Oedipus Rex | Glossary

Glossary

  • Chorus Since Greek tragedy grew out of the performances of lyric poetry sung by large choruses, it is only natural that the chorus should remain a large part of Greek tragedy. Every play’s chorus (usually fourteen men) took on an identity appropriate to the play. For example, in the Oedipus Rex, they are old men of Thebes; in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, they are the dread goddesses, the Furies.


    The word chorus in Greek means “dance,” and the chorus’ main function was to sing and dance lyric odes in between dramatic episodes. These odes comment on the action of the preceding episode. The chorus could also, however, act as a character; one chorus member would be designated leader and speak lines of dialogue, interacting with the other characters on stage. They react as their characters should—in the Oedipus Rex, the chorus, while concerned about Oedipus’ personal problems, care first and foremost about the fate of the city and finding a cure for the plague.

  • Cithaeron The mountain in southern Boeotia (the region in which Thebes is located) where Oedipus was to have been exposed as an infant. Cithaeron’s position on the border of Theban territory allowed Laius’ herdsman to encounter someone who worked for Polybus of Corinth.

  • Daimones In addition to major gods and goddesses like Zeus and Apollo, the Greeks believed in divine forces, not quite gods, who could influence human life and events. They acted somewhat like guardian angels, but could also be malicious. The word “demons” comes directly from the Greek word daimones.

  • Gods and goddesses Greek religion was polytheistic; the Greeks worshipped many gods. The most powerful god was Zeus, the sky god, who was thought to have taken power when he overthrew his father Cronus. After Zeus came the other Olympian deities, including Zeus’ queen Hera, his brother Poseidon, and his children Athena, Ares, Artemis, and Apollo. There were also other gods, older deities from the reign of Cronus who remained powerful and were often irrational. Among these are the Furies, dreadful goddesses who hunt down and drive mad humans who kill blood-relatives.

    The most important god for the Oedipus Rex is Apollo, whose oracle at Delphi gives the important prophecies to Oedipus and Creon (Laius was traveling to this oracle when he was killed). Apollo’s knowledge is absolute— if Apollo says something will happen, it will happen. His prophecies in this play, however, are not warnings: He does not tell Laius not to have children, merely that his child will kill him. He does not tell Oedipus to kill his father, but that he will kill his father. When Oedipus sends Creon to find out how to end the plague, Apollo tells them to drive the murderer of Laius out of Thebes, but this is not an instruction so much as a simple answer.

    Two other gods mentioned are both sons of Zeus: Hermes, divine messenger and patron of cattle-rustlers, and Dionysus, god of wine and ecstatic intoxication. In myth, Dionysus was accompanied by satyrs (crudely sexual half-gods) and enraptured nymphs called maenads. He was also the god of theatre, and Greek tragedies were performed at a festival in his honor.

  • Hybris (hubris) Debate over the precise meaning of this word, so important for our understanding of Greek literature and Greek law, has been going on for centuries, and studies still come out offering new interpretations. In his Rhetoric, the great philosopher Aristotle, who lived in Athens in the century after Sophocles’ death, defined hybris as physical or verbal assault that brings shame to the victim, but no reward to the agent other than the personal satisfaction received from inflicting disgrace on another. Aristotle associates the act of hybris with the state of anger. (It is important to note that hybris is the act of violence itself; modern readers often make the mistake of thinking of it as some kind of attitude or pride.)


    In Athenian law, hybris was more serious than simple assault, whether the act was physical or verbal; it could be punished by death. Because someone who got away with hybris would have placed himself in a position of superiority, the Chorus of our play can say that “hybris creates a tyrant” by giving him power over other men.


    Originally, the idea of hybris seems to have referred to cultivated plants that grew beyond their designated boundaries and, thus, had to be pruned; eventually, its metaphorical application to humans became the only meaning of the word.

  • Oracles In order to understand the will of the gods, the Greeks consulted oracles. These were places holy to a specific deity (often Apollo); humans could pose questions and the god would answer through a chosen intermediary. The most important oracle in the Greek world was Apollo’s temple at Delphi (also called Pytho, because legend said that it was founded when Apollo killed the previous resident, a giant snake, or python.). Here, Apollo answered questions through his priestess, the Pythia, who entered an ecstatic state and babbled out responses, which were in turn interpreted and delivered in verse by the priests. It was customary for kings and cities to consult the oracle of Delphi before making any big decision.

