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Oedipus: In defending Laius, I am also serving myself. SOPHOCLES
Laius had really only himself to blame. He should have heeded the gods' warning and used contraception. But no, this blockhead impregnated Jocasta and, of course, had the son that he dreaded. He was then fated. After a bungled abortion, infanticide was the only solution.
We may ask why Laius did not do the job himself. It needed only a stab of his dagger to pierce Oedipus' heart, but two to perforate his heels. Was this a case of bad conscience? However that may be, he had to kill the son that he so urgently desired and whose birth defied the gods—indeed, everyone.
When Oedipus and Laius crossed paths again, it was still Laius who provoked murder. In virtue of his rank and power, and supported by his attendants, he had the solitary youth Oedipus whipped for disrespect in not stepping aside quickly enough to let Laius' carriage pass. If Oedipus had been weaker, it is he who would have died. But it was Oedipus who killed Laius, and we know the price that he had to pay.
However, no one learned from the experience, least of all Oedipus. As a father, he himself cursed his disrespectful sons—with death, even. Since he was fated, how can we reproach him? Unlike Sophocles, Aeschylus was doubtless correct in emphasizing the inevitable train of tragic events that derived from the curse on the House of Labdacus rather than stressing the specific individual drama.
The gods had provided a model: 'Kronos eats his children as the wild boar devours the sows's farrow' (Freud, 1900). Because of a trick, however, one of the sons, Zeus, escaped being swallowed, and was later to defeat Kronos and exile him. Zeus knew what he was doing, for Kronos had, abetted by his mother, similarly dethroned and castrated Uranus, his brutal and implacable paternal tyrant. Although immortals obviously cannot be killed, the desire to kill is still there; this is the source of their life experience. Zeus could therefore be wis