so the gods feel under obligation to uphold the moral order of the universe. . . . The existence of natural law in the physical world, and of eternal principles in the moral world, early made a deep impression on the Greek mind. . . . The precepts in the Works and Days of Hesiod, or in the poetry of Theognis and Solon, embody the thought of generations on law and order in the physical world and in the moral world.' 'It is Zeus who dispenses good and evil to men, Zeus to whom the epic heroes commonly pray. . . . As an actor in the poem, however, Zeus cannot always follow his personal desires; when Sarpedon is hard-pressed by Patroclus, Zeus questions whether to let his friend die or snatch him away to his home in Lycia, till Hera reminds him that it is Sarpedon's lot to die at this time. "Neither men nor gods can ward it off, when the baleful lot of death overtakes a man. Is this lot or portion a fate higher than Zeus? or is it part of the "ancient decrees of the gods" which Zeus is bound to obey? The question is never asked in such form by the poet, who recognizes no power higher than that of Zeus. . . . If Zeus saved Sarpedon he would be acting vwèp μópov, contrary to the "ought" which he felt binding on himself. '65

To the same effect writes F. M. Cornford: 'Further, as in the Ionian philosopher, so in Homer, the ordinance of fate is not a mere blind and senseless barrier of impossibility; it is a moral decree the boundary of right and wrong. We may even say that the two notions of Destiny and Right are hardly distinguished. This comes out in the phrase "beyond what is ordained," "beyond fate" (vèp póрov, vтèρ alσav), which in Homer halts between the two meanings: "beyond what is destined, and so must be," and "beyond what is right, and so ought to be." Thus, when the first sense-destiny-is uppermost, it is denied that God or man can make anything happen "beyond fate." But elsewhere we find, on the contrary, that things do happen "beyond fate." In the Iliad the Achaeans prevail for a time in battle ὑπὲρ αἶσαν.68 Here, it is evident, the moral sense is uppermost. The offenders went beyond, not their fate, but the bounds of morality. Hence in such cases the balance is redressed by swiftly following vengeance, which itself is "beyond what is ordained" in the sense that the sinners brought it upon themselves by their own wickedness, so

65 Fairbanks, A Handbook of Greek Religion, pp. 310, 140, 141.

66 Iliad 6. 487.

67 Ibid. 16. 780.

68 Odyssey 1. 34 has 'beyond what is ordained.'

that they, and not fate, are responsible."9 When Croesus blames the oracle for his defeat, Apollo throws the responsibility upon Croesus because he took the interpretation that pleased him, without further inquiry, and Croesus thereupon acknowledges 'that the fault was his, not the god's. "70 "The casting the lots of Hector and Achilles into the scale,' says Farnell," 'cannot be interpreted as a questioning of the superior will of fate, for Zeus never does this elsewhere; the act might as naturally be explained as a divine method of drawing lots, or, as Welcker prefers, a symbol of his long and dubious reflection."72

After a careful study of all the passages in Sophocles bearing on the topic, Dr. Josef Kohn reaches this result: that the Moîpai do have a personal existence; that they are subordinated to Zeus; that their activity is more or less completely in the background, while Zeus appears as the sole ruler of the world and guide of the fate allotted by him with wisdom to each one.73

A question of this kind, however, cannot be settled by citations and the statistical method; it is determined rather by the ideals and general trend of life, and especially by the delineation of heroes and heroines in literature. Take Odysseus, a typical Greek, and what do we find? A man resourceful, ready to meet emergencies, quick-witted, daring-an excellent hero for a tale in which we have a curious interplay between divine agencies and human strength and prowess. Of himself, Odysseus gets the better of the Cyclops when his venturesomeness has nearly cost him his life; nor is there anything cleverer in the whole story than his cunning escape. In his meeting with Circe, however, he is fortified against her magic arts by the antidote that he has received from Hermes; but, on the other hand, he has strength in himself alone to hold out against Calypso of the radiant hair, his deep longing for his native land and those he has left behind giving way not even to the lure of becoming an immortal. And while his companions are fine examples of those who in spite of ample warning perish through their own folly, it is his own heart, and not the gods, that the hero chides, when he is trying to regain his own, upon his return to his native land. As Odysseus is portrayed, with a keen love of knowledge,

74

69 Cornford, From Religion to Philosophy, pp. 13, 14.

70 Herodotus 1.91.

71 Farnell, Cults of the Greek States 1. 79.

[72 For reasons of space, a small portion of the article by Miss Leach is here omitted.-EDITOR.]

73 Kohn, Zeus und sein Verhältnis zu den Moirai nach Sophokles.

74 Odyssey 20. 18.

energetic, hopeful; sometimes cast down and in fear, but soon gathering together his forces for new endeavor; alert, active, with mind quick to conceive, and with courage to execute; what has he in common with the stolid fatalist who grimly says: 'If it must come, it must, and there is nothing I can do to change it'?

