Oedipus Rex

Jocasta asks the Chorus what has been going on, but the Chorus hesitates, wanting to put discord behind them. Instead, Oedipus tells Jocasta his fears. She’s relieved that all this kerfuffle is over a prophecy, for she has proof that “no skill in the world, / nothing human can penetrate the future” (201). For example, once she and Laius received a prophecy that their own son would strike down his father, so they abandoned their baby boy on a hillside with a stake through his ankles. Thus, they subverted the prophecy.

But this revelation startles Oedipus, who questions Jocasta on some of the finer points of Laius’s murder. In particular, he’s interested to know that it happened at a crossroads called Phocis, right before Oedipus arrived in Thebes. Oedipus also asks Jocasta for details of Laius’s appearance, and learns that the old king’s build was rather like his own. All that Jocasta says strikes Oedipus as nastily familiar. “I have a terrible fear,” Oedipus says, “the blind seer can see” (203).

He asks after the sole living eyewitness to the murder. Jocasta replies that this servant begged to be sent away to live in the countryside after he saw Oedipus crowned.