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Seneca's "Oedipus"
Dateline: 03/12/00
Ask anyone with an interest in British theatre to list the influences of greatest importance in the development of our theatrical tradition and they will certainly mention Greek tragedy, and yet the earliest tragedies produced in this country - Norton and Sackville's Gorboduc of 1562, for instance - were based upon the Roman, rather than the Greek, model. In fact, the earliest tragedians consciously modelled themselves, not upon Aeschylus or Sophocles, or even Euripides, but on Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
Why, then, do most people - at best! - just know the name Seneca, and do not know the plays?
There are many reasons:
- Drama was not a Roman strength - even the comedies of Terence and
(admittedly, to a lesser extent) Plautus do not have the appeal of
the Greek Old Comedy of Aristophanes. In fact, when we think of Roman
entertainment, it is chariot races and gladiatorial contests which
spring to mind;
- The pervasive influence of Aristotle's Poetics has
concentrated attention on the Greek playwrights;
- Roman playwrights have been badly served by translators. It has
to be said that the majority of translations of Roman Drama are Victorian
in tone and - to be brutally frank - dull;
- Roman tragedy tends to be like most Roman entertainments, bloodthirsty
and quite savage: much more Titus Andronicus than Hamlet!
Seneca's Oedipus
The atmosphere of Seneca's version of the Oedipus myth is much more black, threatening and blood-soaked than anything we find in the Greek tragedians. Here is an extract from the description of Teiresias' spell to call up the dead Laius:
A pit was dug,
and burning wood brought from funeral pyres
was thrown within.
Then Teiresias donned his black funereal robe
and wreathed his long, white hair with poisonous yew.
Black oxen and black sheep were driven live into the searing flames.
The screams those animals made still resound in my ears.
................
And with that,
the ground cracked open beneath the funeral pyre,
and those charred, sacrificial beasts disappeared
into some bottomless pit,
some empty, sickly void,
and in their place stood the viper's brood.
There is much more in this vein - the earth "vomits up", there are "appalling shrieks" - until Laius appears:
It was an awful sight!
Blood... gushing from his limbs,
his hair matted with filth.
This is not the language of Greek tragedy, but something altogether darker, something much more akin to gothic horror.
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