Oedipus the King
Vocabulary and Study Questions
Dramatis Personae (be able to identify):
Oedipus
The Priest of Zeus
Creon
Chorus of Theban Elders
Teiresias
Jocasta
Messenger
Herd of Laius (Shepherd)
Second Messenger
Part 1 pp. 8 - 23
Vocabulary:
Aflame
Cadmus
Dread
Luxuriates
Scourge
Suppliants
Zeal
Questions:
Apollo
Conspirators
Harbor
Oracle
Senile
Telltale
Cortege
Ascended
Delphi
Implore
Parnassus
Sphinx
Torments
Onslaught
Athena
Denounce
Kinsman
Resounding
Strewn
Unerring
Thracian
Blight
Despondent
Laius
Rites
Summon
Vengeance
1.
What antecedent action is explained to set the stage for the drama? Describe who is onstage and what is occurring as the play opens.
2.
A Greek tragedy begins with a crisis. What is the crisis that begins Oedipus the King? Why does
Thebes reek “with incense everywhere” and hear “everywhere laments and litanies”?
3.
How do these lines characterize Oedipus: “My zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt: / Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate / If scuh petitioners as you I spurned”? In what way are they ironic?
4.
Who or what is being described, and what literary device is being employed when the priest says that
“. . . our ship of State, / Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head”?
5.
What forms of suffering is the plague taking in Thebes?
6.
If Oedipus is not “a new divinity,” on what do the citizens base their belief that their king can help them? How is the theme of humanity underscored by their reasoning?
7.
How does Oedipus react to the priests’ pleas? What action has he already taken?
8.
Why does Creon give Oedipus the option, “If thou whouldst hear my message publicly, / I’ll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within”?

9.
According to Creon, what did the oracle say they must do in order to lift the plague?
10.
Where are they to look for the murderer?
11.
Oedipus becomes indignant that the Thebans did not seek out the murderer of King Laius immediately after he was killed. How does Creon respond when Oedipus asks, “What trouble can have hindered a full quest, / when royalty had fallen thus miserably?”
12.
Dramatic irony is created when the audience knows more than one or more characters onstage.
How does Oedipus’s saying he will search for Laius’s killer create dramatic irony? How will this dramatic irony create suspense in the play?
13.
Who makes up the chorus? What is the intent and function of the first choral ode which begins,
“Sweet-voiced daughter of Zeus from the gold-paved Pythian shrine / Wafted to Thebes divine, /
What dost thou bring me?”
14.
Compared to the priests, who appeal to Oedipus to save Thebes from the plague by using the same intelligence he used to battle the Sphinx, what does the chorus think of Oedipus and his ability to save Thebes?
15.
What does the chorus compare to “Swifter than the wing bird’s flight, / Swifter than the Fire-God’s might, / to the westering shores of Night.”? What literary device is employed to make the comparison? Why does the passage evoke sadness?
16.
Who is it that the chorus is entreating the gods to fight? What do they ask the gods to succeed in doing as they fight this enemy?
17.
How specifically does the chorus ask Zeus and Apollo to help the people of Thebes?
18.
Imagery of light and brightness is found throughout the play. How is this imagery created in the last stanza of the choral ode that begins “O that thine arrows too . . .”?
Part 2 pp. 23 – 46
Vocabulary:
Absurdities
Dire
Heady
Quack
Frenzied
Summoned
Questions:
Alien
Flinch
Infamy
Revile
Grope
Unerring
Appalled
Fury
Mantic
Rock of Cithaeron
Lash
Brunt
Futile
Murk
Shroud
Lurks
Decree
Hatch
Primed
Uncleansed
Pious
1.
What is Oedipus’s reaction to the chorus’s entreating the gods to save Thebes?
2.
What does Oedipus do first to find out who killed King Laius? What is the result?
3.
In his second attempt to find the killer, what actions does Oedipus say he will take?

