The Oedipus Myth

 

The Oedipus-myth has six major sections up to the pillars of the atrium of the Temple of Wisdom :

== The curse ==

 

King Laios [spoken: La'i'os; the left hand side] of Thebes had thereby abused the hospitality of King Pelops, a son of King Tantalus and brother of Niobe.

He wanted to kidnap and seduce Pelops's son Chrysippos ('golden horse'), whom Pelops had with the nymph Axioche (or Danais), to whom he had been pleased. Because of this, Pelops cursed him. (According to Schwab, the enraged Zeus cursed him for the abduction attempt.)

Laios and his wife Iokaste('shining moon') were childless for a long time. Finally, Laios made his way to the oracle of Delphi and received the news of Pelops's curse. The oracle said, "Beware to ever produce  a son, or he will slay his father and marry his mother."

== Ödipus in Corinth ==

When Laios and Iokaste were given the promised son under the influence of alcohol, they gave the child to a shepherd to expose him to the mountains 

They had even bungled the child's feet, from where the name "Oedipus" (swollen foot) is said to come.  The shepherd had pity, and gave little Oedipus to another shepherd who was on the way to Corinth ('ornament'). The rich city was known for its leaf shapes decorated columns.

There ruled the king Polybos ('rich in cattle'), a son of Hermes and the nymph Chthonophyle (chtonios: belonging to the earth), with queen Merope ('turned face'?).  As friendly people, these took Oedipus  up  and treated him as a child of their own.

Oedipus therefore thought for a time to be a son of King Polybos. At a celebration, a drunken man wanted to insult Oedipus and told him that he was merely a foundling child.  The next morning, Oedipus asked his foster parents whether that was true. But Polybos and Merope would not tell him the truth.  Oedipus secretly went to the Oracle of Delphi (U.Path 6.1) and asked the Sybille.

The oracle also said to Oedipus that he would kill his father and marry his mother.  Oedipus got a great fright and hesitated to return to Corinth.  He still held Polybos and Merope for his real parents, and wanted to prevent bad things.  So he went to Boeotia into the city of Thebes.

== Ödipus kills his father ==

 

At a crossroads, Oedipus encountered a horse cart that wanted to push him off the road.

When Oedipus tried to fight back, the old man who was sitting in the cart threw a weapon at him. (In another version, he killed one of his horses).

This old man, however, was King Laius of Thebes (Thebes) what Oedipus, of course, did not recognize.  Oedipus struck back, so accidentally killing his own father.

Thus the first part of the oracles had been fulfilled, but Oedipus suspected still nothing of it.
 
Tarot7 - 'Ödipus' or 'Creon' - and  the sphinx  
  

Oedipus defeates the Sphinx

 

After Laio's death, his brother-in-law Kreon took over the dominion over Thebes.

At this time  ambuscaded the (from Hera's sent) Sphinx travelers near Thebes. She sat on a rock and put the passers a riddle. She devoured him who could not solve it.

Oedipus solved the riddle, whereupon the Sphinx jumped from a rock  into the sea (Esoteric: U.Path 7.1: Earth- and then 7.2: Water Element).

The Greek sphinx sits upright and has wings. The near-body forces are already pulled upwards.  

The sphinx examines the maturity for the following step 8 of the Universal Path, similar to the Mahabharata, where Yama in the shape of a crane  examines the Pandavas in the forest, and only King Yudhisthira can answer the questions.

So he liberated Thebes from the Sphinx, and was appointed as King of Thebes.

He got Iokaste, i. his own mother, as wife.  With her he had the twins Eteokles ('Really beautiful, rightly famous') and Polyneikes ('great victory') and the daughters Antigone ('against birth') and Ismene (isme: 'knowledge').  Oedipus cursed his sons otherwise for their disrespect.

When the Thebans later discovered that Oedipus had killed his father and married his mother, he was expelled from Thebes, and his sons ruled Thebes.

In Apollodorus, Bibliotheque 3,55, Pisander scholium, PEG I, 17-19, and Pausanias in the epic Oidipodeia, a second wife of Oedipus Euryganeia is mentioned as the mother of the above children, either a daughter of Hyperphas or Iocastes sister. Oedipus marveled her after Iokaste had hanged herself.

According to Hesiod Eoien.191 he was to have been with Iokaste the father of the Phrastor and the Laonytos. He was later to have married Astymedusa, the daughter of Sthenelos.

== The plague ==

 

According to Sophocles, a plague broke out in Thebes. Iokastes brother King Creon ('regent, master') therefore consulted the oracle.

Apollo reveales that Thebes harbors the true murderer of the old King Laius, and that the disease can only be remedied if he is discovered and punished for its crime(or distributed).

Oedipus vows to do so, and of course does not realize that he is the abomination that he swore to expel.

The bitter truth emerges slowly in the course of the play when Oedipus collides with the blind seer Tiresias of Delphi, who recognizes the truth and reveals it at the urging of Oedipus.

Locaste hanged herself on her veil, (evtl. the Mayan veil - U.Path 9), and Oedipus stared out his eyes with the gold clasps of Iokasta's garment (Apollod., 3.5.8; Soph. Oed. Tyr. 447,713, 731, 774,&c.). In other versions Oedipus blinds himself.

In Homer's Odyssey (11th song) the hero recognizes Epicaste as the late beautiful queen Iocaste as a shadow in the underworld.

In the newly discovered fragments of Euripides, however, Oedipus is not detected by Tiresias, but by Periboea, who arrives in Thebes in a vehicle given to her by Oedipus and previously owned by Laius, to report to him the death of Polybos. The Thebans recognized the vehicle and Oedipus was exposed. It seems that Oedipus is blinded there by Laius, a slave of his father, even before he knows that Laius is his father. Jocasta survived here and accompanied Oedipus into exile.

