Sophocles, a preeminent ancient Greek tragedian, authored plays that have enthralled audiences for over two thousand years. His play, Oedipus Rex, tells the sad tale of a king who discovers that he has murdered his father and married his mother. It is set in the kingdom of Thebes in central Greece. Though ancient Greece is now hailed as the birthplace of democracy, it was a patriarchal society. Men held the political and religious power and women’s roles were mostly restricted to the home and family. They were “understood to agree to subordinate themselves to their husbands” (M. Katz). Women exerted their influence by whatever means they could. Carefully guarding knowledge and keeping secrets allowed them to have some control, rather than to always be controlled.
In addition to traditional family roles, select women served in the public sphere as oracles, priestesses of the god Apollo. The oracle was seen as “the conduit of divine knowledge, as a spokesperson for a god” (Flower 221) and yet her cryptic divinations kept many guessing at the truth. Even she needed some sort of protection in a male dominated society.
Ancient Greek myths tell the tales of terrifying monsters. Many monsters of the Greek pantheon were female, such as the man-eating, half-lion Sphinx; the shape-shifting, fire-breathing Chimera; the murderous, seductive Empusa; and the stony-gazed, snake-headed Medusa. No matter her imposing stature, the female monster often had a vulnerability that, when found out by a man, would cause her downfall.
Though only one woman has a speaking role in Oedipus Rex, women hold influence throughout the entire play. A female monster, the Sphinx, has a riddle and dares any man to find the answer. The oracle of Delphi, keeper of the knowledge of the god Apollo, gives cryptic answers to petitioners’ questions. Queen Iocaste, mother/wife of Oedipus, keeps secret her role in the fate of her son. The women in the play, mirroring the roles of ancient Greek women, are denied the overt power of men and resort to the covert power of keeping secrets.
The Sphinx, “that hellcat” (Sophocles 21), maintains her powerful role as guardian of the gates of Thebes by keeping the answer to her riddle a secret. “Represented iconographically as having the head of a woman and the body of a crouching lioness,” (J. Katz 8), she is as intelligent as she is brutal. She stands outside humanity as “the virgin with her hooking claws” (Sophocles 65). All who pass the city gates must correctly answer her riddle or she will kill and eat them. Creon, the brother of Queen Iocaste and regent-king of Thebes, sets a reward for whoever can rid the kingdom of her menace. Oedipus takes the challenge and successfully answers the riddle, defeating the Sphinx. For his reward, he is given the recently widowed Queen Iocaste in marriage and crowned the king of Thebes. He is very proud of his conquest and, because he has found the secret of the riddle, he feels he has more power than anyone. “Your birds—what good were they?” he asks the blind prophet Teiresias, “…I came by, Oedipus, the simple man, who knows nothing—I thought it out for myself, no birds helped me!” (Sophocles 22) The Sphinx’s secret is the key to her power, and once the secret is known, she has no option but to commit suicide, thus solidifying Oedipus’ role as liberator of Thebes. Her defeat is the beginning of his rise to power. However, there are other forces at work and more secrets held close which will determine the fate of Oedipus.
The female oracle of Delphi, “the riddler of God’s will” (Sophocles 49) was, in ancient Greece, the secret-keeper and voice of the god Apollo. This was an unusually powerful role in a culture and religion lorded over by men. In ancient times, peasants and kings journeyed to Delphi to seek her counsel on a wide range of topics. From Thebes, this was about 110 miles round trip. Her answers were given in cryptic, “sometimes disjointed and jarring,” hexameter verse (Flower 230). She learned that “when she was dealing with a particularly difficult or delicate problem (to) compose verse responses in which were embedded a variety of possible recommendations and a range of possible consequences” (Flower 234). This deliberate ambiguity allowed her some protection against the anger of powerful men, giving them the responsibility of divining the meaning of her sacred words.
In Oedipus Rex, the oracle of Delphi never takes the stage, yet she wields tremendous influence. When consulted by Creon, the brother-in-law of Oedipus, on how to lift the plague from Thebes, the oracle states that the murderer of King Laïos must be found and expelled from the kingdom. Oedipus assumes that Creon is trying to blame him for the murder. Creon exclaims, “Test what I have said. Go to the priestess at Delphi, ask if I quoted her correctly” (Sophocles 32). Creon has indeed quoted the oracle correctly, even if she has kept the name of the murderer secret. Both Oedipus and Laïos had earlier consulted the oracle and received similar answers; they were told that the son would murder the father and marry the mother. Though the prophecy makes little sense at the time, both try to avoid this happening. Oedipus either believes or disbelieves of the oracles, depending on his state of mind. Ultimately, he is forced to admit, “It was true! All the prophecies!” (Sophocles 64) The oracle’s secrets are finally in the open and what was formerly questioned is now held as irrefutable truth. These cryptic answers lead Queen Iocaste to keep her own secret, which will ultimately lead her to take her own life.
Queen Iocaste, who rules “the kingdom equally” (Sophocles 31) with her king, ultimately has to bow to his power. The widow of the murdered King Laïos, she is the prize of Oedipus, conqueror of the Sphinx. How equal can a woman be who is offered as a prize to any man who can solve a riddle? In response to the oracle’s prophecy that he would be killed by his son, Laïos demands that his and Iocaste’s firstborn child be left to die. When Oedipus later asks Iocaste about this, she states, “But this child had not been three days in this world before the King had pierced the baby’s ankles and left him to die on a lonely mountainside” (Sophocles 38). She stands by her version of the story, begging Oedipus not to ask any more questions. Oedipus, a foundling, is determined to discover the truth of his parentage. He sends for a shepherd who has critical information. The shepherd tells him, “The child was from the palace of Laïos…They said it was Laïos’ child. But it is your wife who can tell you about this.” Oedipus is incredulous and asks if Iocaste had given the baby to him. “My lord, she did,” the shepherd replies, “…I was told to get rid of it” (Sophocles 63). This secret, saving act allows the oracle’s prophecy to come true. The baby is Oedipus. He will indeed kill his father (King Laïos) and marry is mother (Queen Iocaste). When Iocaste realizes that she has married her own son, she tries to spare Oedipus the truth. She responds as a mother and implores him, “let us have no more questioning! …Listen to me, I beg you! …Everything I say is for your own good!” (Sophocles 56-57) He cannot let it go and persists in finding the answer. Iocaste is horror-stricken that her secret has led to “a husband by her husband, children by her child” (Sophocles 68) and hangs herself in her palace apartment. She had been forced to choose between the certain death of her firstborn son and the uncertain interpretation of the oracle’s proclamation.
The hellcat Sphinx, the oracle of Delphi, and Queen Iocaste hold the power of secret knowledge, as did the women of ancient Greece. In this patriarchal society, “the man holds the right of rule, derived from the fact of his physical and intellectual superiority, and… the woman (holds) the authority and duty to execute the laws set down by the man” (M. Katz). These women, deprived of any public voice, find a private power. The mythical Sphinx is only able to maintain her position as guardian of the gates of Thebes so long as she keeps secret the answer to her riddle. Once it is known, she is stripped of her power. The oracle of Delphi, the authoritative voice of the god Apollo, doles her secrets out carefully. The hearer is left to interpret her words, which may not make sense for many years. Queen Iocaste, forced to part with her infant, keeps secret the fact that she has saved him. She has no power to directly defy her husband. She grieves the loss, but not the death she claims. These secrets cannot be kept forever, but while they are, the women have some power, however fleeting.
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