Sophocles

The Theban Plays

R.D. Dawe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135505332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria

Linked by their common setting in Thebes, Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus stand at the fountainhead of world drama. This volume presents a new, and accurate yet poetic and playable translation by playwright Don Taylor, who has also directed plays for a BBC-TV production.

On the Irony of Sophocles

Connop Thirlwall

Some readers may be a little surprised to see irony attributed to a tragic poet: and it may therefore be proper, before we proceed to illustrate the nature of the thing as it appears in the works of Sophocles, to explain and justify our application of the term. We must begin with a remark or two on the more ordinary use of the word, on that which to distinguish it from the subject of our present enquiry, we will call verbal irony. This most familiar species of irony may be described as a figure which enables the speaker to convey his meaning with greater force by means of a contrast between his thought and his expression, or to speak more accurately, between the thought which he evidently designs to express, and that which his words properly signify. The cases in which this figure may be advantageously employed are so various as to include some directly opposite in their nature. For it will serve to express assent and approbation as well as the contrary. Still as a friend cannot be defended unless against an enemy who attacks him, the use of verbal irony must in all cases be either directly or indirectly polemical. It is a weapon properly belonging to the armoury of controversy, and not fitted to any entirely peaceable occasion. This is not the less true because, as the enginery of war is often brought out, and sham fights exhibited, for the public amusement in time of peace, so there is a sportive irony, which instead of indicating any contrariety of opinion or animosity of feeling, is the surest sign of perfect harmony and goodwill. And as there is a mode of expressing sentiments of the utmost esteem and unanimity by an ironical reproof or contradiction, so there is an ironical self-commendation, by which a man may playfully confess his own failings. In the former case the speaker feigns the existence of adversaries whose language he pretends to adopt: in the latter he supposes himself surrounded, not as he really is by indulgent friends, but by severe judges of his actions, before whom it is necessary for him to disguise the imperfections of his character. But where irony is not merely jocular, it is not simply serious, but earnest. With respect to opinion it implies a conviction so deep, as to disdain a direct refutation of the opposite party: with respect to feeling, it implies an emotion so strong, as to be able to command itself, and to suppress its natural tone, in order to vent itself with greater force.

Irony is so inviting an instrument of literary warfare that there are perhaps few eminent controversial writers who have wholly abstained from the use of it. But in general even those who employ it most freely reserve it for particular occasions, to add weight and point to the gravest part of the argument. There is however an irony which deserves to be distinguished from the ordinary species by a different name, and which may be properly called dialectic irony. This, instead of being concentrated in insulated passages, and rendered prominent by its contrast with the prevailing tone of the composition, pervades every part, and is spread over the whole like a transparent vesture closely fitted to every limb of the body. The writer effects his purpose by placing the opinion of his adversary in the foreground, and saluting it with every demonstration of respect, while he is busied in withdrawing one by one all the supports on which it rests: and he never ceases to approach it with an air of deference, until he has completely undermined it, when he leaves it to sink by the weight of its own absurdity. Examples of this species are as rare as those of the other are common. The most perfect ever produced are those which occur in Plato’s dialogues. In modern literature the finest specimens may be found in the works of Pascal, and of Plato’s German translator, who has imbibed the peculiar spirit of the Platonic irony in a degree which has perhaps never been equalled. One of the most unfortunate attempts ever made at imitating this character of the Platonic dialogue, is Bishop Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher. Examples of a more superficial kind, where the object is rather ridicule than argument, will readily present themselves to the reader’s recollection. The highest triumph of irony consists not in refutation and demolition. It requires that, while the fallacy is exposed and overthrown by the admissions which it has itself demanded, the truth should be set in the clearest light, and on the most solid ground, by the attempts made to suppress and overwhelm it.

