Oedipus at Colonus: List 3

by Sophocles
Though written last, this play in Sophocles' Theban Cycle takes place between the events of Oedipus the King and Antigone and focuses on the blind king's philosophical understanding of his fate. Learn these words from the translation by Francis Storr. Read the full text here.

Here are links to our lists for the play: List 1, List 2, List 3
35 words 172 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. glen
    a narrow secluded valley (in the mountains)
    Haply on swiftest steed,
    Or in the flying car,
    Now they approach the glen,
    West of white Oea's scaur.
  2. buffet
    strike, beat repeatedly
    Fight they or now prepare
    To fight? a vision rare
    Tells me that soon again
    I shall behold the twain
    Maidens so ill bestead,
    By their kin buffeted.
  3. dappled
    having spots or patches of color
    Hear, Apollo, hunter, hear,
    Huntress, sister of Apollo,
    Who the dappled swift-foot deer
    O'er the wooded glade dost follow;
    Help with your two-fold power
    Athens in danger's hour!
  4. presage
    a foreboding about what is about to happen
    O wayfarer, thou wilt not have to tax
    The friends who watch for thee with false presage,
    For lo, an escort with the maids draws near.
  5. perforce
    by necessity
    If what he urges tend not to thy good
    He cannot surely wrest perforce thy will.
  6. choleric
    characterized by anger
    O listen to him; other men like thee
    Have thankless children and are choleric,
    But yielding to persuasion's gentle spell
    They let their savage mood be exorcised.
  7. exorcise
    expel through adjuration or prayers
    O listen to him; other men like thee
    Have thankless children and are choleric,
    But yielding to persuasion's gentle spell
    They let their savage mood be exorcised.
  8. importunate
    making persistent or urgent requests
    O yield to us; just suitors should not need
    To be importunate, nor he that takes
    A favor lack the grace to make return.
  9. dirge
    a song or hymn of mourning as a memorial to a dead person
    One doom of fate
    Doth all await,
    For dance and marriage bell,
    The dirge and funeral knell.
  10. knell
    the sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death
    One doom of fate
    Doth all await,
    For dance and marriage bell,
    The dirge and funeral knell.
  11. sedition
    an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority
    Envy, sedition, strife,
    Carnage and war, make up the tale of life.
  12. abhor
    feel hatred or disgust toward
    Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage
    Of unregarded age,
    Joyless, companionless and slow,
    Of woes the crowning woe.
  13. antic
    ludicrously odd
    Ah me, my sisters, shall I first lament
    My own afflictions, or my aged sire's,
    Whom here I find a castaway, with you,
    In a strange land, an ancient beggar clad
    In antic tatters, marring all his frame,
    While o'er the sightless orbs his unkept locks
    Float in the breeze; and, as it were to match,
    He bears a wallet against hunger's pinch.
  14. transgression
    the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle
    For transgressions past
    May be amended, cannot be made worse.
  15. primogeniture
    right of inheritance belonging exclusively to the eldest son
    I have been banished from my native land
    Because by right of primogeniture
    I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne
    Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother,
    Ousted me, not by weight of precedent,
    Nor by the last arbitrament of war,
    But by his popular acts; and the prime cause
    Of this I deem the curse that rests on thee.
  16. soothsayer
    someone who makes predictions of the future
    So likewise hold the soothsayers, for when
    I came to Argos in the Dorian land
    And took the king Adrastus' child to wife,
    Under my standard I enlisted all
    The foremost captains of the Apian isle,
    To levy with their aid that sevenfold host
    Of spearmen against Thebes, determining
    To oust my foes or die in a just cause.
  17. peerless
    eminent beyond or above comparison
    Foremost the peerless warrior, peerless seer,
    Amphiaraiis with his lightning lance...
  18. remit
    diminish or abate
    Thus by thy children and thy life, my sire,
    We all adjure thee to remit thy wrath
    And favor one who seeks a just revenge
    Against a brother who has banned and robbed him.
  19. upstart
    a person who has suddenly risen to a higher economic status
    I'll scatter with a breath the upstart's might,
    And bring thee home again and stablish thee,
    And stablish, having cast him out, myself.
  20. conversant
    well informed about or knowing thoroughly
    Nothing is here for tears; it must be borne
    By me till death, and I shall think of thee
    As of my murderer; thou didst thrust me out;
    'Tis thou hast made me conversant with woe,
    Through thee I beg my bread in a strange land;
    And had not these my daughters tended me
    I had been dead for aught of aid from thee.
  21. austere
    of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor
    Therefore just Heaven hath an eye on thee;
    Howbeit not yet with aspect so austere
    As thou shalt soon experience, if indeed
    These banded hosts are moving against Thebes.
  22. flout
    treat with contemptuous disregard
    Such curse I lately launched against you twain,
    Such curse I now invoke to fight for me,
    That ye may learn to honor those who bear thee
    Nor flout a sightless father who begat
    Degenerate sons—these maidens did not so.
  23. staunch
    firm and dependable especially in loyalty
    Go now proclaim
    What thou hast heard to the Cadmeians all,
    Thy staunch confederates—this the heritage
    that Oedipus divideth to his sons.
  24. quail
    draw back, as with fear or pain
    How could I lead again
    An army that had seen their leader quail?
  25. wroth
    intensely angry or incensed
    But, brother, why shouldst thou be wroth again?
  26. portend
    indicate by signs
    What doth the lightning-flash portend?
  27. guerdon
    a reward or payment
    For our guest to thee would bring
    And thy folk and offering,
    Thy due guerdon.
  28. peal
    a deep prolonged sound
    This thunder, peal on peal, this lightning hurled
    Flash upon flash, from the unconquered hand.
  29. inviolate
    treated as if holy and kept free from violation or criticism
    Thus shalt thou hold this land inviolate
    From the dread Dragon's brood.
  30. goad
    urge with or as if with a prod
    But to the spot—the god within me goads—
    Let us set forth no longer hesitate.
  31. sepulcher
    a chamber that is used as a grave
    Oh, touch me not, but let me all alone
    Find out the sepulcher that destiny
    Appoints me in this land.
  32. brazen
    made of or resembling brass, as in color or hardness
    So having reached the abrupt
    Earth-rooted Threshold with its brazen stairs,
    He paused at one of the converging paths,
    Hard by the rocky basin which records
    The pact of Theseus and Peirithous.
  33. observance
    conformity with law, custom, or practice
    Then calling to his daughters bade them fetch
    Of running water, both to wash withal
    And make libation; so they clomb the steep;
    And in brief space brought what their father bade,
    Then laved and dressed him with observance due.
  34. ineffable
    defying expression or description
    What tongue can tell
    That sight ineffable?
  35. repine
    express discontent
    Dear father, wrapt for aye in nether gloom,
    E'en in the tomb
    Never shalt thou lack of love repine,
    Her love and mine.
Created on Wed Apr 08 11:19:02 EDT 2020 (updated Wed Apr 08 11:27:27 EDT 2020)

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