HKB
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Often appears with: crime and punishment · the fear of death · revelation of birth · religious pollution · religious persecution and toleration · laius child survival · incest and kin-marriage · herdsman testimony · fate, destiny, and necessity · family guilt · exile, wandering, and banishment · blindness and suffering
Usually: confronting death (2) · indignation (2) · dialogue (1) · speech or oration (1) · injustice endured (1) · the fall of the great (1) · irony (1) · resignation (1)
Oedipus confronts the herdsman and recognizes him as one tied to his past; the herdsman confirms he had handed over a child from Laius’s house, leading Oedipus to realize he is the cursed parricide and incest victim.
the changing moons My brethren, and with them I wax and wane. Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth? Nothing can make me other than I am. CHORUS. (Str.) If my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail, Thee, Cithaeron, I shall hail, As the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet Ere tomorrow’s full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet. Dance and song shall hymn thy praises, lov…
Oedipus, blind and condemned by his own decree, refuses to debate his punishment, curses his forced exile and incestuous fate, and begs Creon either to hide, kill, or banish him while claiming responsibility for the guilt.
CHORUS. I cannot say that thou hast counseled well, For thou wert better dead than living blind. OEDIPUS. What’s done was well done. Thou canst never shake My firm belief. A truce to argument. For, had I sight, I know not with what eyes I could have met my father in the shades, Or my poor mother, since against the twain I sinned, a sin no gallows could atone. Aye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys A parent’s e…