Oedipus - Tumblr Posts
Egy görög mitológiás vicc, amit anno a latintanárom mesélt nekünk órán:
“Sziszüphosz és Oidipusz találkozik. Oidipusz beszól:
– Hé Sziszüphosz, nehéz az a szikla, mi?
Sziszüphosz mérgesen visszaszól:
– Oidipusz ne pofázz nekem, inkább menj és baszd meg anyád!”
holy fucking shit
How would you describe Oedipus? I've been asking around and most people either give a generic description or "motherf*king" jokes so I was wondering how you'd describe his story? I see it as tragic but I just can't seem to paint the story from my mind to my mouth. I'm clumsy with words but I admire yours. You have this way with powerful, lingering stories, haunting tells and perfect endings. So.. how would describe the tragic hero named Oedipus?
oh, it’s a tragedy, of course it’s a tragedy, how can it beanything else?
but i think the tragedy is not in his actions, not in thefather he killed nor the mother he wed nor the children he sired. no, it’s notin what he did, it’s in who he was, the tragedy here is that oedipus was a good man and a good king and unlike so many mythical figures, he did not reap whathe sowed
the tragedy here is not that he was human and erred and suffereddue to his errors.
it’s that he did not err, and suffered, it’s that the sinsof our fathers are our sins too and we cannot escape them
the oracle of delphi gave a prophecy foretold that any sonof king laius would kill his father and marry his mother. so when his wife andqueen jocasta bore him a son, he had the baby’s ankles nailed together andordered him to be left to die.
laius erred. laius planned to kill his son of blood, who hadcommited no crime, who was in perfect health, who had done nothing but be born. it is laiuswho committed the sin of infanticide, and through this sin all other suchevents transpire
a shepherd spirits the infant away instead of leaving him todie, and he is eventually brought to the house of king polybus and merope, werehe is adopted. laius and jocasta have no more children, even though this leaveslaius heirless. since we know jocasta will later bear four more children, weknow it is not her whom is the issue here. after laius commits this grievouscrime, he is left sterile, and this, here, is where i believe the curse trulybegins.
the curse over thebes does not begin with oedipus’s rule,with his supposed transgressions. it begins with his father’s sin.
oedipus grows up a devoted and loving son. he eventually hearsrumors about his strange birth and consults the same oracle his birth fatherhad, and is told the same prophecy. not knowing he’s adopted, he think theprophecy refers to polybus and merope, and he flees his home, horrified at thethought that he could ever harm his beloved parents in such a way.
he’s traveling, and upon a cross roads he meets his birthfather, laius. they do not know each other. they quarrel about who may precedefirst. it’s important to note that laius is the one who attacks first, who’s sooffended that this unknown man will not move for a king that he moves to killhim, unknowlingly attempting to murder his son a second time.
oedipus kills laius, not knowing he’s a king or his father, ratherthan let himself be killed, and fulfils the first part of the prophecy. onceagain, it is laius’s actions which are incendiary action here. if he has notattempted to kill oedipus, perhaps he wouldn’t have died. if he hadn’t thrownhis son away, oedipus never would have killed him, since he was so aghast atthe possibility of harming his adopted parents that he ran from his home andhis life rather than risk it.
oedipus acts in self defense. even if he hasn’t, laius hadalready tried to kill him once, although neither of them had been aware of it.a trial by combat would be the least of what oedipus would be owed. he breaksno laws, does not act in hate or malice or fear. oedipus kills laius, kills hisfather, but no great sin is committed. patricide is a sin, but defendingyourself is not, refusing to die is not a sin.
so he travels, and lands upon thebes, where a sphinx hastaken residence, eating anyone who attempts to enter the city and cannot answerit’s question, effectively cutting off all trade to thebes and trapping all itsresidents inside, lest they leave and never be able to return. was the sphinxhere when laius left? we do not know. it doesn’t say.
but if it was – did laius leave his city to die? was thisspinx just another piece of the curse laius had brought down upon thebes byattempting kill his freshly born son?
