 The unexplored life is not worth living. That was the Greek philosopher Socrates, now dead these 23 centuries. The CBS Radio Workshop, dedicated to man's imagination, the theater of the mind. Our theme tonight is a timeless one. The tragic fate of men and women who violate mankind's most awesome taboos and must suffer the penalty both in the torments of their own souls and in the fearful punishment meted out to them by gods and men, even if they were actually innocent of guilty intent. The specific situation involved in our study is so ancient that we refer to it by a term derived from the name of a Greek prince who lived more than 3,000 years ago. Our title? The Oedipus Story. Oedipus, we are told, was the son of King Lyos and Queen Yocasta of the Greek city state of Thebes, not far from Athens, and belonged to the generation just preceding that of the Trojan War, that is, to the 11th century before Christ. Oedipus' parents were childless and had in despair sent a messenger to the famous temple of Bebus Apollo at Delphi to ask the god through his prophetic priestess to grant them a son and heir. Holy Pythia, I'm sent by my lord and lady, the king and queen of Thebes, to pray a boon of mighty fevers. I bring gifts. Name the boon. The king and queen lack one thing only to make their happiness complete. A son. Hmm, let me see those offerings. A tripod. Gold? No. Good workmanship, though. Spices, incense. No meat? The sheep are tied outside. How many? Three. Hmm, well, stay where you are, whatever your name is, while I consult the god. Mighty son, heavenly archer, seers of the gods. There's one before me who seeks a favor. He from Thebes, he says. His king and queen longed for a child, a son. They sent gifts, mighty fevers. I have put some of their incense into the fire. I hear you, master. I hear you, lord. No! Yes, master. I will tell him... The message sacred one for my king. Queen Yocasta will bear a son, but it would have been better not to invoke the gods. The son will slay his father and take his mother to wife. But only one. The gods have spoken gold. There is a curse upon the family. I know not when nor why. It is from Homer the most ancient of the Greek poets whose works survive that we first hear of the consequences of that terrible curse. In his Odyssey, the hero Odysseus makes a brief visit to the underworld and meets the shades of some of the renowned men and women of the past. The mother too of Oedipus, I saw. Beautiful Yocasta, who in life had done unwittingly a heinous deed, had married her own son, who having slain his father first, espoused her. In misery he lived, for so decreed the offended gods. But she went down to hate his gates that are forever barred to her, since in her grief she'd slung a rope from the bridal chamber's rafter and ended her own life, leaving Oedipus to bear woes without measure. The Greeks seem to have been the first Europeans who gave dramatic expression to the Oedipus theme. The dilemma of a man who becomes abnormally attached to his mother and as a result becomes his father's unconscious rival. The situation which the Oedipus story symbolizes, however, is much older than the classical Greek version and has appeared in nearly every part of the world, often in religious clothing. In ancient Egypt, for example, with us it was part of the Isis, Osiris and Horis cult. In Babylonia we had Ishtar and Timos. In Assyria too, and the Sumerians had something like that before us. Many people, especially in India, still tell our story of Agni, Tani and Mithra. It was a major theme in the old Persian and Median religion. With us in Japan it is the story of... They had different names in Scandinavia, Africa, Polynesia and the Americas, but the story was much the same. It obviously describes a situation which psychologically was so common as to seem universal. Our modern term Oedipus complex derives from it. The mother usually is the first person whom an infant learns to love. Since the mother is usually the first to supply food and warmth, comforts and affection. It is natural, therefore, that children should at first be jealous of anyone else who makes demands on their mother's attentions, whether other children or father. Hush now, Nikki, I'm feeding the baby. I don't care. All right, Nikki, I'm sorry, but I have to feed the baby now. I don't care. I hate her anyway. Now, Nikki, you shouldn't say that. But it's true, you're always busy with her. Now, Nikki, she's just a baby. I don't care. Johnny hit me. All right, come here. Mama will kiss it, make it better. Oh, well. Oh, darn it. Oh, Nikki, please run and open the door. Mama's still feeding the baby. You're going to kiss it. It's right on my head here. All right, bend over. Now, please go and see who's at the door. I'll kiss it again later. Okay. Well, I thought I'd never get in. Oh, thank you, son. Where's Mama? Honey? In here. I'm sorry, honey, left my keys at home. Oh, you're with the baby. I'm just done. Wait a minute, I'll be right with you. But, Mama, you said you'd kiss it again. Johnny hit me. Now, don't be a crybaby, Nick. Let me see. Oh, gosh, that doesn't look like so much. Yeah, but now Mama's going to talk to you all the time and she said what she was through with the baby. Well, as they grow up, most children adjust themselves to the fact that they are not the only ones who count in the world even to their parents. And they gradually form the outside attachments which go with so-called normal living. It is only when the emotional dependence of growing children upon one parent