| Think: All men make mistakes, but a good man yeilds when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil: the only crime is pride. - Teiresias In his above quote, the blind prophet Teiresias makes some very strong qualifications for the 'good man' in Greek tragidies, but they also apply to the people of today. First he says that all men make mistakes, which is proven everyday in many ways. He goes on to say the good man yields when he knows he is doing the wrong thing. Third, the man would repair the evil, right the wrong to the best of his ability. Last, the wise Teiresias shares that the only one true crime is pride. Through many great works these qualities can be exemplified by great heroes and men, specifically that of Sophocles' Oedipus. It is a given that men make mistakes, we ourselves make them everyday and it was no different for those in the past either. Mistakes can be traced all the way back to Adam and Eve when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. Eve was tempted by the devil, as we all are, and made the bad decision of listening to the serpent. Adam then listened to his wife and took a bite, figuring if she did it it could not be as bad as God made it out to be. In mythology even the gods made mistakes: Zeus slept with many women to whom he was not officially wed to and brought upon them the wrath of his true spouse, Hera. Oedipus is another great example, for though he did not know he was making such a great mistake, he still murdered his father, (a mistake in itself), married his mother, and committed incest by having children with her. All of these stories were means by which people showed that mistakes did happen and were alright, though they often did cause pain and had to be accepted by continuing on with life. Once one realizes they are wrong it is incredibly hard for them to admit it and change for it is not in human nature to admit to being wrong. Going back to creation, Adam and Eve did not admit their folly but hid from God instead, though they did recognize they had made a huge mistake, and thus proved a great human weakness. The Olympians on the other hand usually faced their mistakes and looked to others to help with fixing them, as Prometheus was looked to after his brother recognized his error in giving the animals all the good qualities humans could use. This picture was drawn by the Greeks to be an example, that it was godly to confess to ones mistakes. Oedipus on the other hand did not recognize he had done any wrong by killing the pompous traveler on the road which eventually led to his own demise. His unrecognition merely proved Teiresias's point the stronger for Oedipus eneded pu being the fool for his refusal to accept his original error, murder, while others were the wiser for humbling themselves in the face of all others after making their mistake. The next step after recognizing the mistake is working to fix it. To make good of ones mistake, a person is usually required to do some humiliating feet, though it is not always the case. After Adam and Eve's incredivle mistake they were forever required to make sacrifices to the lord in order to cleanse their soul of thier daily sins as well as live forever with pain, (such as child birth, etc.). In the case of the gods, Prometheus was given full responsibility for creating humans but his brother who messed up had to admit his mistake and turn down his job in front of all his peers to right it. Oedipus really could not repair the damage he had caused to his family and city beyond running away to rid it of the famine he was the supposed cause of. He did better the situation he created, but by running away himself he did nothing to right the wrong that was inside him. By blinding himself, Oedipus attempted to rid himself of his plaguing pride for it forced him to depend on others to lead him around, but he was still fairly unsuccessful by the end of the play. I takes perhaps the most courage to correct a mistake that anything elso for it requires one to humble themselves, a quality not highly thought of in human society yet cannot be achieved when pride het in the way. Pride is perhaps the greates poison of the human heart, as Teiresias said. It blocks one from admitting their mistakes, which we know everyone makes, and then trying to undo them, the very quality that makes a man great. Oedipus my be the best example for his ego just kept getting bigger and bigger after he made his first mistake, murder, for he defeated the sphinx and then was given the honorable position of king. Having been so successful, Oedipus became extremely self-confident, seen in the way he eagely accepted the challenge to locat the murderer of he predecessor with all confidence he would find him and save Thebes once again. Of course it was this pride that led him to search out himself and led to his ultimate downfall. Even before this though, Oedipus's pride began his misfortunes for he was too proud to let an oncoming carriage take up his part of the road but had to teach them a lesson, killing all but one of its members, including his father, the Theben king. Pride is what gets one into trouble, the one true crime. Each of these qualities are easily identified in society today. Because the first man and woman fell to temptation, the rest of humanity was doomed to make mistakes repeatedly. It is than left up to the sinner to recognize his wrong. It is a whole other task then, to try to right the wrong that was committed. To do so, one must overcome the driving force of pride which tempts all to conceal the mistakes they made. The choice is ours, there have been many examples of how different people react to their mistakes in many situations through stories, (like that of Oedipus), and from those one must choose which road to take on the quest to great-hood. |