18§1. The key word for this hour is kolōnos, which means a ‘tumulus’ or ‘elevation’ in a local landscape. As we will see, kolōnos means also the whole landscape itself, which is a garden or grove that is entered by Oedipus. Further, Colonus / Kolōnos is the name of a district or dēmos, ‘deme’, of Attica, which was named after this prominent landmark. When I say Attica here, I mean the name of the overall region controlled by the metropolis of Athens.

18§2. And there is also another meaning of kolōnos at work here in the context of Colonus / Kolōnos as a name for a deme of Attica: Colonus / Kolōnos is the name of a local cult hero who resides in the deme of Colonus / Kolōnos.

18§3. All these meanings are activated in a dialogue between Oedipus and a representative of the local population of Colonus, whom the old hero addresses as xenos, ‘stranger’:

18§4. For the moment, I highlight only three details in this remarkable passage. First, the language describing the sacred place that Oedipus has entered uses the deictic pronoun hode, which can be translated as ‘this person here’, in referring to the local cult hero of this place, whose name is Colonus / Kolōnos. The reference is most ostentatious, since it happens three times in a row, at lines 59 (τόνδ’), 61 (τοῦδε), 65 (τοῦδε). So, the immediate presence of this hero named Colonus / Kolōnos is deeply felt by the local population of a district that is likewise named Colonus / Kolōnos. Second, this hero is described by the epithet hippotēs at line 59, which I interpret as ‘the rider of a horse-drawn chariot’. I will have more to say later about the significance of associating both the hero and the place named Colonus / Kolōnos with horses. Third, in the last line of what I just quoted, we see the word theos, ‘god’, applied to this local cult hero. As we already saw in Hour 15§30, local cult heroes may be called theoi, ‘gods’, at climactic moments in the course of rituals that venerate them. {498|499}

18§5. I started this hour by observing that the cult hero Colonus / Kolōnos is named after a landmark that distinguishes the district in which he resides, and that this landmark is a kolōnos or ‘tumulus’ of a hero. To pick up on this observation, I find it most relevant to recall the use of the word kolōnos in the Hērōikos of Philostratus:

18§6. In this passage, I translated kolōnos as ‘tumulus’, but the word can also be rendered more generally as ‘landmark’; it marks the mound, surrounded by elm-trees, that ‘extends over’ (epekhei) the body of the cult hero Protesilaos at Elaious in the Chersonesus. We may compare the expression kolōnos lithōn, in Herodotus 4.92, which can be translated as ‘mound of stones’. In Hērōikos 51.12-13, which I quoted in Hour 14 Text H, this same word kolōnos designates the mound that the Achaeans had built to extend over the bodies of Achilles and Patroklos; the verb there, ageirein, suggests a piling of stones. This mound or tumulus, as we saw in Hour 14 Text H, was situated on a headland overlooking the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, facing the tumulus of Protesilaos situated on a corresponding headland overlooking the European side of the strait. Also, in Hērōikos 53.10-11, kolōnos refers, again, to the tomb of Achilles, and there the word is used synonymously with sēma in the sense of ‘tomb’ (53.11).

18§7. So, how are all these contexts of the word kolōnos relevant to the mean- {499|500} ing of the place-name Colonus / Kolōnos in the Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles? In the wording of the drama, this place-name Kolōnos is used as a general reference, at lines 670 and 889, to the sacred space that Oedipus the wanderer has entered in a quest to find a permanent resting place for his wretched body, polluted by all the deeds he had committed in a chronologically earlier phase of the story of Oedipus. That earlier phase is retold in another drama of Sophocles, the Oedipus Tyrannus. As for the Oedipus at Colonus, produced in 401 BCE after the death of Sophocles (as we read in Hypothesis 2 for the drama), it focuses on the final phase of the story, retold in a distinctly Athenian way. In the Athenian version of the story as retold in the Oedipus at Colonus, the sacred space of Colonus will receive the body of Oedipus, after he is purified of his pollutions, and it will offer him an oikos, that is, a ‘dwelling place’ or ‘abode’ befitting a cult hero. I have already noted in Hour 15§26 the meaning of oikos as a cult hero’s ‘dwelling place’. And, as Oedipus himself says at line 627 of the Oedipus at Colonus, he desires to be an oikētēr or ‘dweller’ within the sacred space of Colonus. [2] In other words, he desires to be a cult hero at Colonus.

