Hi everyone,
The passage I chose to discuss is a lengthy but poetically written dialogue by Oedipus. The line starts from 445 to 470.
“Wealth, sovereignty and skill outmatching skill for the contrivance of an envied life. Great store of jealousy fill your treasury chests, if my friend Creon, friend from this and loyal, thus secretly attacks me, secretly desires to drive me out and secretly suborns this juggling trick devising quack, this wily beggar who has only eyes for his own gains, but blindness in his skill. For, tell me, where have you seen clear, Teiresias, with your prophetic eyes? When the dark singer, the sphinx, was in your country, did you speak word of deliverance to its citizens? And yet the riddle’s answer was not the province of a chance comer. It was a prophet’s task and plainly you had no such gift of prophecy from birds nor otherwise from any God to glean a word of knowledge. But I came, Oedipus, who knew nothing, and I stopped her. I solved the riddle by my own wit alone. Mine was no knowledge got from birds. And now you would expel me, because you think that you will find a place by Creon’s throne. I think you will be sorry, both you and your accomplice, for your plot to drive me out. And did I not regard you as an old man, some suffering would have taught you that what was in your heart was treason” (Oedipus 445-470).
From this passage, we can really narrow down Oedipus’ personality. He comes off as a conceited, arrogant, and short-tempered king. Oedipus is taunting Teiresias, a blind prophet, by calling him blind and useless in a sense. He makes Teiresias sound as if he only cares about his own advantage. He continues to mock Teiresias for his bad eyesight by sarcastically calling his eyes “prophetic eyes” (447). While he is speaking badly about Teiresias for hiding the truth from him, he also accuses Creon, the ruler of Thebes, for planning this entire confusing scenario behind his back, with the hidden purpose of going against Oedipus and making him appear weaker. Oedipus continues to boast about his abilities, knowledge, and successful defeat of the Sphinx.
Although Oedipus is saying negative things, the language used to express his emotions and personality is so beautiful and full of subtle nuances, that it feels like an angry individual has written a poetic and ingenious description of how they feel.
One thought on “Anna Alojan’s Discussion #2”
Mrs. Alojan, I enjoyed your explanation. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Oedipus has an arrogance to him where he feels inferior to everyone else. This does not make him the best King to rule a country that is going through all the pestilence and all the sorrow that surrounds the country. He is too self-consume with his own worries that he may be killed too. He is also a King who makes assumptions instead of sticking to the facts. It is as if he is trying to accuse anyone of treason, to be seen as the good King, the King that ended all the bad things in the country.