Father’s Day has just passed us by. Late being better than never, here is a belated salute to Father’s Day as celebrated by our old buddy Oedipus in Greek mythology land. If you think your family constellation is convoluted, you got nuthin’ on Oedipus. Kindly read this to realize your own family situation ain’t so bad. Consider Leo Tolstoy’s observation in Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Oedipus’s unhappy family was unhappiness on an alleged Elon Musk-like cocktail of Ketamine, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, LSD, and cocaine. Let us begin.
Oedipus was born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. After long term infertility, Laius went to the Oracle at Delphi for help. The Oracle told Laius disturbing news that if he had a son, his son would kill him. Nonetheless, the Queen soon gets into a family way, giving birth to Oedipus. Laius, uninterested in being killed by his son, decided offing the kid was the best plan.
He pierced the infant Oedipus’ ankles, binding them together to prevent Oedipus from crawling away. He ordered one of his lackeys to leave Oedipus on a mountain to die. The Lackey felt sorry for Oedipus, giving him to a shepherd. The shepherd ultimately gave Oedipus to the childless King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth who raised Oedipus as their own child.
Years later, Oedipus ran across a drunk who told him that he was adopted. Oedipus confronted Polybus and Merope but they denied adopting him. Oedipus smelled a rat. He went to the Oracle at Delphi for counseling. The Oracle told him that he would murder his father and marry his mother. This news freaked Oedipus out. He decided not to return home, but go to Thebes instead. On the way there, Oedipus got into the first recorded road rage incident when he came to an intersection where his biological father Laius was riding in a chariot. They got into a fuss over who had the right of way which resulted in a fight in which Oedipus killed his father.
Oedipus resumed his trip to Thebes but was stopped by a Sphinx blocking the road. The Sphinx stopped all travelers to ask them a riddle. If the traveler couldn’t answer it, the Sphinx would kill and eat him. The riddle was: “What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?” Oedipus answered: “Man: as an infant he crawls on all fours, as an adult he walks on two legs, and in old age he uses a walking stick.” No one had ever answered her riddle before. The Sphinx was so upset she leaped off a cliff and killed herself.
When Oedipus got to Thebes, he learned that Creon, the brother of Queen Jocasta had announced that anyone who killed the Sphinx would be made King of Thebes and marry the widowed Queen Jocasta. Oedipus, who did not know they were related, married his Mom. They produced four children together. After some years, a plague came to Thebes. Oedipus summoned Tiresias the blind prophet. He learned the plague would not end until the murderer of King Laius was found. Oedipus got extremely angry. You would not like him when he is angry. To calm him down, Jocasta told him the story of how her first child had supposedly died. Oedipus got an uneasy feeling because he knew that he had killed Laius. He got even queasier thinking about the prophecy. Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Jocasta suddenly realized Oedipus was her son. Bummed out by this knowledge, Jocasta hung herself.
Oedipus bumped into the same shepherd who had saved him as an infant. The shepherd told him the whole sordid story. He realized the prophecy had come true, and he killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus freaked out and went looking for his wife/mother. He discovered she had hung herself. He was so distraught that he took a pin from a brooch she was wearing and blinded himself. He spent the rest of his unhappy life as a blind man wandering the country guided by his daughter/half sister Antigone. Whew. What a mess.
Don’t you feel better now about your own family situation in comparison to Oedipus? Life is not so bad, eh? Paraphrasing Julie Andrews: “A spoonful of misery for someone else/ Makes the medicine go down/ In the most delightful way.” Or to sum up Oedipus and his Mom’s relationship, as John Sebastian of the Loving Spoonful once sang in a different context: “You didn’t have to be so nice/ I would have liked you anyway.” Author’s Note: No Sphinxes or Sigmund Freud were harmed in writing this column.

(Illustration by Pitt Dickey)