18§8. In what follows, I intend to argue that the idea of Oedipus as a cult hero who is worshipped by the people of Athens in the days of Sophocles is essential for understanding the idea of Oedipus as a polluted abomination who was once upon a time rejected by the people of Thebes, where he had ruled as their king. That is why I chose to analyze first the Oedipus at Colonus, which tells how Oedipus was accepted by the Athenians as their cult hero, before I go on to analyze the Oedipus Tyrannus, which tells how Oedipus was rejected by the Thebans as their king. [3]

18§9. From the perspective of ritual, Colonus is a temenos, a sacred space or ‘precinct’, as we see it described at line 136 of the Oedipus at Colonus. And, as I have already noted, this same space is described at line 54 as a place that is hieros or ‘sacred’. Further, from the perspective of myth, this place is a paradisiacal space, a stylized garden or grove inhabited by the most potent superhuman {500|501} powers. I quote here a lyrical description that is sung and danced by the chorus in the role of a speaker addressing Oedipus after he has just arrived in the sacred space of Colonus, seeking to be purified of the unholy pollution he has already experienced in his most wretched life. Here are the words of the speaker, addressing Oedipus as a xenos, ‘stranger’ (since both Oedipus and the speaker are still strangers to each other):

18§10. As we can see from this lyrical description of Colonus, it is a place that is specially linked with horses and with Poseidon as the god of horses. Further, Colonus as a personified hero is imagined at line 59 as a hippotēs, and I have already argued that this epithet refers to a rider on a chariot drawn by horses. Even further, as we are about to see, Poseidon can be imagined as begetting the First Horse at Colonus.

18§11. In the Oedipus at Colonus, we find a mystical reference to a myth, evidently local to Colonus, about a prototypical stallion fathered by Poseidon. The myth is connected to the last moments of Oedipus as a living mortal. In the drama, a messenger narrates these last moments:

18§12. Among the many landmarks of the mystical topography of Colonus that we see described in this most remarkable passage, I highlight a rock that is called by the name of Thorikios Petros at line 1595. The meaning of this place-name is complex. The noun petros means ‘rock’ or ‘stone’, while the adjective {503|504} thorikios is derived from the verb thrōiskein, which means both ‘leap’ and ‘emit semen’. [6] I quote here an antiquarian report about the relevant myth:

18§13. There are other versions of the myth that are tied to places other than Colonus. Here is an example:

18§14. As we consider further the antiquarian report, just quoted, about the myth originating from Colonus, I draw attention to the name Skīrōnitēs for the prototypical horse. This name means ‘the one who originates from a white rock [skīros / skirros]’, and such a meaning can be connected with a variety of other myths about leaping and about the emission of semen. [9] For the moment, however, I concentrate simply on the connection between the Thorikios Petros at Colonus and the idea of a white rock. I find it most significant that Colonus itself, as a place, is pictured as a white rock shining from afar: as we saw in Text C, the epithet describing Colonus at line 670 is argēs, which means ‘shining white’. [10] {504|505} And this shining white rock Colonus becomes personified as a cult hero who bears the same name: as we saw in Text A, this hero is the mysterious Kolōnos, described as hippotēs at line 59, which I have interpreted as ‘the rider of a chariot drawn by horses’.

18§15. These connections of the Thorikios Petros at Colonus with the idea of Colonus itself as a white rock lead me to consider some further perspectives on the meanings connected to the word kolōnos and to the name Kolōnos. In developing these perspectives, I find it most useful to return to the definition I offered in Hour 4§32 for the concept of metonymy. As I defined it there, metonymy is an expression of meaning by way of connecting something to something else that is next to that something or at least near to it, thereby establishing contact. Applying that definition, I now argue that there is a metonymy built into the word kolōnos and the name Kolōnos.

