50 Fun Facts About Oedipus Rex

What did Oedipus Rex, now ranked among the great tragedies, win at its first Athenian performance?

Second prize was all it took: first went to Philocles, a rival now best known for having beaten the most famous Greek tragedy of all.

The Rex in the title Oedipus Rex means king in which ancient language?

Latin gives the play its familiar title, an anachronism: Sophocles' Athenian audience knew it simply as Oedipus.

In Oedipus Rex, what does Oedipus do with the gold pins he pulls from his dead wife's dress?

Oedipus puts out his eyes inside the palace, so the audience only hears of it from a servant who comes out to describe the scene.

Which monster did Oedipus outwit, rather than fight, to win the throne of Thebes?

The Sphinx had been devouring Thebans who failed her riddle; once Oedipus solved it, the grateful city made him king.

What did the oracle foretell for Oedipus, driving him from home?

Kill his father, wed his mother: the oracle said it when Oedipus had only come to ask who his real parents were.

Which psychoanalyst, having seen Oedipus Rex on stage, named a childhood complex after its hero?

Sigmund Freud argued in The Interpretation of Dreams that the story still grips audiences because its hero's fate could be anyone's.

In the first Athenian staging of Oedipus Rex, who would have played the queen of Thebes?

A masked male actor took every speaking part, and changing masks let one man play a queen in one scene and a servant in the next.

The name Oedipus recalls an injury he suffered as an abandoned baby; what does the name mean?

Swollen foot: his ankles were pinned together before he was left on a mountainside, and the damage gave him his name.

Which Greek philosopher used Oedipus Rex as his model of a well-made tragedy in the Poetics?

Aristotle was writing nearly a century after the premiere and still judged it the tragedy that best fitted his rules for drama.

What disaster is ravaging Thebes as Oedipus Rex opens, sending its citizens to pray at the palace?

A plague opens the play, and some scholars see in it an echo of the real epidemic that devastated Athens in 430 BC.

Which prophet, summoned by Oedipus for help, tells the king that he himself is the killer he seeks?

Tiresias at first refuses to speak at all, and only names the king as the culprit after being accused of having a hand in the murder himself.

Who begs Oedipus to stop asking questions about his birth, having guessed the truth before he does?

Jocasta works it out during a messenger's story and runs into the palace, while Oedipus assumes she is merely ashamed of his humble origins.

Which former king's unsolved murder does the oracle blame for Thebes' suffering in Oedipus Rex?

Laius had been killed on the road years earlier, and the city, distracted by a monster preying on it, never looked into his death.

Where did Oedipus quarrel with and kill an old stranger in a chariot, years before becoming king?

At a crossroads where three roads meet, a row over right of way turned deadly; years later a chance mention of the spot first shakes his confidence.

How is Creon related to the queen of Thebes, the wife of Oedipus, in Oedipus Rex?

Her brother Creon is trusted enough to be sent to consult the oracle, yet within a few scenes Oedipus is demanding his execution.

In which city was Oedipus raised by the royal couple he wrongly believed were his parents?

Corinth was the home Oedipus fled to protect the couple who raised him, never suspecting that they had adopted him.

How does the queen of Thebes die once she realises who her husband is in Oedipus Rex?

She hangs herself in her bedchamber; Oedipus bursts in moments later calling for a sword and finds her already dead.

Oedipus won his crown by solving a riddle about four legs, then two, then three; what is its answer?

Man, in the best-known version, crawls on all fours as a baby, walks upright when grown and leans on a stick in old age.

When Oedipus curses the unknown killer, unaware it is himself, which literary device is Sophocles using?

Dramatic irony works here because the Athenian audience already knew the myth, so every confident vow Oedipus makes cuts against him.

Which god's oracle orders Thebes to avenge the old king's murder at the start of Oedipus Rex?

Apollo is the god of prophecy, and when Oedipus is finally ruined he cries out that it was this god who brought his sufferings to pass.

In the prologue of Oedipus Rex, the old priest who speaks for the suppliants serves which god?

A priest of Zeus leads a crowd of all ages and reminds Oedipus that he rescued the city once before, so he must do it again.

What do the suppliants hold out toward Oedipus as he steps from the palace in the prologue?

Olive branches wound with wool mark the crowd as suppliants, and once Oedipus promises to act they gather up their boughs and leave.

From which sacred site does Creon bring the oracle's answer in the opening scene of Oedipus Rex?

Delphi is also where the young Oedipus had once gone to ask about his parents, and came away with a prophecy instead.

In a Greek tragedy like Oedipus Rex, what happens during the parodos, straight after the prologue?

The chorus enters singing its first ode, and the word parodos also named the side passages they walked in through.

Who makes up the Chorus that comments on the action throughout Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?

Theban elders form the Chorus, and at one point they persuade the furious king not to have Creon put to death.