oedipus, a cleverer man than any who have yet tried to enterthebes, answers the sphinx’s question, and the creature leaves, having beendefeated by this man’s intellect.
oedipus is a man who has sknown himself to be strong enoughto kill a king, and clever enough to defeat a sphinx. he has not harmed any whodid not first try to harm him, was so against committing harm against those hecared about that he simply left them behind. oedipus so far has shown no fatalfloor, no poor judgement, nothing damning or ruinous.
jocasta’s brother, creon, had said any man who could ridthebes of the sphinx would be named king, and given his sister’s name in marriage.oedipus had not known about this before arriving. he had not come to thebeswith the intention of becoming king.
but king he becomes.
he is given jocasta’s hand in marriage, and the finalportion of the prophecy is complete. he weds and bed and fathers children withhis birth mother.
notice, however, that this only happens in the first placebecause of how honorable and kind oedipus is to begin with.
jocasta is in her forties, at least. she may be a beautifulwoman, but she’s not a young woman. yet there are no accounts of oedipus beingunfaithful, or cruel. jocasta bears him four children, two sons and twodaughters, when during those long years after oedipus she had not had anotherchild with laius. if oedipus had rejected this widowed queen, said her age madeher unsuitable, had taken mistresses, had kept her as a wife in name only –then perhaps so much pain could have been spared.
but he didn’t do that. oedipus took a wife twice his age, atbest, took a woman who was not a virgin, who had been the wife of this land’sformer king, and he dedicates himself to her. he is faithful and attentive, andshe must be fond of him, because she later tries to shield him from the truthwhen she uncovers it.
which part of his actions can we take account with? yes,jocasta was his mother, and it is incest – but he didn’t know that. he didn’twant that. to do otherwise than what he did, to cast aside his gifted bride,could only be considered cruelty. and oedipus was not cruel.
many years after this marriage, a plague strikes thebes. whyis not clear, because if it were truly due to oedipus’s actions, to the godstaking offense at this incestuous union between mother and father-killer,surely it would not have taken years to come to fruition?
but a plague comes, and the oracle says that the only way tolift it is to the see laius’s killer is brought to justice.
(is it laius, yet again, bringing sorrow upon his city? isit his restless spirit which curses all of thebes? it is a strange coincidencethat the infertility which he was cursed with after trying to kill his infantson is the same plight that now faces all of thebes.)
and of course, ofcourse, honorable and kind oedipus vows to bring the killer to justice,says that this killer will be exiled for his crime of murdering the king.
exiled, not killed, what a peculiar punishment, what a merciful punishment for a king killer,what a merciful judgement from a merciful man.
but things unravel, as they do. he tells creon to bring himthe blind prophet tiresias, who tells oedipus that he must stop digging intothis matter. but the good of his city is at stake, so he can’t of course he can’t,and tiresias calls him false for not knowing his true parentage. he and creonquarrel, and slowly, oh so slowly, the truth comes out.
a messenger comes, saying that his adopted father has died,and oedipus is relieved. not for any malicious reasons, but because it means hewon’t fulfill his prophecy of murdering him. he refuses to go home becausemerope is still there, refuses to take up the title of king that is surely hisby right, because he fears harming his mother. when the messenger says theoedipus is adopted, and there’s no reasons for him not to go home, jocasta finallyrealizes that oedipus is her son. she begs him to stop his search, desperate tokeep the truth from him.
jocasta knows, and tries to protect oedipus. she mustbelieve he’s worthy of being on the throne, he must have showed her kindness andaffection if she’s so desperate to protect him from the truth, even at theexpense of the well being of thebes.
but oedipus does not listen. he leaves, and finds the shepherdwho gave him to his adopted parents so long ago, and discovers the truth.
he is the son of lauis and jocasta. lauis is the man hekilled at the crossroads. he has killed his fathe and married his mother, allthem each unaware of each other.
after this, there are differing accounts of what happenednext.
sophocles’s account is most popular. he returns to find hiswife and mother jocasta has killed herself, and he takes the pins from herbroach and blinds himself, unable to stand the sight of her. he is then exiled,as he said laius’s killer would be, and his daughter antigone guides him untilhe dies soon after.
