Oedipus
Oedipus, a king of Thebes, who solved the riddle of the Sphinx
- I A king of Thebes, the son of Laius and Jocasta. He unwittingly killed his father; he solved the riddle of the Sphinx, and unknowingly married his own mother, who had by him Eteocles, Polyneices, Ismene, and Antigone; when the incest was discovered, he put out his own eyes, and wandered forth to Athens, where a temple was afterwards dedicated to him, Hyg. Fab. 66; 67; 242; Serv. Verg. A. 4, 470; 6, 609; Sen. Oedip.; Cic. Fat. 13, sq.; Varr. Sat. Men. 62, 1.—Prov. for a solver of enigmas: isti orationi Oedipo Opus conjectore est, qui Sphingi interpres fuit, Plaut. Poen. 1, 3, 34 (443): Davus sum, non Oedipus, I am no Oedipus (that can solve all riddles), Ter. And. 194.—Hence,
- A Oedĭpŏdes, ae, m., = Οἰδιπόδης, a collat. form for Oedipus, Claud. ap. Eutr. 1, 289: impii Oedipodae nuptiales faces, Sen. Herc. Fur. 496; Stat. Th. 1, 48; 163; abl. Oedipoda, Sen. Oedip. 942.—
- B Oedĭpŏdĭa, ae, f., = Οἰδιποδία, a fountain in Boeotia, named after Oedipus, Plin. 4, 7, 12, § 25.—
- C Oedĭpŏdīŏnĭdes, ae, m., the son of Oedipus; of Polyneices, Stat. Th. 1, 313: Oedipodionidae fratres, i.e. Eteocles and Polyneices, Aus. Epigr. 139; cf. Stat. Th. 7, 216.—
- D Oedĭpŏdīŏnĭus, a, um, adj., = Οἰδιποδιόνιος, of or belonging to Oedipus, Thebae, Ov. M. 15, 429; Luc. 8, 407 (where others read Oedipodionidas, from Oedipodionis, idis, f.): ales, i.e. Sphinx, Stat. Th. 2, 505: fratres, id. ib. 10, 801.—
- II Oedipus Colonēus, the title of a tragedy of Sophocles, Gr. Οἰδίπους ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ, Cic. Sen. 7, 22; Val. Max. 8, 7, ext. 12; and of a tragedy of Caesar, Suet. Caes. 56 ext.
➳ abl. Œdipo Pl. Pœn. 312 ; acc. -pum Cic. CM 22 ; Fato 30.
(Οἰδίπους), the son of Lains and Iocaste of Thebes. The tragic fate of this hero is more celebrated than that of any other legendary personage, on account of the frequent use which the tragic poets have made of it. In their hands it also underwent various changesand embellishments ; but the common story is as follows. Laius, a son of Labdacus, was king of Thebes, and husband of Iocaste, a daughter of Menoeceus (or Creon, Diod. 4.64), and sister of Creon. As Laius had no issue, he consulted the oracle, which informed him that if a son should be born to him he would lose his life by the hand of his own child. When, therefore, at length Iocaste gave birth to a son, they pierced his feet, bound them together, and then exposed the child on Mount Cithaeron. There he was found by a shepherd of king Polybus of Corinth, and he was called from his swollen feet Oedipus. When he was brought to the palace, the king and his wife Merope (or Periboea, Apollod. 3.5.7) brought him up as their own child. Once, however, Oedipus was taunted by a Corinthian with not being the king's son, whereupon he proceeded to Delphi to consult the oracle. The answer he there obtained was that he should slay his father and commit incest with his own mother. Thinking that Polvbus was his father, he resolved not to return to Corinth; but on his road between Delphi and Daulis he met his real father Laius, and as Polyphontes (or Polyphetes, or Polypoetes. Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 39), the charioteer of Laius, wanted to push him out of the way, a scuffle ensued in which Oedipus slew both Laius and Polyphontes, and one part of the oracle was fulfilled. The two corpses are said to have been buried on the same spot by Damasistratus, king of Plataeae (Apollod. 