Note 115 — Chapter XII · THE LAY AUTHORS

One has only to read the play without preconceived ideas to see that this passionate and savage old man, pitilessly heaping dreadful curses on his sons, gloating vindictively over the coming misfortunes of his own country, is quite ignorant of the “deep peace from the gods” or the “illumination of the pious sufferer” which conventional literary interpretation has been anxious to ascribe to him. The poet is not one to gloss over the harsh realities of life with trite phrases of vapid consolation, and he has clearly perceived that the usual effect of unhappiness and misery upon men is not to “illuminate” but to enfeeble and vulgarize them. His Oedipus is pious (he was that from the beginning in OT. as well), but he is made savage, ἠγρίωται, exactly like Philoktetes in his misery (Ph. 1321).