18§16. Let us start again with kolōnos as a word for a landmark, a shining white rock. As we have seen, this rock is personified as a cult hero, and the word becomes the name of that hero. By extension, the word also becomes the name of an entire sacred space, Kolōnos. And, by further extension, Kolōnos becomes the name of the entire deme of Attica in which the sacred space is situated. Throughout the Oedipus at Colonus, the wording of Sophocles explores the politics as well as the poetics of the dynamic tension between Colonus as a deme of Attica and Athens as the centralized polis or ‘city’. Especially suggestive are the distinctions between the word khōros or ‘place’, referring to the sacred space of Colonus (as at line 54), and a more general word for ‘place’, khōrā, which can refer to the entire deme of Colonus (as at line 89). [11]

18§17. The metonymic personification of a rock or a stone as a hero, as we see it at work in the mythological landscape of Colonus, can be compared to what we saw in the medieval Irish saga of the Táin. As I noted in Hour 15§61, the singing of an incantation to the gravestone of the hero Fergus, long dead, becomes the equivalent of singing this incantation to the hero himself, who is thus temporarily brought back to life. So, here too we see a metonymy, and this time {505|506} the metonymy is achieved by way of incantation: a man sings to the gravestone ‘as though it were Fergus himself’, and then the hero Fergus materializes from the dead.

18§18. So, how does Oedipus fit into the complex of myths and rituals connected with the sacred space of Colonus? The answer is simple, even if the details are complicated: in the myth that takes shape in the drama Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, Oedipus becomes a cult hero of Colonus. In terms of my argumentation, to put it more precisely, Oedipus develops into a cult hero of Colonus in the course of the developing story as told in the Oedipus at Colonus. And a key to understanding the idea of Oedipus as a cult hero is the messenger’s narrative about his mysterious death in a locale that is marked by a set of six mysterious landmarks, which are mentioned in the following order at lines 1590-1601 of the passage I just quoted, Text D: the Threshold for Descending (1590-1592), the Hollow Crater (1593), the Thorikios Petros (1595), the Hollow Pear Tree (1596), the Stone Tomb or lāïnos taphos (1596), and the Hill of Demeter (1600-1601). According to the narrative, as I interpret it, Oedipus comes to a stop at the first landmark, the Threshold for Descending, which is pictured as a sheer drop downward into the depths of the earth below. [12] This landmark is a centerpoint that is equidistant from the next four of the six landmarks, which are the Hollow Crater, the Thorikios Petros, the Hollow Pear Tree, and the Stone Tomb. In terms of my interpretation, the Threshold for Descending is the crossroads that Oedipus reaches when he comes to a full stop (1592). [13] Farther away, but within view, is the sixth landmark, the Hill of Demeter. In my analysis so far, I have focused on the Thorikios Petros. In what follows, I will focus on the Hill of Demeter. As I will argue, this sacred place of Demeter is connected with the Thorikios Petros, which as we have seen is a sacred place of Poseidon. And this connection, I will also argue, is relevant to the status of Oedipus as cult hero at Colonus.

18§19. The myth of the Thorikios Petros, as we have seen so far, is about a shining white rock that marks the place where Mother Earth produced a prototypical horse when Poseidon, falling asleep at this rock and having a dream {506|507} there, emitted semen that dropped on the ground, fertilizing it. As we have also seen, this prototypical horse that leapt out of the fertilized ground was named Skīrōnitēs according to one version of the myth. That is, this mythical First Horse was named after the shining white rock.

18§20. Here I draw attention to a parallel myth studied by Pausanias (8.25). According to this myth, originating from the Arcadian community of Thelpousa, the god Poseidon and the goddess Demeter were the father and mother of a divine horse named Areion (8.25.7); according to another version of this myth, also reported by Pausanias, the parents of Areion were Poseidon and Mother Earth (8.25.8-10). I also draw attention to two details in the Arcadian version of the myth as studied by Pausanias:

18§21. In the myth about the begetting of the divine horse Areion by Poseidon, we have just seen from the two different attested versions that the mother is either the goddess Demeter Erinys or the goddess Earth; by contrast, in the myth about the begetting of the prototypical horse Skīrōnitēs by the same god Poseidon, we can find only one version, featuring Earth instead of Demeter as the divine mother. And yet, even if Demeter Erinys is not overtly featured as the divine mother of the prototypical horse of Colonus, we see in the Oedipus at Colonus that the goddess Demeter is explicitly named as a resident of this sacred space. The naming is tied to the moment when Oedipus sits down in preparation for receiving fresh water to be used for performing the rituals of loutra or ‘washings’ and of khoai or ‘libations’, mentioned at line 1599. This fresh water, as we see at lines 1600-1601, is brought from a hill named after the goddess Demeter. After the performing of these rituals, as we will see later on, Oedipus will be lovingly engulfed by Mother Earth, never to be seen again by mortals.

