Oedipus

Abstract

Ofall the monsters in The Infernal Machine the last to be marked as such not by the gods but by men, is Oedipus. From the first line of the play’s prologue, spoken by the unseen Voice which serves at once as chorus and narrator, it is made clear that the gods had assigned him a role long before he was born:

• the voice: … He will kill his father. He will wed his mother.

As the Voice explains, Oedipus abandons Polybus and Merope, who raised him as their own child, as soon as he learns the oracle prediction: “The fear of parricide and incest propels him towards his destiny.” Soon enough Oedipus kills an old man by a blow that, in Cocteau’s version, was intended for the man’s servant. Oedipus meets the Sphinx, “the monster that poses a riddle and kills those who cannot answer it,” stays alive, and finds himself, as the Voice declares, engaged in “a monstrous wedding.”² Later on, the gods’ messengers on earth brand him a monster:

• anubis: A long time ago, Jocasta and Laius had a child. Since the oracle had foretold that this child would be a scourge …

• sphinx: A scourge!

• anubis: A monster, a filthy beast …

• sphinx: Faster! Faster!

Oedipus begins to see clearly only when he is blind.

—Cocteau, Maalesh¹