Brief Biography of
Sophocles
Considered
one of the three greatest playwrights of classical Greek theater, Sophocles was
a friend of Pericles and Herodotus, and a respected citizen who held political
and military offices in fifth-century B.C.E. Athens. He won fame by defeating
the playwright Aeschylus for a prize in tragic drama at Athens in 468 B.C.E.
Only seven of his complete plays have survived to reach the modern era, but he
wrote more than 100 and won first prize in 24 contests. Best known are his
three Theban plays, Antigone, Oedipus
Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus. Sophocles's other
complete surviving works are Electra, Philoctetes,
and Trachinian Women. He is credited with changing Greek drama by
adding a third actor, reducing the role of the chorus, and paying greater
attention to character development.
Historical Context
of Oedipus Rex
The
story of Oedipus and the tragedies that befell his family were nothing new to
Sophocles's audience. Greek authors routinely drew their basic material from a
cycle of four epic poems, known as the Theban Cycle, that was
already ancient in the fifth century B.C.E. and is now lost to history.
The Theban Cycle was as familiar to Athenians as the The
Iliad and The
Odyssey, so everyone in the audience would
have known what was going to happen to Oedipus. Sophocles used this common
story but made Oedipus a contemporary character, a man of action and
persistence who represented many of the ideals of Athenian leadership. It is
Oedipus's desire to find out the truth—a quality that, again, would have been
admired by Sophocles's audience—that leads to his destruction.
Other Books Related
to Oedipus Rex
Of
Sophocles's surviving dramatic works, Antigone, Oedipus
Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus treat different
episodes of the same legend, using many of the same characters. Sophocles's
writing career overlapped with that of Aeschylus and Euripedes, the other great
tragic playwrights of fifth-century Athens. Among Aeschylus's best-known
tragedies are Seven Against Thebes, Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers,
and The Eumenides. Euripedes's most
influential works include Medea, Electra,
and The
Bacchae. A 20th-century theatrical retelling
of the Oedipus myth is Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine.
Key
Facts about Oedipus Rex
- Full
Title: Oedipus Rex (or Oedipus
the King)
- When
Written: circa 429 B.C.E.
- Where
Written: Athens, Greece
- When
Published: circa 429 B.C.E.
- Literary
Period: Classical
- Genre: Tragic
drama
- Setting: The
royal house of Thebes
- Climax: When
Oedipus gouges out his eyes
- Antagonist: Tiresias;
Creon
Extra Credit
for Oedipus Rex
The
Oedipus Complex: Sigmund Freud used the Oedipus story as an important
example in his theory of the unconscious. He believed that "It is the fate
of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother
and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father." He
referred to these two urges as the "Oedipus complex."
Oedipus Rex
The play begins in the royal house
of Thebes. The stage directions state that Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx
many years earlier and has since ruled as king of Thebes. As the play begins, a
procession of miserable-looking priests enters. Oedipus follows soon after,
walking with a slight limp and attended by guards.
Oedipus asks the priests why they have come. He knows that
the city is sick with plague. He tells them they can trust him to help in any
way he can. In a moving speech, a priest tells Oedipus the city's woes: the crops are
ruined, cattle are sick, women die in labor and children are stillborn, and
people are perishing from the plague. The priest begs Oedipus to save Thebes,
just as Oedipus once saved it from the Sphinx.
Oedipus says he knows of the trouble and
has been trying to think of a solution. He has already sent Creon, his brother-in-law, to the oracle at
Delphi to find out what the god Apollo advises. Just then, the priest notices that Creon is returning
from this mission.
Creon tells Oedipus and the assembled priests the words of the god Apollo,
according to the oracle. Before Oedipus became king, the previous king, Laius,
was murdered, and his murderer was never discovered. According to the oracle,
the killer lives in Thebes. He must be caught and punished in order to stop the
plague.
Oedipus asks Creon about the circumstances of Laius's
death. Creon says that Laius left the city to consult the oracle of Apollo and
never returned. Only one eyewitness to the murder survived and returned to
Thebes. This man claimed that a band of thieves killed the king. Oedipus asks
why no one tried to find the murderers. Creon responds that, at the time,
Thebes was under the Sphinx's curse. Oedipus then promises that he'll take on
the task of finding the murderer.
The chorus, which has not heard the news from the
oracle, enters and marches around an altar, chanting. The chorus catalogs the misfortunes of Thebes
and calls on many gods by name to come to the city's aid.
Oedipus orders anyone who knows anything
about Laius's murderer to speak, in exchange for light treatment and possibly a
reward. But, Oedipus declares, if anyone has useful information and does not
speak, the citizens of Thebes must banish this person. Oedipus curses the
murderer—"Let that man drag out his life in agony, step by painful
step." He adds that even if the murderer ends up being a member of his own
family, he or she should receive the same harsh banishment and punishment.
Oedipus criticizes the people for not
hunting more vigorously for Laius's killer. He says he will fight for Laius as
if Laius were his own father. Oedipus curses anyone who defies his orders. The
leader of the chorus suggests that Oedipus send
for Tiresias, the blind seer. Oedipus announces that
he has already done so. Soon, blind Tiresias arrives, led by a boy.