or the other becomes too intense or lasts into adulthood that we psychiatrists reach for special terms such as edopus complex. Or, sometimes, in the case of a girl's overly strong attachment to her father, electro complex. The two terms, of course, merely describe opposite sides of the same coin, an edopus situation. A common symptom of both is dislike or even hatred for the other parent who appears as an ever-present rival for exclusive affection. The edopus motif in one form or another appears in the literature of all ages and regions so often that the emotional situation which it symbolizes must also have been a common experience. Grease of the 4th century BC alone left us at least eight dramatic works about edopus himself plus a number of others with related themes. In the Middle Ages, the edopus theme was sometimes connected with figures prominent in Christian tradition, such as Judas Iscariot and St. Gregory. And in modern times, a great array of poets and dramatists have dealt with the subject including Shakespeare, Cornet, Voltaire, Dryden, and not least of all, America's own great Eugene O'Neill. In his trilogy, Morning Becomes Electra. O'Neill does not depict just one aspect of the edopus situation, but several, including the electra form from which he takes his title. His story is laid in New England at the end of the Civil War and deals with the tangled relationships between a well-to-do ship owner, General Ezra Mannan, his wife Christine, his daughter Levinia, and his only son, Oren. The general and his son have been a way to war, the son unwillingly, having signed up only in response to his father's and sister's pressure. Levinia, the daughter, is sitting in the garden with a young ship captain, Adam Brandt, who is employed by her father's firm. Captain Brandt has been secretly making love to Christine, the mother, while pretending to be interested in Levinia. What do you think of the news of Lee surrendering Captain Brandt? We expect my father home very soon now. Yes, you must be very happy at the prospect of seeing your father again. Your mother has told me how close you have always been to him. Did she? My father, better than anyone in the world, there's nothing I wouldn't do to protect him from hurt. You care for him more than for your mother? Yes. Well, I suppose that's the usual way, but a daughter feels closer to her father and a son to his mother. A short time later, Levinia, in her father's study, accuses her mother of having become involved with Captain Brandt. Stop lying, I tell you. I went upstairs, I heard you telling him. I love you, Adam, and kissing him. You're shameless and evil. Even if you are my mother, I say it. I knew you hated me, Vinnie, but not as bitterly as that. Very well. I love Adam Brandt. How you say that without any shame. You don't give one thought to father who's so good, who trusts you. How could you do this to father? I won't listen. You will listen. I'm talking to you as a woman now, I loved your father once before I married him, but marriage soon turned romance into disgust. So, I was born of your disgust. I've always guessed that, mother. Ever since I was little, when I used to come to you with love, you'd always push me away. Oh, I hate you. Tried to love you, but I could never make myself feel you were born of any body but your father's. How can you piece? You've loved my brother, Aaron, but I was resigned by then. I hope you realize I never would have fallen in love with Adam if I'd had Aaron with me. When he'd gone to war, there was nothing left but hate and a desire to be revenged and a longing for love. Suppose you'll hardly let your father get in the door before you tell him. No, not unless you force me to. Father hasn't been well lately and I'm not going to have him hurt. It's my first duty to protect him from you. I know you, Vinnie. I've watched you ever since you were little trying to do exactly what you're doing now. You've tried to become the wife of your father and the mother of Aaron. LaVinia, of course, had bitten off a great deal more than would perhaps seem proper in a daughter. And when her father, General Mannan, arrives home, I thought I taught you never to cry. I'm sorry, Father, but I'm so happy. Tears, queer tokens of happiness. But I appreciate your... your feeling. Oh, I'm so happy you're here. You're the only man I'll ever love. I'm going to stay with you. I hope so. I want you to remain my... my little girl for a while longer at least. Must be your bedtime, Vinnie. March now. Yes, Father. The deal in these scenes has outlined the conflicting relationships between LaVinia and her father and her mother. In the following, he gives us a similar insight into Aaron's position in the all-embracing Oedipus situation which dominates life in the Mannan household. Aaron cynically describes to LaVinia an incident during the war which won him military honors and his father's respect. Aaron belittles both. And I think how proud he was when he came home, Aaron. He boasted that you had done one of the bravest things he'd seen in the war. One... one of the bravest things he'd seen. I'll tell you the joke about that heroic deed. I sneaked through their lines. There was a thick mist. It was so still that you could hear the fog seeping into the ground. I met a rebel crawling toward our lines. His face drifted out of the mist toward mine. I shortened my sword and let him have the point under the ear. He... he stared at me with an idiotic look and his eyes dimmed and went out. Don't think of that now. Before I'd