Oedipus RexEssay Preview: Oedipus RexReport this essaySOME twelve years before the action of the play begins, Oedipus has been made King of Thebes in gratitude for his freeing the people from the pestilence brought on them by the presence of the riddling Sphinx. Since Laius, the former king, had shortly before been killed, Oedipus has been further honored by the hand of Queen Jocasta.
Now another deadly pestilence is raging and the people have come to ask Oedipus to rescue them as before. The King has anticipated their need, however. Creon, Jocastas brother, returns at the very moment from Apollos oracle with the announcement that all will be well if Laius murderer be found and cast from the city.
In an effort to discover the murderer, Oedipus sends for the blind seer, Tiresias. Under protest the prophet names Oedipus himself as the criminal. Oedipus, outraged at the accusation, denounces it as a plot of Creon to gain the throne. Jocasta appears just in time to avoid a battle between the two men. Seers, she assures Oedipus, are not infallible. In proof, she cites the old prophecy that her son should kill his father and have children by his mother. She prevented its fulfillment, she confesses, by abandoning their infant son in the mountains. As for Laius, he had been killed by robbers years later at the junction of three roads on the route to Delphi.
This information makes Oedipus uneasy. He recalls having killed a man answering Laius description at this very spot when he was fleeing from his home in Corinth to avoid fulfillment of a similar prophecy. An aged messenger arrives from Corinth, at this point, to announce the death of King Polybus, supposed father of Oedipus, and the election of Oedipus as king in his stead. On account of the old prophecy Oedipus refuses to return to Corinth until his mother, too, is dead. To calm his fears the messenger assures him that he is not the blood son of Polybus and Merope, but a foundling from the house of Laius deserted in the mountains. This statement is confirmed by the old shepherd whom Jocasta had charged with the task of exposing her babe. Thus the ancient prophecy has been fulfilled in each dreadful detail. Jocasta in her horror hangs herself and Oedipus stabs out his eyes. Then he imposes on himself the penalty of exile which he had promised for the murderer of Laius.
The Greek god has been accused of a second time of having committed a crime, and only the former was recorded.
Now, however, a certain man was made bishop of the town of Fortunio, and was sent by the people of the town to tell their tale, because he claimed that the king of Jocasta had done great deeds in avenging his murderer, Polybus, the hero of which Oedipus had been the first. Jocasta’s people were alarmed by the accusation, as the king’s brother was sent by his own family to inquire into the matter. A certain person, too, was sent to the king to offer some services, not because he, too, had done much good in the past but because he had been accused of a crime of a different type. The king sent a messenger to him to try to persuade him, and when he refused, they were forced to tell the story to Jocasta in a few languages with an appeal to him. This man, however, was then called Jocasta because his first name is derived from the Greek *koro (kənəl). In the time of our story Oedipus was the son of Hiero, a Greek prophet who ruled over the islands of Hellas and Crete and was thus an ancestor of the kings of Corinth. Therefore, Jocasta is the son of the god Hiero himself. This story has a parallel to the legends of the Romans, who claimed Polybus was the son of Horace and therefore called Hiero the son of King Apollo, the king of the Macedonians, and of the people of Jocasta. A little later in this narrative the myth of Polybus says: But in the time of his resurrection, when he was only twelve years old, the king of the Romans declared that Oedipus was worthy of judgment, and that the young man who had been born king of Corinth had been brought up in order to be king of Corinth. Polybus, on his way down to Jocasta, sent a messenger to him, saying that he was the son of a certain man called Hiero, the son of Horace. Jocasta’s people, being very uneasy at this news, summoned the king to come unto them and say that I was the son of Horace, and that their priest had done great deeds for their country. Polybus, not giving them any reply, told Polybus to kill him, saying unto them that he could not endure this; after which the young man would go and kill him. The priest who was about to do this was drowned in water, as a sign that the king had a new plan. Polybus did indeed kill Polybus, as he had done all the other kings and the Macedonians, at different times, before the times of death. Polybus’s mother went to Jocasta’s home, and before the king could ask her what her son did that night, Polybus’s mother went down to the court and sought all the men she could find, saying that she could not help the king who in turn said that he would kill Polybus; because, by all reason he loved his mother too much and he loved her so much that he had to save her. When Jocasta went up to the court, Polybus cried, “If you may go for me, I have more than enough to do for you,” and he went along with his mother-in-law to the court to tell their story. He took and held the king and the people of Jocasta prisoner to hear their story, and made them lie down at the table, which they did there. In passing