In its first ode in Oedipus Rex, which goddess does the Chorus call on first to rescue the city?

Athena comes first, with Artemis close behind, as the Chorus pleads for the gods to drive death out of the city.

Which king raised the foundling Oedipus as his own son, having no children himself?

Polybus and his wife denied the adoption when challenged, so the prophecy about his parents sent Oedipus fleeing the wrong family.

On which mountain near Thebes was the infant Oedipus abandoned and left to die?

Mount Cithaeron is where two shepherds met: one could not bear to leave the baby, and the other carried him away to a childless king.

What does Oedipus accuse Creon of doing, with a hired prophet's help, in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?

Plotting to seize his throne is the charge; Creon replies that he has no wish to rule, and so no motive to overthrow anyone.

Who first made the young Oedipus doubt that the king and queen who raised him were his parents?

A drunken guest at a banquet blurted out that he was not his father's son, and the insult sent Oedipus off to consult the oracle.

In which village outside Athens does the aged Oedipus die, in the last Theban play Sophocles wrote?

Colonus was Sophocles' own birthplace, and the play set there was staged only after his death, by his grandson.

Which legendary king of Athens shelters the wandering Oedipus and alone witnesses his mysterious end?

Theseus grants the old man protection and burial in Attic soil, in return for blessings his grave is promised to bring Athens.

In Sophocles' final Oedipus play, the wandering king rests in a grove sacred to which group of goddesses?

The Furies were dreaded enough to be addressed by a flattering name, the Gracious Ones, and a passing local orders Oedipus off their ground.

Whose body does Antigone bury in defiance of Creon's decree in Sophocles' Antigone?

Polynices had led an army against his own city, so Creon ruled him a traitor and ordered the corpse left to rot unburied.

Which daughter of Oedipus refuses to help with the forbidden burial in Antigone, then tries to share the blame?

Ismene confesses falsely because she wants to die alongside her sister, but Antigone will not allow it and Creon spares her.

What punishment does Creon order for Antigone after she defies his decree in Sophocles' Antigone?

Sealed in a cave as a living tomb, she is already dead by the time a repentant Creon arrives to release her.

Which older tragedian did the young Sophocles beat to win his first dramatic victory in Athens?

Aeschylus was the reigning master of Athenian drama, and Plutarch claims he left for Sicily soon after the upset.

Which change to Greek tragedy, shrinking the role of the chorus, is traditionally credited to Sophocles?

A third actor meant three speaking characters could share a scene, opening up richer conflict than two voices and a chorus allowed.

At which Athenian spring festival, where tragedians competed for prizes, was Oedipus Rex first performed?

The City Dionysia pitted three playwrights against each other, and each had to present three tragedies and a satyr play.

In Greek theatres like the one that first staged Oedipus Rex, what was the circular floor used by the chorus called?

The orchestra literally means dancing place: a Greek chorus danced as well as sang, in front of the building the actors used.

Which Russian composer turned the story into the 1927 opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, first heard in Paris?

Igor Stravinsky first presented it in concert form, like an oratorio, before it was ever staged as an opera.

Which Greek word does the Poetics use for the release of pity and fear that a tragedy like Oedipus Rex brings?

Catharsis was a medical word for purging the body before the Poetics borrowed it for what tragedy does to an audience.

Which Roman philosopher and tutor of Nero wrote his own bloodier tragedy called Oedipus?

Seneca gives the story a far more violent tone, and has the dead king's ghost raised to reveal who murdered him.

Which Italian director filmed Oedipus Rex in 1967, opening and closing the story in twentieth-century Italy?

Pier Paolo Pasolini shot the ancient scenes in Morocco, with a cast that mixed Italian and Berber performers.

Herodotus credits the closing maxim of Oedipus Rex, call no man fortunate until death, to which statesman?

Solon is said to have told it to the wealthy King Croesus, who only saw the point after losing his kingdom.

Which term from the Poetics names the sudden reversal seen when a messenger's good news ruins Oedipus?

Peripeteia is strongest, the Poetics argues, when it arrives together with recognition, exactly as it does for Oedipus.

Besides writing plays, Sophocles is said to have been elected to which Athenian office alongside Pericles?

General was an elected office in Athens, and Sophocles reportedly served in the campaign against Samos as a junior colleague.

Which Hollywood director played the prophet in the 1968 film Oedipus the King, opposite Christopher Plummer?

Orson Welles took the role in a film shot largely in an ancient amphitheatre at Dodoni in Greece.

Which American choreographer retold the Oedipus story from the queen's side in the 1947 dance Night Journey?

Martha Graham danced the queen herself at the premiere, on a set designed by Isamu Noguchi.

Which French writer retold the Oedipus myth in his 1934 play The Infernal Machine?

Jean Cocteau had already worked on the story once before, writing the text for a 1927 opera-oratorio on the same myth.