gotten back, I had to kill another in the same way. It was like murdering the same man twice. I had a queer feeling that war meant murdering the same man over and over. Their faces kept coming back in dreams and they changed a father's face. What does it mean, Vinny? I don't know. The next morning, in the trenches my head was queer and I thought, what a joke it would be on the stupid generals like father if everyone on both sides suddenly saw the joke that war was on them and laughed. They shook hands. So I began to laugh and walked toward their lines with my hand out. Of course the joke was on me. I got this wound in my head. Then I went mad and ran on yelling. Then a lot of our fools went crazy too and followed me and we captured part of the line we hadn't dared tackle before. You wonder that I laugh? General Manon is dead by this time poisoned by Christine, a final revenge perhaps for his having robbed her of her son. Lavinia knows that her mother has killed her father but is unable to convince Oren. My God, how can you think such things of mother? I've never lied to you, have I? Yes, but... And even if she's got you so under her thumb again that you doubt my word, you can't doubt the absolute proof. Never mind what you call proofs. Now you listen here. If you think that you're going to tell me a lot of crazy stuff about mother, I warn you I won't listen. Mother means a thousand times more to me than father ever did. Lavinia and Oren, driven by Lavinia, do avenge their father's death by killing Captain Brandt and driving their mother to suicide. But they too must pay the penalty. Oren misses his mother so much that he also kills himself. And Lavinia is left alone, a woman past despair with only her pride and her bitter memories to keep her company. The immortal version of the Oedipus story, of course, is that of Sophocles, who wrote his trilogy some time in the 5th century before Christ. His drama begins with Oedipus at the height of his glory as king of Thebes and contented husband and father. The curse which overhung Oedipus' birth had frightened King Lyos and Queen Yocasta so much that they had given their newborn infant to a trusted shepherd with orders that the child should be exposed to the barren slopes of Mount Scytheron and that a spike should be driven through his feet so that he could not even crawl for shelter. It was from this that the boy had later derived his name, Oedipus, which in Greek means swollen foot. The faithful shepherd had pierced the infant's feet, but then, in pity, had turned him over to another herdsman from Corinth and the Corinthian had delivered the child to his own royal couple who were themselves childless. Oedipus had grown up, never doubting that he was the son and heir of Polybus and Merope, the king and queen of Corinth. But when he had reached manhood, well, this is how he himself describes the incident to Yocasta in John Dryden's play, Oedipus. It was at a bridal feast. One warm with wine told me I was a fountling, not the king's son. I, stung with this reproach, struck him. My father heard of it. The man was made to ask pardon and rushed. And strangely, it perplexed me. I stole away to Delphus and implored the god to tell my certain parentage. He bad me seek no further. It was my fate to kill my father and pollute his bed by marrying her who bore me. What had happened before Oedipus had met and married Yocasta, and was struck from various accounts. Oedipus, on his way to Delphi in his chariot, had had to pass through a narrow gap in the mountains. Part way through, he had met a party of five men, also with a chariot, carrying his unknown true father, Lyus. Oh, there! Now to the way yourself. I'm deeper in the past than you are. Can you not recognize the lord? So am I a lord and of currents. There's gold on my chariot, not brasses on his. Now listen to pretty boy. We'll take care of you. Stop. Stop, I say. Never mind, Lord Lyus. We can handle him. At him, you shall arrive. Well, then, come on. That's for you, loudmouth. And now, you, my lord, wherever you may be, look at the last of your warriors run. I am ready, rubber. Rubber! No, my lord. I shall leave your chariot for your driver over there to take back to your home and your armor as well. I'm sorry. It was not I who begged the fight. Chariot here. You may come now and pick up your master and your comrades. I'm on my way. After Edipus had received his horrifying oracle from the temple at Delphi, he had decided never again to return to Corinth to avoid any chance of the prophecies coming true. Never realizing, of course, that he had already fulfilled the first part of it by killing his real father, King Lyus, in the fight in the mountain pass. And then, in his aimless wanderings, he reached his native Thebes and found the city in terror. A sphinx had settled on a cliff overlooking the city and insisted that all passes by solve a riddle on pain of death. Many Thebans had already perished when Edipus, passing through the city, volunteered to face the monster. How hast a riddle winged one? Indeed I have. And many Theban stranger have died for lack of wit to answer it. Guess thou so little for thy worthless life that thou wits come forth to challenge me? Tis little indeed I care. Speak up! Hear then and die, fool, as have all the others. Name me the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon and three in the evening. Tis simple. Indeed it is. Tis man, who in his infancy on all fours crawls in the strength of his middle years, walks on two, but needs a staff when creeping