Oedipus Terms to know and Quotes Terms to

Oedipus Terms to know and Quotes

Terms to Know • Exodus – concluding scene of the play • Parados – Chorus’ 1 st response (song) which is their interpretation of the play’s content • Episodia – series of scenes where the action and events are presented

Terms • Stasimon – Chorus’ interpretation & response to preceding scene • Prologue – Here the audience learns of the conflict gthe play addresses

Who’s the Speaker? • “I solumnly forbid the people of this country, where power and throne are min, ever to receive that man or speak to him, no matter who he is. I decree that he be driven from every house…I pray that man’s life be consumed in evil and wretchedness. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Who are your father and mother? Can you tell me? You do not even know the blind wrongs that you have done them, on earth and in the world below…Be angry then. Curse Creon, Curse my words. I tell you, no man that walks upon the earth shall be rooted out more horribly than you. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “I beg you – do not hunt this out – I beg you, if you have any care for your own life. What I am suffering is enough…O be persuaded by me, I entreat you; do not do this. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • Would any sane man prefer power, with all a king’s anxieties? Certainly not I. I have never longed for the king’s power…”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Now I, having the power that he help before me, having his bed, begetting children there upon his wife, as would have, had he lived…I say I take the son’s part, just as though I were his son, to press the fight for him and see it won!”

Who’s the Speaker? • “I charge you, then, abide by the proclamation you have made; from this day forth speak again to these men or to me; yourself are the pollution of this country. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “I weep for you – having no strength to see you – I weep when I think of the bitterness that men will visit upon you all your lives…And when you come to marriageable age, where is the man who would dare wish the bane that lies on all my children? ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “I think that I myself may be accurst by my own ignorant edict. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “I am told that heavy accusations have been brought against me by King Oedipus…The matter is grave. The fact is that I am being called disloyal to the State, to my fellow citizens, to my friends. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Let me live in the mountains where Kithairon is, that’s called my mountain, which my mother and my father while they were living would have made my tomb. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Look upon Oedipus…most powerful of men. No mortal eyes but looked on him with envy, yet in the end, ruin swept over him. Let every man in mankind’s frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find life, at his death, a memory without pain. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “For Apollo said my child was doomed to kill him; and my child – Poor baby! – it was my child that died first. No. From now on, where oracles are concerned, I would not waste a second thought on any. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Polybus was not your father…Long ago he had you from my hands, as a gift. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “The groom leading the houses forced me off the road at his lord’s command; but as this charioteer lurched over towards me I struck him in my rage…Swinging my club in his right hand I …killed him. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “However base my birth, I must know about it. The Queen, like a woman, is perhaps ashamed to think of my low origin. But I am a child of Luck; I can not be dishonored. ”

Who’s the Speaker? • “Therefore, O mighty King, we turn to you; find us our safety, find us a remedy. Whether by counsel of the gods or men. A king of wisdom tested in the past can act in a time of troubles, and act well…No man questions your power to rule the land. ”