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Prior to the start of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus has become the king of Thebes while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father, Laius (the previous king), and marry his mother, Jocasta (whom Oedipus took as his queen after solving the riddle of the Sphinx). The action of Sophocles's play concerns Oedipus's search for the ...
Oedipus (UK: / ˈ iː d ɪ p ə s /, also US: / ˈ ɛ d ə-/; Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes.A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family.
The play describes the end of Oedipus's tragic life. Legends differ as to the site of Oedipus's death; Sophocles set the place at Colonus, a village near Athens and also Sophocles's own birthplace, where the blinded Oedipus has come with his daughters Antigone and Ismene as suppliants of the Erinyes and of Theseus, the king of Athens.
In Dryden/Lee's adaptation, for instance, the scenic complexity is much greater than in Sophocles's Oedipus: more settings are employed, such as the streets of Thebes (Act I, Scene Thebes), an open gallery, a royal chamber being supposed behind (Act II, Scene I) or a dark grove (Act III, Scene I). The plot of Sophocles's Oedipus only spans a ...
In Seneca's play Oedipus is, at best, an aid to the death of Jocasta, and from the ambiguous lines may even have taken her life. In Sophocles’ play, Jocasta hangs herself, and Oedipus subsequently discovers her lifeless body. In Seneca, Laius names his killer. In Sophocles, Oedipus’ guilt emerges gradually throughout the developing play.
After Oedipus is made king, a plague occurs and kills much of the city. Oedipus sends his brother-in-law Creon to the Oracle to receive news about how to stop it. Creon returns and tells him that for the plague to end, King Laius' killer must be brought to justice. Oedipus sends for the blind prophet Tiresias to find out the name of the killer ...
The two exiles, Polynices, the son of Oedipus king of Thebes, and Tydeus, the son of Oeneus king of Calydon, were also mentioned by early sources. The sixth, Parthenopaeus, although usually an Arcadian whose mother was Atalanta (as he is in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes ), in another tradition (attested as early as Hecataeus ) he was the son ...
Sophocles, The Antigone of Sophocles edited with introduction and notes by Sir Richard Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1893. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library. Sophocles, Sophocles. Vol 1: Oedipus the king. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. With an English translation by F. Storr. The Loeb classical library, 20. Francis Storr.