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Do we have the end of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2010

David Kovacs
David Kovacs
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Abstract:

The objections against the transmitted ending of OT (1424–1530) raised by scholars since the eighteenth century and most recently by R.D. Dawe deserve to be taken seriously, but only the last 63 lines (1468–1530, called B below) are open to truly serious objections, both verbal and dramaturgical. By contrast, objections against 1424–67 (called A below) are mostly slight, and in addition they are protected by an earlier passage in the play that seems to prepare the audience for Creon's demand that Oedipus re-enter the palace. A is genuine and gives us the end of the play as Sophocles wrote it: probably we have lost only a brief reply by Creon to Oedipus’ requests and some choral anapaests. A postscript discusses the meaning of 1451–57. I argue that these look to the future (infinitive πέρσαι plus ἄν standing for optative plus ἄν), and that έπί τωι δειν⋯ι κακ⋯ι means that Oedipus is being saved ‘for some dreadful mischief’, i.e. to cause such mischief to others, an allusion to the cursing of his sons and its result, the war of the Seven against Thebes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 129 , November 2009 , pp. 53 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2009

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