Key word: miasma 'pollution, miasma'.
A) Plato Republic 9.571c-d [[Socrates talks about epithumiai [desires] and hēdonai [pleasures] in sleep...]] "When one part of the psukhē sleeps - I mean the part that is logistikon [rational] and hēmeron [domesticated] and arkhon [in control] of the other part, which is thēriōdes [beast-like] and agrion [savage] - then this other part, which is glutted with sita [grain] or methē [intoxicants], skirtāi [prances, bolts] and seeks to push aside sleep and glut its own ēthos [pl.]. When it is like this, it dares to do everything, released as it is from all sense of aiskhunē [shame] and phronēsis [thinking]. It does not at all shrink back from attempting to lay hands on his mother or on any other human or god or beast, and to commit whatever polluting [= miasma-making] murder, or to eat whatever food. In a word, there is nothing in the realm of noos [in Plato's time pronounced nous] and shame that it will not do."
A1. miaiphonein = 'to commit polluting [= miasma-making] murder': the wording suggests the taboo topic of father-killing.
A2. 'to eat whatever food' ... the wording suggests the taboo topic of cannibalism.
A3. Note the contrast in Republic 9.571d-e with the other part of psukhē in sleep, where the logistikon is what is awake and not the opposite. So we see here a contrast between two different kinds of subconscious that can be "awake" while we sleep.
The basic idea: inside the unconscious of every citizen is a sleeping tyrant.
B) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 91ff
{Creon} If you want to hear in the presence of these people, I am ready to speak: otherwise we can go inside.
{Oedipus} Speak to all. The sorrow [penthos] that I bear for these is more than for my own life [psukhē].
{Creon}{95} I will tell you what I heard form the god. Phoebus our lord clearly bids us to drive out the defilement [miasma], which he said was harbored in this land, and not to nourish it so that it cannot be healed.
{Oedipus} With what sort of purification? What is the manner of the misfortune?
{Creon}{100} By banishing the man, or by paying back bloodshed with bloodshed, since it is this blood which brings the tempest on our polis.
{Oedipus} And who is the man whose fate he thus reveals?
{Creon} Laios, my lord, was leader of our land before you directed [ = euthunō 'direct' literally means 'make straight'] this polis.
{Oedipus}{105} I know it well - by hearsay, for I never saw him.
{Creon} He was slain, and the god now bids us to take vengeance on his murderers, whoever they are.
{Oedipus} Where on earth are they? Where shall the dim track of this old guilt [aitia] be found?
B1. Antidote to miasma is katharsis = catharsis = 'purification'
C) Aristotle Poetics 1449b24-28 [his definition of catharsis = katharsis] "Tragedy is the mimesis of a serious and complete action that has magnitude, with seasoned speech. ... The mimesis is done by those who perform [draō] instead of through narrative, bringing about through pity and terror the purification [katharsis] of such emotions [pathos pl.]."
C1. The noun of draō is drama.
C2. pathos means emotion for the person who attends the Theater, suffering for the hero
D) Aristotle Rhetoric 1371a31-b10 (on mimēsis = re-enactment; imitation; representation): Both understanding and wonder are, for the most part, pleasant. In wonder there is the desire to understand.... Since both understanding and wonder are pleasant, it is necessary that a work of mimēsis also be pleasant, like painting, sculpture, poetry, and everything that is well represented, even if the thing represented is not in itself pleasant. For it is not there that the pleasure lies, but in the inference "This is that." What happens as a result is that we understand something.
D1. This drama is all about hamartia. Sometimes translated as "flaw" - but we must think of the "flaw" in terms of plot, not only character.
E) Aeschylus Libation Bearers 514ff [Orestes is speaking about his mother] "But it is not off the track to inquire from what motive she came to send her libations, seeking too late to make amends [timē] for an irremediable experience [pathos]. They would be a sorry return [kharis] to send to the dead who have no phrenes: I cannot guess what they mean. The gifts are too paltry for her offense [hamartia]. {520} For though a man may pour out all he has in atonement for one deed of blood, it is wasted effort. So the saying goes. If indeed you know, tell me: I wish to learn."
E1. Compare also the use of the word atē.
E2. Speaking of things going wrong... Here is where I show the clip from The Night of the Iguana.
Note that the character comes apart while his discourse comes apart.
"A City without Walls."
This clip is taken from The Night of the Iguana, a film based on a play by Tennessee Williams. Richard Burton plays the rle of a tormented Episcopalian priest. The scene you are about to see takes place at the very beginning of the film, before the title or the names of the actors are indicated. Shannon, the priest, is about to deliver his Sunday sermon. He chooses as his topic a quotation from the Book of Proverbs, chapter 25, verse 28 (King James Version):
"He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls."
Before he gets to announce his quotation, Shannon gets ready for his sermon by praying. He turns away from his listeners and toward the front of the church, toward God, as it were. He looks straight into the camera as he prays. You might say that we get a "God's-eye-view" of his prayer. The prayer starts:
"May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be always pleasing to Thee, my Lord and my Redeemer!"