age once more deprives him of his powers. Parish, receive me abyss in your depths. The Thebans, grateful for their deliverance from the monster, had offered Oedipus the kingship and the hand of their widowed queen, Yocasta. For nearly twenty years Thebes had prospered again. Oedipus had proved himself a wise and popular ruler. His life with Yocasta was happy and he had four children by her, two boys and two girls. But then a terrible plague struck the kingdom. A thousand deaths advance. All is so sudden. Scarce one man falls, but that another looking on in wonder at himself and a third stooping to raise his dying friend topples beside him. Death's grown riotous. Her streets are covered with the dead and dying. The twix the bride and bridegroomed as a nuptial torch do come in office for marriage and for death. Nor are the people alone afflicted. Our cattle die and the very earth is turned as barren as the wombs of our wives. The gods are angry. Some evil stalks the city. To find out for what sinful deed Thebes was being punished, Queen's brother Creon is sent to Delphi once again to consult the Oracle of Thebes Apollo. He reports that the gods are wrathful because King Lyos's murderer has not been punished, although he lives in Thebes itself. Puzzled, Oedipus sends for the old blind seer Tiresius. To thee, Tiresius, sightless but all seeing the purport of the answer the god returned to us, the messengers have doubtless told. Let me go home. I will not. To the best that thou should bear thy burden and I mine. For shame. Withhold not, I adjure thee, the word of prophecy. We are thy suppliance all. Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the state? I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask? All that will come will come, though I be mute. Thou makes me wroth. I will not stint my words. I think that thou art he who planned the crime and what not blind, I truly think that thou didst do the bloody deed. Is that thy thought? Then let me charge thee. Upon thine self thy curse and punishment inflict. For thou... Yes, thou, Oedipus, thou art the murderer thou seekst. Is thou and thou alone who drawth misfortune upon Thebes? Thou, slanderer. Thou godest me to speak against my will. Thou shalt rue so gross a calamity. Must I say more to aggravate thy rage? I say thou livest with thy nearest kin. In infamy, unwitting of thy shame. Thy weird is not to be invoked by me. I leave to Phoebus what concerns the god. This day shall be thy birthday and thy grave. And so it proved. Oedipus almost immediately found evidence that it must have been he who had killed King Lyos. Yet he still did not accept the fact that Lyos had been his true father and your caster, therefore, his mother. But then a messenger arrived. Who is this man? And what is news for me? He comes from Corinth and his message this. Thy father, Polybus, has passed away. And the Ismian commons have resolved to make thee king. Nay. I will never go to Corinth more, not while my mother lives. If that old curse perchance is causing the alarm, know that thy fears are groundless. Polybus no more thy sire was than I. He took thee from my hands a living gift, while I, in turn, had got thee feats all wounded from a servant of thine own household who said he had found the incitherines wooded lens. Nay. Speak no more. Enough of these ancient layers. Not so, my queen. At last, I find the truth after so long a search. Perhaps, my lord, thou soon wilt wish that thou hadst never found it. I must go. So Edipus alone continues to question the Corinthian messenger. His horror and despair mounting as bit by bit the truth is revealed. He sends for the aged shepherd to whom his death had originally been entrusted and the old man unwillingly admits that it was Yocasta herself who... For king come quick, the queen! Our sovereign lady queen Yocasta, dead, dead by her own hand and all the horror of it none who have not seen can comprehend. And Edipus, our king, he with a frenzied cry against the bedroom's door launched his full weight and splintered it to find Yocasta hanging there, a running noose entwined about her neck. And when he saw her with a maddened roar he loosed the cord and when her wretched corpse lay stretched upon the earth it was dread but followed. He tore the golden brooches that upheld her queenly robes, upraised them high and smote the pins into these his eyeballs, uttering words like these. Swing wide the gates. All thieves, let's see their king. The sire's slayer and his mother's... Look ye, look! No more shall he behold such sights of woe. Deeds I have suffered and myself have roped. I vow to flee, self banished from the land to save my people from the curse which yet adheres to me. The end. Oh, where? An end too dread to tell. Too dark to see. You've been listening to the CBS Radio Workshop and the Oedipus Story, as written by Henry E. Fritch with excerpts from Sophocles to Eugene O'Neill. Music was composed and arranged by Alexander Steinert with additional scoring by Ralph Sandor and Henry Sylvain and directed by Henry Sylvain. The CBS Radio Workshop is produced and directed in New York by Paul Roberts. Alexander Scorpi was the narrator. Elspeth Eric was heard as Lavinia. Peggy Allenby as Christine. Jack Manning as Oran and Oedipus and Roger DeCoven as General Manon-Lias. Also included in the cast were Ivor Francis, Robert McQueenie, Guy Rep, Nell Harrison, Mark Leonard, Bob Dryden, Bobby Alford, Joanne Palmer, Joseph Julian, Ruth Tobin, and Joseph Warren. 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