Oedipus the King: List 1

by Sophocles
When a plague ravages the city of Thebes, Oedipus hears a prophecy that begins to unravel everything he thought was true. Read the full text here.

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. suppliant
    one praying humbly for something
    My children, latest born to Cadmus old,
    Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands
    Branches of olive filleted with wool?
  2. venerable
    impressive by reason of age
    Ho! aged sire, whose venerable locks
    Proclaim thee spokesman of this company,
    Explain your mood and purport.
    Another definition of "venerable" is "profoundly honored"--this would also be a fitting description of the priest's status among everyone praying, but Oedipus picks the priest out of the crowd because of his age and white hair, which are assumed to be connected to wisdom and worthy of respect.
  3. obdurate
    showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings
    Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate
    If such petitioners as you I spurned.
  4. welter
    toss, roll, or rise and fall in an uncontrolled way
    For, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State,
    Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,
    Foundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.
    The priest uses the image of a sinking ship to describe the state of the kingdom--it is "sore buffeted" (pounded repeatedly by storms) and foundering beneath wild waves of blood (from plague and hunger).
  5. blight
    a state or condition being devastated or run-down
    A blight is on our harvest in the ear,
    A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,
    A blight on wives in travail;
    The kingdom is in serious trouble because the list of blights includes not only the devastation of the food supply but also the deaths of women and babies during childbirth.
  6. beseech
    ask for or request earnestly
    All we thy votaries beseech thee, find
    Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven
    Whispered, or haply known by human wit.
  7. sluggard
    an idle slothful person
    Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.
    Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,
    And threaded many a maze of weary thought.
  8. extirpate
    destroy completely, as if down to the roots
    King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate
    A fell pollution that infests the land,
    And no more harbor an inveterate sore.
    Creon uses agricultural images to describe what must be done to save the kingdom--the deeply-rooted sore that must be extirpated because it's polluting the land is the unpunished murderer of the rightful king.
  9. expiation
    the act of atoning for sin or wrongdoing
    What expiation means he? What's amiss?
    At this point in the play, Oedipus does not know all the details of the sins that need to be expiated, but once he does, he recognizes that "no gallows could atone."
  10. suborn
    incite to commit a crime or an evil deed
    Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,
    Unless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?
  11. unscathed
    not injured
    And if he shrinks, let him reflect that thus
    Confessing he shall 'scape the capital charge;
    For the worst penalty that shall befall him
    Is banishment—unscathed he shall depart.
  12. recompense
    payment or reward, as for service rendered
    But if an alien from a foreign land
    Be known to any as the murderer,
    Let him who knows speak out, and he shall have
    Due recompense from me and thanks to boot.
  13. teeming
    abundantly filled with especially living things
    And for the disobedient thus I pray:
    May the gods send them neither timely fruits
    Of earth, nor teeming increase of the womb,
    But may they waste and pine, as now they waste,
    Aye and worse stricken;
  14. blanch
    turn pale, as if in fear
    Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.
    "Blench" is an alternate version of "blanch"--Oedipus is responding to the chorus of old men's suggestion that the murderer of Laius might have run away because of the curse.
  15. adjure
    ask for or request earnestly
    Oh speak,
    Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know'st,
    Thy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.
    "Adjure" also means "command solemnly"--both definitions seem to fit the situation because Oedipus is the king, but Teiresias is a respected prophet. Thus Oedipus starts his speech with two commands "Speak" and "Withhold not" but he ends with the acknowledgement that he and the rest of the kingdom are all praying for Teiresias to save them with his knowledge.
Created on Mon Jun 10 19:16:16 EDT 2013 (updated Wed Jul 16 15:14:47 EDT 2025)

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