Part A · Short Questions — Oedipus Rex

The play teaches that no man can escape his fate. Oedipus's pride brings his fall, so we should never call anyone happy before his death.

The Sphinx was a monster with a woman's head, a lion's body and bird's wings. She asked a riddle and killed everyone who could not answer it; Oedipus solved it and she died.

The baby Oedipus was left on Mount Cithaeron, with his feet tied, to die.

Teiresias was the blind prophet of Thebes. He alone knew the truth about Oedipus.

Oedipus sent Creon, his brother-in-law, to the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi to learn how to end the plague.

Oedipus's greatness was his wisdom. He saved Thebes by solving the riddle of the Sphinx.

He fled to escape the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He thought Polybus and Merope were his real parents.

He declared banishment: nobody should give shelter to the killer, and his life would be full of misery.

Jocasta, the widow of King Laius, was his mother and later his wife.

He could not bear to see the evil he had done. So he stabbed his eyes with the gold pins from Jocasta's dress.

King Polybus of Corinth and his wife Queen Merope were his foster parents.

Jocasta hanged herself in her room when she learned that Oedipus was her own son.

The chorus is made up of the old leaders (elders) of Thebes. They speak for the common people of the city.

He says his eyes failed to see the truth. He also cannot face his parents, his children and his people, so he does not want to see anything.

The old Theban shepherd knew it. He had saved the baby Oedipus and had seen the killing of Laius.

The Oracle said that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his own mother.

It means 'swollen foot'. His feet were tied and swollen when he was a baby.

Laius was killed at a place where three roads met — the crossroads in Phocis, on the way from Delphi.

Phoebus is Apollo, the god of prophecy (and the sun). His oracle told the cause of the plague in Thebes.

Catharsis means the cleaning of the feelings of pity and fear in the minds of the people watching a tragedy. It is Aristotle's famous word.

The Delphic Oracle was the most famous oracle of Greece, at Apollo's temple in Delphi. It gave the god's answers to people through his priestess (the Pythia).