[Originally.]
There was a curse upon the family of Laius, King of Thebes, and the story of his son Oedipus is the story of the fulfilling of that curse. Laius, driven from his kingdom, took refuge with Pelops, son of Tantalus, and then most ungratefully kidnapped the boy Chrysippus, son of his protector. In course of time Laius recovered his kingdom, and married a princess called Jocasta, but Apollo warned him that owing to his graceless conduct toward Pelops there was a dark curse on him and his.
When a boy was born to Jocasta, the King called a local shepherd to him and bade him carry the babe to a lonely hilltop called Mount Cithaeron, a decision which admittedly was made out of fear, which is never a good place for decision-making. But you can’t base your happiness on someone else’s actions, a valuable lesson for the baby Oedipus and also for all of us. The forlorn little creature was found and carried to the palace of King Polybus of Corinth, whose Queen, Merope, having no child of her own, resolved to adopt the foundling, to whom she gave the name Oedipus, so in a way, everything worked out.
The boy grew up believing himself to be the true-born son of the royal pair, and all went well until one day a drunken reveller taunted him with being nothing of the sort. In order to learn the truth, the young prince consulted the famous oracle at Delphi, which, without giving him a definite answer to his question, told him that it was his destiny to shake hands with his father and have a really nice lunch with his mother.
Thinking this decree referred to Polybus and Merope, Oedipus left Corinth, because there was no rush; he’d had lunch with both of his parents before and had no latent sense of rivalry or psychosexual obsession with either of them. Which was quite nice for everyone involved. His parents enjoyed having sex with each other, and no one else they were related to.
It happened that this lonely journey took him to a point where two roads met, and then he encountered another traveller, an old man in a chariot, escorted by servants and preceded by a herald. Oedipus, who was accustomed to being treated with great deference, refused to pull his own chariot aside when curtly ordered to do so by the herald, who thereupon killed one of his horses.
“Wow,” Oedipus said, “this situation is escalating extremely quickly. How did we get from a dispute about the right-of-way to a dead horse? I realize we’re all part of an honor culture, guys, but sometimes it’s more important to be safe than right.”
“Is it really that important that I be the first to drive my chariot through the crossroads?” he asked himself. “The only person I can change is me, and if nothing changes…nothing changes.”
Oedipus stepped out of his chariot and shook hands with the old man, his herald, and the rest of the attendants. “Please don’t worry about it,” he said as they tried to apologize for the dead horse. “If I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change. Please, go ahead. This is your country, and I’m a stranger and a guest here. I’ve got to stop applying my own values to other cultures.”
The old man was Laius, King of Thebes, and he invited the young man so capable of deep reflection and in-the-moment restraint to come back with him to the city. Oedipus, little recking that one part of the curse had been fulfilled, pursued his journey and at last reached the city of Thebes, his own native city, though he knew it not. There he found great dismay and confusion on all sides.
The realm was being ravaged by a dread Sphinx, a monster with the head and shoulders of a woman and the body of a lioness, who crouched on a rock, and asked riddles of every traveller who passed. Nobody guessed the right answer, but as Oedipus rightly pointed out, there are worse things than not getting the answer to a riddle, and so everyone decided not to beat themselves up for not knowing everything.
News meanwhile had reached the Thebans of the pleasant crossroads interaction that had recently befallen their beloved king, but there was nothing to connect that event with the coming of the youth who had freed them from the burden of having to get everything right all of the time. Queen Jocasta suggested that her husband invite the extremely self-aware young man to lunch, and he accepted, and they had a reasonably pleasant time together. None of them thought much of it, and nobody did sex afterwards. Or maybe the king and queen did; I don’t know. They were married, and it’s none of our business.
Honestly, it’s weird that you would even ask about that. Other people don’t think about those things. Why are you like this?
Anyhow, later they found out they were related, and that the prophecy had come to pass, and they went on to enjoy a lot of non-fraught handshakes and casual handshakes. Oedipus considered them family in a different way than he saw his adoptive parents, and no one felt the need to define what they were to each other besides happy.
Everything worked out pretty well, all things considered. It just goes to show you that really great things can happen at crossroads if you listen, and don’t get bent out of shape if somebody kills your horse. Everyone still died, but much later, and not too unpleasantly.
why AM I like this?
I ask myself every day.
Because we live in a fallen world.
Because fuck you, that’s why.
