Characters and Names

Oedipus is the king of Thebes and the central figure of the play. He addresses the suppliants in the opening speech and describes himself as renowned of all. According to the Thebans he freed the city from the Sphinx by solving her riddle. In the play he learns that he is the son of Laïus and Iocasta, that he killed Laïus, and that he married his own mother. He puts out his own eyes. As an infant he was exposed on Mount Cithaeron with his ankles pinned together, and the Corinthian messenger says his name comes from that injury.

The Priest of Zeus is an elderly man who speaks for the suppliants at the altars. He describes the blight on crops, herds and births, and the plague. He asks Oedipus to find help for the city, and he announces the approach of Creon.

The suppliants are a silent group of priests, young men and children who sit at the altars with wreathed branches. Oedipus addresses them as his children, and later tells them to rise and take up the boughs.

Creon is the brother of Iocasta and so the brother-in-law of Oedipus. Oedipus calls him the son of Menoeceus. He brings back from Delphi the oracle that the killer of Laïus must be driven out. Oedipus later accuses him of conspiring with Teiresias to seize the throne, and Creon denies it. At the end of the play he is left to guard the land and takes charge of Oedipus and his daughters.

The Chorus consists of elders of Thebes. It sings the entrance song and the four stasima, and speaks with Oedipus in the episodes. It defends Oedipus against the seer’s charge and urges him to spare Creon.

Teiresias is the blind seer of Thebes. The Chorus proposes him as the seer most like Phoebus, and Oedipus has sent for him at Creon’s suggestion. He is led in by a Boy. At first he refuses to speak, and when Oedipus taunts him he says that Oedipus is the slayer of Laïus. He also says that Oedipus lives in shame with his nearest kin.

Iocasta is the queen of Thebes, the widow of Laïus and the wife of Oedipus. She stops the quarrel between Oedipus and Creon. She tells Oedipus of the oracle given to Laïus and of the exposure of their child, and offers this as proof that seers cannot foretell the future. When the truth emerges she begs Oedipus to stop his search and leaves the stage. A messenger later reports that she has hanged herself. Homer’s Odyssey calls the mother of Oedipus Epicaste.

The messenger from Corinth is an old man who arrives to report that Polybus is dead. He also says that the people will make Oedipus king. He tells Oedipus that Polybus was not his father, and that he himself received the infant from a Theban herdsman on Cithaeron and brought him to Polybus. He identifies the herdsman in the fourth episode.

The herdsman is a slave reared in the house of Laïus who tended flocks on Cithaeron. He is brought in at the request of Oedipus and admits that he gave the child to the Corinthian. He says the child was said to be the son of Laïus and that Iocasta gave it to him to be destroyed. He is also the one survivor of the attack on Laïus.

The second messenger comes from the house and reports that Iocasta has hanged herself. He also reports that Oedipus, finding her dead, struck his own eyes with the golden brooches from her dress.

Antigone and Ismene are the young daughters of Oedipus and Iocasta. They are silent characters, brought in at the end. Oedipus speaks to them and asks Creon to care for them.

The Boy leads the blind Teiresias in and out. Creon’s attendants lead the children to Oedipus and are addressed by Creon in the last scene. They do not speak.

Laïus was king of Thebes before Oedipus and was the husband of Iocasta. Creon names him in the prologue as the man whose killers the oracle bids the Thebans find. According to Iocasta, an oracle told him that he would die by the hand of his own child. She says that he pinned the infant’s ankles and had it thrown on a mountain. The Thebans believed that robbers killed him at a place where three roads meet. Oedipus learns that he himself killed Laïus.

Polybus is the king of Corinth, whom Oedipus believes to be his father. He is described as the son’s supposed father in the story that Oedipus tells to Iocasta. The Corinthian messenger reports his death of old age. The messenger also says that Polybus had received Oedipus as a gift and had no blood tie to him. In the play the Theban herdsman gave the child to the Corinthian, and Polybus, being childless, reared it as his own.

Merope is the wife of Polybus. Oedipus calls her the Dorian Merope and names her as his mother. After the death of Polybus he still fears the prophecy because she is alive.

Labdacus is the father of Laïus and an ancestor of the royal house of Thebes. Oedipus names Laïus as the son of Labdacus in his proclamation. The Chorus also speaks of the house of Labdacus. Standard reference works give him as the son of Polydorus.

Polydorus is an early king of Thebes. In the proclamation Oedipus names him among the ancestors of Laïus, after Labdacus. Standard reference works give him as the son of Cadmus.

Cadmus is the legendary founder of Thebes. Oedipus addresses the Thebans as the latest-born of Cadmus, and the people are called Cadmeans in the play. Standard reference works give him as the son of Agenor.

Agenor is a legendary king, remembered in the play as the ancestor named at the end of the list of the royal line. He is called Agenor who was of old. Standard reference works give him as the father of Cadmus.

Menoeceus is the father of Creon. Oedipus speaks of Creon as the son of Menoeceus in the prologue and again in the final scene. Iocasta is Creon’s sister, and Euripides’ Phoenissae makes her a daughter of Menoeceus.

The Sphinx is a monster who afflicted Thebes before Oedipus arrived. The Priest calls her the hard songstress, and Creon the riddling Sphinx. Oedipus says that he solved her riddle. Apollodorus gives her a woman’s face, a lion’s breast, feet and tail, and a bird’s wings, and says that Hera sent her. The answer to her riddle was “man.”

The play refers to persons without giving names. These include the slave who was the sole survivor of Laïus’s company, the attendant sent to the fields, and the drunken man at Corinth who taunted Oedipus about his birth.

Zeus is the chief of the gods. The Chorus addresses him as Zeus our father and asks him to strike the plague god with his thunderbolt. The Priest is his priest. Oedipus calls on him after Iocasta mentions the place where three roads meet.

Apollo is the god of the oracle at Delphi. The play also calls him Phoebus, Loxias, Lycean King and Delian healer. The oracle he gives commands the Thebans to punish the killer of Laïus. Teiresias serves him, and Oedipus attributes his own sufferings to him.

Athena is called Pallas in the Priest’s speech, where two shrines of Pallas are mentioned in Thebes. The Chorus invokes her as the daughter of Zeus.

Artemis is the sister of Apollo. The Chorus invokes her as guardian of the land, seated above the Agora, and speaks of her fires in the Lycian hills.

Bacchus is invoked by the Chorus as the god named for Thebes, the comrade of the Maenads, who carries a blazing torch. The Chorus asks him to help against the god who is unhonoured among gods.

Hades is the god of the dead and the name of the underworld. The Priest says that Hades grows rich in groans and tears from the plague, and Oedipus says that Polybus has taken the oracles with him to Hades.

The Chorus wonders in the third stasimon which god fathered Oedipus. It names Pan, the mountain-roaming father, and Cyllene’s lord, who is Hermes. It also names the Bacchants’ god and the Nymphs of Helicon. Cithaeron is addressed as the mountain where the child was found.

Amphitrite is the sea goddess, and the Chorus asks that the plague be carried to her waters. The Fates are described as unerring and are said to accompany the son of Zeus against the murderer. The Chorus swears by the Sun, called the foremost of the heavenly host, and Creon later asks that the light of the Sun be respected.