A.2. Apollo and his purpose in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus

Abstract

Apollo actively intervenes in the fulfilment of Oedipus' destiny through oracles and immanently in the onstage action. Rather than to punish him for any offence, the god's purpose appears to be to impress upon Oedipus his existential insignificance. In the context of an ordered but absurd universe, Sophocles emphasises the paradox of the moral greatness of a man whose 'official' existential value is less than zero.With the partial exception of Athena in the Ajax, Sophocles' gods are largely inscrutable. In no play is this inscrutability more problematical than in the Tyrannus, and the resulting difficulties for the interpreter are well stated by R. Parker (1999), who warns us about drawing inferences where the poet is silent.Sensitive critics have always been struck by these silences of Sophocles' text, of which the most famous is doubtless the apparent silence in Oedipus Tyrannus about the ultimate motivation for the destiny prophesied for Laius and Oedipus. In a sense the central problem for any study of Sophocles' presentation of the divine is that of responding to these silences: at all events, it is at this point that the paths of even the best critics diverge. Does Sophocles leave the divine will unexplained because to reason about it would be a distraction from the true human centre of the plays? Or is the point rather the ultimate incomprehensibility to mortals of the divine world? And if so, if the ways of the gods are incomprehensible, is that because those ways are good, but human comprehension weak? Or because mortals seek justice where none is to be found? 1 Apollo never appears in person in the Tyrannus, though he declares his condition for the salvation of Thebes in the oracle that requires the discovery of Laius' killer while he predicts the parricide in the original oracle to Laius and both the parricide and the incest in the later oracle given to Oedipus. More controversy surrounds whether Apollo (A) merely declares Oedipus' destiny 2 or (B) positively activates it through the circumstances of the various oracles and perhaps also by intervening further during the course of the onstage action. Then there is the question of the god's overall purpose. Does he actively will the destiny he predicts? -which would seem more likely in the case of (B), though not excluded on either scenario. Further, if Apollo wills and approves of Oedipus' destiny, is he motivated by a hostile desire to punish him, as Athena punishes Ajax -and, if so, for what actual or foreseen 3 offence? -or out of