Exodus

Question 1

Messenger asks for sympathy for Oedipus

Answer 1

If you are true to your birth, if you still have some feeling for the royal house of Thebes

Question 2

This place has been tainted

Answer 2

The waters of the Danube nor the Nile can watch this place clean.

Question 3

None of what will come was prophesised

Answer 3

Everything done with a will now, those we inflict on ourselves hurt most of all

Question 4

What does the messenger reveal

Answer 4

-the queen is dead

Question 5

How did Jocasta mourn

Answer 5

Dashed passed us frantic
Flung herself across the bridal bed
Wailed for Laius, remembering bearing his child, and her children by Oedipus

Question 6

Oedipus came in

Answer 6

Oedipus burst in screaming, crying for a sword.

Hurled at the twin doors, bending the bolts back out of their sockets.

Question 7

Oedipus finds Jocasta

Answer 7

She was there hanging by her neck
Spinning, swinging back and forth (gruesome imagery)
He sobbed, he eased her down.

Question 8

Oedipus blinds himself

Answer 8

Ripped of her brooches holding her robes
Raked them down on his eyes
Blood spurts, splashing.

Question 9

the ancestral house

Answer 9

“all the griefs in the world…all are theirs forever”

Question 10

a Kommos is

Answer 10

lyrical song of lamentation in an Athenian tragedy that the chorus and a dramatic character sing together.
A kommos occurs “when the tension of the play rises to a climax of grief or horror or joy”

Question 11

The Messenger repeats Oedipus’s words

Answer 11

He’s shouting
Show me to all of Thebes
starts telling of his miseries…
No, I can’t repeat it, it’s unholy

Question 12

The messenger prepares the audience

Answer 12

The great doors are opening

you are about to see a sight, a horror

Question 13

The chorus address Oedipus

Answer 13

what God crushed your life
Cursed by the gods
I pity you, I’ve got so much to ask, so much to learn (the problem)

Question 14

Oedipus’ agony speech

Answer 14

the agony! I am agony

Asks where he’s going

Question 15

Oedipus’ destiny speech

Answer 15

my darkness, drowning, swirling around me

the misery

Question 16

Oedipus is thankful to the chorus

Answer 16

“Dear friend, still here? standing by me, still with a care for me, such compassion, loyal to the last”

Question 17

Chorus ask what superhuman power drove him on

Answer 17

“Apollo ordained my agonies”
“But the hand that struck my eyes was mine”
“I did it all myself”

Question 18

What does Oedipus now want

Answer 18

Take me away far from Thebes, cast me away

Question 19

What does the chorus wish for

Answer 19

the chorus wish that he had never known

Question 20

Oedipus wishes these to die

Answer 20

• whoever cut him free, saved his life
• curse him, kill him!
• he would never have done these things if he’s died then

Question 21

Oedipus knows himself

Answer 21

a list of his crimes

“mine alone, my destiny –I am Oedipus!”

Question 22

The chorus say surely dying is better than being blind

Answer 22

What I did was best- don’t lecture me (so commanding, but he’s the man of error, should have taken advice)
No more advice (but he never took advice in the first place which brought about his downfall)

Question 23

Why does he wish to be blind

Answer 23

Wishes to be blind when he dies so he doesn’t see his father or mother. Or his children, or his city

Question 24

wishes he had never sought the truth

Answer 24

Oblivion-what a blessing (should never have sought the truth)

Question 25

Blames Cithaeron

Answer 25

Blames Cithaeron, why did it not kill him (irrational, madness, still trying to blame others)

Question 26

keeps mourning the past

Answer 26

Keeps mourning the past “the blackest things a man can do, I have done them all!”

Question 27

Oedipus keeps some dignity

Answer 27

The chorus are clearly in wonder at him

His troubles, claims he is the only man alive who can sustain them

Question 28

knows that he has wronged CReon

Answer 28

Admits he has wronged Creon, I was wrong, so wrong.

Question 29

What does Oedipus ask of Creon,

Creon’s reply

Answer 29

Oedipus asks to be driven out of the land

Creon replies that he would have done it already but first he wants the God to clarify his duties.

Question 30

Oedipus is still commanding towards CReon

Answer 30

“I command you- I beg you”
To bury Jocasta as he sees fit
Never allow the city of his fathers to to house his body
Let me die on Cithaeron
Take care of my daughters, they are helpless
Permit me just to touch them with my hands
“Please…my king”

Question 31

Oedipus’ gruesome speech to his daughters

Answer 31

Gruesome image
“come to these hands of mine, your brother’s hands, your own father’s hands”
Seeing/knowing nothing i became your father

Question 32

Weeps for his daughters days to come

Answer 32

Weeps for their days to come
What public gatherings can you join
Who will take you in marriage, risking all to shoulder the curse that weighs down your parents
It wounds us all together
You must bare it all
Who will marry you then
Your doom is clear: you'll wither away to nothing
Single, without a child.

Question 33

What does he ask of CReon for his daughters

Answer 33

You are their only father now Creon
Don’t let them go without a husband
Never bring them down to my level of pain (he does)
Promise me (but he never answers him)

Question 34

What does he tell his children

Answer 34

To pray for life

Pray God you find a better life than mine

Question 35

Creon: Enough, you’ve wept enough, into the palace one
Let go of the children
Oedipus’ response

Answer 35

No
Don’t take them away from me, not now
No, no, no! (Still controlling, a heartbreaking image)

Question 36

Creon ends Oedipus’ power

Answer 36

Still the king, the master of all things?

here your power ends

Question 37

Chorus’ exit speech about OEdipus

Answer 37

People of Thebes, look on Oedipus
Solved the famous riddle with his brilliance
He rose to power, a man beyond all power
Who couldn’t behold his greatness without envy
Now…
Count no man happy till he dies, free from pain at last