776

Not man's impotence, but man's power, not his limitations, but his achievements, are the favorite theme of the Greeks-as in the chorus of the Antigone: 'Many wonders there are, but nothing is more wonderful than man. 975 'He hath resource for all; without resource he meets nothing that must come. The danger is that he will be led astray by his very strength and power. 'Seek not to become Zeus,' says Pindar; 'mortal things befit mortals." This is the keynote of Greek teaching. No dark, sinister fate hovers over them, chilling enterprise and benumbing their hearts. The gods are not inflexible in purpose or inexorable. In the Iliad Glaucus prays Apollo to heal him of his wound in order that he may rescue the body of Sarpedon, and Apollo grants him his wish.78 According to Euripides, there is a saying that 'Gifts persuade even the gods. '79

The Greeks were wonderful interpreters of life. Clear-eyed, they looked out upon the world, and they knew how to record what they saw so that it lives again for those who read. And what did they see? The same that any one sees who goes through life and reflects upon it-that, calculate as we will, forecast events as we will, however fortunate and successful we may be, yet outside and beyond the reach of any effort of ours, there is an incalculable element with which we have to reckon. Before it we stand powerless; the unforeseen intervenes, our purposes are frustrated, our endeavors baffled, our success changed to failure, our prosperity to ruin.

We say: 'Mysterious are the workings of Providence.' 'We know not what a day will bring forth.' 'God's ways are inscrutable and past finding out.' 'Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.'-All of which means that there is some mysterious power working its will in the world, in unaccountable ways, and with tragic consequences at times.

'Count no man happy till his death,' said the wise Solon; and

75 Sophocles, Antigone 332.

T6 Ibid. 360.

77 Pindar, I. 5.14; I. 5. 16.

78 Iliad 16. 523 ff.

79 Euripides, Medea 964.

the Greeks repeat the sentiment again and again in their literature. So, for example, Simonides:

Mortal man that thou art, never say what will be on the morrow; Nor yet, when thou beholdest one prospering, shalt thou say how long time he will continue;

For swift comes the change,

Yea, swifter than in the life of the long-winged fly.80

What do the Greeks say? They say: Man is a free agent, but with an ancestral heritage for blessing or bane. Man is a free agent, but subject to forces he cannot control. Man is a free agent, but the area of his powers is hedged about with impassable limits. Man is a free agent, but he is mortal. Do we not say the same? Who has ever been able to set the bounds and to mark out where free agency ends and divine intervention begins? But this does not prevent us any more than the Greeks from trying to carve out our fortunes, or from believing that, measurably at least, we are masters of our fate.

Wherein lay the greatness of the Greeks? Was it not in that creative genius, essentially free and untrammeled, which they possessed to such a high degree, and which found expression in their matchless literature and art? Was it not in the free play of thought and fancy, that delighted to range at will? Freedom of thought, freedom of action, love of the beautiful, joy in living, incessant activity, eager emulation in pursuit of honor and glory, fertility of resource, and confidence in their own resolute daring— all these are incontestably theirs; and all these are diametrically opposed to any fatalistic doctrine, to anything bordering on patient and unquestioning submission to the fixed and unalterable decrees of fate. The Greeks merely did not deceive themselves. 'In a little moment,' says Pindar, 'groweth up the delight of men; yea, and in like sort falleth it to the ground, when a doom adverse hath shaken it. Things of a day-what are we, and what not? Man is a dream of shadows.' But then comes the other note: 'Nevertheless, when a glory from God hath shined on them, a clear light abideth upon men, and serene life. '81

80 Simonides 32 [46].

81 Pindar, P. 8. 92-97. Myers' translation.

ΧΙ

OEDIPUS REX: A TYPICAL GREEK TRAGEDY 1

BY MARJORIE L. BARSTOW

In an ideal tragedy, says Aristotle, 'even without seeing the things take place, he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents'; and he adds: 'So it is with the Oedipus.' But the modern reader, coming to the ancient classical drama not wholly for the purpose of enjoyment, will not always respond to the story with intense and purifying sympathy. He is preoccupied with what he has heard concerning the 'fatalism' of the Greek drama; he is repelled by what seems to be a cruel injustice in the downfall of Oedipus; and, finding no solution for these intellectual difficulties, he loses half the pleasure which the Oedipus Rex was intended to produce. Perhaps we trouble ourselves too much concerning Greek notions of fate in human life. We are inclined to regard them with a lively antiquarian interest, as if they were something remote and peculiar; yet in reality the essential difference between these conceptions and the more familiar ideas of a later time is so slight that it need hardly concern a naïve and sympathetic reader. If we substitute 'heredity' for 'fate,' and 'environment' for the series of external accidents which result in the downfall of Oedipus, we begin to perceive that the hero of the old Greek story was, as Aristotle says, 'a man like ourselves,' living and suffering under the same laws. But, after all, the fundamental aim of the poet is not to teach us specific laws, but to construct a tragedy which shall completely fulfil its artistic function. In this function there is a regenerative power infinitely more vital than any specific teaching.

But the student of literature cannot stop with naïve and sympathetic reading. It is his business, not only to feel, but to think. And whether he thinks of the Oedipus Rex as representing what the Greeks observed and thought concerning human life, or whether

[1 This paper was prepared by Miss Barstow when she was a Sophomore in Cornell University. It was first printed in the Classical Weekly for October 5, 1912, and is reprinted with slight alterations.—EDITOR.]