Background Information (page 7)
Greek Drama--Introduction--The Oracle at Delphi
The Oracle of Delphi in Greece was the forecasting analyst of ancient times:
People came from all over Europe to call on the Pythia (priestess) at Mount
Parnassus to have their questions about the future answered. Her answers could
determine when farmers planted their fields or when an empire declared war.
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| The oracle warned that the plague would not end until Thebes had punished the murderer of King Laios, who lived among them undetected. Oedipus vowed to save Thebes once again by finding this murderer. After questioning several people, including the blind prophet Teiresias, he discovered that the man he had killed on the road years before was none other than King Laios. Furthermore, he learned that he was not the son of the king and queen of Corinth, but rather the son of Laios and Jocasta. Thus Oedipus had in fact fulfilled the oracle—he had killed his father and married his mother. When Oedipus and Jocasta discovered this horrible truth, she killed herself and he gouged out his eyes to punish himself for having been blind to the truth. |
| After these disasters, Creon took over as regent (acting ruler) of Thebes, and after several years he decided to exile Oedipus. Accompanied only by his daughter Antigone (in some versions of the myth, also by Ismene), Oedipus wandered the countryside as a beggar until he reached the sanctuary of Colonus, where he later died. |
| http://www.darksites.com/souls/goth/chastel/Oedipus.html |
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