Summary
Oedipus asks Tiresias, the prophet, to help Thebes end the
plague by guiding him to the murderers of King Laius. But Tiresias does not
want to tell Oedipus what he knows. He asks to be sent home and says he will
not tell his secret. Oedipus insults Tiresias, but the prophet still refuses to
speak.
Now angry, Oedipus accuses Tiresias of plotting to kill Laius. This
upsets Tiresias, who tells Oedipus that Oedipus himself is the cause of the
plague—Oedipus is the murderer of Laius. As the insults fly back and forth,
Tiresias hints that Oedipus is guilty of further outrages.
Oedipus convinces himself that Creon has put Tiresias up to making these accusations in
attempt to overthrow him. He mocks Tiresias's blindness and calls the man a
false prophet. The leader of the chorus tries to calm the two men down.
Tiresias warns Oedipus that Oedipus is the blind one—blind to the corrupt
details of his own life.
As the men continue to argue, Tiresias prophesies that Oedipus will know who his parents are by
the end of the day, and that this knowledge will destroy him. He leaves with a
riddle: the killer of Laius is a native Theban whom many think is a foreigner;
he will soon be blind; he is both brother and father to his children; he killed
his own father. Both men exit.
The chorus enters, chanting about the murderer
of Laius, pursued now by the gods and the words of a prophecy. The chorus
concludes that it will not believe the serious charges brought against Oedipus without proof.
Creon enters, upset that he has been
accused of treachery. Oedipus enters. He launches further
accusations at Creon. Creon tries to defend himself against the charges. He
claims he has no idea what Tiresias was going to say, and has no desire
to be king. He suggests that Oedipus is being unreasonable and paranoid.
Oedipus refuses to listen, and says he wants Creon dead. Jocasta—Oedipus's wife and Creon's
sister—approaches.
Summary
Jocasta tells Oedipus and Creon that
it's shameful to have public arguments when the city is suffering. When she
learns that Oedipus wants to have Creon banished or killed, Jocasta begs
Oedipus to believe Creon. The chorus echoes
her plea. Oedipus thinks that this means the Chorus also wants to see him
overthrown. The chorus swears they don't.
Moved
by the chorus's
expression of loyalty, Oedipus allows Creon to
go free, though he says that he still doesn't believe that Creon is innocent.
Creon exits, declaring that Oedipus is both wrong and stubborn.
Jocasta asks
how Oedipus's
argument with Creon started.
Oedipus tells her that Creon sent Tiresias to
accuse Oedipus of Laius's death. Jocasta responds that Oedipus shouldn't worry
about the seer's accusation because the revelations of prophets are
meaningless.
Jocasta
tells a story from her past: When Laius and Jocasta were
still married, an oracle told Laius that he would be killed by his own son. In
response, when Jocasta and Laius's son was three-days-old, his ankles were
pinned together and one of Laius's servants left him to die on a mountain.
Laius was not killed by his son, but instead by strangers, at a place
where three roads meet.
So, Jocasta concludes, seers don't know what they're talking about.
Jocasta's story
troubles Oedipus,
so he asks Jocasta for
more details about the murder of Laius. He grows even more concerned when she
tells him that the murder took place just before Oedipus arrived in Thebes, and
describes what Laius looked like and how many men accompanied him. Now truly
worried, Oedipus asks Jocasta to send for the lone survivor of the murder of
Laius and his men to come to Thebes and tell them what he saw that day.
Jocasta asks
to know what's troubling Oedipus.
Oedipus tells her his life story. His father Polybus and his mother Merope were
king and queen of Corinth. One day, at a banquet, he heard gossip that the king
and queen were not really his parents. To learn the truth he went to the oracle
at Delphi, where he received a prophecy that he would sleep with his mother and
kill his father.
Terrified, Oedipus never
returned to Corinth in order to ensure that the prophecy would not come true.
As he wandered, he one day reached the place where Jocasta says
King Laius was killed. There he had an incident with a group of men who pushed
him off the road and tried to kill him. He defended himself, and ended up
killing them. Oedipus now fears one of the men he killed was Laius, and the
curses that he himself showered upon the old king's murderer will now come down
upon his own head.
The chorus tells Oedipus to
remain hopeful until he questions the witness he has sent for. Oedipus takes
heart—after all, the witness, a shepherd,
had said that a group of thieves killed Laius, not just one man. Jocasta also
tells him not to worry, because the murder of Laius does not fit the prophecy
anyway. Apollo said that her son would kill her husband, and her son was left
to die in the mountains. They exit.
The chorus,
alone on stage, chants about the gods who rule the world from Olympus, striking
down those who gain power by disregarding the gods' laws and protecting those
men who faithfully serve the state. But then the Chorus goes on to say that if
a sinner is not punished or if the prophecies and oracles of the gods turn out
to be untrue, then there is no reason to worship or have faith in the Gods.
Summary
Jocasta enters and makes an offering to
Apollo to appease Oedipus's mind. Just then, a messenger—an old man—arrives from Corinth, with
news that the people there want to make Oedipus their king. Polybus, king of
Corinth—the man Oedipus believes to be his father—has died. Jocasta is
overjoyed because she views Polybus's death as further proof that the
prophecies are false.
