Everything Oedipus!!

• When was Oedipus Rex written?

  430 BC (5th Century BC)
• Who wrote Oedipus Rex?

  Sophocles
• Where did Oedipus Rex place in the City of Dionysia?

  Second place
• "King of our land,

  ...greatest power" (Priest)
• "Never will I convict

  ...my king, never in my heart" (Chorus)
• "We do rate you

  ...first of men" (Priest)
• "The world knows


  ...my fame: I am Oedipus" (Oedipus)
• "You pray to the

  ...Gods, let me grant your prayers" (Oedipus)
• "But as sick as you


  ...are not one as sick as I" (Oedipus)
• "But now all those prophecies

  ...I feared - Polybus packs them off to sleep with him in hell! They're nothing, worthless" (Oedipus)
• "The flight of


  ...my own intelligence hit the mark" (Oedipus)
• "Drive me out of

  ...Thebes in exile" (Oedipus)
• "This is sickness more


  ...than he can bear" (Chorus)
• "He digs them into his eye sockets,

  ... crying "You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused"" (Oedipus)
• "Kill me, hurl me


  ...into the sea where you can never look on me again" (Oedipus)
• "Better to die


  ...than be alive and blind" (Chorus)
• "Still the king, the master


  ...of all things? No more: here your power ends. None of your power follows through life" (Creon)
• "Rasing pins, racking them


  ...down his eyes. And at each stroke blood spurts from his eyes" (Messenger)
• "You've wept enough,


  ...into the palace now" (Creon)
• "I can't bear


  ...to look" (Chorus)
• "I shudder at


  ...the sight" (Chorus)
• "I stripped myself,


  ...I gave the command" (Oedipus)
• "Cursed in my birth,

  ...cursed in my marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands" (Oedipus)
• "I must know my birth,


  ...no matter how common it may be" (Oedipus)
• "I am at the edge of


  ...hearing horrors but I must know" (Oedipus)
• What was Oedipus' hamartia?

  His hubris
• What is a peripeteia?

  The loss of power and status
• What is an anagnorisis?


  The realisation of the truth
• "So I will fight

  ...for him as if he were my father" (Oedipus)
• "Even if it does

  ...lead to my ruin, my death" (Oedipus)
• "Out with is the time has

  ...come to reveal this once and for all" (Oedipus)
• "May the curse I just


  ...called down on him strike me" (Oedipus)
• "This is my blood, my


  ...nature, I'll never betray it" (Oedipus)
• "Whoever killed the king


  ...may decide to kill me too, by the same violent hand" (Oedipus)
• "I never saw


  ...the man myself" (Oedipus)
• "He never had a chance


  ...to kill his father, they destroyed him first" (Jocasta)
• What is ironic about the description of Joacasta's suicide?

  The noose is described as "cradling her high", which has maternal connotations
• "I have a terrible

  ...fear the blind seer can see" (Oedipus)
• "You've lost your power,


  ...stone-blind, stone-deaf. Eyes blind as stone" (Oedipus)
• "So hungry to overthrow me he


  ...sets this wizard on me, this scheming quack" (Oedipus)