Shannon's gaze toward his God seems unswerving - or is it?
Shannon turns back toward the congregation and begins his sermon.
His prayer has prepared him (has it not?) for meshing what he thinks on the inside ("meditations") and what he feels on the inside ("of my heart") with what he speaks on the outside. He is ready to start with the quotation from Proverbs. So he goes ahead and says it:
"He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls."
So far, so good...
Now he must build on his "thesis sentence," as we like to call it in expository writing.
He launches into the rest of the paragraph...
"And as we think about these words, we may each ask ourselves: how often do we stray from the straight and narrow?"
That leads him to think about human weakness and frailty. How weak is man! He tries to loop back to the point where he started, "how often do we stray from the straight and narrow?"
Suddenly, you can tell that his eye has become unsteady: you can tell that his formerly straight gaze has become shaken, has begun to stray, to swerve. His unsteady eye is catching the hostile looks that are coming at him from the congregation.
The unsteadiness of the eye translates into an unsteadiness of speech. His speech now becomes shaken, has begun to stray, to swerve.
He tries to repeat "how often do we stray from the straight and narrow?" But he can't.
He gets stuck between "how often do we" and "stray."
He tries again, and he gets stuck again.
"How often do we, how often do we, ..."
Where he should have continued with the following word, "stray," he loses it, and he starts to bellow:
"All right!" There follows a stream of enraged bellowing.
His speech breaks down. He breaks down on the outside. He breaks down on the inside.
He has lost his rule, his control, over his own spirit. Shannon, the leader of his congregation, breaks down - and the congregation breaks up. The city that is broken down, without walls...
That's it. No more sermon. He is now raving mad. His voice gets louder and louder as his syntax gets more and more disjointed. The congregation breaks out in murmurs. The congregation breaks up. It starts to scatter. Like some demon, he pursues them as they spill out of the church, into the rain.
F) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 1283ff [messenger is speaking]:
"But now on this day there is lamentation, atē, death, disgrace; of all the evils {1285} that can be named, not one is missing."
F1. Freud's early notion of Nachtrūglichkeit (double meaning in German: 'supplement' or 'resentment', 'grudge' - compare also the English expression "unfinished business"), where some unformulated early experience in life becomes also a fulfillment, via "repetition," at some later stage in life. This notion helps us contemplate the emotional "unfinished business" that each member of the audience of tragedy brings into State Theater.
G) Aristotle Politics 1342a8-15 [on catharsis = katharsis]:
We see from sacred songs that whenever those who are in a state of enthousiasmos [= being entheos 'possessed' = 'having a theos (god) inside] use songs that stir up the psukhē, they are put into a condition as if they had undergone a medical treatment and katharsis. People liable to pity or terror must experience the same thing - and other generally emotional [pathētikoi] people, as much as is appropriate for each. All of them attain some katharsis and are pleasantly relieved.
G1. Earlier, we saw that mimēsis gives pleasure. Now we see the concept of pleasant relief.
G2. Sophocles OT 393: reference to the ainigma of the Sphinx; message of ainigma: hobbling tyrant
G3. On the meaning of Oidipous, cf. Hesiod WD 497 (starving man), 524 (the "boneless one"), 533 (the 3-legged one)
G4. OT 221: sumbolon, here and elsewhere: the 'coming together' of paths of interpretation
H) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 14ff
Oedipus, ruler of my land, you see the age of those who sit {15} on your altars: some, nestlings still too tender for flight; others, bowed with age, priests of Zeus like me; and some, these here, the chosen youth. The rest of the folk sit {20} with wreathed branches in the agora, and before the twin temples of Athena, and where Ismenus gives answer by fire. The polis, as you yourself see, is now sorely buffeted, and can no longer lift her head from beneath the angry waves of death. {25} A blight has befallen the fruitful blossoms of the land, the herds among the pastures, the barren pangs of women. And the flaming god, a most hateful plague, has swooped upon us, and ravages the polis; he lays waste to the house of Cadmus, but enriches Hades with {30} groans and tears. It is not because we rank you with the gods that I and these children are suppliants at your hearth, but because we deem you the first among men in life's common chances and in dealings with the daimones. {35} Coming to the city of the Cadmeans, you freed us of the tax that we rendered to the hard songstress [= by solving the riddle of the Sphinx] and when you knew no more than anyone else, nor had you been taught, but rather by the assistance of a god, as the story goes, you uplifted our life. {40} Now, Oedipus, most powerful, we, your suppliants, beseech you to find some succor for us, whether you hear it from some divine omen, or learn of it from some mortal. For I see that the outcome of the counsels of experienced men {45} most often have effect. Come, best [aristos] among mortals, resurrect our polis! Come, take care, since now this land gives you kleos as its savior [sōtēr] for your former zeal. Let it not be our memory of your reign that {50} we were first set up straight and then cast down; resurrect this polis so that it falls no more! With good omen you provided us that past happiness; show yourself the same now too, since if you are to rule this land just as you do now, it is better to be lord of men than of a wasteland. Neither tower nor ship is anything, if it is empty and no men dwell within.