18§22. Just as Demeter is a resident of Colonus, so too are the Eumenides, who are mentioned by that name at lines 42 and 486 of the Oedipus at Colonus. These Eumenides, according to the myth we considered in Hour 17, were formerly the Erinyes before they were transformed into their benevolent aspect – {507|508} and before they were renamed, as it were, as the Eumenides or the Semnai, the ‘Revered Ones’. There are significant parallels to be noted in the wording of the Oedipus at Colonus. At line 41, for example, it is made explicit that the Eumenides are called the Eumenides because the local population of Colonus wishes to call them by a name that is semnon or ‘revered’. And these Eumenides as goddesses of Colonus are actually called the Semnai or the ‘Revered Ones’ at lines 90 and 458. [14]

18§23. Given that the Eumenides were divine occupants of the sacred space of Colonus in the Oedipus at Colonus, I find it essential to compare another sacred space that these goddesses occupied: it was located at a cleft in the rocks at the foot of the northeast side of the Areopagos, to the west of the Acropolis of Athens. [15] It was here at the Areopagos, according to the local myth reported by Pausanias (1.28.5), that Orestes was tried for killing his mother. [16] It was this local myth that shaped the retelling in the Eumenides of Aeschylus, a drama that becomes an aetiology for the cult of the Eumenides or the Semnai in their sacred place at the Areopagos. [17] And, as we learn from Pausanias (1.28.6-7) in his description of the sacred space of the Eumenides at the Areopagos, there was a tomb of the hero Oedipus inside this space (1.28.7). [18] So, Oedipus was evidently worshipped as a cult hero within this sacred space of the Eumenides at the Areopagos. Similarly, Oedipus was worshipped as a cult hero within the sacred space of Colonus. According to Pausanias (1.30.4), the first place in Attica where Oedipus came as an exile from Thebes was Kolōnos Hippios, or ‘Colonus of the Horses’, where he shares with Theseus, Peirithoos, and Adrastos a hērōion, that is, a sacred precinct for worshipping heroes.

18§24. Whereas Oedipus as a cult hero of the sacred space at the Areopagos shares that space only with the Eumenides, he shares the corresponding sacred space of Colonus not only with the Eumenides but also with other divinities, including Demeter and Poseidon, as we saw earlier, and with other heroes, as we have just seen from the report of Pausanias. Still, even at Colonus, the Eumenides are the primary divinities that define Oedipus as a cult hero. Already at lines 84-110 of the Oedipus at Colonus, he prays to the Eumenides to allow him to ‘dwell’, oikeîn (92), in the sacred space that he describes as the alsos or ‘grove’ {508|509} of these goddesses (98). Then, at lines 466-492, Oedipus receives instructions from the inhabitants of Colonus, as represented by the chorus, about the ritually correct procedures that will be needed for the hero to worship the Eumenides – and thereby to purify himself of his pollution. And the primary form of this worship is the pouring of ‘libations’, khoai, of clear spring water, for the Eumenides (469-470). This ‘pouring of libations’, khoas kheâsthai (477), must be performed in a standing position, while facing the first light of dawn (477), and the water of libation must be mixed with honey and not with wine (481). Further, while pouring the libations, Oedipus must address the Eumenides exactly that way, as Eumenides (486), since the hearts of these goddesses will now be eu-menê, ‘of good intentions’ (486-487). Once Oedipus properly worships the Eumenides, he will be purified of his pollution, and he can then become a cult hero for the people of Colonus in particular and for Athens in general. In the words of the prayer that Oedipus is instructed to utter while pouring his libations, this polluted suppliant will become transformed into a ‘bringer of salvation’, a sōtērios, for the whole community (487). [19] But this transformation can happen only if Oedipus properly invokes the Eumenides as Eumenides while pouring his libations.

