Colchis (Lado Asatiani, Selected Verses and Poems, with Simon Chikovani’s preface, Tbilisi, 1956)

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Author	Lado Asatiani
Epoch	1917-1943
Work	Colchis (Lado Asatiani, Selected Verses and Poems, with Simon Chikovani’s preface, Tbilisi, 1956)
Type	Poetry
Quote	“Nearby one can see the gates of a great palace, Which Colchians are building, Far away – the old temple without windows, And blinded Oedipus the King” (pg. 198)
Term	Oedipus ( )

Nike. Vani. II-I BC, Bronze, 22 x19 cm. The Georgian National Museum.

Comment	The “old temple without windows” is very wittily compared with a blind person, its generalized mythological sample – Oedipus [E.K] Mentioning of Oedipus in connection with Colchis is, perhaps, justified by the following circumstance: at this point in his epic poem Lado Asatiani juxtaposes the happy life of modern Colchians (“Nearby one can see”) not only to the tragic past of Colchis (“Far away [one can see]”), but also to the tragic life of the antiquity in general, the symbolic face of which presumably is “blinded Oedipus the King” [Z.Kh.]

Comment

The “old temple without windows” is very wittily compared with a blind person, its generalized mythological sample – Oedipus [E.K]

Mentioning of Oedipus in connection with Colchis is, perhaps, justified by the following circumstance: at this point in his epic poem Lado Asatiani juxtaposes the happy life of modern Colchians (“Nearby one can see”) not only to the tragic past of Colchis (“Far away [one can see]”), but also to the tragic life of the antiquity in general, the symbolic face of which presumably is “blinded Oedipus the King” [Z.Kh.]

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