4.
What literary device is employed when, after cursing the murderer, Oedipus says, “I curse myself as well . . . if by any chance / he proves to be an intimate of our house . . . / may the curse I just called down on him strike me!”?
5.
Other than occupying the throne that once belonged to King Laius, what connection does
Oedipus see between Laius and himself? Why is it deeply ironic?
6.
Whom does the leader of the chorus suggest Oedipus should send for in his search for justice?
How does the leader describe this person?
7.
Teiresias says, “Alas, alas, what misery to be wise / When wisdom profits nothing!” What does the passage imply? How is the motif of “seeing” and “knowledge”developed ironically in the words of Teiresias?
8.
In what ways does Teiresias seem to occupy a space between mortals and gods?
9.
When called before Oedipus, Teiresias at first refused to help him discover who murdered
Laius. Describe Oedipus’s reaction to Teiresias’s refusal. Why won’t Teiresias reveal what he knows?
10.
What does Oedipus say in his anger that finally causes Teiresias to tell the truth? What is
Oedipus’s reaction to hearing that he is the murderer he seeks?
11.
Which of the play’s themes are evoked in the following passage and in Teiresias’s response that follows it?
With other men, but not with thee, for thou
In ear, wit ,eye, in everything blind.
Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power
O’er me or any man who sees the sun.
12.
After he initially blames Teiresias, whom does Oedipus next accuse of plotting to ruin him?
Summarize the speech Oedipus gives that begins, “O wealth and empiry and skill by skill /
Outwitted in the battlefield of life” Which aspects of Oedipus’s character does it reveal?
13.
According to Teiresias, in what ways is Oedipus blind?
14.
How does Teiresias answer when Oedipus complains, “Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words”? Explain why his answer is an example of verbal irony or sarcasm.
15.
Teiresias says, “For blind of seeing, clad in beggar’s weeds, / For purple robes, and leaning on his staff, / To a strange land he soon shall grope his way.” What literary technique is employed in the passage? What is the difference in the language of the passage and the stanza that follows it?
16.
The chorus represents the citizens of Thebes, and the choral odes express what they think and feel. What are their thought and feelings in the ode that follows the confrontation between
Oedipus and Teiresias? What does the ode make clear about Oedipus’s eventual downfall?

Part 3 pp. 46 – 66
Vocabulary:
Abuse
Induce
Sanctimonious
Questions:
Clairvoyant
Marauding
Slur
Deluded
Qualm
Surmise
Gall
Quarry
1.
Why does Creon return? What does he claim is the worst fate possible?
2.
How does the chorus try to explain Oedipus’s making harsh accusations against Creon?
3.
What are the results of Oedipus’s making accusations against Creon in public rather than in private?
4.
When Oedipus sees Creon at the palace gate, he berates him and calls him a fool: “Come, answer this, didst thou detect in me / Some touch of cowardice or witlessness, / that made thee undertake this enterprise?” What does Oedipus mean?
5.
What is Creon implying when he answers Oedipus questions about why Teiresias didn’t speak up sooner, “I know not, and not knowing hold my tongue”?
6.
Contrast Oedipus’s behavior toward Creon with that of Creon toward the king. What argument does Creon offer in trying to convince Oedipus that he did not betray the king?
7.
How does Oedipus desire to punish Creon? What does it reveal about Oedipus as a king?
8.
What is Jocasta’s response to Oedipus and Creon’s shouting in front of the palace? How does her reaction speak to the theme of public life vs. private life?
9.
Jocasta tries to no avail to persuade Oedipus to believe Creon’s profession of innocence. Who next attempts to persuade Oedipus not to punish Creon? What arguments doe they make, and how does Oedipus respond? What is Oedipus’s condition at this point in the play?
10.
What does the chorus say to the king immediately before leaving the stage? How does this passage echo the supplication by the priest at the beginning of the play? How does that
Oedipus compare with the man before us now?
Part 4 pp. 66 – 83
Vocabulary:
Henchman
Inviolate
Retract
Reverence
Breakneck
Ruinous
Gorging
Strife
1.
What is Jocasta’s first item of proof that Oedipus could not have killed Laius? What does she have to say with regard to prophecy?