18§25. At this moment in the Oedipus at Colonus, the transformation of Oedipus into a cult hero is actually postponed. The old man says that he is in no state of mind to perform the ritual of libations himself, blind as he is (495-496), and so it should be one of his two accompanying daughters who will do it for him (497) while the other one of the two will stay behind to look after him (498-502); the daughter Ismene volunteers to go, asking the chorus to reveal to her the place where she will find the source for the waters of libation (503-504). But the wording of the chorus is ostentatiously secretive: the source of the waters is ‘on that side of this grove [alsos] here’ (505 τοὐκεῖθεν ἄλσους, ὦ ξένη, τοῦδ’), and, if Ismene needs further instructions along the way to that source, some ep-oikos or ‘dweller in the locale’ will indicate the place to her (505-506). But Ismene is prevented from reaching the source: she is kidnapped, after her exit, by the men of Creon (818-821). Only toward the end of the drama, as we already saw in Text D (1598-1603), does Oedipus get to perform the libations himself, and only then is he finally purified by way of a ritual washing. As we also already saw in Text D, Oedipus has by now reached a different state of {509|510} mind, since his blindness no longer holds him back, and some mysterious force is now enabling him to lead the way, instead of blindly following along, as he proceeds toward the place where he will die (1587-1589). Once Oedipus reaches that place, he himself will perform his own libations: so now he calls for his daughters to bring him clear spring water for ritual washing, loutra, and for libations, khoai (1599). After he is purified by the washing (1602-1603), the ritual of libation can take place, though the procedures for the ritual pouring as prescribed earlier by the chorus (469-470, 477-484) are this time not specified by the messenger. Instead, what does get specified now, and ostentatiously so, is a revelation of the source for the clear spring water that will be used for the washings and for the libations, and that source is the Hill of Demeter (1600-1601). What makes the revelation ostentatious is the ritualistic hesitation in specifying the source even in this context. I repeat here my translation of the wording: ‘And then he called out to his daughters, ordering them to bring from flowing streams | water for ritual washing [loutra] and for libations [ khoai ] – to bring him the water from wherever [pothen] they brought it’ (1598-1599). Having made his libation, Oedipus will be eligible to receive libations in his own right – once he becomes a cult hero. He has predicted this eligibility already at the beginning of the drama when he first prayed to the Eumenides (84-110): there he described himself as nēphōn or ‘sober’ while praying to these divinities, whom he described in turn as a-oinoi or ‘wineless’ (100). [20] This initial description of the Eumenides as abstaining from wine, aoinoi, suits the offering that Oedipus is instructed to make to these goddesses: as we saw, the water of libation for the Eumenides must be mixed with honey and not with wine (481).

18§26. I return here to the revelation, toward the end of the Oedipus at Colonus, that the source for the waters of libation for the Eumenides comes from the Hill of Demeter (1600-1601). This revelation signals what it is that Demeter has in common with the Eumenides: this goddess too, like the Eumenides, is connected with the libations that will transform Oedipus into a cult hero who will reside in Colonus. And the Hill of Demeter, along with the Thorikios Petros, is one of the six mystical landmarks that mark the actual locale where Oedipus died and where his tomb hides his body. That body, once Oedipus is purified, will become a talisman of fertility and prosperity not only for the local community that worships this new cult hero of Colonus but also, by sacred metonymy, {510|511} for the overall community of Athens. [21] The words of Oedipus himself predict his new status as the cult hero of Colonus when he expresses his intention to donate his body to Theseus in that hero’s capacity as king and virtual high priest of Athens:

18§27. The exact location of the death and entombment of Oedipus will be shown only to Theseus as king and virtual high priest of Athens – and to his successors. That is what Oedipus himself promises to Theseus in the Oedipus at Colonus (1518-1539): driven by a mysterious divine force (1540), the blind man will now take the lead, needing no human guide, he says, as he heads toward that mysterious location (1521, 1540-1545), where he will find what he describes as his own hieros tumbos, ‘sacred tomb’ (1545). This landmark seems to match the mystical Stone Tomb or lāïnos taphos (1596), listed as one of the six mystical landmarks marking the place where Oedipus died.

