Oedipus Rex | Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

[Scene: outside, in front of the palace of Oedipus. There is also a shrine to Apollo at which are seated many suppliants. Oedipus enters the stage from the palace.]

OEDIPUS:
My children, new-sprung race of old Cadmus,
why do you sit at my shrines, wearing garlands
of the suppliants’ olive? All around
the city is filled with the smell of incense,
all around filled with the sound of hymns and groans.(5)
These things I did not think it right to learn
from messengers, and so I have come here myself,
who am called Oedipus and known to all.
But you, old man, tell me, since it is fitting
for you to speak on their behalf, why you(10)
sit out here, afraid of something or wanting it?
So I would be willing to help you
in any way, for he would be hardhearted
who did not pity such an assembly.
PRIEST:
Oedipus, you who rule my land, you see(15)
how many of us sit here at your altars;
some do not yet have the strength to fly far;
others are heavy with age. I am the priest
of Zeus, and these were chosen from the young men.
There is another group wreathed as suppliants(20)
sitting in the marketplace and another
at the double-gated temple of Athena
and at the smoke-filled oracle of Ismenus.
For the city, as you yourself can see,
is badly shaken already and from the waves(25)
can no longer lift her head above this
bloody tossing; there is death in the fruitful buds
from the earth and in the pasturing herds,
and even in the childless births of women.
Falling upon us, the fire-bringing god,(30)
most hateful disease, drives the city,
and by him the house of Cadmus is drained,
and dark Hades grows rich with groans and wails.
Now, I do not hold you equal to the gods,
nor do these children who sit at your hearth,(35)
but we judge you the first of men both
in the ordinary chances of life
and in the contingencies of the divine.
It was you who came and released Cadmus’ town
from the tribute we paid to the cruel songstress,(40)
and these things you did knowing nothing from us,
nor instructed at all, but with help from god
you spoke and knew how to set our lives straight.
And now, Oedipus, greatest in the eyes of all,
we who are here as your suppliants beseech you(45)
to find some defense for us, as you may have heard
the voice of one of the gods or have learned
something from a man—for I think that the ideas
of experienced men most often succeed.
Come, o best of mortals, and save our city;(50)
come, but be careful, since now this land
calls you her savior for your former zeal,
and let us never recall of your reign
that we first stood straight, but stumbled later.
Rather, then, restore this city to safety.(55)
For at that time you gave us great fortune,
be now equal to what you were then.
Since, if indeed you would rule this land,
just as you do now, it is far better
to rule over men than a wasteland;(60)
nothing matters, neither tower nor ship,
if it is empty of men to dwell within it.
OEDIPUS:
My poor children, what you desire is
known and not unknown to me, for I see well
that everyone is sick, and being sick,(65)
still, not one of you is as sick as I am.
For your pain comes upon the individual,
one by one, to each man alone and no other,
but my soul groans for the city, for me and you
together. Hence, you do not wake me from sleep,(70)
but know that I have been weeping much
and wandering many roads of the mind.
And that which my inquiry found our only cure
I have done, for I have sent Creon,
son of Menoeceus, my own brother-in-law,(75)
to Apollo’s home at Pytho, so that he may
learn what I should do or say to save this city.
And already enough time has passed that
I wonder what he is doing, for he has stayed
beyond the proper time. But whenever he comes,(80)
I would surely be an evil man not to do
whatever the god reveals.
PRIEST:
Wonderful news! Both what you have said,
and what these have just pointed out to me:
Creon is approaching!(85)
OEDIPUS:
Lord Apollo, if only he might come as bright
with redeeming fortune as shine his eyes!
PRIEST:
It seems he brings good news, for otherwise(90)
he would not come crowned with berry-laden laurel.
OEDIPUS:
We shall know soon, for he is close enough to hear.(95)
Lord, kinsman of my wife, child of Menoeceus,
what reply do you bring us from the god?

[Enter Creon from offstage.]

CREON:
A good one, for I say that even misfortunes,
if somehow put right, bring only good luck.
OEDIPUS:
What sort of reply is this? For what you say(100)
gives me neither confidence nor fear.
CREON:
If you wish these people nearby to hear,
I am ready to speak, or should we go inside?
OEDIPUS:
Speak to everyone, for I consider their pain
more important even than that of my own soul.
CREON:
I shall say all I heard from the god.(105)
Phoebus clearly ordered us, my lord,
to drive out the pollution being fostered
in this very land, not to nurture it unhealed.
OEDIPUS:
With what cleansing and for what type of disaster?(110)
CREON:
By driving a man into exile,
or undoing murder with murder again,
since this blood shakes our city like a storm.
OEDIPUS:
And who is the man whose fate he decrees?
CREON:
My lord, once Laius was our leader in this land,
before you came to govern this city.(115)
OEDIPUS:
So I have heard, though I never saw him.
CREON:
He died, and the god now orders us clearly
to take violent vengeance on the murderers.
OEDIPUS:
Where on earth are they? Where will be found
this indistinct track of ancient guilt?(120)
CREON:
In this very land, he said. What is sought
can be captured, but what is ignored escapes.
OEDIPUS:
Did Laius meet his bloody fate in his home
or estate or in some other land?
CREON:
He left home to consult an oracle, he said,(125)
and never returned again, once he had set out.
  • 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.
  • Cadmus was the founder of Thebes; see Thebes
  • shrines at his home, the palace, not shrines to him
  • someone who makes requests from a position of powerlessness; see Suppliant
  • He points to the different groups as he speaks; see Stage directions
  • The marketplace (or agora) was the center of city life for the Greeks.
  • the goddess of wisdom; see Gods and goddesses
  • a local hero in Boeotia. Heroes were mortals, such as Helen of Troy or Achilles, who were worshipped as demigods after their deaths.
  • i.e., the children are stillborn
  • In some contexts, this refers to Sirius, the dog star, which ushers in the feverish times of August, but here it simply refers to the plague as a god.
  • an allusion to Ploutos, or Wealth, another name for Hades
  • The priest here refers to the intersections between ordinary mortal life and divine intervention;see Religion
  • the Sphinx; see
  • Sophocles emphasizes Oedipus’ intellectual search. Oedipus’ commitment to thought and humanist belief in human intelligence both characterize and doom him.
  • Delphi, the most famous oracle in the Greco-Roman world
  • Since Greek theaters are outdoors, and the stage entrances long and open, the audience would also be able to see Creon coming.
  • The laurel was the tree of Apollo.
  • It is important that Sophocles characterizes Oedipus as a good king. He feels concern for his people and rules justly.
  • 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.
  • The Greeks believed that, when a murder was committed, the murderer, the place of the crime, and any place that harbored the killer were polluted, that is, outside the favor of the gods; see Pollution
  • Some people have read the Oedipus Rex as a kind of detective story. It is, of course, much more than that, but we do see Oedipus pursuing clues and reasoning through arguments. Sophocles emphasizes this intellectual process more than in other plays.
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