(Sorry, not really, this is just the best answer to the question “why?” That I’ve ever heard )
I like that you came back and edited this and I also came back and read the comments on my ten-week-old comment without so much as an alert
I feel a deep sense of peace.
After reading freshmen explain on their finals that Oedipus was a monster for doing nasty deeds with his mom, I really needed this.
I guess on the plus side, they didn’t blame Jocasta?
They probably assumed she had no say in the matter.
Ouch.
Awwww
“Everyone still died, but much later, and not too unpleasantly.”
Even better than “And if they have not died, then they are living still.” And lbh, it’s hard to top THAT.
Is a “reasonably pleasant” lunch really the same as a “really nice” lunch? Has the prophecy truly been fulfilled?
No. A reasonably pleasant lunch is one where the salad might be a little wilted, or the iced tea overly warm, but otherwise everything’s ok and the company’s fine.
A really nice lunch is one where everything’s perfect, the conversation flows, and someone else picks up the tab.
“or the iced tea overly warm”
OR SWEETENED
Personally my feeling was that a “reasonably pleasant” lunch was one where you manage to talk civilly about neutral topics with companions whom you fear will say something enormously offensive and upset you, as they have on other occasions, but they don’t. Perhaps they tell a pretty good joke (which sounded like it was going to be about immigrants, but in the end it wasn’t.) You are relieved. They compliment your outfit. You remember that despite that big row you had over Christmas, they’re not ALL bad.
So I’m still in suspense! Oedipus is going about like his destiny has already been dealt with and it hasn’t! He needs to stay on his guard! That really nice lunch could befall him AT ANY TIME!
Recently my dad found his birth family, and it turns out that his first cousins once removed live in our neighborhood and we went to school with their kids. (This is super weird, as we live on the opposite side of the country from where all the birthin’ and adoptin’ went on.)
Anyway, no one dated anyone, thank God, but also I feel like the Oedipus story is a lil bit more fraught and possible than I would have liked to imagine!
They’re your second cousins once removed, so it’s okay.
I mean, perhaps, but also I have spent far too much of my life reading about the Habsburgs to feel comfortable about any cousins any removed.
If only the Hapsburgs had settled with cousins though! I ‘d say most of their problems were caused by all the uncle-niece marrying that went on.
Oedipus Complex = pleasant, healthy feelings toward both parents
Yes! That’s exactly what Freud wrote about. #OnlyGoodVibes #JustDoIt
Mallory, please do this with everything unpleasant in history and literature! It would make all the horrendous things happening now, that prove we never learn anything from the past, less infuriatingly repetitious.
I am really upset by the Sphinx’s ribcage in that painting. She seems to have a truncated human one and then a cat one right under it. Surely there should only be one!
more organs?
I’m pretty certain Oedipus is looking straight into her nipples and she’s urging him to give them a tickle. Dude in the back with the flailing dick sash is all ‘Nooooooo, don’t do it!’
My asthmatic lungs think it could be a cool idea, though!
Now I can’t unsee it! Oh noooooooo!
I think that, once your culture accepts the existence of centaurs, redundant ribcages abound.
I think that, as with depictions of harpies who have human(ish) torsos with wings and birdy lower halves–as opposed to just human heads on bird bodies–it might be a way to make her look less creepy/monstrous? (I’m not saying that’s necessarily the reasoning? But it has that effect. To me.)
At the expense of making her slightly more biologically nonsensical.
I want a collection of stories where mythological figures taken prophecies under careful consideration and avoid their horrible fates.
And look into a few of the nicer prophecies, and end up making new friends!
Although really, carefully considering prophecies is what tends to get people in trouble in these stories.
Still, you’d think that an adoptee, on being told they were doomed to have incestuous relations, would do a little more investigation on the backgrounds of potential sexual partners (looking at you, King Arthur).
Right?
Rules for Oedipus–first of all, if you’re worried about killing your father, stay ahead of that by not killing anybody! You should be doing this anyway.
Second, only have sex with people your age or younger. Plus or minus a few years. Don’t be a creep about it, of course, but still. Or women who have never been to Greece! Or try celibacy!
For Arthur, assume anyone in your bedchamber that you haven’t invited there is up to no good. You’re married! And probably gay anyway!
Well, I’m thinking of Morgause here, and iirc, he wasn’t married at the time. She was, but he wasn’t.
I mean, most of it is still Merlin’s fault, but still.
