Editing Oedipus (section)

===Euripides' ''Phoenissae'', ''Chrysippus'', and ''Oedipus''===

At the beginning of [[Euripides]]' ''[[Phoenissae]]'', Jocasta recalls the story of Oedipus.  Generally, the play weaves together the plots of the ''Seven Against Thebes'' and ''Antigone''.  The play differs from the other tales in two major respects.  First, it describes in detail why Laius and Oedipus had a feud: Laius ordered Oedipus out of the road so his chariot could pass, but proud Oedipus refused to move.  Second, in the play Jocasta has not killed herself at the discovery of her incest – otherwise, she could not play the prologue, for fathomable reasons – nor has Oedipus fled into exile, but they have stayed in Thebes only to delay their doom until the fatal duel of their sons/brothers/nephews [[Eteocles]] and [[Polynices]]: Jocasta commits suicide over the two men's dead bodies, and Antigone follows Oedipus into exile.

In ''[[Chrysippus (mythology)|Chrysippus]]'', Euripides develops backstory on the curse: Laius' sin was to have kidnapped Chrysippus, [[Pelops]]' son, in order to violate him, and this caused the gods' revenge on all his family. Laius was the tutor of Chrysippus, and raping his student was a severe violation of his position as both guest and tutor in the house of the royal family hosting him at the time.  Extant vases show a fury hovering over the lecherous Laius as he abducts the rape victim.<ref>The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in [[Ancient Athenas]] by Eva Keuls (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1993) p. 292.</ref> Furies avenged violations of good order in households, as can be seen most clearly in such texts as The Libation Bearers by Aeschylus.

Euripides wrote also an ''[[Oedipus (Euripides)|Oedipus]]'', of which only a few fragments survive.<ref>R. Kannicht, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (TrGF) vol. 5.1, Göttingen 2004; see also F. Jouan – H. Van Looy, "Euripide. tome 8.2 – Fragments", Paris 2000</ref> The first line of the prologue recalled Laius' hubristic action of conceiving a son against Apollo's command. At some point in the action of the play, a character engaged in a lengthy and detailed description of the Sphinx and her riddle – preserved in five fragments from [[Oxyrhynchus]], P.Oxy. 2459 (published by [[Eric Gardner Turner]] in 1962).<ref>Reviewed by [[Hugh Lloyd-Jones]] in "Gnomon" 35 (1963), pp. 446–447</ref> The tragedy also featured many moral maxims on the theme of marriage, preserved in the Anthologion of [[Stobaeus]]. The most striking lines, however, state that in this play Oedipus was blinded by Laius' attendants and that this happened before his identity as Laius' son had been discovered, therefore marking important differences with the Sophoclean treatment of the myth, which is now regarded as the 'standard' version. Many attempts have been made to reconstruct the plot of the play, but none of them is more than hypothetical, because of the scanty remains that survive from its text and of the total absence of ancient descriptions or résumés – though it has been suggested that a part of [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]]' narration of the Oedipus myth might in fact derive from Euripides' play. Some echoes of the Euripidean Oedipus have been traced also in a scene of Seneca's Oedipus (see below), in which Oedipus himself describes to [[Jocasta]] his adventure with the Sphinx.<ref>Joachim Dingel, in "Museum Helveticum" 27 (1970), 90–96</ref>