Oedipus Rex

An end to the plague that devastates their city is what Thebans gather to beg of Theban King Oedipus. The Theban townspeople see Oedipus as a brave individual who solves challenging problems. It's a conclusion that's based on their first interactions with their future king.

Specifically, Oedipus arrives at Thebes, to find the city groaning under a heavy tax burden that the Sphinx demands. Additionally, the Sphinx is causing an alarming population decline and giving the city a bad reputation in the process. She subjects all those who try to go back and forth from Thebes to a riddle. The lack of an answer or an incorrect reply results in the person's death. It's only Oedipus who correctly identifies humans as the only life forms that get around on fours in the morning of life, on twos in the afternoon, and on threes in the evening.

It is after Oedipus asks for details of Laius' death that the messenger tells Oedipus of his father's death in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus finds out that he must solve King Laius' murder in order for the pestilence to end in Thebes. He looks for information from Queen Jocasta, his wife and Laius' widow. Jocasta provides details on the where, when and how of Laius' death. These details in the first half of the play raise questions that begin to be answered in the second half. For example, the Corinthian messenger supplies information about the death of Corinthian King Polybus, Oedipus' presumed father.

It is by not carrying out cleansing rituals and by not looking into his royal predecessor's death that Oedipus causes problems in Thebes in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Oedipus commits five murders before coming to Thebes. He does not go through mandatory purification procedures with which he is very familiar as a royal. He then finds out that he can marry the beautiful widowed Queen, whose husband's murder he does not look into even though, once again, he is a royal and knows about mandatory cleansing rituals. This is all very polluting for Thebes and Thebans.

The original title, in Greek, is : Οἰδίπους Τύραννος. The author, Sophocles of Greece, is thought to have written the play, one of three pertaining to the life of Oedipus and his children by Sophocles (known as the Theban Plays) sometime around 432 B.C.E.* Scholars indicate that the origins of the story are far older.

Variations in the translation and spelling of the original Greek title abound, as do variations in the translation of the work as a whole.

In Latin, the title was translated as "Oedipus Rex." However, the original Greek title was also used, transliterated into Latin, as "Oedipus Tyrannvs."

Latin lacks the letter "u, " using, instead, the letter "v." So it seems that, in many cases, the Latin transliteration of the Greek title has been transliterated into English as "Oedipus Tyrannus."

Transliteration of the original Greek title directly into English results in the variant spelling, "Oidipous Tyrannos."

More recent translations, in English, commonly give the title as "Oedipus the King."

According to Arlene Saxonhouse ( The Tyranny of Reason in the World of the Polis, Arlene Saxonhouse, University of Michigan. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 82 No. 4, December 1988), "The tyrannos is the new ruler, the one who has come to power in the city by means other than birth or established precedent. Therewith his illegitimacy - but also his freedom... Among the ancient Greeks, tyranny incorporated a freedom to break away from what was old and limiting. Released from traditions, the tyrant could transform the world in which people lived."

*Before the Christian Era.

In Greek, it is known as Oedipus Tyrannos. But the title should only be 'Oedipus'

That two men do not die in the way described by the prophecies is the argument that Jocasta uses to persuade Oedipus to ignore soothsayers and oracles in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, a prophecy warns that Theban King Laius will be killed by his own son. But Theban Queen Jocasta, Laius' widow and Oedipus' wife, points out that her first husband dies at the hands of strangers and robbers in Phocis. Then she brings up Corinthian King Polybus, who also is supposed to die at the hands of his son, Oedipus. But once again, Jocasta points out that the Corinthian monarch dies of illness and old age.

Employees of the respectively royal houses of Corinth and Thebes are the identities of the messenger in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the first messenger to appear is the Corinthian messenger. He informs Theban monarchs Oedipus and Jocasta of the death of Corinthian King Polybus and of the consequent royal job opening in Corinth. He subsequently is followed by the messenger of Thebes' own royal house. He announces that Queen Jocasta is dead and that King Oedipus is blind.