18§28. Here I return to another one of those six mystical landmarks in the Oedipus at Colonus, the Hill of Demeter (1600-1601). The association of this place as the source for the libation of Oedipus to the Eumenides shows that the goddess Demeter herself, like the Eumenides, is somehow involved in the death and entombment of Oedipus.

18§29. In another version of the Oedipus myth as retold in an antiquarian source dated to the fourth century BCE (Androtion FGH 334 F 62), we see relevant details about the relationship of Demeter with Oedipus, which I paraphrase here:

18§30. In yet another version of the Oedipus myth, transmitted by a source dated around 200 BCE (Lysimachus of Alexandria FGH 382 F 2), we see further relevant details, which I again paraphrase here:

18§31. So, also in the Oedipus at Colonus (44), Oedipus is a hiketēs or ‘suppliant’ – this time, not of Demeter but of the Eumenides (42). And once again there is an oracular pronouncement (84-110), given by Apollo himself (86, 102). [23] The oracle ordains that the local population should receive Oedipus and assign to him a hedrā or ‘station’ in the gē or ‘earth’ that is Colonus (84-85; also already 45), where he will ‘occupy a dwelling’, oikeîn (92); thus Oedipus will become a cult hero of Colonus. [24] And the key to the new status of Oedipus as a cult hero is that he will be buried in territory belonging to Athens (582). As a new cult hero, Oedipus will now benefit the native population who have received him (dekhesthai 92) – but he will become a source of atē or ‘disaster’ for those who have expelled him, namely, his former countrymen in Thebes (93). {512|513} Later on in the Oedipus at Colonus, where the native population of Colonus as represented by the chorus is giving instructions to Oedipus about the proper way to pray while performing the rituals of libation (486-489), it is said that the words of his prayer must describe him as a hiketēs or ‘suppliant’ who will be a ‘bringer of salvation’, a sōtērios (487), for the Athenians. I note, once again, that Oedipus here is a suppliant of the Eumenides, not of Demeter. And it is to the Eumenides, not to Demeter, that he pours libations while praying.

18§32. Having analyzed these parallelisms between Demeter and the Eumenides, let us consider the thinking of Oedipus as an agent of the Eumenides – which is how he describes himself (457-459) when he declares that he, as a cult hero, will become a sōtēr or ‘savior’ for the Athenians (460; see also 463). While the thinking of Oedipus here shows his benevolence toward his new countrymen, it shows also his malevolence toward the Thebans as the enemies of the Athenians (460). Even in this negative frame of mind, Oedipus is thinking as an agent of the Eumenides. We see this negativity elsewhere as well. A striking example is the passage where Oedipus expresses the malevolence that he as a cult hero of the Athenians will direct against his former countrymen, the Thebans, if they ever dare to attack Athens. Here is that passage:

18§33. Oedipus here is thinking the thoughts of a cult hero as he thinks about his enemies, and these thoughts correspond to the malevolent thinking of the Erinyes before they became the Eumenides. Only after their transformation from Erinyes to Eumenides can these goddesses show a positive frame of mind that leads them to think benevolent thoughts. As we saw in Hour 17, the Erinyes in their thirst for vengeance had craved human blood, not the blood of animal sacrifice. And, in the passage we have just read, Oedipus as a cult hero can still show the malevolence of the Erinyes. This malevolence, however, will be directed not at the Athenians but at the Thebans as the enemies of Athens.

18§34. Signs of such malevolence tend to be suppressed in the case of the {513|514} Eumenides, who are implicitly the Erinyes of the heroic past, but these negative signs do come to the surface in the case of Demeter, since she can even bear explicitly the epithet Erinys, as we saw in the Arcadian myth about the divine horse Areion, conceived when Poseidon impregnated the goddess Demeter Erinys: as we already saw, Demeter’s epithet Erinys is understood to convey the idea of ‘feeling angry’, erīnuein (Pausanias 8.25.4-7). Further, as we saw in §30, Demeter would have ‘felt angry’ at the people of Eteonos in Boeotia if they had disturbed the body of Oedipus, who shared with this goddess a hieron or ‘sacred space’ that was named after him as the Oidipodeion. I highlight here, however, not the differences between Demeter Erinys and the Eumenides but rather the parallelisms, as indicated by their shared inheritance of the name Erinys or Erinyes in the plural.

