in the last blog post I argued that Oedipus and Jocasta were ill-suited metaphors for the general phenomenon of motherlust experienced by sons. throughout this blog, i will continue to touch on this issue, while also searching the mythic landscape for alternatives.

plurality and unity interplay extensively in goddess mythology. on the one hand, the Great Mother represents the unity of all living things. on the other hand, female divinity manifests as a multitude of divine mothers, each with their own attributes and relationships. for example, we may wish to more closely examine Eurynome (Ophion), Gaia (Ouranous),  Rhea (Jupiter), Hera (Mars), Demeter (Persephone), Cybele (Attis), and Aphrodite (Aeneas, Eros, and others).

Perhpas the most well known of these is the story of Gaia and Ouranous. Gaia represents the Earth, and Ouranous represents the Sky. It is said that Earth gave birth to the sky, then coupled with the sky to produce the Titans. Therefore we have at one of the most primordial stages of development, an incestuous relationship between a mother and her son.  It is also said that Eurynome (a pre-titanic creatrix mother) fashioned Ophion (represented as a snake) and then coupled with him to give birth to the rest of the universe. The Olympian pantheon prefered other forms of incest (eg Zues and Mars with their sisters and Hades with his neice) but it should be noted that mother/son incest, arguably, brought the universe into existence, and therefore forms part of the fundamental pattern of propagation found therein.

 I argue that the real interepretation of the Oedipus myth must be that Oedipus is a tragic character because he denies his destiny to have sex with his mother. Other heroes have killed family members (including grandfathers) in accordance with the orace without being considered evil. It's easy: all Oedipus had to do was enter a discus competition and then either a gust of wind or losing his balance as he threw would cause his disc to errantly strike his father down. Instead, he chose to murder his elder in the street over an argument. Killing his father in this manner was not necessitated by the oracle, but was the particular way he chose to manifest his destiny. It seems that the real lesson of the Oedipus story is about respecting one's elders more generally. Finally when after he marries his mother and he finds out the oracular prediction came true, he chooses to gouge his eyes out. Oedipus is a tragic character because he chooses to resist his destiny to have sex with his mother. If he had chosen to embrace his destiny instead, history may have turned out quite differently.