Has anyone noticed that the big debate raging over childrens health care is over a program called S-Chip. Chip is of course what chisels do when engraving letters into stone walls on tombs and pyramids, etc — thus the expression “Chip off the old block” meaning a son looks just like his father; and of course it is also the center of a computer’s processing capacities: Computer chips. Speaking of Chipping, here’s a response paper that really “nailed” the links between writing and paternity in Seneca’s Oedipus.
Best,
Dr.B.

Keep Your Chisel in Your Pants

All high school theatre participants know the story of Thespis, stepping forth from the chorus in Greek plays and forever altering the way stories are presented visually. Soon after, there was a second independent chorus member, then a third, and many later Greek tragedies have speaking parts for multiple chorus members. So it came as a surprise to see the Roman version of Oedipus, by Seneca, had only one chorus voice and indeed, only one chorus member.
This character, aptly named Chorus, provides us with our first link between parenthood and print albeit through artistic metaphor. Referencing a nearby bust and painting, he says, “Our artists, it seems, are further along with the brush than the chisel, so there’s hope for immortality.” The chisel is clearly a penis analogue, and its counterpart, the brush, represents the female bush. Because the feminine implement is more advanced, there is indeed hope for immortality, through biological means. And not to get too Lacanian, but the brush paints images and the chisel carves symbols, mainly the heads of caesars. Further, the chisel represents the earliest writing technologies, etching away at marble just as the earliest writers notched their sticks [BONES] to mark the menstrual cycle. Clearly writing and the chisel are used to represent the possibility of male immortality, particularly evidenced by Chorus saying, “Let us see whether there will be any statues for Oedipus to be remembered by,” as the purpose of statues and chisels is for men to live on after their deaths.
So female immortality is viable through biological reproduction, and male immortality comes through art at the hand of the chisel. But later in the play, Oedipus acknowledges the weakness of marble, and by extension male attempts at immortality, as it gradually succumbs to wear and tear. He demands his own bust be made of bronze, an alloy that does not naturally occur, a reference to his incestuous relationship, no doubt. However, Oedipus and his mother have also achieved immortality through illegitimate means: their in-bred children. Jocasta first references them thus: “When I spread my legs and squat, the blood that flowed from my womb to the ground at each of their births was to signal life, not death.” The subject of that sentence is blood, specifically blood marking the ground as a signal, much like ink writing on paper. The only other reference to the progeny of Oedipus and Jocasta occurs with regards to who will take over their guardianship, or who will inherit them for inheritance is a major theme. Oedipus gives custody to Creon, telling him to take care of his daughters especially, “for who would want to marry issue sprung from incest?” Issue is a curious choice to replace the word “children,” as it refers to something published or printed, and lineage refers to both biological children and lines written on a page.
This incest led to the plagues and storms suffered by Thebes, which is recounted by my favorite character again, Chorus. “The plague began with the sheep,” he says, which is interesting since sheepskin is used as parchment. Why would Seneca unnecessarily include this detail? Perhaps Oedipus sought immortality improperly, via his own mother, and nature responded by destroying his means of male reproduction, sheep parchment.
Chorus makes the most obvious connection between parenthood and print, however, at the end of the central act after Oedipus has sentenced Creon and Tiresias to death. Chorus tells a brief story of Nero, faced with authorizing his first execution, wishing that he had never learned to write. Chorus calls the idea “illiteracy stamped at conception.” Illiteracy and conception joined by “stamped,” simultaneously an act of marking paper and a reference to the primitive notion of conception through a man stamping a woman’s wax. Anyone playing Oedipus, like Nero, is at once an actor, an authority, and an author, made clear by Creon calling Oedipus an author ruled by fear. Indeed, Oedipus is an author, using his chisel to procreate unnaturally.
Oedipus is deeply concerned with number confusion, noted at the outset by the sole Chorus member. Later Chorus tells a story where a Roman general sentences three people to die because one of them was innocent, and Oedipus came to Thebes by way of answering a riddle about a species that has simultaneously two, three, and four legs. And after he realizes his crime, Oedipus wishes for multiple deaths because one will not be enough, but instead merely maims himself and decides to live on, hardly equivalent to dying repeatedly, like Prometheus chained to the rock. The consistent confusion surrounding numbers reminds me that counting began with chisels making notches. Chorus was correct. The Romans don’t know how to use their chisels.