in euripides’s version, jocasta does not kill herself.oedipus is blinded by a servant of laius, and so justice is still served to laius’skiller, and he continues to rule thebes. i like to think jocasta rules withhim, alive and well, because she no more deserves death than oedipus deservesblindness.
the tragedy here is not in oedipus. it is in lauis, theclear villain of this story, the one who damned and hurt and cursed all aroundhim. he who caused so much strife, and then left it all for his son to fix, forhis son to struggle with.
but he did fix it.
oedipus was a fair and just ruler of thebes, a kind husbandto jocasta, a good father to his children, from all accounts, since antigone wasso devoted to him, and he was disappointed in his sons for their selfishnessfrom some accounts, because that’s not how he raised them.
perhaps oedipus is a story of how our fathers, ourpredecessors, those who come before us will curse us and damn us and leave usmore problems than solutions can be found
perhaps oedipus is a cautionary tale, and our tragic figureis not oedipuis, but laius, who made his own ruin, who’s spiteful hands leftscars on all they touched.
oedipus is a tragedy, but only because it reminds us thatour own undoing, our own unhappy endings, aren’t necessarily within ourcontrol. our own tragedies may not be our fault, may not be due to ourmistakes, be didn’t earn our unhappiness.
it’s not fair.
it’s not fair, and that’s the true tragedy of oedipus. thatgood, kind, clever, merciful people can do their absolute best, can showkindness and sacrifice and love, and in the end it won’t be able to save themfrom the mistakes other people have made.
oedipus was a good man, and a good king, and it may not havesaved him – but it saved all those in thebes.
yes, oedipus was blinded. yes, jocasta died.
but the spinx was gone, their line continued, and thebesthrived.
the tragedy of oedipus is the idea that we’re not in controlof our own destiny.
the triumph of oedipus is the idea that we need not controlit in order to have a destiny worth remembering.
Oedipus Rex (1957)
This adaptation of Sophocles’ tragedy (in a translation by William Butler Yeats) looks almost the way it would have when staged in the 5th century BC. Stentorian oration and carefully posed tableaux abound, giving the film an uncanny atmosphere somewhere between a black mass and puppet theater.
According to Chemistry EtOH(alcohol) is a Solution
I should add modern maenads to the Wine Cult Gay Bar in my game
All those Jo Mama! memes involving Oedipus are 10× times funnier when you find out that his mother's name was Jocasta.
What is Oedipus' favourite TV Series? "Go Back To Where You Came From".
I know that the myth of Oedipus is about how one cannot avoid destiny, but honestly it's funny to know that Oedipus left his home because his adoptive parents didn't tell him that he's not their biological child.
And that, good people, is why having an open conversation with your family is very important.
Commission for @ibenkrutt ! A serene little moment somewhere in the Mediterranean
Fernand Khnopff - Caress of the Sphinx (oil on canvas, 1896)
Sphinx but instead of asking people riddles, it just badly and awkwardly flirts with people instead
Drive-by psychoanalysis
A matronly, sweet psych professor
Was stopped by a burly aggressor.
Said she "These displays
Are Oedipal plays
For love, mother (fucking) obsessor."
“Oedipus and the Sphinx - Alternate Ending”
Re-emerging from the Hell that is Instagram to post this.
I'm hella going to use this.
Instead of saying motherfucker you can just say Oedipus
The Life and Death of Oedipus.
Oedipus...what a prick.
So anyway, Oedipus (pronounced Ee-dip-us btw) was abandoned by his irl mummy and daddy, the king and queen of Thebes, bc there was this mad curse on him where the Oracle of Delphi said ‘you’re gonna mash up your dad and pound your mum xoxoxo’ and the parents were like ‘ew wtf’ so they left him with a shepherd to put him on a mountain when Oedipus was just a wee little baby. (Fun fact Oedipus got his name because his feet were pinned together when he was abandoned and forever walked with a limp, his name in Ancient Greek literally means ‘Swollen-Foot’).
