There is a common trend in modern discussions of the Oedipus mythos to refer to the Theban line as ‘cursed’. In contemporary language, ‘curse’ implies a singular caster of said curse; an evil sorceress, perhaps, or a vengeful deity, a lone actor placing their will upon an unsuspecting target. This is not necessarily applicable in the case of Oedipus and his family. As mentioned in the intro to this packet, the energies surrounding Thebes can best be thought of as divine radiation; a force of change and corruption that has no ill will of its own.
This is addressed within the text of Oedipus Rex through repeated gestures towards an ancient ritual that would have been well-known (and potentially practiced) during Sophocles’ lifetime; the pharmakos, or scapegoat. In times of societal unrest or hardship (plagues, warfare, etc.) a victim would be selected for the ritual, often a person on the fringes of society. Examples from history include beggars, the disabled, or even criminals. The individual was physically punished in some fashion (examples include being beaten wooden rods crafted from a particular tree or even stoned) and run out of the city. Scholarship varies on whether or not pharmakoi were actually killed in this process, but there appear to be cases attesting to victims that both survived and did not.
For our purposes, the pharmakos is of import because the play features a self-made example: Oedipus. The King of Thebes (unwittingly) names himself as the sacrificial victim when he lays down his proclamation concerning the treatment of Laius’ killer. The forms of speech he uses in his condemnation move edict to curse, from a civic proclamation to a laying-down of doom, from “I forbid” to “I lay this curse”. Rudall’s translation is explicit about this turn of phrase (much to our benefit).
But these are not empty words, not from Oedipus. The son of Laius acts as a nexus-point for the ‘curse’ upon Thebes—he is not the cause in that he has committed a crime that invoked divine wrath, but he is the culmination of generations of death, growth, and change. There is power in his bloodline, power that he then turns upon himself, however unknowingly.
The other chief concept at play in the makeup of the Theban ‘curse’ is the idea of miasma. A nebulous concept at the best of times, miasma is best characterized as spiritual pollution, the stain upon a soul, a people, or a society that is incurred by the violation of natural law. It is treated within classical thought as a very-nearly-literal infection, a disease that can be passed from one person to another or spread like ink through water until a whole population is contaminated. Miasma manifests in a variety of ways throughout tragedy; Orestes, having murdered his mother, goes mad at the goads of the Furies (a literal manifestation of the infection) and must be purified by Apollo before he may re-enter into society, Phaedra in Euripides’ Hippolytus struggles against her lust for her step-son at the risk of the same infection.
Oedipus carries a double burden in this regard, as he both generates his own miasma through the murder of Laius and the bedding of Jocasta and carries in his bloodline the combined infections of all the prior generations of the Cadmean line. The former offenses are among the worst possible in Greek society; kin ties and family bonds are of the utmost importance in this particular culture, and they may neither be interfered with or destroyed without serious consequences. In killing Laius and lying with Jocasta, Oedipus disrupts not only human laws, but the natural order.
Again, the radiation metaphor is apt here; not only has Oedipus himself been exposed to corruption and pollution via his acts of murder and incest, but his genetics are already compromised by repeated exposure over a period of decades, if not centuries. This is not, however, to say that Oedipus is simply doomed from birth. Miasma has very little bearing on moral character or the true nature of a person.
-Emma