Without departing from the analogy that pervades the various kinds of verbal irony, we may speak of a practical irony, which is independent of all forms of speech, and needs not the aid of words. Life affords as many illustrations of this, as conversation and books of the other. But here we must carefully distinguish between two totally different kinds, which, though they may often outwardly coincide, spring from directly contrary feelings. There is a malignant, or at least a wanton irony, in the practical sense, by which a man humours the folly of another, for the purpose of rendering it more extravagant and incorrigible, whether it be with the further aim of extracting materials for ridicule from it, or of turning it to some still less liberal use. Specimens of this kind are perpetually occurring in society, and ancient and modern comedy is full of them. But this same irony has a darker side, which can excite only detestation and horror, as something belonging rather to the nature of a fiend than of a man. Such is the flattery which, under the mask of friendship, deliberately cherishes passions, and panders to wishes, which are hurrying their unconscious slave into ruin. Such is the spirit in which Timon gives his gold to Alcibiades and his companions, and afterwards to the thieves: though in the latter case he is near defeating his own purpose by the irony of his language, which compels one of the thieves to say: “He has almost charmed me from my profession by persuading me to it.” Such is the irony with which the weird women feed the ambitious hopes of Macbeth, and afterward lull him into a false “security, mortals’ chiefest enemy,” when they have been commanded to

raise such artificial sprites

As by the strength of their illusion

Shall draw him on to his confusion.

Till

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes’bove wisdom, grace, and fear.

Such, but more truly diabolical, is the irony with which in Faust the Spirit of Evil accompanies his victim on his fatal career, and with which, by way of interlude, he receives the visit of the young scholar.

But there is also a practical irony which is not inconsistent with the highest degree of wisdom and benevolence. A man of superior understanding may often find himself compelled to assent to propositions which he knows, though true in themselves, will lead to very erroneous inferences in the mind of the speaker, because either circumstances prevent him from subjoining the proper limitations, or the person he is addressing is incapable of comprehending them. So again a friend may comply with the wishes of one who is dear to him, though he foresees that they will probably end in disappointment and vexation, either because he conceives that he has no right to decide for another, or because he thinks it probable that the disappointment itself will prove more salutary than the privation. Such is the conduct of the affectionate father in the parable, which is a type of universal application: for in every transgression there is a concurrence of a depraved will, which is the vice of the agent, with certain outward conditions, which may be considered as a boon graciously bestowed, but capable of being perverted into an instrument of evil, and a cause of misery. It must have occurred to most men, more especially to those of sanguine temperament, and whose lives have been chequered with many vicissitudes, now and then to reflect how little the good and ill of their lot has corresponded with their hopes and fears. All who have lived long enough in the world must be able to remember objects coveted with impatient eagerness, and pursued with long and unremitting toil, which in possession have proved tasteless and worthless: hours embittered with anxiety and dread by the prospect of changes which brought with them the fulfilment of the most ardent wishes: events anticipated with trembling expectation which arrived, past, and left no sensible trace behind them: while things of which they scarcely heeded the existence, persons whom they met with indifference, exerted the most important influence on their character and fortunes. When, at a sufficient interval and with altered mood, we review such instances of the mockery of fate, we can scarcely refrain from a melancholy smile. And such, we conceive, though without any of the feelings that sometimes sadden our retrospect, must have been the look which a superior intelligence, exempt from our passions, and capable of surveying all our relations, and foreseeing the consequences of all our actions, would at the time have cast upon the tumultuous workings of our blind ambition and our groundless apprehensions, upon the phantoms we raised to chase us, or to be chased, while the substance of good and evil presented itself to our view, and was utterly disregarded.

But it is not only in the lives of individuals that man’s shortsighted impatience and temerity are thus tacitly rebuked by the course of events: examples still more striking are furnished by the history of states and institutions. The moment of the highest prosperity is often that which immediately precedes the most ruinous disaster, and (as in the case not only of a Xerxes, a Charles the Bold, a Philip the second, and a Napoleon, but of Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage, and Venice,) it is the sense of security that constitutes the danger, it is the consciousness of power and the desire of exerting it that causes the downfall. It is not however these sudden and signal reverses, the fruit of overweening arrogance and insatiable ambition, that we have here principally to observe: but rather an universal law, which manifests itself, no less in the moral world than in the physical, according to which the period of inward languor, corruption, and decay, which follows that of maturity, presents an aspect more dazzling and commanding, and to those who look only at the surface inspires greater confidence and respect, than the season of youthful health, of growing but unripened strength. The power of the Persians was most truly formidable when they first issued from their comparatively narrow territory to overspread Asia with their arms. But at what epoch in their history does the Great King appear invested with such majesty, as when he dictated the peace of Antaleidas to the Greeks! And yet at this very time the throne on which he sate with so lofty a port, was so insecurely based, that a slight shock would have been sufficient, as was soon proved, to level it with the dust.

