Priest Lines 63-65
If you will rule this land, as now you rule it,
better to rule it full of men than empty.
For neither tower nor ship is anything
65 when empty, and none live in it together.
Oedipus is warned by the Priest. This also means that the chorus never leaves the stage during the play, and so Oedipus is continually surrounded by his people, reminding us that what happens to him has consequences for the entire city. As a result, the ship of Thebes is losing its helmsman while Oedipus is realizing the nature of his connection with his mother and being a misery of man.
When Creon returns from Delphi after consulting with the Oracle, he informs Oedipus that God has ordered the city to be cleansed. Since it is murder guilt that binds our city in this destructive tempest, the “rite of purification” will be carried out “by banishing a man, or expiation of blood by blood” (Lines 14-15). The gods, or the God, appear to be plainly presenting a choice of punishments—banishment, which entails exile, or some type of bloodletting, which may or may not include death. In any case, when Oedipus goes into exile and blinds himself, he fulfills both of those penalties.