Turns out this shepherd had a huge hero complex and was all like ‘nah this baby cute af let’s give it to someone else to save it’ and gave it to the king and queen of another city state. The ‘distant city of Corinth’ to be exact. Oedipus grew up in Corinth with his adopted parents fully believing they were his real mummy and dada and they didn’t have the heart to tell the poor lad, he was already battling his foot fungus or whatever was going on with his feet since they unpinned them.
So Chinese whispers comes round, y’know the good ol gossip train, and Oedipus is like ‘what do you mean there’s a curse on me?’ And he runs to his parents like ‘wtf, a curse???’
Parents are all like: ‘yes, totally legit son of our, basically you’re supposedly gonna fuck your mother and kill your father’ and Oedipus is like ‘who tf are you to tell me what to do? I’m Oedipus Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and I do whatever tf I want’ and struts off. He’s kinda gone mad about it and before his adopted parents can actually tell him he’s adopted he runs off to avoid fulfilling the curse. Oopsidaisy.
Oedipus, while on his travels round the block, sees some absolute Chad in a chariot run past him and get mud on his clothes. Oedipus is all like ‘uh wtf who the hell are you?’ and is like, omg what if I kill this guy for shits and giggles?? Stop I’m such a crackhead. In his crackhead energy he kills the mega Chad and carries on with his life— now remember this the mega Chad comes up later.
So, on mandem's travels he comes across Thebes and he's all like 'wow this place is so cool', but the people that actually live in Thebes are like 'no it's not lmao'.
Turns out some milf Sphinx with mad mummy milkers is sucking Thebes dry because no one can solve her riddle. If you can solve her riddle she would let you go, but since no one can think over the sound of her cacophonous cheek claps no one can come up with the answer. Instead if you can't answer it she literally eats you. Gobbles you up. So far no one had cracked the case, or were too pussy to try.
Oedipus is like I'm super smart and funny and clever I could work out her riddle. He goes up to her and is all acting hard but she isn't having it and is like are you gonna solve the riddle or what? I'm trying to girlboss rn and you're kind of in the way.' He's kind of miffed and he's like 'well your pussy stink anyways soooo', and starts to try to think of an answer to her riddle. She constantly makes fun of Oedipus the clown by repeating her riddle, 'What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?' Eventually our egghead Oedipus comes up with the answer: A human being. A person as a baby in the morning of their life crawls on 'four feet' (hands and knees), then as an adult in the noon of their life, they walk on two feet, but when they are old, in the evening of their life, they walk with a cane, on 'three feet'.
When Oedipus answered the riddle correctly, the Sphinx was so upset that she fainted, like that Karen that had a meltdown in the Victoria Secret.
So, crisis averted, Oedipus went back into Thebes. And he was so annoying. Like all the parties people were throwing because the Sphinx is dead, people were whispering like 'bro don't invite Oedipus, nah man because he won't stfu about the fact he solved the riddle when no one else could. Dick.' After an absolute mashup, everyone was steaming and they made Oedipus their new king.
How could they do this if they already had a king and queen? King Laius and queen Jocasta, to be precise. Well, King Laius was killed recently so Jocasta was a 'hot widowed milf (literally but that comes later) in your area' kinda deal and she got married to Oedipus. They also banged, and you're sat there thinking 'wtf why would you add that', but it's important just wait.
Everyone started to love Oedipus and he was like 'life doesn't get much sweeter fam, kill your dad and fuck your mum my arse. I'm living my best life while my parents are still in Corinth.' Little did the poor bastard know...
So y'know that mega Chad I was telling you to remember. Yeah, that was King Laius. And to make matters worse a fucking plague came over Thebes and the Oracle of Delphi said it would only stop when king Laius' killer was found. Oedipus, unaware it was literally him, puts all his best men and loads of money into finding the killer. This is where Oedipus' arrogance comes into play. He is so metaphorically blind to his own prophecy (that he will shag his mum and kill his dad) that he brings about his own downfall and literal blindness.
