Oedipus by John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee

1/ This is a retelling of Sophocles’s play but, you know what, I see Shakespeare’s stamp all over it. 

“ALCANDER Methinks we stand on ruins; nature shakes

About us; and the universal frame

So loose, that it but wants another push,

To leap from off its hinges.

DIOCLES No sun to cheer us; but a bloody globe,

That rolls above, a bald and beamless fire,

His face o’er-grown with scurf: The sun’s sick, too;

Shortly he’ll be an earth.

PYRACMON Therefore the seasons

Lie all confused; and, by the heavens neglected,

Forget themselves: Blind winter meets the summer

In his mid-way, and, seeing not his livery,

Has driven him headlong back; and the raw damps,

With flaggy wings, fly heavily about,

Scattering their pestilential colds and rheums

Through all the lazy air.” 

(Act 1) 

Does that not make you think of those passages about strange weathers and omens in Julius Caesar? And Macbeth? 

“CASCA Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth 

Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero, 

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds 

Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen 

Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, 

To be exalted with the threat’ning clouds; 

But never till tonight, never till now, 

Did I go through a tempest dropping fire. 

Either there is a civil strife in heaven, 

Or else the world, too saucy with the gods, 

Incenses them to send destruction.” 

(Julius Caesar, Act 1 scene 3) 

And: 

“LENNOX The night has been unruly. Where we lay, 

Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say, 

Lamentings heard i’ th’ air, strange screams of death, 

And prophesying with accents terrible 

Of dire combustion and confused events 

New hatched to th’ woeful time: the obscure bird 

Clamored the livelong night. Some say, the earth 

Was feverous and did shake.” 

(Macbeth, Act 2 scene 3)

In Sophocles’s play, a plague has been unleashed on the people of Thebes as a punishment for Oedipus’s sins. Here the author (is this Lee or Dryden?) pushes further, depicting the world as ending, as on the verge of an apocalypse. This is clearly Shakespeare’s influence. 

“HAEMON Sure ‘tis the end of all things! fate has torn

The lock of time off, and his head is now

The ghastly ball of round eternity!

Call you these peals of thunder, but the yawn

Of bellowing clouds? By Jove, they seem to me

The world’s last groans; and those vast sheets of flame

Are its last blaze. The tapers of the gods,

The sun and moon, run down like waxen-globes;

The shooting stars end all in purple jellies,

And chaos is at hand.

[…] PYRACMON Clusters of golden stars hang o’er their heads,

And seem so crowded, that they burst upon them:

All dart at once their baleful influence,

In leaking fire.” 

(Act 2) 

I like that. 

As this play is a collaboration, I don’t know if it’s Dryden or Nathaniel Lee who wrote all those passages (they don’t sound particularly like Dryden, but I’m new and unsure), but note the similar image here:  

“ANTONY Die? Rather let me perish! Loosened Nature 

Leap from its hinges; sink the props of Heaven, 

And fall the skies to crush the nether world! 

My eyes, my soul, my all!—” 

(Dryden’s All for Love, Act 2) 

“ALCANDER Methinks we stand on ruins; nature shakes

About us; and the universal frame

So loose, that it but wants another push,

To leap from off its hinges.” 

(Oedipus, Act 1) 

And another: 

“OEDIPUS […] Yes, cruel gods,

Though vultures, eagles, dragons tear my heart,

I'll snatch celestial flames, fire all your dwellings,

Melt down your golden roofs, and make your doors

Of crystal fly from off their diamond hinges;

Drive you all out from your ambrosial hives,

To swarm like bees about the field of heaven…” 

(Act 5) 

2/ But that’s not all. Dryden and Lee change the character of Creon, giving him “an ill-shaped body” with a “mountain back” and “distorted legs”, and turning him into a villain who wants to usurp the throne. What is this, if not Shakespeare’s Richard III?

There are other similarities: the play has a few scenes of the crowd being stupid and easily swayed, reminiscent of Coriolanus; there’s a sleepwalking scene, evoking Macbeth, etc. 

3/ As we all know the story of Oedipus, there are a few lines clearly written for a laugh.

“OEDIPUS […] So well I love, words cannot speak how well.

No pious son e’er loved his mother more,

Than I my dear Jocasta.” 

(Act 1)

That’s a wink-wink at the audience.  

“JOCASTA […] All I can wish for now, is your consent

To make my brother happy.

OEDIPUS How, Jocasta?

JOCASTA By marriage with his niece, Eurydice.

OEDIPUS Uncle and niece! they are too near, my love;

’Tis too like incest…” 

(ibid.)

4/ As Dryden and Lee retell the Oedipus myth, they make a few changes. I don’t particularly mind that they create the character of Eurydice as a daughter of Laius and Locasta, which creates a red herring and adds tension; I also don’t mind that Creon is now a villain aiming for the throne; but it’s rather ridiculous that Eurydice as a child is promised to her uncle Creon and he loves (or lusts for) her—is the Oedipus myth not weird enough? Does it not have enough incest? I know 17th century plays are generally much longer than ancient Greek plays, but Sophocles’s play, which I just now reread in H. D. F. Kitto’s translation, is perfect in its simplicity—Lee and Dryden complicate the plot and turn it into a hodgepodge of nonsense.  

The entire of Sophocles’s play is the finding of the truth and it’s about a few hours—Lee and Dryden extend it, drag it out and (in my opinion) reduce the dramatic impact—they also lift from Seneca’s version the stupid scene of the ghost of Laius appearing and accusing Oedipus. They then double the stupidity by bringing back the ghost at the end of the play, and create a bloody finale—for both the main plot and the subplot. The play is clearly made to appeal to the audience’s strong taste for spectacle, visual effects, and excessive violence. It’s almost as ridiculous as Seneca’s version. 

The thing is, Sophocles’s play is about fate and human agency, and also about the cost of pursuing the truth or the pain of learning the truth. I’m not quite sure what Dryden and Lee’s play is about. And yet it’s apparently a huge success onstage at the time (which I suppose reflects rather badly on the audience). 

Now I’m curious about Corneille’s version (which Dryden knew).