== Death ==

 

There are numerous versions of the death of Oedipus :

  1. His sons Eteokles and Polyneikes capture Oedipus to keep the shame of their father secret from the public. Oedipus then cursed his sons, who later killed each other.
  2. Oedipus leaves the city and receives a fourth oracle saying that he must go to a certain place where he will die. When they arrive at Kolonos ('summit, hill'), he gets salvation.
  3. Oedipus hands over the government to Eteokles and leaves Theben together with his daughter Antigone [ Apollodor: Bibliotheke. 3, 56.]
  4. Creon, brother of Iokaste, took over the reign and banished Oedipus from the city. Oedipus travels for several years with his daughter Antigone, until he is taken up in Kolonos ('summit', hill) near Athens in a holy grove for petitioners of Theseus and dies there.[ Sophokles: Ödipus auf Kolonos.]
  5. Oedipus continues to rule after the death of Iokastes and dies in battle.[ Homer: Ilias. 23, 679; Odyssee. 11, 275.]
  6. Oedipus plunges himself from despair into a ravine, which is considered the gateway to Hades(Homer).
  7. Oedipus asks  Kreon to banish him. But Kreon does not fulfill his request to take his daughter Antigone with him.

== Allegory ==

 

Queen Iokaste and King Laios of Thebes had a children's wish. But the Delphic Oracle prophesied to them that they would have a son who would kill the father and marry the mother.

 The strange often emerging survey of the Delphic Oracle has its allegorical background in the 'earth element phase' (Typhon et al.) at the beginning of a cycle, which points to the end of the cycle(or cycles). At the end of the first cycle Oedipus is born.

The path of  Oedipus up to the death of Iokaste ('shining moon') corresponds to the steps 1-9 of the universal path. (At the end of the seventh cycle -step 14 - the Filius Philosophorum or the Divine Child is finally born in other myths.)

Oedipus, however, is not comparable to Heracles, whose divine father is Zeus, who laid a divine seed.  Oedipus undergoes an evolutionary development.

he is the superordinate synthesis of the lower forces, similar to the mentality of the astral and material forces, or the Akasha principle of the elements, similar to that of the Pandava Yudhisthira, the fith element.

Iokaste ('shining moon') represents the lunar, first still maya encumbered forces, forces close to the body like the prana-kundalini. Laios represents the body-near solar forces.

Its inclination to Chrysippos ('Golden Horse') stands for the forces pushing for physically nobler and more beautiful things.  Corresponding snake kings are also found in the Hindu Puranas as Daityas.

In many myths, similar pairs of parents appear at the beginning of the path, also for the self-preservation drive and the drive for conservation of the species.

KORINTH : The exposed Oedipus grows up in Corinth during the long lunar step 4 of the U.Path, where Echidna 's daughter Chimaira is an armadillo, which points to the Muladhara chakra, and thus to the body - related forces that are purified and tamed during the steps 1-6 of the universal path.

(The mythical founder and builder of Corinth and Qorinthos was Sisyphos, Corinth was known for its Temple of Apollo (6th century BC), and especially for the temple of Aphrodite, with the 1000 Hetairas(temple hores) for the rich and for powerful officials.

At the 6th step the paths of the vehicles of the lower solar forces and the higher forces of Oedipus cross: The old aggressive forces of Laios oppose themselfes in the mountains. They are killed at the beginning of step 7 with its 3 phases. 

The solution of the riddle of the Sphinx happens at step 7.2 of the Universal path. The sphinx represents the negative aspects of the prana of man (Pranayama), which are responsible for the circulation of the wheel of the rebirths. It is similar to the examination of Yama as a craine with the 5 pandavas where only King Yudhisthira (Akasha) can answer the questions. .

At step 8 Iokaste then gives birth to two sons named Eteokles ('truly gorgeous, rightly famous') and Polyneikes ('Great Victory') and two daughters Ismene (isme: 'Knowledge') and Antigone ('against birth').

Both sons  later  killed each other in a battle for Thebes at the seventh gate (for this also: Seven against Thebes of Aischylos).  With reference to Apollodorus Kreon took over the rule over Thebes again.

At step 9 Iokaste hangs herself after having learned the cause of the death of Laios and recognizing her fourfold motherhood with her son Oedipus, whom she long ago expelled.

Oedipus is now released from the lower nature.

THEBES : The city of Thebes symbolizes the Swadhisthana Chakra with its 6 + 1 gates(petals + inner channel), whose symbol is the white-shining moon. However, here is also the dark Prana-Maya-Kosha.

The path of Oedipus ends at the end of the solar cycle 7 of step 12. It is a descritption of  the atrium( forecourt) of the Temple of Wisdom.

== Literature ==

 

== References ==

 
  1. ↑ http://www.stefan.cc/books/antike/epinikia.html
  2. ↑ http://www.stefan.cc/books/antike/phoinikerinnen.html
  3. ↑ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0022%3Atext%3DLibrary%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D5
  4. ↑ http://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodorus3.html#6
  5. ↑ Collard, C. (2004). "Oedipus". In Collard, C., Cropp, M.J. & Gilbert, J. Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays, Volume II. Aris & Phillips. pp. 108–110. ISBN 9780856686214.
  6. ↑ Collard, C. & Cropp, M. J., ed. (2008). Euripides Fragments: Oedipus–Chrysippus; Other Fragments. Harvard University Press. pp. 9–27. ISBN 9780674996311.

   This article is my Translation of my german article about Ödipus . It underlies  the same   Creative   Commons 2 backlink - license.

 


 

 

 

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