3.5.8; Paus. 10.5.2). In the mean time the celebrated Sphinx had appeared in the neighbourhood of Thebes. She had settled on a rock, and put a riddle to every Theban that passed by, and whoever was unable to solve it was killed by the monster. This calamity induced the Thebans to make known that whoever should deliver the country of it should be made king, and receive Iocaste as his wife. Oedipus was one of those that came forward. and when he approached the Sphinx she gave the riddle as follows; "A being with four feet has two feet and three feet, and only one voice; but its feet vary, and when it has most it is weakest." Oedipus solved the riddle by saying that it was man, and the Sphinx thereupon threw herself from the rock. Oedipus now obtained the kingdom of Thebes, and married his mother, by whom he became the father of Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, and Ismene. In consequence of this incestuous alliance of which no one was aware, the country of Thebes was visited by a plague, and the oracle ordered that the murderer of Laius should he expelled. Oedipus accordingly pronaunced a solemn curse upon the unknown murderer, and declared him an exile; but when he endeavoured to discover him., he was informed by the seer Teiresias that he himself was both the parricide and the husband of his mother. locaste now hung herself, and Oedipus put out his own eyes (Apollod. 3.5.8; Soph. Oed. Tyr. 447,713, 731, 774,&c.). From this point traditions again differ,for according to some, Oedipus in his blindness was expelled from Thebes by his sons and brother-in-law, Creon, who undertook the government, and he was guided and accompanied by Antigone in his exile to Attica; but according to others he was imprisoned by his sons at Thebes, in order that his disgrace might remain concealed from the eves of the world. The father now cursed his sons, who agreed to rule over Thebes alternately, but became involved in a dispute, in consequence of which they fought in single combat, and slew each other. Hereupon Creon succeeded to the throne, and expelled Oedipus. After long wanderings Oedipus arrived in the grove of the Eumenides, near Colonus, in Attica; he was there honoured by Theseus in his misfortune, and, according to an oracle, the Eumenides removed him from the earth, and no one was allowed to approach his tomb (Soph. Oed. Col. 1661, &c.; Eurip. Phoen. init.; Apollod. 3.5.9; Diod. 4.64; Hyg. Fab. 67). According to Homer, Oedipus, tormented by the Erinnyes of his mother, continued to reign at Thebes after her death; he fell in battle, and was honoured at Thebes with funeral solemnities (Od. 11.270, &c., Il. 23.679). Some traditions mention Euryganeia as the mother of the four children of Oedipus above-mentioned (Paus. 9.5.5; Schol. ad Eurip. Phoen. 63), and previous to his connection with her, he is said to have been the father of Phrastor and Laonytus by Iocaste, and to have in the end married Astymedusa, a daughter of Sthenelus (Schol. ad Eurip. l.c.). Oedipus himself is sometimes called a son of Laius by Eurycleia, and is said to have been thrown in a chest into the sea when yet an infant, to have been carried by the waves to the coast of Sicyon, to have been received by Polybus, and afterwards to have been blinded by him (Schol. ad Eur. Phoen. 13, 26). His tomb was shown at Athens, where he also had an heroum. (Paus. 1.28.7, 30, in fin.) [L.S]
- , Οἰδίπους, a king of Thebes, who solved the riddle of the Sphinx, C., O.—Prov.: Davus sum, non Oedipus, i. e. no diviner, T.
