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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
The two best-known essays on Seneca's Oedipus, by Willy Schetter and Gerhard Müller, argue that the play is fundamentally a tragedy of fate, and Müller goes so far as to call fate the ‘principal actor.’ Although it may be possible to question the importance that Müller attaches to the role of fate, it is clear that the universe of Oedipus is a determined one. Not only have Oedipus' murder and marriage been predestined, but the plague and its consequences have as well. If, however, fate's control of Oedipus' actions is indisputable, it is linked with a fundamental difficulty of interpretation: that of Oedipus' guilt, which the play in the end seems emphatically to affirm (see 875f. and 1025f. and below, pp. 149f.). What does it mean to speak of moral responsibility in the absence of free choice? The notion of Oedipus' guilt would seem particularly hard to reconcile with a Stoic interpretation of the play; for Oedipus' conscious intent is virtuous, and Stoicism judges action according to the will of the agent, not its result. The view that Oedipus is innocent, moreover, appeals to our own moral logic, with its individualistic bias. Yet in the end Oedipus himself is convinced of his guilt; otherwise his self-mutilation would be unintelligible. It is at least evident that Seneca is bringing prominently to our attention a conception of wrong-doing that cannot be understood in terms of Stoic ethics.
1. Schetter (1972a), esp. 403–405; Müller (1953), esp. 448–50.
2. Müller (1953), 450.
3. Dingel (1974), 72f., 76f., agrees that the ineluctability of fate is a premise of the play; but he believes that Seneca is not interested so much in fate itself as in the way that man comports himself before it.
4. Wanke (1964), 170f., asserts, I think very unconvincingly, that moral responsibility in Seneca is merely a matter of personal will. Even Oedipus could have set himself against fate if he had wished.
5. Although Schetter (1972a), 411f., 431–33, who emphasizes the Stoic content of the play, accepts Oedipus’ guilt. More orthodoxly, Müller (1953), 459f., and Giancotti (1953), 58f., 94, reject the idea of Oedipus’ guilt.
6. Marti (1945), 236f., however, asserts that Oedipus’ behavior ‘.… is the very opposite of that of the Stoic sage; he is vain and impulsive, and because of his exalted position behaves like an autocrat and a tyrant.’
7. Dingel (1974), passim, esp. 72f., 115–119, 78–80; Opelt (1972), 92–128; Henry and Walker (1963), 9; Wanke (1964), 163–65, who says that fate in Seneca, especially in Oedipus, is a ‘gloomy power,’ in Lucan a distinctly negative power. Müller (1953), 449, calls fate in Oedipus irrational but is unwilling to discuss the play’s philosophical orthodoxy. Mastronarde (1970), 309, hedges, saying that ‘… it would be quite wrong to … seek a consistent attitude of Stoicism in Seneca’s poetry.’
8. But see note 4 above. Opelt (1972), 99f., admits Oedipus’ formal responsibility for what he has done. She does not discuss the question of inner guilt.
9. See Ep. 71. 8–16 on Cato’s suicide as a virtuous submission to destiny. On the night of his death he read (71.11), calm in the knowledge that all things in this world pass away but do not perish. What is dissolved is recomposed by ‘the eternal art of the God who directs all things’ (71.14).
10. My translations of all passages quoted from Senecan drama are based upon Miller’s Loeb translations (1917).
11. So Cato’s virtuous death was as great a good as his virtuous life: non est ergo M. Catonis maius bonum honesta vita quam mors honesta (Ep. 71.16). The Senecan wise man seems almost to welcome adversity as an opportunity for virtue (71.25f.). Amid torment and adversity his rational faculty enables him to remain steadfast and unperturbed. For he is composed of two parts; the irrational is subject to suffering; the other, which is rational, inconcussas opiniones habet, intrepida est et indomita. in hac positum est summum illud hominis bonum. antequam impleatur, incerta mentis volutatio est; cum vero perfectum est, inmota ilia stabilitas est (‘maintains its opinions unshaken, is intrepid and unconquerable. In it lies man’s highest good. Before it is complete the mind may waver; but when it is brought to perfection the mind’s firmness is immovable,’ 71.27).
