect. There only comes to my mind the reference in the Frogs to Aeschylus' Phrygians and Niobe.•z

cZlTvoi-a ~bwv63v (r178~ CL?7K;VOV /3orvy.

VIII. 'RAPE OF THE MAID.' The capture and recovery of Ismene, inserted as they

ITOI-VLaL C7EjLwa '7-LO'i]voih'T TErl)

OVa'Toi~cflV, WV Ka pci

KAjS~ EITL yXc~Cj(I? /3E/3aKE

inpocrrndwv Ei3C-wornL~iv.'0

areVII. SITTING. On three action of thccasions at thema, bear striknning ofresemblance to the Raplay Oedipus is

mentioned as seated." This seems a trivial point to make, but I am

unablof Core toand 'think offhand of any othe loved one '. Is it fanciful tch the hero sits, or in

delwhich repeate imitatallusion is made to that effect. There only comes to my

So in the Oedipus Coloneus we find equivalents to most of the known facts connected

mindwith the refeMysteries. In isolation any one of the Frogs tom would appear far-fetcheds and Niobe.'

insVIII. 'RAPE OF THE MAID.' The capture and recovery of so many in conjunction appears tomene, inserdicate almosthey arcnclusively that Sophocles' imitation of initithe drama, bear striking ceremonies was calculated andpe

of Codeliberatere and that he intended to associate Oedipus in the minds of histo assudience a

with the candidberate for initation.

V

So in the Oedipucs Colonerus we find equivalents to most of the known facts connected with the Mysteries. In isolation any one of them would appear far-fetched and insignificant, but the presence of so many in conjunction appears to indicate almost conclusively that Sophocles' imitation of initiation ceremonies was calculated and deliberate, and that he intended to associate Oedipus in the minds of his audience with the candidate for initiation.

Purification, either by a perfunctory sprinkle of water, or with greater elabora- tion, was a necessary preliminary to initiation. But KaOaptpo's was not by any means

I OCI 95, 1466, I5I4? 2 OC. 1650 ff.

SSo the Messenger in the OC. says (1651-2):

XEP' av'ExOV7-a Kpa•'•7S

S 8ELVOV 7ovOS

4dPov Savivros 0;8' avacyxEo0 ,h3CA,,e.

4 Plat. Phaedrus, 250 c. s OC. 16, 146, 668 ff. 6 OC. 349, 751, 1263.

7 OC. 131. 8 OC. 489. SOC. 624. IO OC. I052.

II o &oV OGEv

TE/_CVV EjpaV

AloO/Lt. OC. 89.

Ka 7,

7EpvFv E~•/L17,V

pd~pov ro K 8arcYEapvov. OC. Ioo.

O,. 4

40ao&; XOP. AXPpdw " TKpOU Acoi ppaXLs xV KAoas. OC. 195.

12 Ar. Frogs, 911.




peculiar to the Mysteries: in fact, its origin was Apollinian, though its usage was very widespread. Rohde observes' that ' Ceremonies of" purification " accompany every step of a man's life from the cradle to the grave'. 'Kathartic practices required and implied no feeling of offence, of personal guilt, of personal responsi- bility.' So in the Coloneus, as Jebb has observed,2 the Ka0apo's is not concerned with atonement for blood-guilt: for 'if that was in the question, Ka0aptol Xoipo- KTdvoL (Aesch. Eum. 283) would first be needed for Oedipus himself '.

Sophocles makes it quite clear that he regards Oedipus as innocent. Rohde says:' The innocence of Oedipus, and the fact that the awful crimes committed by him have been done in ignorance and against his will OEcWv cyvTwOV, is stressed in order that his elevation to the position of Heros may not seem to be an honour done to a guilt-stained criminal.'s It is well known that the candidate for initiation had to be guiltless;* so in employing the initiation pattern Sophocles reveals his conviction of the complete innocence of Oedipus, and thereby supersedes the contemporary ethic by refuting any notions of deserved retribution for sin, while he vindicates the gods, and shows that misfortune is not god-sent, except so far as it serves as initiation for the after-life.

Perhaps it was to emphasize this that Sophocles discusses the Kalapd'sg in such detail and at a length which appears disproportionate. The two references to cathartic rites in the Persae occupy only 4 and io lines respectively;s and the similar rites in Sophocles' Electra take only 26 lines, of which the prayer occupies 22.6 In the Oedipus Coloneus, however, 44 lines are devoted to details.