18§35. Now I extend the comparison further by highlighting also a parallelism between Demeter Erinys and Mother Earth: in §§19-20, we have already seen myths where either one or the other of these two goddesses was impregnated by the god Poseidon and gave birth to a prototypical horse. But now I come to the most striking parallelism of them all, involving the Eumenides and Demeter and Mother Earth – all three together. We have just seen a separate parallelism involving Demeter and the Eumenides, where these goddesses receive Oedipus into their respective sacred spaces, thus transforming him into a cult hero. But now we will see, in the Oedipus at Colonus, the picturing of Mother Earth herself in the act of receiving Oedipus, literally engulfing him. And just as Demeter and the Eumenides have the power to transform Oedipus into a cult hero, so also the goddess Earth has that power. Moreover, in the case of the Eumenides, Mother Earth is even the genetic source of their power to transform Oedipus into a cult hero: that is because these goddesses, as Oedipus is told by the native inhabitants of Colonus in the Oedipus at Colonus (40), are pictured as the children of feminine Gē or ‘Earth’ and of masculine Skotos or ‘Darkness’.

18§36. As we have seen in the Oedipus at Colonus, the references made to the death and entombment of Oedipus, as also to his transformation into a cult hero, are ostentatiously secretive. Only Theseus and his successors may have full access to the mysteries of the hero cult of Oedipus. Still, there are many hints in the drama. {514|515}

18§37. Among these hints are six mystical landmarks that are located near the place where Oedipus was seen by mortals for the very last time. These landmarks, as we have seen, are recounted in the part of the messenger’s narration that I quoted in Text D, and I have already reviewed all six of them in §18. Further, I have already highlighted two of these landmarks:

18§38. Along the way, I have also highlighted the Stone Tomb or lāïnos taphos (1596), which may be identical with the Thorikios Petros. And now I highlight also the last three of the mystical landmarks, following the wording of the messenger’s narration as quoted in Text D:

18§39. Before we proceed, I take this opportunity to note in passing a similar catalogue of mystical landmarks that separate the world of the living from the world of the dead: we find it in Odyssey xxiv 11-13, where the psūkhai or ‘spirits’ of the suitors enter Hādēs: those landmarks are, in the order in which they are listed, the Streams of Okeanos (11), the White Rock (11), the Gates of the Sun (12), the District of Dreams (12), and the Meadow of Asphodel (13). [26]

18§40. Besides the hints about the mysterious death and entombment of Oedipus, as signaled by the landmarks that I have surveyed, we can also get a glimpse – just a glimpse – of the actual moment of his death. It happens in the middle of a final narration performed by the messenger who is reporting to all assembled:

18§41. There seem to be four possible alternatives for imagining the mysterious death of Oedipus here. The first and the second alternatives are, respectively, death by being struck by the thunderbolt of Zeus (1658-1659) or death by being spirited away by a violent gust of wind (1659-1660). These two alternatives are dismissed, however, and it seems as if there are now only two remain- {517|518} ing alternatives for explaining what it was that brought about the death of Oedipus: so it was either an escort sent by the gods who took away Oedipus so that he might join their divine company, presumably in Olympus (1661), or else the goddess Earth lovingly engulfed him (1661-1662). Here is the way these two alternatives were translated by Robert Fitzgerald:

18§42. These two alternatives for explaining the death of Oedipus are mirrored by the ritualized response of Theseus to whatever it was that he saw: he reacts to the death of Oedipus by adoring both Olympus and Earth, using for both divinities the same words of prayer (1653-1655). The double response of Theseus indicates a double outcome: first, Oedipus descends into the depths of Earth, and then he will somehow ascend to Olympus. We can see comparable double outcomes in myths about other cult heroes as well. And there are many different ways of picturing such a double outcome, but it all comes down to the basic sequence of death followed by some kind of return to life.