12. On the cooperation of reason and madness in the characters of Senecan tragedy see Wanke (1964), 169–72.
13. In his generally very useful article Mastronarde (1970), 306–309, argues that the ode does make ominous suggestions about Dionysus. It is true that in one short passage the rending of Pentheus is described (435–44) and in another (484–86) there are brief allusions to Pentheus, the Proetides and Argos. Mastronarde also believes, 307, that the transformations mentioned in the ode belong to a cluster of images relating to unnaturalness, and that they call to mind other, less pleasant instances of abnormality in the play. Surely this is to emphasize a muted undertone at the expense of the ode’s major statement. Mastronarde is at pains to demonstrate that a pattern of horror is developed which is continuous throughout the play, and his treatment of this ode seems to me exaggerated and tendentious. If the god subdues humans against their will it is mostly for the purpose of doing justice (449–66) or taming barbarous nations (467–83). As for the ode’s imagery, its extravagant distortions are not Gothic but rococo. In its organization — a series of static pictures to which narrative is subordinated — and in its imagery the ode suggests an ekphrasis of a wall-painting of the mid-first-century. Everywhere there are flowing garments and loosened hair, a circle of dancing Nereids, curling grape-vines and tendrils of ivy, the arched backs of dolphins. The changes, however bizarre, are almost all picturesque rather than frightening: Dionysus masquerades as a girl, Ino and Palaemon become deities of the sea, Ariadne is translated to heaven; the waters of the sea change to meadows and pirates to dolphins, while their ship sprouts twining vines.
14. Frye (1957), 139.
15. Frye (1957), 139, 147.
16. See lines 138, 142, 147, 169f., 181f., 204, 210, 224, 344, 346, 547, 583, 716, 817f., 1024, 1052.
17. Mastronarde (1970), 301, calls the phrase ‘the keynote of many features of the Oedipus,’ but he sees in the expression no particular ethical implications.
18. Schetter (1972a), 413f., defends Oedipus’ premonition of guilt as a conclusion based on reason. Stoicism, says Schetter, teaches that a man’s deeds are fixed by fate from the beginning; and Oedipus accepts guilt for acts which he is certain that he has not committed but that he must, by fate’s desire, commit. This is a half-truth that ignores Stoicism’s complexities. Stoicism also teaches that a rational choice of the good always is possible. If Oedipus is a good Stoic he should feel very anxious about the future but not guilty.
19. See Mastronarde (1970), 301. See also Opelt (1972), 97; Pratt (1939), 93–96.
20. Regenbogen (1961), 437f., speaks of a sympathetic cohesion of the Cosmos in Senecan tragedy. The notion of this sympathy, in Regenbogen’s opinion, has a Stoic foundation.
21. See Mastronarde (1970), 304f., on ‘imagery of entanglement and confusion.’
22. See Poe (1969), 364–68.
23. Poe (1969), 371.
24. In Thyestes Atreus is so driven by passion that he is almost invulnerable to reason (but see lines 321–23). Thyestes, on the other hand, before he succumbs to temptation ( = appetite; see Poe [1969], 364) is the picture of rational self-restraint (see lines 446–70).
25. Poe (1969), 364, 368.
26. Wanke (1964), 169–71.
27. Schetter (1972a), 424–28, 432f. Several critics believe that Oedipus’ impulse to blind himself is virtuous, but no one except Schetter discusses the moral implications of his self-torture. See Opelt (1972), 100; Wanke (1964), 165; Regenbogen (1961), 448. On the other hand, Regenbogen also points out, 454, that Seneca condemns excessive suffering as a prava voluptas (ad Marc. 1.).
28. On a more superficial level, the word victor in line 974 lends some persuasive color to this interpretation, and Schetter (1972a) relies heavily on the phrase, fata superavi impia (1046). However, it is clear from the context that the latter expression does not mean, ‘I have risen above my fate (to act virtuously in spite of it)’ but ‘I have outdone my destiny in destructiveness (by causing the death of my mother).’ Victor means that he has acted bravely in accomplishment of what he considers to be expiation of his sins. But it does not imply that his moral judgement is correct (see below). In so acting he has fulfilled the dictate of fate. But he himself has just called fate ‘impious’ (in line 125 the chorus calls it saevum ‘savage’ and in line 412 avidum, ‘greedy’, and when he first sets out to attack himself we are told (935) that he lays his impiam manum, ‘impious hand,’ to his sword.
29. ira furit; ardent minaces igne truculento genae oculique vix se sedibus retinent suis; violentus audax vultus, iratus ferox … (Oed. 957–60) He raves with wrath; his cheeks burn, threatening with ferocious fire, and his eyes scarcely hold themselves in their place; his face is violent, reckless, furious, wild …
30. Giancotti (1953), 90.
31. Schetter (1972a), 432, implies that it does quoting Ep. 65.22: contemptus corporis sui certa libertas est (‘Contempt of one’s own body is certain liberty’). Seneca of course is talking about indifference to unavoidable suffering, not about self-inflicted punishment.
32. Henry and Walker (1963), 9. See also Regenbogen (1961), 456, who quotes de Ira 3.15: quaeris quod sit ad libertatem iter? quaelibet in corpore tuo vena (‘Do you seek the path to freedom? Every vein in your body’).
33. Wanke (1964), 169f. Wanke sees the paradox of reason in passion as an example of the ‘union of opposites’ which is a characteristic of what she calls Seneca’s ‘manneristic’ style (see pp. 146–50). She suggests tentatively that reason sets the course of action and that passion then takes over. She is not, however, much interested in this question and does not discuss it in any detail. I believe that a careful examination of the texts shows that the opposite is true.
