I need help.
- Locked due to inactivity on Aug 4, '16 4:34pm
Thread Topic: I need help.
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I'm reading Oedipus Rex for school.
I have no freaking clue what's going on. -
cries
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wait sorry on a mobile device
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There's this too
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and my favorite site has this too
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:D Yaaaay
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Alright, some cliff notes time.
So this couple, who are king and queen, royally piss off one of the Greek Gods. That's a big no-no. SO the god (I believe is Hermes?) puts a curse on the couple that their first male child will one day kill the king and do the dirty with the mom. So for a while the couple was like, "Yeah whatever, that'll never happen" Then she gets pregnant. They freak out when they see it's a boy so they go to their servant and are like "drive a nail through this baby's ankles and leave him on a mountain to die by nature. You know, the kind way," So the servant takes the baby with a stake driven through it's ankles and decides that he's gunna feel guilty if this baby dies so he gives it to the next towns king and queen because they've never been able to have their own child. Problem solved? Wrong.
So flash forward and Oedipus (which means swollen ankle, just a little trivia for you) is a grown man, well young man. Well one night, this random guy was telling him the prophecy laid on his birth parents (that he would kill them), but Oedipus thought he was talking about his adopted parents. He thinks that because his adopted parents never bothered to tell him that, well, he's adopted. Oh no, what do you think he's gunna do? He's gunna run away because he loves his adopted parents so much he fears that somehow he will fulfill the prophecy. So he goes on this long ass journey to the next town over where he was originally born (but he doesn't know that) to escape the prophecy. On the way though, he runs into this king (cough, cough, his real father) and a few of his guards. They get in this kerfuffle and bottom line is he kills all of them except for one dude who goes back and tells everyone that their king is dead. But what nobody knows, is that Oedipus has completed the first part of the prophecy.
Oedipus is still making his journey and before he enters the city he's greeted by a sphinx, which is this hybrid between a lady, a bird, and a lion. This sphinx has been plaguing the city for weeks now, and people are starting to starve because no food is coming in and people just want this thing gone. So the sphinx asks these riddles and if you get it wrong she eats you, which is what's been happening to everybody. Well Oedipus comes by and answers the riddle ("What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?" the answer: "A man"). SO sphinx goes away and everybody is so happy that they don't know how to repay him. Someone gets the great idea that since their queen is recently widowed, that she should marry him in reward. And that's what they do. Completing the second part of the prophecy.
Another flash forward, and Oedipus is married to his mom and they have four kids two boys and two girls (which comes back with Antigone, I don't know if you have to read that as well). Nobody knows at all that the prophecy has filled through and they're all happy, but then a plague descends and nobody knows what to do about it, or why the Gods are angry. This prophet dude is like "Oedipus is the whole reason because he did his mom and thats super gross" Oedipus thinks it's all a lie and has the prophet dude thrown out but things slowly fall into place when his mom-wife reveals that she had a baby before and told him about the prophecy. Also the servant who brought Oedipus to his adopted parents is brought in as well and the dude who ran away when Oedipus killed the king. People realize that this might just be the same person. The queen fully realizes it first and hangs herself. Then Oedipus realizes and pokes his eyes out with broach pins and exiles himself, leaving power to his brother-in-law Creon, and the plague lifts once he leaves.
That's about it, minus Antigone. -
I'm sorry that was a really long post when I probably could've done what dark did. I just get passionate about Greek Mythology and Epics
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Thank you very much!
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I'VE READ ANTIGONE MAN
HOLY COW MAN
WOW -
This sounds like a good book :3
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