Just as the ancient Athenians were able to see their own collective suffering in the experiences of Thebans, so does Oedipus Tyrannos provide contemporary readers an opportunity to see themselves through its lens. Doing so affords an important psychological and epistemological opportunity. The play offered Athenians a mythological setting sufficiently removed from their own to allow for the emotional distance necessary to explore their own feelings of pity and horror. Oedipus Tyrannos asked them look at their own distress with new eyes and to counter the tendency to double down on established ideas in times of distress, holding them as immune truths. In the play, illness and plague serve as a catalyst for the pursuit of knowledge and the process of realization. This need not be true only for Oedipus or Athenian audiences who prided themselves on their intellectualism. It also has resonance in contemporary America. Scenes from Oedipus Tyrannos appear to play themselves out in our world. COVID-19 has spread rapidly and killed more than a million Americans ( Johns Hopkins University & Medicine). It has uprooted our social, economic, and political lives. The United States has suffered collectively; it has desperately sought knowledge to remedy the illness; some of us have been skeptical of obvious truths; some have resorted to personally abusive rhetoric aimed at “truthtellers.” So, while we may believe our advanced prowess will keep us safe, we need to rethink what we know, to pursue facts, to confront personal truths, and to endure the consequences of what we find out. The tension between “knowing” and “not knowing” is central to Oedipus Tyrannos. At heart, the play is about asking questions. Oedipus sends his brother-in-law, Creon, to the oracle to ask what will lift the plague. Creon returns with a seer who reports that the plague will remain until the murderer of King Laius has been found and punished. The famous irony of the play is that the truth that will set the city free will also devastate the man charged with seeking it, Oedipus. The end of the plague, in other words, requires that Oedipus confronts truths he would much rather not have known. The dilemma is evident in the key scene between Oedipus and the seer, Tiresias. The king, heeding his people’s desperate calls, is eager and dutiful in his pursuit of an answer to the question of Laius’ murder. Tiresias, however, is burdened by the truth and determined not to inflict suffering onto Oedipus. The juxtaposition of naivete and knowingness fuels the tension of the scene: OEDIPUS: Can you use birdflight or any art of divination to purify yourself, and Thebes, and me from this contagion? We are in your hands. There is no fairer duty than that of helping others in distress. TEIRESIAS: How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there’s no help in the truth! I knew this well, but made myself forget. I should not have come. 46
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