OEDIPUS REX BY SOPHOCLES, REFERENCE TO CONTEXT

OEDIPUS REX BY SOPHOCLES

At a feast, a drunken man maundering his cups
Cries out that I am not my father's son!
I contained myself that night, though I felt anger
And a sinking heart. The next day I visited
My father and mother, and questioned them. They stormed,
Calling it all the slanderous rant of a fool;
And this relieved me.

At a feast, .......... this relieved me.

REFERENCE
(i) Drama: Oedipus Rex
(ii) Dramatist: Sophocles

CONTEXT

(i) Occurrence: Scene II (Lines 251-257)

(ii) Content:

Thebes is struck by a plague and the oracle of Apollo says the sickness is the result of injustice: the old king's murderer still walks free. The blind seer Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is the murderer and is living incestuously. Jocasta says an oracle said her husband, the old king, would be killed by his child, but that never happened since they abandoned the baby and her husband was killed by robbers. Oedipus begins to suspect that he was the abandoned baby. A messenger and a servant confirm the tale. Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his own eyes.

EXPLANATION

In these lines Oedipus is conversing with his wife, Jocasta, and telling her a strange event of his youth in Corinth. He tells her that Polybos of Corinth is his father and his mother, Merope, is a Dorian. He was brought up to be the chief of Corinth. But a strange event turned the tables. A drunken man at a public feast proclaimed that he was not his father's biological son; he is an adaptation. He got furious at his maundering. However, he suppressed his anger that night though with a sinking heart. The very next day he went to his parents and questioned about the drunken man's allegations. They were offended, and said it was a foolish allegation. He was no longer feeling distressed or anxious; he was reassured by their words. However, he was not fully satisfied. In short, this particular event is the main cause that Oedipus left Corinth.

O holy majesty of heavenly powers!
My I never see that day! Never!
Rather let me vanish from the race of men
Than know the abomination destined me!

O holy majesty ......... abomination destined me!

REFERENCE

(i) Drama: Oedipus Rex
(ii) Dramatist: Sophocles

CONTEXT

(i) Occurrence: Scene II (Lines 304-307)

(ii) Content:

Thebes is struck by a plague and the oracle of Apollo says the sickness is the result of injustice: the old king's murderer still walks free. The blind seer Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is the murderer and is living incestuously. Jocasta says an oracle said her husband, the old king, would be killed by his child, but that never happened since they abandoned the baby and her husband was killed by robbers. Oedipus begins to suspect that he was the abandoned baby. A messenger and a servant confirm the tale. Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his own eyes.

EXPLANATION

In these lines Oedipus is praying to holy God to save him from seeing the day when he will be declared the murderer of his father and the husband of his mother. He wishes to vanish from the midst of human beings before such an abomination devolves on his shoulders. He has just told his wife Jocasta when he passed Phokis, a place where the Theban road bifurcates into Delphi road and Daulia road, he came across a herald and a royal chariot whose driver when ordered by his lord to force him off the road leaned out towards him to beat him but he himself hit him with his stick. The old man sitting in the chariot could not tolerate it and flogged him at his head. In exasperation, he pulled the old man down from the chariot and killed him on the spot. Now if the old man was his father, then he unknowingly perpetrated parricide. In that case, he is the man hated most by the gods. So Oedipus fears that this cruel fate has created him for all his misfortunes emerging him from unintentional parricide and incest. If his fate is cruel, none would deny the savagery of gods. To remove all these fears, Oedipus is in these lines praying to God to keep him safe from such misfortune.

OEDIPUS REX BY SOPHOCLES

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be
When there's no help in truth! I knew this well.
But did not act on it! Else I should not have come.

REFERENCE

(i) Drama: Oedipus Rex
(ii) Dramatist: Sophocles

CONTEXT

(i) Occurrence: Scene I (Lines 101-103)

(ii) Content:

Thebes is struck by a plague and the oracle of Apollo says the sickness is the result of injustice: the old king's murderer still walks free. The blind seer Tiresias tells Oedipus that he is the murderer and is living incestuously. Jocasta says an oracle said her husband, the old king, would be killed by his child, but that never happened since they abandoned the baby and her husband was killed by robbers. Oedipus begins to suspect that he was the abandoned baby. A messenger and a servant confirm the tale. Jocasta hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his own eyes.

EXPLANATION

These are the very first words spoken by blind Tiresias before Oedipus in which he confesses that he must not have come to Oedipus' palace when he knew that the disclosure of the secret concerning Oedipus' parentage would shatter the whole palace. When this blind seer entered the palace, Oedipus was happy to notice that his visitor was a prophet who knew the secrets of heaven and earth and could as such tell him who the murderer was. He told the Tiresias that Apollo had sent back his messenger with the word that the catastrophe of pestilence would not be lifted from Thebes until and unless the identity of those who murdered Laius was established clearly and unless they were killed or banished. Oedipus then requested Tiresias to use bird-flight or any other sleight of hand to purify Thebes from the devastating contagion. Tiresias' reply in these lines shows that he knew the secret of the murder but he realized it as well as that his disclosure of truth would prove ruinous than the plague infecting Thebes.

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