2.
What part of Jocasta’s argument sparks interest in Oedipus and why? Why does Oedipus say,
“’Tis a dread presentiment / That in the end the seer will prove not blind.”
3.
Oedipus says to the queen, “Who has a higher claim that thou to hear / My tale of dire adventures?” as he pieces together that he is Laius’s murderer. What literary device is evoked when he does so?
4.
According to Oedipus, why did he leave Corinth? How did his actions work to fulfill the prophecy?
5.
According to Oedipus’s account, why did he kill Laius? What trait did Oedipus demonstrate then that he also showed with Teiresias and Creon?
6.
Understanding how Laius died, whom does Oedipus blame for his death?
7.
Oedipus says to Jocasta, “Say, am I vile? / Am I not utterly unclean, a wretch / Doomed to be banished . . .” What do his words foreshadow?
8.
Why does Oedipus want to see the shepherd? What is Jocasta’s response to his request, and what does her response say about the queen?
9.
How does the chorus characterize destiny? How does their view of destiny differ from that of
Oedipus and Jocasta?
10.
Describe the language the chorus uses to describe pride and its effects. How, according to the chorus, does pride affect man? How has it affected Oedipus? What is the attitude of the chorus toward proud men who “will not Justice heed”?
11.
What might the chorus mean in saying “No more I’ll seek earth’s central oracle”? How does this statement relate to the first part of the ode in which the chorus demands respect for destiny and disparages any man who believes he “Can hope heaven’s bolts to shun”?
12.
What could be inferred about Greek society based on the last stanza in the ode “Apollo is forsook and faith grows cold”?
Part 5 pp. 83 – 104
Vocabulary:
Barren Defilement Hermes Mortified On the wane
Questions:
1.
What news does the messenger bring from Corinth?
2.
Describe Jocasta’s actions at the altar of Apollo and her address of the gods following the news of Polybus’s death. What do they reveal about her character?
3.
How does Oedipus react to the new of Polybus’s death?
4.
Why does Jocasta say Oedipus should not fear sleeping with his mother? How can the motif of light and darkness be interpreted in her words to him?
5.
What does Jocasta call Polybus’s death?

6.
What does the messenger reveal to Oedipus about Oedipus’s past, and how did he come by that knowledge?
7.
The name Oedipus is said to roughly translate as “swollen foot.” What is the messenger referencing when he says Oedipus “deriv’st the name that is still thine”?
8.
Jocasta begs Oedipus not to pursue the story of his birth. How does he interpret and respond to her resistance?
9.
Why does Jocasta say “O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word / I leave thee, henceforth silent evermore”?
10.
It is a convention in Greek tragedy that all violence happens offstage, with the results foreshadowed by a messenger or by the chorus and then revealed by them, producing in the audience catharsis, the release of their tension or anxiety. Bearing this in mind, how does the leader of the chorus react to the silence that follows Jocasta’s entering the palace? Why?
11.
Why does Oedipus not follow Jocasta into the palace when she is obviously so upset? What does he do instead?
Part 6 pp. 104 – 138
Vocabulary:
Arctarus dirge insistent
Questions:
1.
What behavior does Oedipus exhibit when the old shepherd is reluctant to tell him the truth?
Why is the shepherd reluctant?
2.
What facts does the shepherd finally reveal to Oedipus?
3.
Trace how the motifs of light and blindness are developed in Oedipus’s declaration when he finally knows who he is and in the chorus’s rejoining ode.
4.
What does the messenger from the palace refer to when he says, “The ills it shrouds or soon will bring to light, / Ills wrought of malice, not unwittingly. / the worst to bear are self-inflicted wounds”?
5.
Describe the language used to describe Oedipus blinding himself. How does the language contribute to the catharsis of the audience?
6.
How does the chorus respond to the sight of the blinded king?
7.
What is the “Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, / Wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud”?
8.
According to Oedipus, who gave him the power to stab his own eyes?
9.
How does Oedipus answer the chorus when asked if death would not have been preferable to his current state?
10.
When Creon approaches Oedipus, how does he behave differently as a leader than Oedipus did?
In what ways does he behave similarly?

11.
In Greek tragedy, a reversal (peripeteia) occurs, coinciding with recognition (anagnorisis) or a new understanding. What reversal has come about in Oedipus’s station? What was the recognition that coincided with the reversal?
12.
What legacy does Oedipus say he has handed down to his children? How will the curse survive him?
13.
What are Creon’s final words to Oedipus? How is their meaning repeated in the ode that follows?