Oedipus enters and learns the news.
Relieved, he celebrates with Jocasta and agrees with her that the oracles and
prophecies are "dead," and that chance alone rules the world.
The messenger asks what Oedipus is afraid of. Oedipus tells him the
prophecy—that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother—and says that
this is why he has never returned to Corinth. The messenger tells Oedipus he
never had anything to fear. Polybus and Merope weren't his real father and
mother.
The messenger tells Oedipus that he (the messenger) came upon a
baby on the side of Mount Cithaeron, near Thebes. He freed the baby's ankles, which were pinned together, and gave
the baby to Polybus to raise as a gift. That baby grew up to be Oedipus, who
still walks with a limp because of the injury to his ankles. When Oedipus asks
for more details about who his parents were, the messenger says he doesn't
know, but was given the baby by another shepherd who was a servant of Laius.
Jocasta reacts sharply to this last piece
of news. Meanwhile, the chorus tells Oedipus that this other shepherd, Laius's old servant, is the same man as
the eyewitness to the murder of Laius.
Jocasta now begs Oedipus to abandon his search for his
origins. Oedipus thinks she's worried that he will discover he's the son of
some slave or commoner, a fact that might shame her. She insists that isn't it,
and continues to beg him not to question the shepherd. He won't listen to her. At last, she
lets out a wrenching scream, calls Oedipus a "man of agony," and
flees through the palace.
Oedipus declares that he must know the
secret of his birth, no matter how common his origins. A shepherd approaches. The messenger confirms that it's the same man who
gave him the baby. Oedipus and the messenger question the old shepherd. When
they bring up the subject of the baby, the shepherd refuses to speak.
Only after Oedipus threatens to
torture the shepherd does the shepherd admit that he
gave the baby to the messenger. The shepherd then refuses to name the
father and mother of the baby. Oedipus threatens to kill the shepherd if he
does not speak. Finally, the shepherd gives in: the parents of the baby were
Laius and Jocasta. The shepherd says he was told to kill
the baby boy because of a prophecy that he would grow up to kill his father.
But the shepherd took pity on the baby and gave it to the messenger.
Realizing who he is, and that the
prophecies have come to pass, Oedipus lets out a terrible cry and rushes into
the palace. The messenger and shepherd exit.
Summary
The chorus, left alone on stage, chants first
of Oedipus's greatness among men, and then about
how fate brought about his horrifying destruction. The chorus adds that though
Oedipus saved Thebes (from the Sphinx), the city would have been better off had
it never seen Oedipus.
A second messenger enters with news
of events in the palace. Jocasta locked herself in her room to mourn
Laius and her own fate. In hysterical grief, Oedipus ran through the palace searching
for Jocasta with sword drawn, cursing her. He knocked down her door to find hat
she had hanged herself. Now weeping, Oedipus embraced Jocasta and lowered her
to the floor. He took two golden brooches (pins) from her robes, and plunged
them into his eyes until he was blind, screaming that he no longer wanted to
see the world now that he knew the truth.
The chorus and the messenger are struck with grief and
pity. Oedipus enters, but they can't bear to look
at him. Blood pouring from his eyes, Oedipus speaks of his agony, of darkness,
of insanity. He begs to be cast out of Thebes as a cursed man. He wishes he'd
never been saved as a baby.
Oedipus gives a long and heart-rending
speech about the terrible things he has done and that have happened to him, as
ordained by Apollo. Yet he insists that it was his own hand that blinded
himself, he claims, not the hand of fate. The chorus asks why he blinded himself instead
of killing himself. Oedipus says he could not bear to look his father and
mother in the eyes in Hades (hell), and, alive, he cannot look bear to look at
the faces of his children or his countrymen. He asks the chorus to hide him,
kill him, or hurl him into the sea.
Creon enters. The Chorus expresses hope
that he will restore order to Thebes. Creon forgives Oedipus for his past
actions, and orders that Oedipus be brought inside so that his shame may be
dealt with privately. Oedipus begs Creon to banish him in order
to save Thebes. Creon agrees to do it, but only after consulting an oracle to
make sure that the gods support such an action. Oedipus notes that his sons are
old enough to take care of themselves, but begs Creon to look after his
daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
At Oedipus's request, Creon sends
for Antigone and Ismene, who enter, crying. Oedipus hugs them. Weeping, he
tells them that they will be shunned because of his terrible acts, and that as
the products of an incestuous marriage they will be unable to find husbands. He
tells them to pray for a life better than their father's.
Creon then puts an end to Oedipus's time with his daughters, and again
refuses to grant Oedipus's wish for immediate banishment until the gods
explicitly grant it. Oedipus then asks Creon to give him more time with his
daughters, but Creon responds only by reminding Oedipus that he will no longer
have any power for the rest of his life.
All exit except the Chorus, which laments that even the most
powerful and skillful of men can be ruined by fate. The Chorus ends with these
tragic words: "Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no
man happy till he dies, free of pain at last."
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