Oedipus - Pride quotes

Question 1

Pride from Oedipus

5 key quotes

Answer 1

• “Praying before me”
• “You all know me, the world knows my fame: I am Oedipus”
• I’ll bring it all to light myself”
• “I am the land’s avenger by all rights, and Apollo’s champion too”
• “You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers”
  “I stopped the sphinx”

Question 2

Pride from chorus

3 key quotes

Answer 2

• “Pride breeds the tyrant”
• “Violent pride, gorgin, crammed to bursting with all that is overripe and rich with ruin - clawing ip to the heights, headlong pride crashed won the abyss - sheer doom!”
• “Let a rough doom tear im down, repay his pride, breakneck ruinous pride”

Question 3

Duty from Oedipus (Polis)

2 quotes

Answer 3

• “I would be blind to misery not to pity my people kneeling at my feet.”
• “So I honour my obligations: I fight for the gods and the murdered man.”

Question 4

Duty from Oedipus (Oikos - family)

1 quote

Answer 4

• “That is my blood, my nature - I will never betray it, never fail to seach and learn my birth!”

Question 5

Duty from Oedipus (Selfish - even beyond oikos)

2 quotes

Answer 5

• “By avenging Laius, I defend myself.”
• “For my own sake, I’ll rid us of the corruption”

Question 6

Rash action from Oedipus

1 quotes

Answer 6

• “He is a man of action, swift and vigorous action”

Question 7

Reflection from Oedipus (Post anagonorisis)

2 quotes

Answer 7

• “I think I’ve just called down a dreadful curse upon myself”
• “You’ll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused”

Question 8

Action + Reflection from Creon

4 quotes

Answer 8

• “if you see things calm, rationally as I do”
• “He’ll have a plan. He’ll act”
• “First I want the gods to clarify my duties”

Question 9

Knowledge is pain from Tiresias

4 quotes

Answer 9

• “How terrible to see the truth, when truth is only pain to hi who sees!”
• “You bear your burden, I’ll bear mine.”
• “never reveal my dreadful secrets”
• “The truth with all its power lives inside me”

Question 10

Knowledge is pain from Oedipus

Answer 10

• “The worst terror that ever met my eyes”
• “the agony! I am agony”

Question 11

Denial of uncomfortable truth from Jocasta

3 quotes

Fear and escapism

Answer 11

• “I beg you”
• “Don’t give it another though, don’t even think”
• “Stop - in the name of god, if your own life, call of this search!”`

Question 12

Denial of uncomfortable truth form Oedipus

Anger and deflection

Answer 12

• "”you helped hatch the plot”
• “Who primed you for this?”
• “Creon! Is this conspiracy his or yours?”
• “Creon’s to blame. Creon schemes against me”

Question 13

Pursuit of knowledge from Oedipus

4 quotes

Answer 13

• “What - give up now”
• “I must know it all, must see the truth at last”
• “I’m right at the edge, the horrible truth”
• “I’m at the edge of hearing horrors, yes, but I must hear!”

Question 14

Ignorance for Oedipus

2 quotes

Answer 14

• “All unknowing, you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood”
• “Quite sane - in my behalf”

Question 15

Futility in fighting fate

5 quotes

Answer 15

• “Well let destiny come and take mme on its way!”
• “Not a man on earth can see a day ahead, groping in the dark.”
• “I don’t know. And when i don’t I keep quiet.”
• “What will come will come”
• “cannot outrun the dreaded voices of delphi”

Question 16

Motif of blindness

8 quotes

Also links with tragic irony

Answer 16

• “I would be blind to misery”
• “stone-blind, stone-deaf - sense, eyes blind as stone!”
• “Given eyes, I’d say you did the killing single-handed”
• “what good were eyes to me”
• “You with your precious eyes, you’re blind to the corruption of your life”
• “Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich”
• “Better to die than be alive and blind”
• “Racing blind”

Question 17

Tragic Irony literary device

5 quotes

In addition to quotes from motif of blindness

Answer 17

• “So I will fight for him as if he were my father”
• “Flinging at me the very insults each man here will fling at you soon”
• “Called down a dreadful curse upon myself”
• “hand that served his once bright eyes so well - that made them blind”
• “If I’d been present then, there would have been no mystery”

Question 18

Oedipus’ emotions

4 quotes

Answer 18

• “You criticise my temper…unaware of the one you live with”
• “Sullen in yielding, brutal in your rage - you will go too far”
• “Natures lik yours are hardest on themselves”
• “No, I want you dead”

Question 19

Free-will depsite fate

1 quote

Answer 19

• “Apollo - he ordained my agonies - these, my pains on pains! But the hand that struck my eyes was mine, mine alone - no one else - I did it all myself!”