  • Pollution (miasma) Murder and incest violate natural law as well as human law, so these crimes were seen to offend the gods. Both the agent and location of the crime were polluted by the act, as were people or places harboring the polluted individual; proper ritual cleansing (catharsis) was necessary to restore both person and place to an acceptable state. In the presence of pollution, sacrifices and prayers would be ignored by the gods, who were offended by the pollution. Hence, the community had to become involved— just one polluted person could destroy an entire city, which is the case in the beginning of the Oedipus Rex, when the presence of Laius’ uncleansed murderer brings a plague upon Thebes. Apollo’s oracle tells the Thebans to either kill or drive out the guilty man, which will remove the source of pollution from Thebes. Assuming that the guilty man left Thebes for voluntary exile, he could approach a temple or powerful person and ask for ritual cleansing, at which point he would not longer be considered polluted or bring pollution upon his location.

  • Religion For the most part, Greek religion did not follow a moral code. The Greeks did not love their gods, but respected their power. Humans won the favor of the gods through sacrifice and offerings, whether blood sacrifice of an animal (the kind of animal would be determined by tradition and the means of the sacrificer); pouring out a liquid offering (libation) of milk, wine, or honey; placing a gift of flowers or incense by the statue of a god; or dedicating an object of value in a temple. In return for such gifts, the gods would heed one’s prayers. Since crimes like homicide or incest offended the gods (see “pollution”), they threatened the effectiveness of the prayers and sacrifices of the entire community, so the entire community could become involved in punishing those crimes.

  • Sphinx A monster sent by the goddess Hera against the city of Thebes. The Sphinx was part lion, part eagle, and part woman; she asked a riddle and devoured anyone who could not answer it. When Oedipus correctly answered the riddle, the Sphinx threw herself from a cliff and perished, thus ending the terror at Thebes.

  • Suppliant anyone who makes a request or prayer from a position of powerlessness. In Greek culture, the suppliant was a sacred position with special rights, responsibilities, and visual symbols. Suppliants wore or carried special emblems, such as olive branches, to identify themselves. Traditionally, they knelt before the person they were supplicating and touched either his knees or chin (it was thought that the knees and chin were directly connected to a person’s heart). Suppliants also took refuge at altars. It was taboo to harm a suppliant, and anyone who did so would be cursed.

  • Stage directions The manuscripts of Greek tragedies do not give stage directions, so we must figure out for ourselves the entrances and exits of characters. The dialogue, however, is filled with special clues for directions, especially Greek words that one uses when pointing. Hence, we can often tell when a character would gesture.

  • Tyche Chance. This force was personified by the Greeks as a fickle goddess. Tyche governed coincidences, simple mistakes, and luck, whether good or bad. When Oedipus declares himself a child of Chance, he does not seriously mean that this goddess is his mother, but that his life has been dominated by fortune, as he is a foundling who became a king.

  • Thebes One of the major cities in Greece (one of Athens’ rivals in Sophocles’ time) and the scene of the action of the Oedipus Rex. Hera sends the monstrous Sphinx to punish Thebes; when Oedipus defeats the Sphinx, he earns the kingship, marrying the queen Jocasta, widowed by the murder of Laius. The city of Thebes played a large role in Greek mythology—the “Theban cycle” in epic rivaled the “Trojan cycle” of the Iliad and Odyssey. Many Greek tragedies are set in Thebes besides the Oedipus, e.g. Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles’ Antigone, and Euripides’ Bacchae.

  • Tyrannus Oedipus Rex is the Latin title of a play that was called Oedipus Tyrannus in Greek. The English translation is “Oedipus the King.”


    The Ancient Greeks had two words for “king”: basileus, which indicated a hereditary king, and tyrannus, which was used for kings who had not inherited their throne, but taken it. Tyrannus did not have the negative connotations that “tyrant” has for us today, although to the freedom-loving men of the Athenian democracy, tyranny of any kind was as unacceptable as it is to us.