Flashcards
Oedipus and the Myths of Thebes
Flashcards do conjunto (17)
- 1Festival of DionysiaTheatre festival which took place in Athens. Promoted by Pisistratus. First tragedy performed in 534 BC. Featured plays that centred on city-specific heroes or panhellenic ones (all Greece).
Festival featured either tragedy (goat-song) or comedy. Tragedy reached its peak in 5th century BC in Athens. Around 33 tragedies survive of the thousand performed. - 2Sophocles (496 BC-406 BC)7 of his plays remain, including Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus Colonus.
- 3Founding of ThebesThebes is the princple city in Boetia.
Their founder is Cadmus, who was the brother of Europa.
Agenor, the father, sent Cadmus and his brothers to find his sister Europa who went missing on the back of a bull. Cadmus' brothers Cilix and Phoenix gave up, but Cadmus went to Delphi to find answers. The oracle told him to give up too, and instead follow a cow until it became exhausted and laid down. Here he founded Thebes.
Another story goes that Thebes was founded by brothers Zethus and Amphion. The Cadmus myth seems to originate from a Near Eastern myth , Cadmus' name even meaning "man from the east." - 4The DragonCadmus wished to sacrifice the cow to Zeus or Athena, and sent companions to gather water. He discovered they had been killed by a dragon. He battled the dragon and Athena told him to knock out its teeth and plant half of them into the ground.
The teeth sprouted into armed men, who Cadmus tricked by throwing a rock at. They then killed each other. Only 5 of these Sparti remained, and went on to become origins of the aristocratic families in Thebes.
The other half went to Aeetes of Colchis, which led to the same event later with Jason. - 5CadmusHe may have brought the alphabet from the east.
After killing the dragon, Cadmus serves Ares for 8 years as punishment.
He married Harmonia, the daughter of the affair between Ares and Aphrodite. She received a necklace made by Hephaestus which would bring misfortune to Cadmus' chilldren (Semele, Agave, Ino, Autonoe). Jocasta descended from Cadmus and Harmonia. (pg 459).
They later were turned into serpents in Illyria. - 6Zethus and AmphionTwin brothers born from Antiope and Zeus. Their story explains the founding of Thebes differently than the Cadmus one. Zethus struggled to carry stones while Amphion strummed his lyre and they fell into place.
Both ruled Thebes harmoniously. - 7LaiusFather to Oedipus. Perhaps a distant descendent of Cadmus (cf. cursed children). Perhaps then already cursed, Laius raped Pelops' son Chrysippus while he was a guest at Pelops' court. For this violation of xenia, Pelops cursed him. Laius fled back to Thebes and became king since Amphion and Zethus had since died.
An oracle warned Laius that his son would murder him, so he avoided laying with Jocasta, until he got drunk and did it accidentally.
He was later killed by his son, when on the way to the Oracle to find a solution to the Sphinx problem. - 8JocastaOedipus' mother... and wife. She was descended from the Sparti, those men who formed from the dragons teeth that Cadmus had sown.
She later marries Oedipus and makes him king after he saves Thebes from the Sphinx (like in the Odyssey, where Penelope is able to create a king by marriage).
Jocasta cannot bear the truth when she learns of it, and hangs herself. - 9Oedipus"swollen foot". So named as when Laius sent him to be exposed, he pinned the child's feet with and iron pin.
After being saved by a pitying shepherd, he ended up with the king of Corinth, Polybus. Oedipus grew up and went to Delphi seeking answers about his birth. He was told he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus vowed never to return to Corinth, not knowing his birth parents were in Thebes.
Near Thebes, Laius in a chariot drove Oedipus off the road. Enraged, he kiilled all but one aboard, incl. Laius.
He later faced the Sphinx and her riddle. Meanwhile, Creon who was in temporary command decreed that whoever could defeat the Sphinx would become king of Thebes and marry Jocasta.
Sophocles writes that after learning the truth, Oedipus gouges out his eyes with the pins from his dead mother/wife's robe, never again to see the sufferings he has caused.
Oedipus dies a pharmakos, an outcast. - 10The SphinxA daughter to Typhoeus. She ate Thebans after they fail to answer the riddle: "what goes on four legs in the morning, two at midday, and three in the evening?"
The answer was a human. An infant, adult, an old man. The Sphinx killed herself by jumping off a cliff. - 11MiasmaRecurrent theme in Greek myth. In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, a plague is affecting Thebes. It is said to be caused by Miasma, blood-pollution from the murder of their former king, Laius. Oedpus learns this from the Oracle.
Ironically, to deal with this Oedipus declares to his people that the murderer be cursed, even if he is a member of Oedipus' house. Since the murderer is Oedipus, he curses himself. - 12The Oracle and FateA central theme of Oedipus the King is the power of fate. Laius' line is filled with curses to begin with, but is presumably made worse after he rapes Chysippus and is further cursed by Pelops. The Oracle then fortells that Laius' son will kill him, which in fact does happen, though neither party is aware.
The Oracle foretells that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother, and his ignorance of his lineage proves to be his undoing, since he thinks he need only avoid his adoptive parents, Polybus and Merope to dodge fate. This is of course, not the case. - 13The MessengerThis character informs Oedipus that his father had died, and coincidentally was the same man who received Oedipus from the shepherd who pitied him. The messenger then gave Oedipus to Merope and Polybus. Revealing this, Oedipus learns the truth that he refused to believe coming from Tiresias.
- 14The ShepherdPitying young Oedipus, instead of exposing the child he gives him to another, who gives him to king Polybus of Corinth. Interestingly, this character believed he was saving Oedipus, when he instead set him up for a terrible life.
The Shepherd also happens to be the one who got away when Oedipus massacred the carriage that drove him off the road when he first approached Thebes. He confirms the terrible truth for Oedipus. - 15AristotleIn the Poetics, Aristotle thought of Sophocles' paly as the perfect tragedy as anagnorisis and peripeteia happen simultaneously. This is recognition and, turning around - the reveal of a hidden identity and the change of fortune for the protagonist.
- 16DithyrambSong sung in honor of Dionysus, and perhaps the origin of Tragedy.
- 17Eteocles and PolynicesSons of Oedipus. Killed each other at the 7 against Thebes as described by Aeschylus.
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- FlashCards sobre Oedipus and the Myths of Thebes, criado por namdlefhtes em 18-06-2015.
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