Abstract
In Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus 729 sqq., Oedipus, who has just been shocked at Jocasta's news that Laius was slain at the intersection of three roads (716) , restlessly asks her one question after another for further details of that occurrence. Professor M. Oka, in his Japanese translation of the play(Iwanami Shoten, 1990) , presented the view(with A. Schmitt)that Oedipus asks these questions not because he is seeking the truth, but because he is trying to escape it. Oka contends that Oedipus' evasion of the truth is seen in his restating Jocasta's words "εν τριπλαι&b.sigmav; αμαξιτοι&b.sigmav;" (716) as "προ&b.sigmav; τριπλαι&b.sigmav; αμαξιτοι&b.sigmav;」" (730) , the preposition προ&b.sigmav; being(accoring to Oka) vaguer than εν. The present writer examines and criticizes these contentions as follows. (1) On προ&b.sigmav; with dative at 730. Though προ&b.sigmav; with dative and εν with dative express differently the location of an object differently, there is no example among the Sophoclean usages of προ&b.sigmav; with dative to show that, in regard to the function of identifying a place itself, προ&b.sigmav; at OT. 730 is vaguer than, and as such contrasts with, εν in the way Oka(with S. Berg & D. Clay, and R. D. Dawe) construes it. In that respect προ&b.sigmav; hardly differs from εν (Tr. 371, cf. 423; Aj. 95 ; OC. 10 et al.)or from simple locative dative(OT. 20), and can even be emphatic in identifying definitely the place concerned(OT. 1116, cf. Plato Phdr. 249C). In view of these usages, the contention that Sophocles used προ&b.sigmav; in place of εν at OT. 730 with the intent of showing that Oedipus was evading the truth by expressing the place of Laius' murder more vaguely becomes less credible. (2) On Oedipus escaping from the truth. It is true that Oedipus in 729 sqq. is afraid that he himself was possibly the murderer of Laius, and therefore his rapid successive questions to Jocasta about further details are, as Oka says, motivated by the desire to determine wherther his fears are justified. However, that does not mean that he is trying to evade, or escape from, the truth. In order to prove his own innocence he must bring the truth to light, even if doing so is risky and may have fatal results for him. It would be absurd for anyone to ask questions about a matter in order to evade, and shut his eyes to, the truth of that matter ; rather the only possible way of evading the truth is to refrain from questions. When Oedipus, in the fourth epeisodion, is about to finally face the truth concerning his paternity, he cries at 1170, "And to me dreadful thing to hear ; nevertheless I must hear !". We see in these words his basic attitude to the truth in the scene in 729 sqq. as well : "dreadful as the truth is to know, nevertheless, I must seek to know it". Neither "Oedipus as a fearless truth-seeker" nor "Oedipus as a truth-evader" is the real Oedipus in this Sophoclean tragedy.
