Knowt
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles key characters and quotes
All Characters who speak:
Oedipus
Priest
Chorus - Theban citizens (men)
Tiresias
Creon
Jocasta
Messenger
Shephard
Characters who are mentioned by do not speak:
Antigone
Ismene
Prologue
Oedipus
“Oh my children”
“Huddling at my altar, praying before me”
“you all know me, the world knows my fame”
“I am ready to help” - to Priest
“I would be blind to misery not to pity my people” - blindness
“I pity you”
“not one is sick as I” - compares the sick and dying in Thebes to his own suffering as a leader
“Your pain strikes you alone” but “my spirit grieves for the city, for myself and for all of you”
“You haven’t wakened me”
“I have wept through the nights”
“groping” and “laboring”
“I sent Creon, my wife’s own brother”
'“it torments me”
“I’ll be a traitor if I do not do all the god makes clear”
“What message from the god?”
“what were the god’s words?” - selfish, wants Creon to tell everyone so he looks strong and capable
“Speak out, speak to us all”
“I grieve for… my people, far more than I fear for my own life.”
“What’s the source of the trouble?” - irony
“Whose murder?” - oblivious, ironic
“I never saw the man myself” - about Laius, irony
“Where on earth are they?” - about Laius’ murderer, ironic
“No fellow-traveler saw that happened?” - foreshadowing
“so daring, so. wild, he’s kill a king?” - irony
“Your king was murdered - royal blood!” - irony
“I’ll bring it all to light myself!” - he certainly will, irony
“you have me to fight for you” - hubris
“I am the land’s avenger” - hubris
“for my own sake I’ll rid us of this corruption” - hubris, selfish
“we will see our triumph - or our fall” - foreshadowing
Priest
“our greatest power!” - about Oedipus
“the red waves of death”
“Thebes is dying”
“A blight on the fresh crops”
“cattle sicken and die”
“women die in labor”
“children stillborn”
“raging plague”
“black Death luxuriates”
“wailing miseries of Thebes”
“You cannot equal the gods”
“we do rate you first of men”
“You freed us from the Sphinx”
“you lifted up our lives”
“best of men”
“the laurel wreath is bright with berries” - sign of good news at Creon’s return is ironic
“my sons” - paternal
“The kindness we came for” - respect Oedipus a lot
Creon
“Good news.” - irony
“I tell you even the hardest things to bear”
“all would be well”
“If you want my report in the presence of these people…” - Creon is far more private
“Very well” - subserviant
“Drive the corruption from the land” - Oedipus himself must leave for the curse on the land to be lifted.
“Banish the man”
“pay back blood with blood”
“Murder sets the plague”
“Laius”
“Pay the killers back - whoever is responsible” - Oedipus is responsible, irony
“Here in Thebes” - foreshadowing
“He went to consult an oracle… and never come home again.” - irony
“He said thieves attacked them” - a lie, irony
Parados/Chorus
“Great welcome voice of Zeus”
“Racked with terror”
"Apollo, Healer of Delos I worship you in dread”
“child of golden Hope warm voice that never dies”
“deathless Athena”
“you gods… come down once more”
“grief on grief”
“we are all dying”
“Thebes like a great army dying”
“screams for the Healer, children dead in the womb”
“Death so many deaths”
“numberless deaths on deaths”
“dead spreading death”
“Thebes, city of death”
“our cries of mourning”
“the god of death that raging god of war”
“the god of death”
“Zeus, Father, thunder Death to nothing!”
“Artemis… ride Death down in pain!”
“Dionysus- come with your face aflame with wine”
“Burn that god of death that all gods hate!”
Parados
“Zeus!”
“Racked with terror”
“terror shakes my heart”
“Apollo, Healer of Delos I worship you in dread”
“some new sacrifice? some ancient rite from the past”
“child of golden Hope warm voice that never dies!”
“deathless Athena”
“grief on grief”
“Thebes like a great army dying”
“screams for the Healer, children dead in the womb”
“deaths, numberless deaths on deaths”
“dead spreading death”
“Thebes, city of death”
“our sobs our cries of mourning”
“the god of death”
“Zeus, Father, thunder Death to nothing!”
“ride Death down in pain!”
“Burn that god of death that all gods hate!”
Episode 1
Oedipus
“You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers” - blasphemy
“a stranger to the crime” - irony
“I order him to reveal the whole truth to me” - irony, he already knows the truth and he won’t want to hear it
“he will suffer no unbearable punishment, nothing worse than exile”
“I will give him a handsome reward” - for information
“banish this man… never shelter him, never speak a word to him, never make him partner to your prayers”
“Drive him out… from every home”
“He is the plague, the heart of our corruption”
“I fight for the god and for the murdered man”
“Now my curse on the murderer… let that man drag out his life in agony”
“I curse myself as well”
“may the curse I just called down on him strike me!”