(Οἰδίπους). The son of Laïus, king of Thebes, and of Iocasta (called in the Odyssey Epicasté), the daughter of Menoeceus. An oracle had warned Laïus against having children, declaring that he would meet his death by means of his offspring; and the monarch accordingly practised continence until, after some lapse of time, having indulged in festivity, he forgot the injunction of the god, and Iocasta gave birth to a son. The father immediately delivered the child to his herdsman to expose on Mount Cithaeron. The herdsman, moved to compassion, according to one account (Oed. Tyr. 1038), gave the babe to a neat-herd belonging to Polybus, king of Corinth; or, as others say (Eurip. Phoeniss. 28), the neat-herds of Polybus found the infant after it had been exposed, and brought it to Periboea, the wife of Polybus, who, being childless, reared it as her own, and named it Oedipus, on account of its swollen feet (from οἰδέω, “to swell,” and πούς, “a foot”); for Laïus, previous to its exposure, had pierced its ankles, and had inserted through the wound a leathern thong. The foundling Oedipus was brought up by Polybus as his heir. Happening to be reproached by some one at a banquet with being a supposititious child, he besought Periboea to inform him of the truth; but, unable to get any satisfaction from her, he went to Delphi and consulted the oracle. The god directed him to shun his native country, or else he would be the slayer of his father and the sharer of his mother's bed. He therefore resolved never to return to Corinth, where so much crime, as he thought, awaited him, and he took his road through Phocis. Now it happened that Laïus, at this same time, was on his way to Delphi, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child which had been exposed had perished or not. He was in a chariot, accompanied by his herald Polyphontes; a few attendants came after. The father and son, total strangers to each other, met in a narrow road in Phocis. Oedipus was ordered to make way, and, on his disregarding the command, the charioteer endeavoured to crowd him out of the path. A contest thereupon ensued, and both Laïus and the charioteer, together with all the attendants except one, who fled, were slain by the hand of Oedipus.
Immediately after the death of Laïus, Heré, always hostile to the city of Bacchus, sent a monster named the Sphinx to ravage the territory of Thebes. It had the face of a woman, the breast, feet, and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. This monster had been taught riddles by the Muses, and she sat on the Phicean Hill, and propounded one to the Thebans. It was this: “What is that which has one voice, is four-footed, twofooted, and at last three-footed?” or, as others give it, “What animal is that which goes on four feet in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at evening?” The oracle told the Thebans that they would not be delivered from her until they had solved her riddle. They often met to try their skill; and when they had failed, the Sphinx always carried off and devoured one of their number. At length Haemon, son of Creon , having become her victim, the father offered by public proclamation the throne, to which he had succeeded on the death of Laïus, and the hand of his sister Iocasta, to whoever should solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Oedipus, who was then at Thebes, hearing this, came forward and answered the Sphinx that it was Man, who, when an infant, creeps on all fours; when he has attained to manhood, goes on two feet; and when old, uses a staff, a third foot. The Sphinx thereupon flung herself down to the earth and perished; and Oedipus now unknowingly accomplished the remainder of the oracle. He had by his mother two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigoné and Ismené.
After some years Thebes was afflicted with famine and pestilence; and the oracle being consulted, ordered the land to be purified of the blood which defiled it. Inquiry was set on foot after the murder of Laïus, and a variety of concurring circumstances brought the guilt home to Oedipus. Iocasta, on the discovery being made, hung herself, and her unhappy son and husband, in his grief and despair, put out his eyes. He was banished from Thebes; and, accompanied by his daughters, who faithfully adhered to him, he came, after a tedious period of miserable wandering, to the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus, a village not far from Athens, and there found the termination of his wretched life, having mysteriously disappeared from mortal view, and been received into the bosom of the earth, the secret of his death and burial being known to Theseus only. The history of his sons will be found under the articles Eteocles; Polynices.
