At the beginning of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, the people of Thebes hold King Oedipus in high esteem. This is the man who rescued the city and its people from the terror of the monstrous Sphinx. They think of him as a great king and as a father figure...
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At the beginning of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, the people of Thebes hold King Oedipus in high esteem. This is the man who rescued the city and its people from the terror of the monstrous Sphinx. They think of him as a great king and as a father figure who often refers to them as "my children."
The people of Thebes have come to appeal to Oedipus to end the famine and plague afflicting the city, in the same way that he saved them from the Sphinx. A Priest who serves as spokesperson for the people praises Oedipus and practically calls him a demi-god.
PRIEST. Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,
I and these children; not as deeming thee
A new divinity, but the first of men;
First in the common accidents of life,
And first in visitations of the Gods.[...]
Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!
Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore
Our country's savior thou art justly hailed.
By the end of the play, however, the people of Thebes have a notably different view of Oedipus.
The reason that the gods have brought famine and plague down on the people of Thebes is because the murderer of their former king, Laius, still walks among them. Until the city is purged of that murderer, either by '"banishment, or the shedding blood for blood," as Creon reports from the Oracle, the famine and plague will continue.
As the plot of the play moves forward, it becomes increasingly clear that Oedipus himself murdered Laius on the road to Thebes many years ago, just before Oedipus encountered the Sphinx and saved the city. It also becomes clear that Laius was Oedipus's father, and that Oedipus himself is the reason for the famine and plague.
When Oedipus comes to that realization, he exiles himself from Thebes and blinds himself so he doesn't have to look at all of the suffering he's caused. His tragic fall from king to rejected, pitied, exiled murderer is complete.
CHORUS. Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,
He who knew the Sphinx's riddle and was mightiest in our state.
Who of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?
Now, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!