It is to no longer see an incestuous relationship that the servant reports as Oedipus' explanation for his self-mutilation in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the servant exits from the palace to inform the chorus of the goings-on inside. He indicates that disgraced Theban King Oedipus now is blind. He states that Oedipus announces his determination never to see the incestuous mess of his marriage and plunges his wife's brooches deep into both eyes.

The getting of specific information about the murder of Theban King Laius is why Theban King Oedipus wants to see the sole survivor of that crime. Oedipus at first accepts hearsay information. He finds nothing questionable in the information that Laius and all but one of his escorts were attacked and killed by robbers. But then he learns that the killings took place at a crossroads somewhere between Delphi and Thebes.

Around the time of that killing, Oedipus was carrying out his own bloodbath. He took the lives of a stranger who was old enough to be his father, and whom he resembled, and of the stranger's companions. The killings all happened at that same crossroads.

So Oedipus needs to find out whether Laius was killed by a lone perpetrator or if he met death at the hands of a group of thugs. Such information only can be gotten from the sole survivor. That survivor can be counted on to tell the truth. He in fact is the most devoted and trusted servant of Theban Queen Jocasta, wife of Laius and wife and mother of Oedipus.

Outside the main entrance to the Theban royal palace is where the prologue takes place in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the ideal in ancient Greek drama is the unity of time, place and action. The ideal is met in "Oedipus Rex." All onstage action takes place in front of the Theban palace's main entrance within one 24-hour period even though references may be made onstage to offstage and past events, places and times.

Murder, blasphemy and incest are the crimes that Oedipus commits in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus becomes a killer when he lethally defends himself against five of six overbearing people at the Delphi-Daulia intersection in Phocis. He commits blasphemy when he neglects mandatory cleansing rituals after his crime and King Laius' death. He engages in incest when he marries and has children with his mother.

First, Antigone is angry with Ismene for docilely and passively accepting the rule of mortal men. Ismene thinks that men rule and women obey. Antigone doesn't think that way at all.

Second, Antigone is angry with Ismene for not helping to bury their brother Polyneices. Antigone doesn't have the strength to do a below ground burial. Without Ismene's assistance, their brother will get a symbolic burial by being covered with a thin layer of dirt. That isn't going to be much protection against the weather and wildlife.

Third, Antigone is angry with Ismene for suggesting that the illegal partial burial and funeral service be kept secret. Antigone equates that with cowardice and self centeredness.

Fourth, Antigone is angry with Ismene for trying to join her in a death sentence after not joining in on the lawbreaking. Antigone has a strong personality that's motivated by passionately held convictions. As far as she's concerned, you don't change horses in mid stream. So she takes someone at their first word and accepts no flip flopping. You're either with her or against her, with nothing in between.

As the adopted son and intended heir to the throne, Theban King Oedipus also becomes King of Corinth in the play "Oedipus Rex."

Specifically, Oedipus is brought by a trusted shepherd from Thebes to Corinth. In Corinth, the infant is adopted by the childless royal couple, King Polybus and Queen Merope. Much later, as a young man, Oedipus hears of a prophecy that he is fated to kill his own father and marry his own father. He does not share that revolting news with anyone, instead choosing to flee what he thinks is his hometown of Corinth for Thebes, his real hometown. Decades after his flight, Oedipus learns that the man whom he always considered his father is dead. The Corinthian throne is his if he wants it ... until the twists and turns of the plot reveal themselves in their full horror.

That she knows Oedipus' true identity is the reason why Jocasta says to Oedipus "Who thou art mayst thou never know" in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban Queen Jocasta realizes that King Oedipus is more to her than her husband and the father of her children. She knows from the information of the Theban shepherd that Oedipus is her own son. She is going to go off and kill herself with the knowledge. But as Oedipus' loving wife, she hopes to spare him the devastating realization that means personal and professional doom.

No, Oedipus does not kill himself at the end of "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Oedipus does not express an interest in killing himself at the play's end. Instead, he indicates that he wants to live in exile instead of being executed. He makes no attempt to escape or change his fated punishment other than to blind himself and then try to influence Creon, his brother-in-law and royal predecessor.