 | 1053
55
Delphi, Olympia, Abai
All holy shrines and the goal of religious pilgrimages.
|
| 1063
the gods lose force
Lit. ''the things pertaining to divinity slowly depart."
Jocasta enters
See my introduction.
|
| 1117
search Pythian smoke
Lit. "scrutinize the Pythian hearth."
|
| 1144
great flood of light
Lit. "great eye." Other uses of this metaphor in Greek literature suggest that a "great eye" was a sign of wonderful good hope or good luck.
|
| 1168
unforgivable harm
Lit. "Lest you receive a religious pollution from those who planted you."
|
| 1231
Poor doomed child!
See note on 1. 1001. Jocasta says to Oedipus that the only word she can call him is
dystanos
, the same word she gave to her child exposed and presumed dead. Jocasta has connected in her mind that child with Oedipus, and the same word is still appropriate. In his next speech Oedipus will disclaim all human mothering and claim Luck (
Tyche
) for his parent.
|
| 1263
Pan
A god holy to rural people, appropriate to events on Mt. Cithairon.
|
| 1267
Hermes . . . Kyllene
Like Pan, Hermes was a god well known to country people. Kyllene is a mountain in Arcadia, appropriate haunt of both Pan and Hermes.
|
| 1302
Arcturus
A star near the Big Dipper which, when it appeared in September, signaled the end of summer in Greece.
|
| 1367
Your fate teaches
Lit. "with your example (or "paradigm"
paradigmos
) before us."
|
| 1368
69
the story / god spoke
Lit. "with your daimon
* before us." See my introduction.
|
| 1375
76
who sang / . . . god's black oracle
Lit. "singer of oracles." Presumably a reference to the Sphinx's riddles, but the word "oracle" usually refers to divinely sanctioned responses such as those given by Delphi. Sophocles may here be connecting the Sphinx to the other instances of divine intervention in Oedipus' life.
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