The Infernal Machine (Masterplots II: Drama, Revised Edition)

At a glance:

The Play

Before the curtain rises on The Infernal Machine, a Voice tells the audience how Jocasta, Queen of Thebes, left her baby son, his feet mutilated, on a mountainside to die, in order to counter the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. The child was rescued and adopted by Polybus and Merope, king and queen of Corinth, who treated him as their own. As a young man, Oedipus consulted an oracle and learned the same prophecy. Believing himself the son of Polybus and Merope, he fled that city in order to counter the oracle. One day, during a...

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