H1. About the underlined word 'resurrect'... The verb anorthoō means either 'to cause to stand up straight, to make erect' or, mystically, 'resurrect'.
H2. About the underlined wording 'set up straight'... The idiom is es orthon 'into a straight position'
H3. About the second occurrence of the underline word 'resurrect': note that, again, the verb is anorthoō.
H4. At line 16... your altars;
H5. At lines 24f... ship of state;
H6. At lines 25f, phthi-, vegetal and human; contrast fertility and kingship in Od. xix 109-114;
H7. At line 873, hubris "breeds" [phuteuei] the turannos (to be more precise: the word means 'vegetally generates'; cf. Theognis line 39 and line 1081);
H8. At line 46 best of men, an-orthoō [cause to stand up straight or resurrect] the polis!!! again at line 51;
H9. At line 48, Oedipus as savior [sōtēr]; lines 149f, Apollo as savior [sōtēr];
H10. At lines 376-377, god-hero antagonism, via Teiresias as representative of Apollo; cf. line 439, the ainigma of Teiresias; cf. line 438: this day will phuteuein you;
H11. At line 439 = ainigma; cf. 371, the "blindness" passage
I) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 58ff
My piteous children, I know quite well the desires with which you have come; I know well that you {60} all are sick, and though you are sick I know well that there is not one of you who is as sick as I. Your pain comes on each of you for himself alone, and for no other, but my psukhē groans at once for the polis, for myself, and for you. {65} You are not awakening me from sleep; no, be sure that I have wept many tears, gone many ways in the wanderings of my thought. I have made use of the only remedy which I could find after close consideration: I sent my wife's brother {70} Creon, Menoikeus' son, to Apollo's Pythian residence in order to learn what we might do or say to protect this polis. And now, when the lapse of days is reckoned, I'm troubled about what he is doing, for he tarries oddly {75} beyond the fitting length of time. But when he arrives, I will be kakos if do not perform all that the god reveals.
I1. Same idea at 93-94;
I2. At line 68, iasis 'cure', send Kreon to Oracle; cf. the meaning of pharamakos 'scapegoat';
I3. At line 97, miasma = defilement = pollution;
I4. At line 132, egō phanō = I will cast light; cf. the meaning of <<Phoibos>> Apollo;
I5. At line 895, why should I be part of the khoros?
I6. At line 1083, I am the product of the seasons, the months are my brothers; cf. 438: this day will phuteuein you;
I7. At line 439 = ainigma;
I8. At lines 1403ff, scrambled identity: (1) the wife is the mother, (2) the sons are the brothers who will one day kill each other, (3) the prime enemy is the father;
J) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 216ff
You pray. And in answer to your prayer, if you will give a loyal reception to my words [epos pl.], and minister to your own disease, you may hope to find succor and relief from woes. These words I will speak publicly, as one who was a stranger [xenos] to the report, {220} a stranger to the deed. I would not go far on the trail if I were tracing it alone, without a clue [sumbolon]. But as it is - since it was only after the event that I was counted a Theban among Thebans - to you, Cadmeans all, I do thus proclaim: Whoever of you knows by whom Laios son of Labdakos was slain, I bid him to indicate [sēmainō] all to me.
K) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 1266ff
And when the hapless woman was stretched out on the ground, then the sequel was horrible to see: for he tore from her raiment the golden brooches with which she had decorated herself, {1270} and lifting them struck his own eyeballs, uttering words like these: "No longer will you behold such evils as I was suffering [paskhō] and performing! Long enough have you looked on those whom you ought never to have seen, having failed in the knowledge of those whom I yearned to know - henceforth you shall be dark!" With such a dire refrain, he struck his eyes with raised hand not once but often. At each blow the bloody eye-balls bedewed his beard, and did not send forth sluggish drops of gore, but all at once a dark shower of blood came down like hail. These mingled evils have broken forth upon the heads of them both, not of one alone, on husband and wife together. Their old prosperity [olbos] was once true prosperity, and justly [dikaia] so. But now on this day there is lamentation, atē, death, disgrace; of all the evils that can be named, not one is missing.
L) Sophocles Oedipus Tyrannus 1327ff
{Chorus} Man of dread deeds, how could you extinguish [marainō] your vision in this way? Who among the daimones urged you on?
{Oedipus}
It was Apollo, philoi, Apollo {1330} who gave telos to these evil, evil sufferings [pathos pl.] of mine. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am! {1335} Why was I to see, when sight showed me nothing sweet?
L1. At line 1328, extinguish his eyes = make the light of his eyes go out by itself.
L2. Compare verse 132, egō phanō = I will cast light; cf. the meaning of <<Phoibos>> (Phoebus) Apollo.