Thirty Tyrants

 I was reading Robert Fagles's translation of Sophocles's Oedpius at Colonus yesterday. The introduction in the Penguin Classics edition tells me that the play was most likely first performed at what could be described as an all-around low-point in Athenian history. The city had recently faced a humiliating military defeat. After years of conflict with its neighbors, it was at the low ebb of its imperial fortunes. 

Even worse, it was facing occupation-from-within. The city's democratic institutions had been overthrown, and supplanted with a Spartan-backed dictatorship made up of thirty tyrants. (All of which is all-too-relatable, as we face the dismantling of our own democratic institutions at the hands of the Putin-backed dictators who have gained power over our own government machinery.)

The circumstances perhaps account for the general gloom and melancholy of Sophocles's tragic vision. The chorus at one point observes that "Not to be born is best." (Fagles trans.) This sounds the same note as the chorus in the earlier Oedipus Rex, who argue (much in the same spirit as a famous Greek anecdote about Croesus), that no man can be counted happy until he's dead. 

I was reminded of a line from Heinrich Heine's poem "Morphine," which Eugene O'Neill also quotes in The Iceman Cometh as the perfect distillation of pessimistic wisdom: "Sleep is good; death is better. But best of all is never to have been born." A similar sentiment can be found in Leopardi's Canti ("Never to see the light was best" (Galassi trans.)) and in the Book of Job. 

Plainly, we are in the presence of a trans-cultural and trans-historical note of pessimistic truth (the sentiment has certainly spoken to me—and, no doubt, to all of us—at moments in our lives). It belongs not only to Hardy's "ache of modernism," or to Flaubert's "melancholy of the antique world"—but to every historical era. It is part of the permanent wisdom of the human race. 

As we face our own defeat at the hands of thirty (or more) tyrants who have hijacked our federal government—and who are increasingly openly flirting with the idea of defying federal court orders and causing a constitutional crisis—it's easy to feel just as bitter as the chorus in Sophocles's play. Many of us may be wishing we could reach right now for some of Heine's morphine. 

(One passage from Sophocles in particular made me think of Trump's policies. As our current would-be tyrant continues to threaten unprovoked aggression against our ally Canada—and to go back on his own word, in a trade agreement he negotiated in his first term—these words from the play seemed especially apt: a day will come when the treaties of an hour, the pacts firmed with a handclasp will snap...)

But it's worth reflecting as well on the fact that Sophocles's tragic vision is not one of unrelieved defeat and gloom. Oedipus, after all—who appears in the previous play as a quick-tempered and violent man—is ennobled through his suffering. And when he comes to Athens, in the final play in the series, he is able to redeem his shattered life by fulfilling a prophecy that secures the defense of his new adopted homeland. 

And maybe there will be a redemption that will arise from our own national tragedy and defeat as well. Maybe, all of the signs of decay and misery in our current political order will prove—as Shelley once wrote—to be "graves from which a glorious Phantom may/ Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day." Death and resurrection, in short—just as Oedipus's death in the end saves Athens. 

In his prophetic 1936 book, In the Shadow of Tomorrow, Johan Huizinga defines "Katharsis," the goal of all Greek tragedy, as: "the state of mind produced by the spectacle of tragedy, the stillness of heart in which compassion and fear have been dissolved, the purification of soul which springs from having grasped a deeper meaning in things; which creates a grave and new preparedness for acts of duty and the acceptance of fate; which breaks the hybris as it was seen to be broken in the tragedy." 

And that is perhaps what will result from the current tragedy of our national life. Perhaps the mad hubris of our current leaders and the folly of the people who installed them in power will be broken by events, as they exceed their powers and eventually bring about their own downfall. And perhaps, from our suffering, we will steal new courage to tolerate hardship and prepare ourselves for acts of resistance. 

And perhaps, when all is said, we will find a deeper meaning in things. We will, like Oedipus, be ennobled and redeemed through our suffering. We will not merely wring our hands in despair—but use what we are going through to find new ways to defend our country. Even if our own generation be doomed—perhaps our fate will serve as a sacred and protected grave, like Oedipus's—that will one day save the city.