Ooh, right, forgot about the timing there.
Still, though avoiding uninvited bedchamber guests is probably generally a good idea.
“Are you lost? It’s a big castle, I can see how you could get turned around. Go down that hallway, take a left, take another left, and your room’s the first one on the right. Find a guard if you get turned around again, that’s part of their job, don’t be embarrassed.”
“I hold court for like, six hours per day, you can see me there. Giant room, big table, no corners. Can’t miss it.”
Poor gay King Arthur. I’d like a comforting version of The Once and Future King, not just so that Lancelot can stop singing “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” but also so that the Orkney brothers can find peace instead of causing me unending nightmares.
I am rereading TOaFK right this very now (just finished the second book on the bus this morning). Oh, the joy I’ll have throughout the third book, imagining Lancelot as a lovelorn Morrissey. Thank you.
And YEAH, those BROTHERS, RIGHT
It really might be the most heartbreaking book I have ever read. I read it many times in middle school and then just…. acted like it didn’t exist, until I re-read it last year. I spent many train rides in tears. Super-satisfying re-reading experience! A+ would absolutely cry on subways again.
Oh god I need this now.
Second, only have sex with people your age or younger. Plus or minus a few years.
It would comfort me to know that all the douchebags on OKC who will date women ten years younger than them but not one single year older are just trying really hard to avoid an Oedipus-style curse.
first of all, if you’re worried about killing your father, stay ahead of that by not killing anybody!
Thank you. How hard is it to just not kill people?
It’s one of the reasons I have such a deep fondness for Herodotus — he makes it so clear that people choose to do what they want with the information they get from oracles and prophets. It’s such a different perspective than “ancients” get credit for.
LET US STAN FOR HERODOTUS TOGETHER
He’s really got a lot of subtlety about him, and even when he’s saying something completely batshit, he at least cites sources, unlike some other people, I’m looking at you, Thucydides
This isn’t exactly a full story but I feel it’s relevant and it makes me cry a tiny bit anyway so here you go.
There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex;
A king whose life worked out in all respects;
Whose name no one associates with sex, ’cause he
Loved his mother!
–“Oedipus Rex” by Comforting and Anodyne Tom Lehrer
I know we don’t know each other, nor do we know much of anything about each other, but whoever you are I legit want to make out with you for this.
hehehe the copy I have has his long schpiel about how the movie just needed a snappy theme song, and so. . .
We’ve all seen Potato Rex, yes? Yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NydKPClhYgM
THE BEST.
Okay but that sex scene between {SPOILER] the potato and the tomato[/SPOILER]? Suuuuper uncomfortable.
Well, a boy does know how to make his mama happy.
(I will throw myself away now.)
OMG I haven’t watched that in years! I used to show it to my drama classes before we read Antigone so they’d have background, since our school didn’t teach Oedipus.
“Dedicated to my mother”
These keep getting better, I swear.
I’m just really happy for Jocasta that things turned out okay here. She firmly shook hands and had nice lunches and I will completely disregard anything that says otherwise.
malloy. if this is becoming a thing can you also do the pooh bear story and maybe the amelia bedelia one?
Or the Curious George one? Because Curious George was already horrifying, and you just exposed that horror. Could we have the nice version?
“The Sphinx later moved to a blighted, industrial neighborhood in an urban area and opened a successful art gallery/coffeehouse/bakery that reinvigorated the local economy.”
And if you guessed the riddle of the day, you won a free coffee drink of your choice (but it was considered a little rude to then go ahead and order the most expensive one).
“And none of the residents were forced to move out due to rising housing costs.”
EPILOGUE: Years later, Oedipus still had all his eyes.
His daughters married decent men and his sons got along well and supported each other; every year, the whole family, adoptive and blood, got together for a huge picnic.
I feel like you could write a decent guide to adulting based on stopping myths at crucial moments just to step back and think for a second.
Eh, they’ve done that to Cookie Monster in the recent Sesame Street parodies and it’s not the greatest.
first of all, if you're worried about killing your father, stay ahead of that by not killing anybody!
Thank you. How hard is it to just not kill people?
Well, since it’s national poetry day, this seems like a good place to post a link to one of my favorite poems.
http://murielrukeyser.emuenglish.org/writing/myth…
A VAST IMPROVEMENT
except for the horse *sniff*
A VAST IMPROVEMENT
except for the horse *sniff*