Oedipus Rex
Act 1
There is a pestilence which has descended upon Thebes.
The people of Thebes have assembled at the front steps of Oedipus’ palace to plead with him to save them as he once did with the Sphinx.
Oedipus says that he has sent Creon to ask Teiresias to come and tell them what he knows, but Creon has been gone for some time now and all anxiously wait for his return.
Creon at last arrives and says he has spoken with Teiresias but first asks Oedipus if he would like to hear the news in private or in front of the people. By his comment, “I am prepared to speak, but should we not go in?” suggests that he would like to be more cautious and circumspect.
Oedipus’ response is “Let them all hear it. It is for them, I suffer, more than for myself.” This is magnanimous and is suggestive of a large, generous and open heart but also one that might be foolish and a little rash. What if the news is not good, frightening or embarrassing for him? The crowd might not take it well.
Creon begins on page 7 the backstory, which is Laios was the former king who was killed before Oedipus’ arrival. Oedipus verifies that he never saw the king, which is a type of irony. Creon continues that the killer of Laios is in Thebes and Apollo commands them to take revenge on him. (page 7)
Oedipus questions Creon where and how the kings was killed - in his homeland or outside? Were there no witnesses? (page 8)
Creon responds that he went on a pilgrimage and never came back. All in his entourage were killed except one servant who claimed that the murderers were highwaymen who outnumbered them, overwhelmed them, and killed the king. (page 8)
Oedipus says to himself that it is strange that a highwayman should be so daring - unless a faction here in Thebes bribed him to do it. Notice that Creon clearly says a group of highwaymen attacked, but Oedipus says highwayman. Could this be an unconscious slip of the tongue? Perhaps Oedipus knows more than he realizes. (page 9)
Oedipus asks why the killers were not hunted down. Creon reminds him at that time the Sphinx was terrorizing Thebes and the people had to turn their attention to that national emergency. “The riddling Sphinx’s song / Made us deaf to all mysteries but her own.” (page 9)
Oedipus says,”Then once more I must bring what is dark to light.” (Another example of irony and the impending recognition which must occur in OEDIPUS REX, according to Aristotle in his POETICS). He continues, “By avenging the murdered King I protect myself....” which proves tragically ironic at the end. (page 9)
Choragos: The Chorus’s function is to comment on the preceding scene, to provide exposition, and to be the voice of the gods. The Chorus states that the land lies in ruin, barren and drought stricken. “The noble plowland bears no grain...” and the women are infertile and cannot give birth (“And groaning mothers cannot bear.”) Children are dying and the plague rages on.
“See, how our lives like birds take wing,
Like sparks that fly when a fire soars,
To the shore of the god of evening.” (pages 10 - 12)
The above is a simile which compares their lives to the brief ephemeral nature of birds (the seers analyzed birds’ flights to interpret the will of the gods) or sparks (which echo the ravages of the fiery plague that is burning through the land) that fly towards death (the gods of evening).
Act 1, Scene 1
Oedipus makes his decree known that who ever knows the identify of the killer must come forward with the information and no further harm will come to him but he will be escorted safely out of the country. But if he knows and withholds the information he will be ostracized by everyone in the country and “...driven from every house.” And as for as the criminal himself, Oedipus prays that his life be consumed in evil and wretchedness” thereby unwittingly cursing himself. (page 13)
Oedipus reasons that because he has had Laios’s bed, his wife and upon whom he has had many children (two sons and two daughters) and whose children would be the half children of the king had he lived, he should avenge the king’s murder by taking the part of the King’s son. (page 14)
Oedipus says that he will take the part of Laios’ son “I say, I take the son’s part, just as though I were his son, to press the fight for him....” which is another piece of dramatic irony. (page 14)
And let those who fail us “...be wretched as we are wretched, and worse!” (page 14)
Choragos suggests that they send for the wise blind seer Teiresias, whom Oedipus has already sent for (Oedipus, “Creon spoke of this, and I have sent for him - Twice, in fact; it is strange that he is not here.” ) (page 15)
Choragos reminds Oedipus that he mentioned highwaymen but that if “the killer can feel a particle of dread, / Your curse will bring him out of hiding.” Oedipus replies that “...the MAN who dared that act will fear no curse.” Does Choragos intentionally switch from highwaymen to killer, or was it unconscious mimicry?
