 | ness. Kreon's laborious catalogue of the disadvantages of kingship may be heartfelt, but its pompous rhetorical expression generates suspicion in Oedipus.
|
| 706
To be king
These protestations should be compared with Kreon's later acceptance of the kingship.
|
| 718
Nor would I join someone
This oblique reference is probably to Tiresias. Kreon accepts the possibility that Tiresias is treasonous in his accusations; he clearly does not believe such accusations against Oedipus to be valid.
|
| 743
your death
Oedipus chooses the harsher penalty of the two Delphi proposed to cure Thebes (see l. 116). But Oedipus may have in mind simply the normal punishment for treason.
|
| 744
If you will begin . . . ''envy"
The text, in the judgment of many scholars, may be corrupt at this point. Editors have attempted to preserve continuous sense by reassigning the lines to other speakers and by positing the loss of a line after 625/745. Gould, however, argues plausibly that Kreon's proclivity for verbal analysis and socratic love of general laws may explain his apparent non sequitur, which attempts to deflect Oedipus from violence into philosophical debate. I accept Gould's defense of the manuscripts and translate the text as received.
|
| 766
or have me killed
Kreon reverts to the choice of banishment or death proposed by the oracle he himself brought from Delphi. He also may have assumed Oedipus' recent threat of death to have been hyperbole.
|
| 768
technique is lying prophecy
Lit. "evil arts." The implication is that Kreon has employed Tiresias to make false charges disguised as prophecy to destroy Oedipus. Such use of prophecy was a part of fifth-century Greek political life.
|
| 769
I ask the gods
Kreon makes a formal declaration of innocence which invokes the gods; his innocence is instantly respected as valid by all but Oedipus.
|
| 774
Give in
Ll. 774823 are a
kommos,
a sung expression of grief or strong emotion in which the Chorus joins one or more of the main characters. To judge by the root meaning of
kommos,
which is
beat,
this portion must have had a more strongly accented rhythm than the rest of the dialogue. Here the strong emotion might be the realization by all present of the gravity of what is happening.
|
| 786
No! We ask neither
Though the Chorus reveres Oedipus for the success and prosperity of his kingship, it does not follow him in
|
|