18§43. In the course of many years of research on the ancient Greek hero, I have collected a vast variety of traditional narratives, stemming ultimately from hero cults, about mortals who die and then come back to life again. I offer here a small selection of five such traditional narratives, summarizing them in the form of scenarios: [29]

18§44. Each one of these five scenarios is in some way relevant to the messenger’s narrative about the death of Oedipus in Text I as quoted from the Oedipus at Colonus:

18§45. By now we have seen a number of variations on the basic theme of death followed by some kind of return to life for the hero. What must remain an invariable, however, is the institutional requirement of establishing a hero cult that is tied to correct procedures of worshipping a cult hero in the setting of a tomb. In the case of Oedipus, as in other cases, these correct procedures are dutifully observed – but they are clouded in mysteries, just as the outcome of life after death is clouded for this hero. There is, then, a veritable poetics of mystification in representing the tomb of Oedipus in the Oedipus at Colonus.

18§46. Here I focus again on the mysterious disappearance of Oedipus, pictured either as an ascent to divine Olympus or as a descent into the depths of the goddess Earth. As we can see in the Oedipus at Colonus, the picturing of the hero’s tomb is correspondingly mysterious. I note especially the vagueness of the reference made by Oedipus himself to his own hieros tumbos, ‘sacred tomb’ (1545): when he finds the place where this tomb will be, wherever it is, he will be ‘hidden’ by the earth there (kruptesthai 1546). And, as Theseus says to Antigone, it is forbidden to see the tomb or to approach it – let alone to address it (1754-1765). What we find here is an analogue in ritual to the mystical engulfment of Oedipus in myth: the secrets of establishing and maintaining the tomb of this hero in ritual correspond to the secrets about the way he died. [41]

18§47. As we have already seen in the Oedipus at Colonus, the essence of the idea of Oedipus as a cult hero is that he will be buried in the territory of Athens (582). But how and where he will be buried is a sacred secret, just as the story of how and where he died is left untold. It should be enough for his worshippers to know that Oedipus will dwell inside a Mother Earth that belongs to the polis or ‘city’ of Athens. I say it this way because we have already seen at line 707 of a choral lyric song, as quoted in Text C, that Colonus is an integral part of Athens, which is called in this song the Mother City or mētropolis (in the Doric dialect of choral lyric, this word is pronounced mātropolis). For the grove as for {522|523} the deme of Colonus, where Oedipus is secretly buried, Athens is truly a metropolis.

18§48. For the metropolis of Athens, Theseus is the ideal prototype for maintaining the mysteries of the tomb and the hero cult of Oedipus. After all, Theseus is also the ideal prototype for maintaining the Eleusinian Mysteries for the Athenians, as Claude Calame has shown; in fact, there are telling references to the Eleusinian Mysteries in the Oedipus at Colonus (as at 1049-1058). [42] Even the language used by Oedipus in formulating his heroic legacy for Theseus evokes the secret language of the Eleusinian Mysteries: [43]

18§49. The drōmena here at line 1644, referring to ‘the things that are being done [drân]’, are the secret agenda of mysteries that can be visualized and verbalized only in special sacred circumstances. [44] Otherwise, as we learn at line 1642, these drōmena must not be seen and must not be heard. Such, then, are the mysteries of the cult hero. And we have already noted in Hour 15§15 the basic words for visualizing and verbalizing such mysteries.

18§50. Whenever I return to reading the final words of the messenger who reports the mysterious death of Oedipus, I am struck by a sense of wonder – the Greek word for which is thauma – as I contemplate the wording: {523|524}

18§51. The words describing this wondrous man fit not only Oedipus as a cult hero but also the tragedy of the Oedipus at Colonus – and even Sophocles himself, who was in his own time perhaps the most admired citizen of Athens. [45] And the emotions surrounding the mystical death of Oedipus may match the emotions of Sophocles, who was surely contemplating the prospect of his own death as he was composing the Oedipus at Colonus toward the end of his long life. So, I find it most relevant to note that this wondrous man was not only a proud citizen of Athens but also a native son of Colonus. [46] For Sophocles, the idea of being engulfed and embraced by the loving goddess Earth of Colonus is a death that becomes a true ‘homecoming’, a nostos. And this nostos may reveal, after death, a true return to light and life. {524|525}