Eventually dummy Oedipus, our own hubristic boi, realises that man he killed was Laius, Jocasta's ex-husband. Coincidentally, Jocasta tells Oedipus about her baby son that same night. She tells him 'how weird it is you have pin shaped marks on your feet because my baby's feet were pinned together. And the exact same birthday as my dead baby! Plus your name is Oedipus, and that's what me and Laius called our kid too! Actually you have the same eye colour as my baby too... small world isn't it ahaha! You can't be him though because we abandoned him to a shepherd since there was a prophecy he would kill Laius and fuck me.'
Oedipus, trembling and shitting himself, 'ahaha yeah that's so weird. Imagine if you were my mum lol uhm, would you excuse me?'
Finally our arsehole Oedipussy realises that even though after all this time he was running from his prophecy, he was really fulfilling it. So not only has he pumped his mum (see why I included the fact they banged? yeah) but also killed his dad, and not even just his dad, but the previous king. Who's killer has a bounty on their head. This is a classic case of peripeteia, the Ancient Greek word for “reversal”, it simply means the reversal of the protagonist's fortunes from good to bad, often because of his own arrogance (hubris: the pride that goes before the fall).
((tw mentions of Jocasta's offing herself and Oedipus' specsavers incident. Just gross stuff lol, but it's Ancient Greece what do you expect?))
Obviously Oedipus gives himself up and the people are like 'ew mandem, we thought you were cool. Kind of a stuck up arsehole, but a fair king nonetheless. That's super gross man.' Jocasta, so distraught that she has had sex with her own son and that he killed her husband, actually kills herself rather than deal with the shame. Oedipus, though, the self interested bastard is like 'omg guys I just lost my mum and my wife and lover in the same day, you can't kill me'.
Fr though, he's actually really distressed by the news, but the people need him to answer for his crimes (killing Laius) so they can end the plague (by bringing him to justice as the Oracle predicted they should do). So, Oedipus bargains that living a life suffering in exile is ten times worse than just a simple death. So, being subtle, he fucking physically blinded himself by poking out his eyes with the long gold pins from his dead wife's brooches.
(Fun fact time, it's said he did this because of his shame of seeing Jocasta naked and the brooches were used to keep the gown on the woman's body.) (Also, coming back to that point of symbolism, especially in Sophocles' retelling of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus blinds himself as a symbol of self-realisation and insight. It is an irony because he chooses to be physically blind after seeing everything he has done. He realises that he was figuratively blind throughout the play, therefore he punishes himself by literally blinding himself.)
Now there's no happy ending for our boy Oedipus. He went from zero to hero to mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry. mommy? literally in about three minutes. What a whiplash. In the end he does fulfil his exile, leaving his brother-in-law Creon as king of Thebes. Bare in mind in Ancient Greece if you have been exiled then you have all your human rights stripped from you-- not even being dramatic, they're literally taken away and you have less rights then a slave or a prisoner.
So he dies, like all must. His final resting place is Colonus near Athens, where he was swallowed into the earth and became a guardian hero of the land.
'Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud chose the term Oedipus complex to designate a son’s feeling of love toward his mother and of jealousy and hate toward his father, although those were not emotions that motivated Oedipus’s actions or determined his character in any ancient version of the story.' -- Britannica. So you have Oedipus to thank when your therapists suggests you secretly want to fuck your mum.
And there you have it. The life, exile, and death of Oedipus. The king.
„Oedipus coming upon the dead body of his mother Iocaste” After first watching the 1957 production by Tyrone Guthrie and subsequently reading a translation of the play as written by Sophocles, I felt like painting something related to this story and the scene of Oedipus seeing his mothers corpse (although not outright shown in the actual play, but relayed by a messenger) struck me as particularly affecting.
*
*
*
Close-Ups:
+ Bonus Snake:
This is how Ulysses dies at dawn ended, right?
someone in my class: what is a greek tragedy? my teacher: oedipus
yes, this motherfucker is absolutly a tragedy
Tiresias is such a bitch
I love him
WTF oedipus is way more bizarre from what I thought
I'm unstoppable *evil laugh*
Making stickers ✨️