Please reread pages 44 – 45, the Chorus; Ode ll, Strophe 1 through Antistrophe 2; determine what three types of people one should refrain from being, and what happens to those types of people.
Vocabulary:
Begot: to be sired from or born from
Haughtiness: extreme arrogance
Levity: lack of respect
Blasphemy: to speak ill of the gods or to show disrespect to the gods.
Summit: the top of the mountain
Plummet: to fall from a great height
Comely: pleasing
Ordinance: rules
Impious: men who do not keep the laws of gods.
Obscurities: lack of clarity; the Delphic oracle was noted for very unclear, general predictions.
In the first stanza, the chorus is speaking of the Titans, the gods who preceded the gods of the Olympian gods. The Titans lived before the beginning of Time, which was created by the father of the Titans, Chronos, who was also the god of Time.
The first type of evil person is a TYRANT, who plummets to the dust of hope (despair) due to his recklessness and vanity.
The second type of evil person is the haughty one, who will be caught up in a net of pain, and will bear the blows of heaven upon his heart and mind if he pretends to be a holy man.
The third are those who do not believe in the Oracles.
Iocaste: believes that the soothsayers lie. All the predictions turn out false!
Why does she believe this?
She had a son with her first husband. What did the soothsayer say about their child? That he would grow up to kill his father and marry his mother.
What did the parents do to prevent that terrible prediction?
They pierced the ankles of the baby with a thorn; then, they gave him to a shepherd to leave on a mountain to die.
Oedi: feet
Pus: Swollen
Page 54 - 56
What is the “good news” the messenger from Corinth tells Oedipus?
The “good news” is that the king, Polybos, has died.
In relief Oedipus says that the oracles utter empty words: his father has died, but not by his hands.
But there is a reversal. The good news go from from good to bad:
Then, the messenger from Corinth tells Oedipus that Polybos was not his father.
But Oedipus is still fearful of sleeping with his mother.
The messenger tells him that Merope was not his mother, either; that he himself gave Oedipus as a baby with bound feet (Laios instructed the baby’s feet be bound together by a thorn) , to King Polybos and Queen Merope. He tells Oedipus that his scarred ankles should tell him the truth.
Oedi- foot
Pus - swollen
Why does Iocaste not want Oedipus to continue investigating who he is?
Oedipus interprets Iocaste’s reluctance to allow him to continue with his investigation as arrogance on her part.
He accuses of her being conceited, arrogant, and a snob. He says that she is ashamed that it may be revealed that he is of low birth.
Iocaste exits the palace, for she knows what fearful horrible things will soon come to light!
Oedipus says, not yet realizing the horrible irony of his words, that the matter of his birth is of no importance for he is a child of luck, and his brothers are the passing months.
Ode lll (pages 56 – 57)
Pan: satyr, half-goat/half-man. A woodland nymph who is quite a rascal and blows a pan flute. He is a symbol of wanton, promiscuous sexuality.
Dionysus: the god of wine and of theatre.
Hermes: the messenger god.
Scene iv; pages 57 - 63
Oedipus asks the messenger where and how he got the baby. The messenger says that a shepherd from Laios’ household gave him the child. The shepherd from Laios’s household took pity on the child and did not want to kill it.
The shepherd from Thebes was in charge of getting rid of the baby, but took pity on the child with the bound feet and gave it to the messenger.
The shepherd is summoned who is also quite old, like the messenger, and at first does not “remember” the messenger (most likely he does recognize him, but understandably does not wish to reveal his role in this awful tragedy).
The messenger refreshes his memory: they spent three seasons between the months of March and September tending their flocks together.
The messenger asks the shepherd if he remembers giving him a baby to take care of. The shepherd tries to avoid answering these incriminating questions. The shepherd becomes very angry and belligerent at the messenger when the messenger blurts out that Oedipus was the child whom he gave to him.
Attention is now turned to the shepherd: who, from Laios household, gave him the baby?
When the old man tries to avoid answering, Oedipus becomes enraged and threatens the old man with death if he does not tell who gave him the baby.
Upon threat of torture, the old shepherd confesses the horrible news that it was Iocaste who gave him the child to dispose of.
Oedipus is the killer of Laios, the king, who is his father.
Oedipus married Iocaste, his mother.
Iocaste bore four children by her son/husband and Odipus was the killer of her husband – his father.
Ode iv; (pages 63 – 65)
Vocabulary:
Renown: great fame and honor.
Sirings: the children whom he sired (fathered).
Interpretation:
Happy is he who is never born. Unhappy is he who has a long life.
Chorus: I who saw your days call no man blest!
Chorus:
What measure shall I give these generations
That breathe on the void and are void
And exist and do not exist?
Who bears more weight of joy
Than mass of sunlight shifting in images,
Or who shall make his thought stay on
That down time drifts away?
The above is a reference to the Titans who proceeded time and who exists beyond the matter of mere mortals. Their joy is above the weight and mass of the shifting, ephemeral light of changing images.
Extended metaphor comparing Oedipus’ mind to that of a bow and an archer.
Before, Oedipus’ mind was a strong bow.
Deep, how deep you drew it then, hard archer,
At a dim fearful range,
And brought dear glory down!
You overcame the stranger
The virgin with her hooking lion claws –
(With your keen intelligence you destroyed the sphinx who held all of Thebes in terror!)
Oedipus, the most renown of all men, has fallen to that state of a low slave, ground under bitter fate.
The following is a reference to Iocaste:
The great door that expelled you to the light
Gave at night – ah, gave night to your glory:
As to the father, to the fathering son.
Garden: Iocaste
Harrowed: to plow
Things down in the past will be brought to the light.
Oedipus’s reign was a lie which lulled Thebes into a false, blind, unknowing sleep of peace and safety.
False years went by: Oedipus’ reign, which was illegitimate and defiled by his father’s murder and by siring children with his mother.
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