“might have created blood-bonds between us if his hope of offspring had not met disaster”
“I will fight for him as if he were my father”
“to force the gods to act against their will - no man has the power”
“He didn’t flinch at murder, he’ll never flinch at words”
“O Tiresias, master of all the mysteries of our life”
“You, my lord, are the one shield, the one saviour” - Tiresias
“grudge us nothing now”
“Rescue yourself, your city, rescue me”
“We are in your hands”
“Strange response… unlawful, unfriendly”
“you withhold the word of god”
“You’re bent on betraying us, destroying Thebes?”
“you scum of the earth, you’d enrage a heart of stone!”
“I have such fury in me”
“You helped hatch the plot, you did the work”
“Say it again - I’ll understand it better”
“you’ll pay”
“You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf”
“you pious fraud”
“his own profit”
“you and your birds, your gods - nothing”
“If you didn’t look so senile the lash would teach you”
“Wait… who is my father?”
“Mock me for that… and you’ll reveal my greatness”
“You’re a nuisance here”
Leader
“Apollo pressed it on us - he should name the killer”
“Lord Tiresias sees with the eyes of Lord Apollo”
“without him we have nothing but old, useless rumours”
“Laius was killed… by certain travellers”
“Here is the one who will convict him”
“the man of god” - Tiresias
“I would suggest his words were spoken in anger, Oedipus… yours too”
Tiresias
“How terrible - to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees!”
“You bear your burdens, I’ll bear mine”
“I’d rather not cause pain for you or me”
“You criticize my temper… unaware of the one you live with, you revile me”
“What will come will come”
“You are the curse, the corruption of the land!”
“you are the murderer you hunt”
“you and your loved ones live together in infamy”
“I pity you”
“flinging at me the very insults each man here will fling at you soon”
“it is not your fate to fall at my hands”
“Creon is not your downfall, no, you are your own”
“you mock my blindness?”
“you’re blind to the corruption of your own life”
“who are your parents?”
“aren’t you the best man alive at solving riddles?”
“Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich”
“brother and father both to the children he embraces”
Ode 1
“who is the man the voice of god denounces”
“The horror too dark to tell”
“the word of the god has just come blazing”
“like the wild mountain bull”
“racing blind" but he cannot outrace the dread voices of Delphi”
“The skilled prophet scans the birds and shatters me with terror!”
“I can’t accept him, can’t deny him”
“no charge to bring against our king”
“not without proof”
“whether a mere man can know the truth”
“whether a seer can fathom more than I”
“he was the joy of Thebes!”
“Never will I convict my king, never in my heart”
Episode 2
Creon
“terrible charges at me”
“I resent it deeply”
“my reputation in ruins”
“branded a traitor”
“It;s your turn to listen”
“you think crude, mindless stubbornness such a gift”
“We did our best, of course, discovered nothing”
“I don’t know. And when I don’t, I keep quiet”
“you’re married to my sister”
“all of us are equals?”
“who in their right mind would rather rule and live in anxiety than sleep in peace?”
“I’m not the man to yearn for kingship”
“influence, power without a qualm”
“Now all men sing my praises”
“I have no lust for conspiracy in me”
“don’t convict me on sheer unverified surmise”
“You want me banished?”
“Just to show how ugly a grudge can…”
“I think you’re insane”
“brutal in your rage”
“natures like yours are hardest on themselves”
Oedipus
“You have the gall to show your face”
“plotting to kill me, kill the king”
“what did you take me for, coward or fool”
“You’ve a wicked way with words”
“Did you induce me… to send for that sanctimonious prophet?”
“Did he refer to me then…?”
“you did investigate the murder, didn’t you?”
“we would never have heard about my killing Laius”
“you never will convict me of murder”
“She receives from me whatever she desires”
“When my enemy moves against me quickly… I move quickly too”
“I want you dead”
“you don’t think I’m serious?”
“about to stab me in the back”
“let him go”
“It’s you, not him I pity”
“all because you tried to blunt my anger”
“I respect you Jocasta, much more than these men here”
“Creon’s to blame”
“He says I murdered Laius - I am guilty”
“he sent his prophet in to do his dirty work”
“Strange, hearing you just now… my brain wandered”
“My god, my god - what have you planned to do to me?”
“Oh no no, I think I’ve called down a dreadful curse upon myself - I simply didn't know!”
“I have a terrible fear the blind seer can see”
“I’ve reached this pitch of dark foreboding”
“whom would I turn toward but you as I go through this?”
“My father was Polybus, king of Corinth. My mother, a Dorian, Merope”
“Some man at a banquet… shouted out… that I am not my father’s son”
“unknown to my mother and father I set out for Delphi”
“You are fated to couple with your mother… you will kill your father”
“I strike him in anger!”
