Oedipus Rex

Defeating the Sphinx is what Oedipus is famous for in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the monstrous Sphinx camps outside the city of Thebes. She kills and eats all Thebans who cannot answer her seemingly unanswerable riddle. But Oedipus knows the answer and beats the Sphinx at her own game.

That Creon is consulting with the oracle at Apollo's shrine is the initial step that Oedipus indicates as already having been taken in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. -- 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, this is the information that Theban King Oedipus shares with the priest of Zeus and the Theban citizens gathered outside the royal palace. He already knows of the pestilence that is bringing on ailing livestock, declining birthrates, and failed harvests. So he does what any royal would do in ancient Greece: he sends an important, trusted person -- in this case, Creon, his brother-in-law and co-ruler -- to consult the nearest oracle.

That one kills her children whereas the other kills his father is the difference between Medea in Greek mythology and Oedipus in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Medea knowingly kills her children with Jason because he spurns her to marry Princess Creusa of Corinth. Contrarily, Oedipus unknowingly kills his own father, King Laius. Thus, Medea commits intentional infanticide whereas Oedipus unknowingly commits patricide.

Creon is not a static character in the play "Antigone" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Creon goes through a complete reversal in actions, beliefs and feelings between the beginning and the ending of the play. For example, he starts out issuing an edict that is contrary to divine will and Theban traditions; he ends up having to withdraw that edict. He starts out believing that women are trouble and can be replaced by a more docile model; he ends up facing a life without Queen Eurydice, who commits suicide rather than spend one second more with him. He starts out feeling superior to everyone else; he ends seeing himself as among the most despicable and unfortunate of mortals.

Oedipus murders Laius in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Oedipus kills an older version of himself in a street brawl at the Delphi-Daulia crossroads in Phocis. He defends himself against an arrogant older man and his rowdy companions. Years later, Oedipus comes to realize that the stranger is Laius, his royal predecessor at Thebes.

The bringing into his presence the sole servant who survived the decades-old killings of Theban King Laius and the royal escort party is what Theban King Oedipus intends when he asks of his wife, Theban Queen Jocasta, "And could you fetch him quickly back again?" in "Oedipus Rex."

Specifically, the servant is a former shepherd who becomes Jocasta's most trusted and loyal confidant. For his loyalty, he ends up being promoted to palace work. But after the death of Jocasta's husband Laius, the servant no longer wants to work within Thebes' walls. So Jocasta gives the servant permission to return to shepherding outsideThebes ... until Oedipus expresses an interest in interviewing this sole surviving witness to the murder of a Theban king.

Laius and Jocasta are king and queen of Thebes at the time of Oedipus' birth in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Jocasta is not a king's daughter. But she becomes queen as a direct descendant of Thebes' founding King Cadmus and through her marriage to her cousin Laius. Laius is king because he too is descended from Cadmus and because he is Theban King Labdacus' son.

It is after Oedipus runs from the Thebanshepherd's testimony and into the palace that the messenger announces Oedipus' self-blinding in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the Theban shepherd admits that Queen Jocasta is Oedipus' mother. Oedipus goes into the palace after Jocasta, whom he finds already hanged. He grabs her brooches and blinds himself with them. The messenger tells the chorus about the suicide and the self-mutilation.

Death is the way in which Oedipus plans to punish Creon in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus decides that his royal advisor, Teiresias the blind prophet, and his royal colleague, Creon, are conspiring to grab all royal powers for themselves. He confronts Creon, his brother-in-law and uncle, but rejects the latter's spirited but logical self-defense. Oedipus announces that punishment options are exile or execution, and he favors the latter.

Ailing livestock and failing crops are Thebes' agricultural problems at the opening of "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, a pestilence ravages Thebes. It causes babies to be born dead or to die shortly after birth. It affects the well-being of animals and plants and the food.

No, Oedipus is not fated by his destiny in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus has an unenviable fate as the prophesied killer of his father and husband of his mother. He makes efforts to avoid that fate once he is aware of it. But his efforts serve only to fulfill his fate. It turns out that all of his decisions are bad and that a better set of decisions may lead to a completely different destiny.

