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free . . . rasping Singer
The Sphinx is the rasping Singer who arrived in Thebes shortly after Laius' departure. She destroyed the young Thebans (the ''tax"") by posing a riddle, which, if not answered correctly, resulted in the death of the unsuccessful answerer. In some versions the victims were thrown from a cliff, in others they were strangled, perhaps in some sexual embrace. The word "Sphinx" is related in Greek to the verb meaning "to strangle." Oedipus' triumph was to solve the riddle and kill the Sphinx, thus liberating Thebes from a reign of terror. The riddle Oedipus solved was traditionally this, though it appears in slightly different formulations: "There exists on land a thing with two feet and four feet, with a single voice, that has three feet as well. It changes shape alone among the things that move on land or in the air or down through the sea. Yet during periods when it is supported by the largest number of feet, then is the speed in its limbs the feeblest of all" (quoted from Thomas Gould,
Oedipus the King: A Translation with Commentary
[Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970], p. 19). By answering "Man" Oedipus demonstrated intellectual resourcefulness in harrowing circumstances, his lifelong attribute. Sophocles refrains from presenting the riddle itself, perhaps because its folk-tale cleverness seemed to provide insufficient proof of real intelligence. The Sphinx was pictured by Greek artists of Sophocles' time with a lion's body, wings, and a woman's head and breasts.
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god's voice
An oracle; an interpretation of a divine signal.
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Good luck
The first of many invocations of the Greek concept of
Tyche
, which can mean "luck" or "chance." I have generally translated "luck" when the speaker was gratified, "chance" when the outcome seems uncertain or unfortunate.
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I know what need
It may seem that this speech contradicts Oedipus' earlier professed ignorance of the suppliants' purpose. Here he reveals his concern and reports specific actions he has taken. His questions in the play's opening speech search for fears and desires in the people he's not yet aware of, for new developments, and so are not in conflict with the grasp of the situation he shows here.
this sickness
Oedipus refers to the literal "sickness" of the suppliants, all victims in some respect of the plague, and to his own metaphorical "sickness"his mental suffering for his fellow Thebans. But a Greek audience would have understood that the "sickness" which affects Oedipus and of which he is unaware, is not metaphorical at all but a pollution of his entire being. Sophocles at other moments in the play will reveal his characters' metaphoric speech to be unexpectedly and horrifyingly literal.
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