I borrowed the title of this blog post from my best friend's skype status. She is in an honors world literature class while I am in a regular world literature class, but we are reading the same thing. Oedipus.
I am certain that most of you have read Oedipus or at least know a little bit of what it is about. I will try not to spoil the ending for you all. That is a treat you must read for yourself. I liked Oedipus in it being a play aspect, but I really did not prefer it otherwise because it was so disgusting and disturbing.
If you do not know the story of Oedipus or the background behind it, I shall tell you now; beginning with the history of Sophocles and plays. The play Oedipus was written by the great playwright Sophocles. He wrote about 23 plays and he would enter them into a contest to be performed at the wine festival of Dionysus. He never won worse than second place. Considering that I never win anything, I am proud of old Soph. Plays were mandatory things, they were obligations. One HAD to attend plays because they were for the moral education of the audience. If I told my grandfather that he would say,"Darn right, those greeks were unmoral!" They were meant to be entertaining too though. They would show them in the afternoon and there would be two to three plays. When the audience went to see these plays they would already know the backstory behind the play and that solved any confusion right there.
Before the play Oedipus begins there is a story that goes behind it. We all know that he married his mother and killed his father right? Well if you did not, that is what happens. Gross. I know. But what happens before that? Well, here we are. Jacosta, the mother of Oedipus(also queen of Thebes), received the prophecy that her son would kill his father and marry his mother. She thought that was terrible, so what does she do? She sends him away with a shepherd to leave him on Mount Cithaeron to die. They also put a metal rod through his ankles so he cannot escape. Really, though, he is a baby. How would he escape? The shepherd takes the baby Oedipus with the stake through his ankle to Mount Cithaeron and he is prepared to leave him there to die but a messenger from Corinth takes the baby instead, because King Polybus and Queen Merope of Corinth cannot have children and he plans to give them the child instead of the shepherd having to leave baby Oedipus to die. So, the messenger takes the baby to the king and queen. They pull the metal stake out of his ankles and he walks with a limp for the rest of his life.
Later in life, Oedipus is told the same prophecy that was given to his birth mother. That he will kill his father and marry his mother. He is afraid, so he leaves Corinth. He does not want to kill his father OR marry his mother. He is actually rather afraid of her. He gives up the claim to the throne and he leaves for Thebes. Along the way, he meets an important man(his birth father) and he kills him. First part of the prophecy- check! Then when he enters Thebes there is a great plague occurring and many people are dying because they cannot solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Not the sphinx in Egypt, the sphinx who tells riddles and if you cannot get them right curses you, or eats you, maybe both.
This is the riddle:
What goes on four legs in the morning,
on two legs at noon,
and on three legs in the evening?
I will let you all figure this out for yourselves and I am hoping you will be able to, since even I have heard of this one before.
He solves this riddle and the citizens of Thebes whisk him away to make him their king and they let him marry the queen. Second part of the prophecy- check! Check, check, and check
After this there is a lot more to the story but it would give away the ending of it so I will not tell you. You will just have to read Oedipus on your own and marvel in the disgusting glory of it all. Seriously though, if you do not read it, I will not blame you. It is one weird play.
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