That he is separated from her shortly after birth and that she is offered to him as a reward are reasons why Oedipus unknowingly marries his own mother in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Theban King Oedipus has no idea that the Corinthian monarchs who raise him are not his biological parents. As a young man, he moves to Thebes, where he rescues Thebans from the monstrous Sphinx's unlimited appetite for freshly killed Thebans. As a reward, Thebans offer their beautiful widowed Queen Jocasta in marriage to Oedipus. Oedipus and everyone else remain clueless as to the mother-son relationship upon which this royal marriage actually is based.

Iambic pentameter is the verse of the parados in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the phrase iambic pentameter describes verse that is characterized by 10-11 syllables per line. The accent falls on the even-numbered syllables: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. The description fits the 10-11 line structure of evenly accented syllables in the ode sung by the chorus as the members make their first onstage appearance.

The land of Phocis is where Theban King Laius dies in the play "Oedipus Rex" by ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Phocis was and remains a region of central Greece. Its significance to the play is that it includes Delphi, the location of the oracle that Laius is seeking to consult when he is murdered. The precise location of the murder is at the crossroads for access from Thebes to Daulia and Delphi.

A day is the amount of time that passes in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the play follows strict dramatic rules in terms of action, place and time. It therefore limits all onstage action to one location. It also requires that action to take place within a day.

Blind prophet, royal councillor, skilled reader of ritual sacrifices and wisest Theban is who Teiresias is in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, Teiresias is the sightless seer and royal advisor to every Theban king since the city's founding by Cadmus, Theban King Oedipus' great-great-grandfather. But his insights from his innate wisdom and skilled interpretation of divine will can be shared only if requested by the reigning king of Thebes. Without a royal request, he must sit upon his knowledge regardless of the catastrophe. With a royal request, he must brave the worst of insults and threats from royals in denial.

That he must leave Thebes and never return are the provisions of the sentence of exile in "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.).

Specifically, the play ends with Oedipus and the audience remaining ignorant of whether or not the punishment for criminal acts and immoral behavior will be execution or exile. During the play, Oedipus makes the request to be banished to the mountainside outside Thebes. It is only in "Oedipus at Colonus" by the same ancient Greek dramatist that the audience receives the general information that Oedipus wanders outside Thebes for years before dying just outside Athens at Colonus.

Following is a list of ten (10) similarities between the plays "Antigone" and "Oedipus Rex" by ancient Greek playwright Sophocles (495 B.C.E. - 405 B.C.E.):

1. The area just outside the main entrance to the royal palace of Thebes is the main setting.

2. The chorus indicates that Theban King Oedipus and his daughter/half-sister Theban Princess Antigone may be victimsof a divine curse on the House of Theban King Labadacus, from whom they descend.

3. The critical deeds of Oedipus and then of Antigone are motivated by passion and defended without recognition or respect for an opposing viewpoint.

4. The entire environment of Thebes is polluted by disrespect to the dead - the death of Theban King Laius in "Oedipus Rex" and the non-burial of Theban Prince Polyneices - as crimes against the gods and by omission of cleansing rituals.

5. The explanation for and the resolution to the environmental pollution are given by the blind prophet Teiresias.

6. The fates of Oedipus as the victor over the Sphinx and of Antigone as the respecter of the old ways and the burier of her dishonored brother are consolidated by the doing of the above-mentioned great, heroic deeds: No good deed goes unpunished.

7. The motives of Theban King Creon are questioned by Oedipus as his brother-in-law and co-ruler and by Antigone as his niece and intended daughter-in-law;

8. The Queen of Thebes, Jocasta, is the mother of Oedipus, who becomes her second husband, and of Antigone, who thereby ends up as Oedipus' daughter and half-sister.

9. The seer Teiresias is insulted and threatened - with unenviable consequences - by the reigning sovereign, with the king being Oedipus in "Oedipus Rex" and Creon in "Antigone."

10. The tragedies end with the suicide of Jocasta and Antigone as the respectively main female characters in "Oedipus Rex" and "Antigone" and with the personal and professional shaming of Oedipus and Creon as the respectively main male characters in "Oedipus Rex" and "Antigone."