Such is the form in which the history of Oedipus has been transmitted to us by the Attic dramatists. We will now consider its most ancient shape. The hero of the Odyssey says: “I saw (in Erebus) the mother of Oedipodes, the fair Epicasta, who, in her ignorance, did an awful deed, marrying her own son; and he married, having slain his own father, and immediately the gods made this known unto men. Now he ruled over the Cadmaeans in desirable Thebes, suffering woes through the pernicious councils of the gods; but she, oppressed with grief, went to the abode of Aïdes, the strong gate-keeper, having fastened a long halter to the lofty roof, and left to him many woes, such as the avenging furies of a mother produce” ( Od. xi. 271 foll.). In the Iliad (xxiii. 679) the funeral games are mentioned which were celebrated at Thebes in honour of the “fallen Oedipodes.” Hesiod (Op. et D. 162) speaks of the heroes who fell fighting at the seven-gated Thebes, on account of the sheep of Oedipodes. It would also seem that, according to the above passage of the Odyssey and to the epic poem, the Oedipodea (Pausan. ix. 5, 11), Epicasta had not any children by her son; Eurygenia, the daughter of Hyperphas, being the mother of his well-known offspring. According to the cyclic Thebaïs, the fatal curse of Oedipus on his sons had the following origin: Polynices placed before his father a silver table which had belonged to Cadmus, and filled a golden cup with wine for him; but when Oedipus perceived the heir-looms of his family thus set before him, he raised his hands and prayed that his sons might never divide their inheritance peaceably, but ever be at strife. Elsewhere (ap. Schol. ad Oed. Col. 1440) the Thebaïs said that his sons, having sent him the loin, instead of the shoulder, of the victim, he flung it to the ground, and prayed that they might fall by each other's hands.
The story of Oedipus forms the subject of two plays of Sophocles, the Oedipus Tyrannus and the Oedipus Coloneus; and was also taken by Aeschylus as the subject of a trilogy, of which only the third play, the Seven against Thebes, remains. Seneca also wrote a Latin tragedy, the Oedipus, following the first play of Sophocles with considerable fidelity. In French, Corneille and Voltaire, and in English, Dryden, have also treated the same theme dramatically. See Antigone, Creon; Seven against Thebes; and also Aeschylus; Sophocles.
- his "avenging deities,": Hdt. 4.149, Hdt. 5.60
- son of Laius and Jocasta (or Epicasta), exposed on Cithaeron, adopted by Periboea, queen of Corinth: Apollod. 3.5.7, Paus. 9.5.10, Paus. 9.2.4, Paus. 9.5.10, Paus. 10.5.3, Paus. 10.5.3
- inquires of the oracle at Delphi concerning his parentage: Apollod. 3.5.7
- kills his father unwittingly: Apollod. 3.5.7, Apollod. 3.5.7, Paus. 9.2.4, Paus. 9.5.10, Paus. 10.5.3ff.
- reads the riddle of the Sphinx: Apollod. 3.5.7, Apollod. 3.5.8
- reads riddle of Sphinx and conquers her: Paus. 9.26.2, 4
- succeeds to the kingdom of Thebes and marries his mother: Apollod. 3.5.8
- marries his mother: Paus. 9.5.10, Paus. 10.5.3
- his children (Eteocles, Polynices, Ismene, Antigone) by Jocasta or by Eurygania: Apollod. 3.5.8
- has children by Eurygenea, not by Jocasta: Paus. 9.5.10ff.
- father of Eteocles and Polynices: Paus. 5.19.6, Paus. 9.5.12
- father of Polynices: Apollod. 3.6.3
- banished from Thebes: Apollod. 3.5.9
- comes to Colonus Hippius in Attica: Paus. 1.30.4
- kindly received by Theseus, dies at Colonus in Attica: Apollod. 3.5.9
- his tomb in Athens: Paus. 1.28.7
- funeral games: Paus. 1.28.7
- his bones brought from Thebes to Athens: Paus. 1.28.7
- Sophocles's account of his death incredible: Paus. 1.28.7
- shrine at Colonus Hippius: Paus. 1.30.4
- fountain of: Paus. 9.18.5, 6
- Furies of: Paus. 9.5.15
- mortal combat of sons of: Paus. 9.25.2
- tombs of his children: Paus. 9.18.3
- sacrifices offered to his children: Paus. 9.18.3