Oedipus Rex
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50 free Oedipus Rex trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Oedipus Rex plays like a detective story in which the investigator is also the culprit: a king vows to hunt down a murderer, and every clue he uncovers points closer to home. Sophocles wrote it for an Athenian audience that already knew how the myth ended, which is exactly what makes each confident promise so uncomfortable to hear. This quiz walks through the play from its opening scene to its last: the prologue and parodos, the prophecy, the quarrels with Creon and the prophet, the messenger and the shepherd, and the catastrophe they bring between them. It also reaches into the rest of the Theban story, including Antigone, and into the Greek theatre the plays were written for. It suits students revising Oedipus the King for class, readers coming back to it years later, and anyone who enjoys Greek mythology. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even from the ones you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did Oedipus Rex, now ranked among the great tragedies, win at its first Athenian performance?
Second prize
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.
Q 02The Rex in the title Oedipus Rex means king in which ancient language?
Latin
Latin gives the play its familiar title, an anachronism: Sophocles' Athenian audience knew it simply as Oedipus.
Q 03In Oedipus Rex, what does Oedipus do with the gold pins he pulls from his dead wife's dress?
Puts out his eyes
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.
Q 04Which monster did Oedipus outwit, rather than fight, to win the throne of Thebes?
The Sphinx
The Sphinx had been devouring Thebans who failed her riddle; once Oedipus solved it, the grateful city made him king.
Q 05What did the oracle foretell for Oedipus, driving him from home?
Kill his father, wed his mother
Kill his father, wed his mother: the oracle said it when Oedipus had only come to ask who his real parents were.
Q 06Which psychoanalyst, having seen Oedipus Rex on stage, named a childhood complex after its hero?
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud argued in The Interpretation of Dreams that the story still grips audiences because its hero's fate could be anyone's.
Q 07In the first Athenian staging of Oedipus Rex, who would have played the queen of Thebes?
A masked male actor
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.
Q 08The name Oedipus recalls an injury he suffered as an abandoned baby; what does the name mean?
Swollen foot
Swollen foot: his ankles were pinned together before he was left on a mountainside, and the damage gave him his name.
Q 09Which Greek philosopher used Oedipus Rex as his model of a well-made tragedy in the Poetics?
Aristotle
Aristotle was writing nearly a century after the premiere and still judged it the tragedy that best fitted his rules for drama.
Q 10What disaster is ravaging Thebes as Oedipus Rex opens, sending its citizens to pray at the palace?
A plague
A plague opens the play, and some scholars see in it an echo of the real epidemic that devastated Athens in 430 BC.
Q 11Which prophet, summoned by Oedipus for help, tells the king that he himself is the killer he seeks?
Tiresias
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.
Q 12Who begs Oedipus to stop asking questions about his birth, having guessed the truth before he does?
Jocasta
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.
Q 13Which former king's unsolved murder does the oracle blame for Thebes' suffering in Oedipus Rex?
Laius
Laius had been killed on the road years earlier, and the city, distracted by a monster preying on it, never looked into his death.
Q 21In the prologue of Oedipus Rex, the old priest who speaks for the suppliants serves which god?
Zeus
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.
Q 22What do the suppliants hold out toward Oedipus as he steps from the palace in the prologue?
Olive branches
Olive branches wound with wool mark the crowd as suppliants, and once Oedipus promises to act they gather up their boughs and leave.
Q 23From which sacred site does Creon bring the oracle's answer in the opening scene of Oedipus Rex?
Delphi
Delphi is also where the young Oedipus had once gone to ask about his parents, and came away with a prophecy instead.
Q 14Where did Oedipus quarrel with and kill an old stranger in a chariot, years before becoming king?
At a crossroads
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.
Q 15How is Creon related to the queen of Thebes, the wife of Oedipus, in Oedipus Rex?
Her brother
Her brother Creon is trusted enough to be sent to consult the oracle, yet within a few scenes Oedipus is demanding his execution.
Q 16In which city was Oedipus raised by the royal couple he wrongly believed were his parents?
Corinth
Corinth was the home Oedipus fled to protect the couple who raised him, never suspecting that they had adopted him.
Q 17How does the queen of Thebes die once she realises who her husband is in Oedipus Rex?
She hangs herself
She hangs herself in her bedchamber; Oedipus bursts in moments later calling for a sword and finds her already dead.
Q 18Oedipus won his crown by solving a riddle about four legs, then two, then three; what is its answer?
Man
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.
Q 19When Oedipus curses the unknown killer, unaware it is himself, which literary device is Sophocles using?
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony works here because the Athenian audience already knew the myth, so every confident vow Oedipus makes cuts against him.
Q 20Which god's oracle orders Thebes to avenge the old king's murder at the start of Oedipus Rex?
Apollo
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.
Q 24In a Greek tragedy like Oedipus Rex, what happens during the parodos, straight after the prologue?
The chorus enters singing
The chorus enters singing its first ode, and the word parodos also named the side passages they walked in through.
Q 25Who makes up the Chorus that comments on the action throughout Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?
Theban elders
Theban elders form the Chorus, and at one point they persuade the furious king not to have Creon put to death.
Q 26In its first ode in Oedipus Rex, which goddess does the Chorus call on first to rescue the city?
Athena
Athena comes first, with Artemis close behind, as the Chorus pleads for the gods to drive death out of the city.
Q 27Which king raised the foundling Oedipus as his own son, having no children himself?
Polybus
Polybus and his wife denied the adoption when challenged, so the prophecy about his parents sent Oedipus fleeing the wrong family.
Q 28On which mountain near Thebes was the infant Oedipus abandoned and left to die?
Mount Cithaeron
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.
Q 29What does Oedipus accuse Creon of doing, with a hired prophet's help, in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?
Plotting to seize his throne
Plotting to seize his throne is the charge; Creon replies that he has no wish to rule, and so no motive to overthrow anyone.
Q 30Who first made the young Oedipus doubt that the king and queen who raised him were his parents?
A drunken guest
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.