In trying to comfort her husband, visibly shaken on both
personal and political levels, Jocasta brings out an interesting conception regarding
the manner in which the divine reveals their own sense of revelation towards the
individual. Essentially, when Oedipus starts to panic about things, Jocasta tries to
convince her husbands that prophecies are only weak means by which the Gods convey their
wishes to mortals. Her argument revolves around the idea that the Gods are strong
enough to convey what they think and neednt have to hide behind vague philosophical
tenets in order to convey what they wish:
Such things the speeches of seers
predict,
you should ignore; for whatever the god
requires, he
himself will easily
reveal.
The philosophical
implications of this are very interesting. On one hand, Jocasta affirms the power of the
divine to her husband, Oedipus. Yet, at the same time, she also tries to rationalize
this power in order to make him feel better. Essentially, she says that the divine is
so powerful that outside of any message directly from them, all is well. Jocasta
demonstrates her own intellectual craftiness in being able to "spin" whatever is there
in order to make her husband feel better about something that she recognizes has settled
into him and made him emotionally unstable. It is interesting to note that her reaction
after this scene is to go to the Gods herself and pray in a temple, and make offerings
and incense in the hopes of appeasing them, reflecting that she herself understands
their power and recognizes the need to adhere to them in such a
predicament.
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