Reversal:
Teiresias at last arrives but he is a reluctant prophet who does not wish to reveal what he knows. Oedipus thinks that Teiresias will be able, through some divination, to lift the curse which has descended on the land; however, it becomes clear that the hoped for news will not be forthcoming and that something bad instead will be revealed. (pages 16 - 24)
There are many examples of irony and motifs dealing with eyes and seeing throughout this section:
Teiresias: “If you could only / The nature of your own feelings....”
The two men fly into a rage when Oedipus insists he reveals what he knows and Teiresias refuses.
The two engage in a screaming match with Oedipus accusing Teiresias of collusion with the murderer. Oedipus: “If you had eyes, I’d say the crime was yours, and yours alone.”
Teiresias blurts out the truth that Oedipus is the murderer!
“I say that you are the murderer whom you seek!”
Teiresias taunts Oedipus with hints of the truth of his nature, his past and his relationship with his family. Teiresias,”I say you live in hideous shame with those / Most dear to you. You cannot see the evil.”
Oedipus responds by calling him a “sightless, witless, senseless , mad old man.”
Again, another metaphor dealing with blindness,”You child of endless night! You can not hurt me / Or any other man who sees the sun.”
Oedipus reveals a very rash side of his personality when he accuses him of colluding with Creon in murder. He boasts that Creon is no clairvoyant and that he was helpless in disposing of the Sphinx; that it was he, Oedipus, who was just a simple man who solved the Sphinx’s riddle.
Teiresias then warns him about mocking his blindness! But with his two seeing eyes Oedipus is still blind; that with his two seeing eyes he cannot see in whose house he lives, nor with whom, nor who were his father and mother. He cannot see the wrong he has done, on earth and in the world below. But, Teiresias warns that the double lash of his parents curse will soon descend upon him, and soon his punishing fate will be known to him. (pages 21 - 22).
Teiresias then brings up the issue of Oedipus’ parentage again - a subject which torments Oedipus, “My parents again! - Wait: who were my parents?” (page 22)
Teiresias answers him with ”This day will give you a father and break your heart....” which Oedipus dismisses as infantile riddles. Teiresias mocks him for his oft vaunted reputation for solving riddles. (page 23) He has not been able to solve the riddle of his own birth.
Before he takes his leave of him, Teiresias gives him a terrifying glimpse into the future (page 23 - 24)
by this riddle: A blind man, / Who has his eyes now; a penniless man, who is rich now; / And he will go tapping the strange earth with his staff / To the children with whom he lives now he will be / Brother and father - the very same; to her / Who bore him, son and husband - the very same / Who came to his father's bed, wet with his father's / Blood. (page 24)
Ode 1
The chorus discusses these revelations. Strophe and Antistrophe seem to believe Teiresias; however, Strophe 2 and Antistrophe 2 are bewildered and believe that Teiresias' are evil and are lies.
Coursers: strong running horses.
The Furies: harridans described by the Greeks as shrieking bird like women who pursue unpunished wrong doers. There is a theory that thousands of years before, people believed that their unconscious was external and came to them as voices from the external world - the voice of the gods, nymphs, etc. When one had committed a grievous sin one was pursued by outside furies who pursued him or her relentlessly until justice was met. Now we know the voices are our own unconscious pursuing us. Murder was avenged with murder until the gods stepped in to introduce the court of law where justice would be meted out rather than in a blood bath in the streets.
In this passage there are references to fathers and sons ("son of Zeus armed with his father's thunder); birds ("wingbeat of a bird...." and "Bewildered as a blown bird, my soul hovers and cannot find..."
References to darkness and light: "leaps in lightning"...."Holy Parnassos' peak of snow / Flashes and blinds that secret man"and "...well though this diviner works, he works in his own night...."
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