“I killed them all - every mother’s son!”
“I am the man no alien, no citizen welcomes to his house, law forbids it”
“Else I am doomed to couple with my mother and cut my father down”
“He is my last hope”
“You said thieves”
Leader/Chorus
“a slur might have been forced out of him, by anger”
“I never look to judge the ones in power”
“Good advice, my lord, for anyone who wants to avoid disaster”
“Those who jump to conclusions may go wrong”
“be sensible, give way, my king, I beg you”
“don’t cast him out, disgraced”
“on top of the old griefs you pile this, your fury - both of you!”
“Why do you hesitate, my lady why not help him in?”
“ignorant talk started dark suspicions”
“I’d be insane… senseless, ever to turn my back on you”
“you fill out hearts with fear”
Jocasta
“Have you no sense?”
“Poor misguided men”
“Aren’t you ashamed, with the land so sick, to stir up private quarrels?”
“Why make such a furor over nothing?”
“Oedipus, honour the solemn oath he swears to heaven”
“Tell me what’s happened first”
“Why this rage? You’re so unbending”
“A prophet? Well then, free yourself of every charge!”
“nothing human can penetrate the future”
“doom would strike him down at the hands of a son”
“Laius… was killed by strangers”
“Apollo brought neither thing to pass”
“My baby no more murdered than his father than Laius suffered… death at his own son’s hands”
“I shudder to look at you”
“A servant who reached home, the lone survivor”
“he knelt and clutched my hand, pleading with me to send him into the hinterlands”
“Slave though he was, he’d earned that favor”
“Impossible. Trust me, I’ve told you precisely what he said”
“Apollo was explicit: my son was doomed to kill my husband”
“my son, poor defenceless thing, he never had a chance”
“They destroyed him first”
“So much for prophecy. It’s neither here nor there”
“I’d never displease you, least of all in this”
Ode 2
“Destiny guide me always”
“Destiny find me filled with reverence”
“Olympian Sky their only farther, nothing mortal, no man gave them birth”
“Pride breeds the tyrant”
“violent pride”
“clawing up to the heights”
“headlong pride”
“crashes down the abyss - sheer doom!”
“god, my champion, I will never let you go”
“let a rough doom tear him down, repay his pride”
“Never again will I go reverent to Delphi”
“ancient oracle at Abae or Olympia of the fires”
“They are dying, the old oracles”
“the gods go down”
Episode 3
Jocasta
“it occurred to me… to visit the temples of the gods”
“Oedipus is beside himself. Racked with anguish”
“he’s at the mercy of every passing voice”
“I urge him gently, nothing seems to help”
“I beg you, cleanse us, set us free of defilement”
“And the same to you, stranger”
“Have you brought us news?”
“You prophecies of the gods, where are you now?”
“see for yourself what all those awful prophecies of the god have come to”
“Polybus- he’s dead!”
“sweep it from your mind forever”
“It’s all chance, chance rules our lives”
“Take such things for shadows”
“don;t give it another thought, don’t even think-”
“Stop - in the name of god, if you love your own life”
“My suffering is enough”
“listen to me, I beg you, don’t do this”
“for your sake - I want the best for you!”
“You’re doomed - may you never fathom who you are!”
“man of agony”
Oedipus
“what killed him?”
“Sickness then - poor man, it wore him down”
“I never put hand to sword - unless some longing for me wasted him away, then in a sense you’d say I caused his death”
“all those prophecies I feared”
“They’re nothing, worthless”
“I was lost in fear”
“to see one’s parents and look into their eyes is the greatest joy I know”
“a rich reward you’d have for that”
“Polybus was not my father?”
“how could he love me so? He loved me, deeply”
“when you picked me up, was I in pain?”
“Even if my mother turns out to be a slave”
“she with her woman’s pride may well be mortified by my birth”
“I count myself the son of Chance”
“She is my mother!”
Messenger
“could you lead us to the palace of the king… I think it’s Oedipus”
“Blessings on you, noble queen”
“it costs a little sorrow in the bargain”
“Death has got him in the tomb” - Polybus
“Polybus is dead and gone”
“You’re afraid of that?”
“why don’t I rid you of that old worry now?”
“Polybus was nothing to you… not in blood”
“You were a gift… he took you from my hands”
“his early years without a child made him love you all the more”
“I stumbled on you”
“Your savior too, my son”
“Your ankles… they tell the story”
“you got your name from that misfortune” - swollen foot
“another shepherd passed you on to me”
“a servant of… Laius”
Leader/Chorus
“This is his palace, stranger”
“I think he’s the very shepherd you wanted to see”
Ode 3
“if I am a true prophet”
“by the boundless skies of Olympus”
“Mount Cithaeron you will know how Oedipus glories you”
“Apollo, god of the wild cry”
“Oedipus - son, dear child, who bore you?”