It was nearly at the same juncture that Sparta seemed to have attained the summit of her power: her old enemy had been reduced to insignificance: her two most formidable rivals converted into useful dependants: her refractory allies chastised and cowed: in no quarter of the political horizon, neither in nor out of Greece, did it seem possible for the keenest eye to discover any prognostics of danger: her empire, says the contemporary historian, appeared in every respect to have been now established on a glorious and solid base. Yet in a few years the Spartan women saw for the first time the smoke of the flames with which a hostile army ravaged their country in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital: and a Spartan embassy implored the pity of the Athenians, and pleaded the magnanimity with which Sparta in her day of victory had preserved Athens from annihilation, as a motive for the exercise of similar generosity toward a fallen enemy. The historian sees in this reverse the judgement of the gods against treachery and impiety. But when we inquire about the steps by which the change was effected, we find that the mistress of Greece had lost—nearly a thousand of her subjects, and about four hundred of her citizens, at the battle of Leuctra.

It would be impertinent to accumulate illustrations which will present themselves uncalled to every reader’s mind: we might otherwise find some amusement in comparing the history of great cities with that of their respective states, and in observing how often the splendour of the one has increased in proportion to the weakness and rottenness of the other. The ages of conquest and of glory had past, before Rome began to exhibit a marble front; and the old consuls who in the wars of a century scarcely quelled the Samnite hydra, and who brought army after army into the field to be destroyed by Hannibal, would have gazed with wonder on the magnificence in the midst of which the master of the empire, in anguish and dismay, called upon Varus to restore his three legions. Yet Rome under Augustus was probably less gorgeous than Byzantium under Constantine, whose city was no unapt image of the ill which Dante deplored, as the consequence, though not the effect, of his conversion.¹ But instead of dwelling on the numerous contrasts of this kind which history suggests in illustrating the fragile and transitory nature of all mortal greatness, we shall draw nearer to our main point, and shall at the same time be taking a more cheering view of our subject, if we observe, that, as all things human are subject to dissolution, so and for the same reason it is the moment of their destruction that to the best and noblest of them is the beginning of a higher being, the dawn of a brighter period of action. When we reflect on the colossal monarchies that have succeeded one another on the face of the earth, we readily acknowledge that they fulfilled the best purpose of their proud existence, when they were broken up in order that their fragments might serve as materials for new structures. We confess with a sigh that the wonders of Egypt were not a mere waste of human labour, if the sight of them inspired the genius of the Greeks. But we should have been more reluctant to admit that this nation itself, which stands so solitary and unapproachable in its peculiar excellence, attained its highest glory, when, by the loss of its freedom and its power, it was enabled to diffuse a small portion of its spirit through the Roman world: had it not been that it was the destiny of this Roman world to crumble into dust, and to be trampled by hordes of barbarians, strangers to arts and letters. Yet we can believe this, and things much more wonderful, when we contemplate that new order of things, which followed what seemed so frightful a darkness, and such irretrievable ruin.

We must add one other general remark before we proceed to apply the preceding. There is always a slight cast of irony in the grave, calm, respectful attention ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Preface
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Letter Describing the Performance of Oedipus Rex at Vicenza in 1585
• Oedipus at Vicenza and Paris: Two Stages in a Saga
• From Preface to Oedipus
• Letters on Oedipus, Letter III: Containing the Critique of the Oedipus of Sophocles
• Remarks upon Oedipus
• What Lies behind the Notes: The Translations of the Antigone of Sophocles in the 18th Century
• Preface: The Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles
• Preface: The Tragedies of Sophocles; Oedipus, King of Thebes
• From Laokoon
• From Kritische Wälder: Erstes Wäldchen
• Hölderlin’s Translations
• Sophocles and Hölderlin
• The Bride of Messina
• Life and Political Character of Sophocles—Character of His Different Tragedies
• From The Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret
• On the Irony of Sophocles
• Lecture XXVIII
• The Oedipus Complex
• Chapter 10 of From Sophocles to Sartre
• The Descendants of Labdacus in the Theatrical Works of Jean Cocteau
• Ancient Tragedy on the Modern Stage