the room of Laios, who had been slain; and Jocasta took him as her husband, and Creon, Jocasta's brother, was his chief friend and counsellor, and all things prospered with him, and he had two sons and two daughters. But soon the wrath of God fell upon Thebes, and the city was visited with a sore pestilence; and the people turned in their affliction to their Gods, and made their supplications.[1]
- ↑ The starting-point of the cycle of Œdipus' legends is found in the Odyssey, xi. 271, where Odysseus describes the spectres that he saw in Hades:—
"And there I looked on Epicasta's form,
Which the Erinnyes of his mother work."
Mother of Œdipus, who, knowing not,
Wrought greatest guilt, her own son marrying;
And he his father slew, and married her.
But soon the Gods disclosed it all to men,
And he, with many woes, in Thebes beloved,
Through fateful counsels of the Gods, ruled long
O'er the Cadmeians. She, with woe outworn,
To Hades went, strong warder of the dead,
A long noose letting down from lofty roof.
And many a woe she left behind to him,
With this it will be interesting to compare Pindar, Olymp., ii. 35–42:—
"So Destiny, who keeps of olden time
The warrior race, with fratricidal hand."
The goodly fortune of an honoured race,
With prosperous years from God,
Leads it another while
Backward to bale and woe:
E'en when the fateful son of Laios killed
The father whom he met,
And so fulfilled
The Oracle in Pytho given of old,
And seeing it, she slew,
Erinnyes, clear of sight,
Æschylos (B.C. 471) had made it the subject of a Trilogy, tracing the working of the curse in Laios, Œdipus, the Seven against Thebes, of which only the last is extant.
The date of composition is uncertain. Hypotheses, which connect the description of the plague at Thebes with that at Athens in B.C. 429, or the protests against impiety with the mutilation of the Hermæ in B.C. 415, are at best uncertain.
Dramatis Personæ.
| Œdipus, King of Thebes. | Shepherd. |
| Creon, brother of Jocasta. | Second Messenger. |
| Teiresias, a soothsayer. | Jocasta, wife of Œdipus. |
| Priest of Zeus. | Chorus of Priests and Suppliants. |
| Messenger from Corinth. |
