Oedipus the King
By: Marcia Barrios
Antigone
Oedipus and Jocasta have a happy marriage and a number of children-two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.
Cadmus
The man Cadmus was the one who found the city of Thebes and killed the dragon and was instructed to sow the dragon's teeth to form a city.
Corinth
Corinth was the place where the childless was given the the King and Queen. Polybus, he was the king of Corinth and husband of either Merope or Periboea.
Eteocles
The youngest son of Oedipus. Eteocles crowned himself king of Thebes with the support of Creon, exiling his older brother Polyneices from the city. Creon goes to Colonus to seek Oedipus' support for Eteocles, but Oedipus refuses to help because he will not be given burial on Theban soil. Creon returns to Thebes empty-handed as a result.
Ismene
Oedipus' youngest daughter. While her sister Antigone stayed with Oedipus to be his guide, Ismene remained in Thebes. She flees to find her father at Colonus when her brothers are fighting over the city's kingship; later she is chosen to perform a ritual that will appease the Eumenides after Oedipus trespassed in their sacred grove.
Jocasta
The mother of Oedipus. She married Oedipus when he arrived in Thebes without realizing that he was her own son; after many years Thebes is filled with sickness because the gods are angry that Jocasta and Oedipus have an incestuous marriage.
King Polbus
He was the king of Corith and husband of either Merople or Periboea. He raised
Oedipus as his adopted son, who had been abandoned by his parents Laius and Jocasta of Thebes in Greece.
Laius
The father of Oedipus. When Oedipus was a baby, Laius heard a prophesy that one day his son would murder him; trying to avoid this fate, he sliced his son's ankles and abandoned him in the wilderness.
Oedipus
A former king of Thebes. He blinded himself after learning that he had unknowingly killed his father and had sexual intercourse with his mother. His name in Greek means 'limping foot' because his ankles were sliced as a boy by his father.
Oracle of Apollo
A divine woman in the city of Delphi who could predict the future with the help of Phoebus Apollo, god of the sun and prophesy, brother of the goddess Athene. Located northwest of Thebes, many people from all over Greece would journey to Delphi to hear predictions about the future.
Polyneices
The oldest son of Oedipus. He is exiled from Thebes by his younger brother Eteocles, who has crowned himself king with the support of Creon. Angry, Polyneices gathers together seven armies from Greece to march against Thebes and return the throne to him.
Queen Merope
he royal couple adopted a baby found by shepherds and named him Oedipus. To avoid the prediction of an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus goes in voluntary exile to Thebes. On his way he has a quarrel with an old man, and kills him, and for answering a riddle of the Sphinx at the entrance of Thebes gets to marry the queen dowager Jocasta.
Sophocles
Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polyneices and Eteocles. In the opening of the play, Antigone brings Ismene outside the palace gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices' body, in defiance of Creon's edict.
Sphinex
Its a winged monster with a head of a woman and a body of a lion who kills all who fail to answer her riddle. Her riddle is "what goes on four legs in the morning, two in the aftermnoon, and three in the evening?"
Thebes
A city on the Greek mainland northwest of Athens. Oedipus was once king of Thebes before his exile. Afterwards, his sons Eteocles and Polyneices battle to win the kingship.