“the nymphs who seem to live forever mated with Pan”
“Who was your mother?”
“Apollo”
“Hermes”
“Dionysus”
“found by the nymphs”
hubristic
Episode 4
Oedipus
“Brothers in old age, two of a kind, he and our guest here”
“you know more than I” - to Chorus
“old man, come over here… Did you ever serve Laius?”
“Don’t lash out at him, old man”
“You won’t answer his question”
“you’ll talk with pain”
“Twist his arms back, quickly!”
“I’m at the edge of hearing horrors”
“Her own child, how could she?”
“all come true, all burst to light!”
“now let me look my last on you!”
“cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage”
Leader/Chorus
“I know him, definitely”
Messenger
“He’s your man”
“No wonder he doesn’t know me, master”
“let me refresh his memory”
“you gave me a child back then”
Shepherd
“Herding the flocks, the better part of my life”
“Cithaeron sometimes”
“Doing what?- what man do you mean?”
“Not so I could say, but give me a chance, my memory’s bad…”
“it’s all so long ago”
“Why rake that up again?”
“Damn you, shut your mouth - quiet!”
“He’s talking nonsense, wasting his breath”
“don’t torture an old man!”
“I did… I wish to god I’d died that day”
“It wasn’t mine… I got it from… someone”
“no more questions!”
“the horrible truth”
“His son, they said it was - his son!” - Laius
“To kill it”
“She was afraid - frightening prophecies”
“They said - he’d kill his parents”
“I pitied the little baby”
“you were born for pain”
Ode 4
“the dying generations”
“all your lives I find they come to nothing”
“the vision no sooner dawns than dies”
“You are my great example”
“Oedipus, man of misery”
“I count no men blest”
“you captured priceless glory”
“like a bird of omen singing, shrieking death”
“we crowned you with honors”
“is there a man more agonized?”
“the joy of your life ground down to nothing”
“all-seeing Time has dragged you to the light”
“I’d never seen you, never never!”
“Now I weep like a man who wails the dead”
“you bring down night upon my eyes”
Exodus
Messenger
“what horrors you will hear”
“a heavy weight of sorrow you will shoulder”
“The pains we inflict upon ourselves hurt most of all”
“The queen is dead”
“By her own hand”
“I saw it all”
“she wailed for Laius”
“where she let loose that double-brood - monsters”
“husband by her husband, children by her child”
“how she dies is more than I can say”
“Oedipus burst in, screaming”
“our eyes were fixed on him”
“He was raging”
“there we saw the woman hanging by the neck”
“he eased her down, in a slow embrace”
“He rips off her brooches”
“looking them straight up into the points, he digs them down the sockets of his eyes”
“raking them down his eyes”
“blood spurts from the roots”
“a swirl of it, nerves and clots”
“black hail of blood, pulsing, gushing down”
“wailing, madness and doom, death, disgrace, all the griefs in the world”
“you are about to see a sight, a horror even his mortal enemy would pity”
Chorus/Leader
“we have pains enough already”
“Oh poor man, the misery”
“O the terror - the suffering, for all the world to see”
“I pity you but I can’t bear to look”
“I shudder at the sight”
“Dreadful, what you’ve done”
“Pitiful”
“I wish you had never known”
“Put your requests to Creon”
Oedipus
“I am agony”
“Dark, horror of darkness”
“the misery, all at once, over and over the stabbing daggers, stab of memory”
“Dear friend, still here?”
“Apollo, friends”
“the hands that struck my eyes was mine, mine alone- no one else”
“I did it all myself!”
“loathed by the gods”
“What I did was best - don’t lecture me”
“crimes too huge for hanging”
“I am misery! I, her best son”
“All men must cast away the great blasphemer”
“I’ve exposed my guilt, horrendous guilt”
“Oblivion- what a blessing for the mind to dwell a world away from pain”
“The blackest thing a man can do, I have done them all!”
“it’s wrong to name what’s wrong to do”
“I wronged him so”
“you wipe my fears away”
“Drive me out of the land at once”
“he said destroy me!”
“So miserable”
“Let me die there, where they tried to kill me”
“no sickness can destroy me”
“my poor helpless girls”
“Take care of them, I beg you”
“Do I really hear you sobbing?”
“Seeing nothing… I became your father”
“How I weep for you”
“Who will marry you?”
“Your doom is clear”
“Pity them”
“Surely the gods hate me so much”
Creon
“I haven’t come to mock you”
“have you lost all respect for human feelings?”
“This is obscene”
“even you will obey the god’s decrees”
“I know the joy they gave you”
“Enough”
“Time is the great healer”
“Only the gods can give you that”
“You’ll get your wish at once”
“I try to. say what I mean; it’s my habit”