Curse

Use in the book

Oedipus’ request that his sons divide their inheritance by the sword introduces prayer whose harmful direction is intended. Instead of asking for relief from his existing troubles, he calls down additional ones, which are fulfilled and generate further dreadful consequences. The example makes divine fulfilment frightening before the more ordinary instances have appeared.

Alcibiades initially tries to isolate this conduct as madness. Socrates later distinguishes it from the conduct most relevant to the young man: Oedipus did not think he was asking for good, whereas other people do think so and may nevertheless ask for harm. A curse intentionally seeks what an ignorant prayer can unintentionally accomplish. The analogy is functional, not an assertion that the speakers’ intentions are identical.

At 143b Alcibiades says that asking for the worst things for oneself would resemble a curse rather than a prayer. His formulation measures prayer by what it seeks to obtain, while his admission of ignorance undermines the easy confidence that each person can identify the best request. The boundary between prayer and curse must therefore be guarded by judgement, not simply by choosing a pious-sounding verb.

Places to read

1. 138cOedipus calls down further harms instead of praying for release from those already present.
2. 141aHis conscious harmful intention is contrasted with unsuspecting requests for apparent benefits.
3. 143a–143bAlcibiades discovers that a request for supposed good may function like a curse.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s notes distinguish the dialogue’s bronze weapon from the iron in Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes 785–790, and Euripides, Phoenician Women 66–68. Note 2 observes that Jocasta calls Oedipus’ curses prayers only three lines after calling them curses. These parallels explain the lexical overlap without supplying a missing speech of Oedipus in this dialogue.