VI

While the ritual of purification may contain allusions to the ritual of the Mysteries,' it is primarily intended in the play as a ritual of the Eumenides, the guardians of the dlypaeo voLtot, which were, as Socrates shows,8 (i) OEo3s a'fELv, and (2) yoov'as ?rtaiv--which, as a comparison of a passage in the Laws9 leads one to suppose, perhaps comprehends incest.'x These were the very laws that Oedipus has transgressed, and, as Thomson observes," in the Chorus's reference to them in the Tyrannus,'2 'the traditional language has been skilfully adapted to the dramatic situation'. These dlypaqbo viwot, which figure so much in Sophocles, were ex- pounded in the Mysteries, as we see from Lysias: -ots ~ypc os~ (vo4tots) Ka0' oOs EzoArinlaL 7yoi~vrat.'3

Demosthenes also tells us'4 that charges of impiety, that is, violation of the unwritten laws, were heard before the Eumolpidae. So we find once again a connexion with the Mysteries.

Moreover, that there was some connexion between the Furies and Demeter is plain ;s it is evident that Aeschylus ascribes to the Eumenides the functions of Demeter.'6 We find an association of Oedipus and Demeter in a scholion to the Odyssey:

O&,rovs~. .. pK uev 'Inuda EKoAwvv KahovEvov. Kat lKaEEEV El' 7'q ?Epp

Rohde, Psyche, p. 295. 2 Jebb, OC., note to line 470. 3 Rohde, op. cit., p. 455, note 114. * Farnell, Cults, iii. 165 ff., etc. s Aesch. Persae, 20l-4; 609-18. 6 Soph. El. 634-59. 7 e.g. the use of running water; wool, for its

absorbent properties: cf. Farnell, Cults, iii, p. 354, note 216 c; and p. 357, note 219 d. Thus the

A4t• Kdtov was used. Wool served as a substitute for squills; cf. Rohde, op. cit., p. 590. Clean hands were essential: Farnell, ibid., p. 355, note 217 a.

Honey was used in initiations: ibid., p. 357, note 219 d.

s Xen. Mem. iv. 4. 19-21. 0 Plat. Laws, 538 B.

10 Cf. Thomson, Oresteia, ii. 269 ff. " Ibid. 270. 1z Soph. OT. 863-70. 'a Lysias, In Andoc. Io. Cf. Farnell, Cults, iii.

188 ff. 14 Demosthenes, 6o01. 's Farnell, Cults, iii. 53 ff. 16 Ibid. iii. 54, note d.



28 L. S. COLCHESTER

i-yv OE•V, A47FU77poS

Kal ,roAeodXov 'AO]~vd.x Finally, the cavity through which

Oedipus was translated, like Amphiaraus and Moses (in the account of Josephus),2 to the world beneath, was reputed to be the very place where Core was transported below. The scholiast to the Coloneus refers to this legend: Kai V v Ka1-app KrTV

7Tpoo7fopevUev &cL TO VOtLELV EKE• Woy TOVT O7ov KazrcflBaULv EXEv EL

• AL~Ov. Kal ELULY ot

3, airTl• ir-v cEpnrayrjv qbac, riiS• Ko'prv yEvEceOaL.3

VII In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to show that Sophocles was

discontented with existing notions concerning the gods in their relation to men. He could not believe that the Deity was wicked, so he had to find some other means of reconciling his idea of a benevolent Deity with the existence of evil. It was not till the end of his life that he was able to express his conviction in an after-life, in which innocent sufferers were recompensed, and thereby to vindicate his concept of God as supreme justice and truth. The drama of Oedipus is a mirror of life; the end of Oedipus is a reflection of the end of all who suffer. Sophocles appears to have utilized the initiation pattern because (i) he regarded all life as an initiation for a fuller life to come; (2) it enabled him to stress his belief in the innocence of Oedipus and of all who are 'more sinned against than sinning'; and (3) he was able to impress all the more firmly his own conviction in 'the loving-kindness of the divine power after death'.

L. S. COLCHESTER. THE CATHEDRAL SCHOOL,

WELLS, SOMERSET.

SSchol. Hom. Od. xi. 271. 2 Josephus, iv. 315 ff. 3 Schol. Soph. OC. 1590o.



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Justice and Death in Sophocles