Oedipus the King
Montāžas Teksta
- A crowd of suppliants grieve to King Oedipus about the plague and pyre raids that are destroying Thebes. In response, Oedipus proclaims that he knows of the situation and has sent Kreon to Delphi to see if Apollo has an answer that can save the city. Kreon returns and announces his revelations.
- The god commands us to expel from the land of Thebes/ An old defilement we are sheltering (99-101).
- My Lord: Laios once ruled this land...He was murdered; and Apollo commands us now/ To take revenge upon whoever killed him (107-11).
- By exile or death, blood for blood. It was/ Murder that brought the plague-wind on the city (104-5).
- What defilement? How shall we rid ourselves of it? (103).
- Murder of whom? Surely the god has named him? (106).
- The blind seer Teiresias is brought into the palace to help find out who the murderer is, but Teiresias refuses to reveal what he knows to Oedipus because he believes the truth would only make things worse and that Oedipus was the one who murdered Laios. Because Kreon was the one who advised to bring Teiresias in, Oedipus now believes Kreon is the murderer and is plotting to overthrow him.
- Kreon desires in secret to destroy me! He has bought this decrepit fortune-teller...Why, he is no more clairvoyant than I am! (170-3).
- Be angry, then. Curse Kreon. Curse my words. I tell you, no man that walks upon the earth/ Shall be rooted out more horribly than you (213-15).
- After Kreon tried to convince Oedipus that he was innocent, Iokaste defuses the situation. Oedipus explains to Iokaste that he was accused of Laios' murder. Iokaste remembers that Laios, accompanied by 5 people, was killed at Phokis. They call an old household servant who is now a shepherd to the palace to consult him about what happened to Laios to clear Oedipus and Kreon's names.
- Laios was killed/ By marauding strangers where three highways meet (191-2).
- A household servant, the only one to escape (229).
- But who- Who told you how it happened? (227-8).
- A messenger from Corinth delivers the news to the palace that King Polybos, Oedipus' father, has died from illness. Oedipus is relieved because the prophecy Apollo had told him in which Oedipus kills his own father did not come true. But he is still afraid of the prophecy that he will marry his own mother. It is then revealed that Polybos is not his biological father because the messenger delivered him to Polybos, and a shepherd delivered him to the messenger.
- I fear the oracle may come true (96).
- Groundless? Am I not my parents' son? (100).
- Polybos was not your father (101).
- Can you not see that all your fears are groundless? (99).
- After speaking with the shepherd who delivered the messenger the baby who later became Oedipus, Oedipus finds out that the prophecy did come true. It turns out that he is the son of Laios and Iokaste. Since the prophecy that he would marry his mother came true already, he assumes that the prophecy of him killing his own father came true; and if his biological father is Laios, then he must be the murderer that he was seeking.
- They said it was Laios' child; But it is your wife who can tell you about that (56-7).
- My lord, she did...I was told to get rid of it...It was said that the boy would kill his own father (59-62).
- It was true! All the prophecies!...Oedipus, damned in his birth, in his marriage damned, Damned in the blood he shed with his own hand! (69-73).
- My wife- Did she give it to you? (58).
- A second messenger announces that Queen Iokaste has taken her own life and Oedipus has blinded himself. Oedipus, miserable from the knowledge that he married and made offspring with his own mother and killed his father, begs to be exiled to somewhere no one can find him.
- Oh never to have come here/ With my father's blood upon me! Never/ To have been the man they call his mother's husband! Oh accurst! Oh child of evil, To have entered that wretched bed- the selfsame one! More primal than sin itself, this fell to me (128-37).
- Drive me out of this country as quickly as may be/ To a place where no human voice can ever greet me (207-8).
Izveidoti vairāk nekā 30 miljoni stāstu shēmu