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Chapter SeventeenLecture One
Oedipus and the Myths of Thebes
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Cadmus and the Dragon
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Cadmus and the Dragon
• Cadmus, son of Agenor, gives up looking for Europa
• Goes to Delphi
• “Follow the cow with the special mark and found your city where she rests”
• His men are killed by serpent near a spring of Ares
• Cadmus kills the dragon
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Cadmus and the Dragon
• To replace his men, he sows half the dragons teeth (Athena’s idea)
• The “seed-sown” men arise
• Cadmus throws rocks among them and they fight until only five are left
• They will become the ancestors of the aristocratic families in Thebes
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Cadmus and the Dragon
• Cadmus serves Ares for eight years
• Marries Harmonia (daughter of Ares and Aphrodite)
• Hephaestus gives her a necklace, which turns out to be cursed
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Cadmus and the Dragon
• Cadmus and Harmonia retire in Illyria
• Changed to snakes and live in the Elysian fields
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The Twins Amphion and Zethus
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Amphion and Zethus
• After a while, Nycteus rules in Thebes
• Antiopê, a daughter of Nycteus, becomes pregnant by Zeus
• Nycteus banishes her
• Not satisfied, Nycteus kills himself after ordering his brother Lycus to punish Antiopê more
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Amphion and Zethus
• Lycus takes her from her new husband in the hills, Epopeus, and drags her to Thebes
• On the way, she gives birth to twins Amphion and Zethus – raised by a shepherd
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Amphion and Zethus
• At Thebes, Antiopê is tortured daily by Dircê (wife of Lycus)
• Antiopê escapes one day, and comes upon her twins
• They return to Thebes and kill Dircê; throw her body into a spring
• They attack Thebes and kill Lycus
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Amphion and Zethus
• Amphion – the musician
• Zethus – the cattleman
• Raising the walls of the new city
• Marriages– Zethus – Thebê– Amphion – Niobê
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The Two Foundings of Thebes
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Two Foundings of Thebes
• One Near Eastern, modeled after cosmic dragon combat– Brought by immigrants or original founders– The Mesopotamian cylinder seals– Phoinikia grammata or kadmeia
• The other is local and more like folktale– Twins with opposing characters, wicked
stepmother, “just in time”
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Oedipus the King
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Oedipus the King
• Labdacus (another son of Polydorus)
• His son Laius flees Thebes to Elis (King Pelops)
• Chrysippus
• “Curse on the house of Labdacus”
• Jocasta
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Oedipus the King
• An oracle’s message: “Your son will kill you and marry your wife.”
• His effort to avoid Jocasta failed one night
• A son is born
• Best known version is told by the tragedian Sophocles
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Oedipus the King
• Laius and Jocasta mutilate the feet of the child and give him to a shepherd to expose on the mountain
• Shepherd instead gives it to a friend on the other side of Mt. Cithaeron
• The child is adopted by Queen Meropê and King Polybus in Corinth
• They name him “swollen foot” : Oedipus
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Oedipus the King
• Friends taunt him with the truth
• He goes to Delphi
• The Pythia recoils at his sight and tells him his fate
• At Daulis, Oedipus resolves never to return to Corinth, heads toward Thebes
• On the way, he kills all but one of a train of men
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Oedipus the King
• City is plagued by the Sphinx and her riddle
• Oedipus solves the riddle
• Becomes king and gets the queen as his wife
• They have children by and by:– Polynices and Eteocles; Antigonê and Ismenê
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Oedipus the King
Sophocles
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Oedipus the King
• Begins after these events• Oedipus determined to find the cause of a
new plague in Thebes– The plague is caused by the pollution of
Laius’s murder; the perpetrator is still in Thebes
• Oedipus discovers gradually and reluctantly that he has fulfilled the prophecy
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Next Plays in the Cycle
• Oedipus at Colonus
• Antigonê
• Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes (Aeschylus)
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End