Oedipus the King: List 2

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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Here is a link to our list for Antigone by Sophocles.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. taciturnity
    the trait of being uncommunicative
    Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.
    Will nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee,
    Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?
  2. flout
    treat with contemptuous disregard
    And who could stay his choler when he heard
    How insolently thou dost flout the State?
  3. stint
    supply sparingly and with restricted quantities
    Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,
    but speak my whole mind.
    Teiresias's status in Thebes gives him some freedom in his speech (and silence). But Oedipus's wrath and choler are getting the better of him (this same angry nature is what led him to murder the travelers). No longer able to stint his words, Oedipus accuses Teiresias of being the mastermind behind the murder of Laius. This actually succeeds in provoking Teiresias to throw the truthful accusation back at Oedipus.
  4. calumny
    a false accusation of an offense
    Thou shalt rue it
    Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.
  5. charlatan
    a flamboyant deceiver
    for this crown
    The trusty Creon, my familiar friend,
    Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned
    This mountebank, this juggling charlatan,
    This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone
    Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind.
    "Charlatan," "mountebank," and "tricksy beggar-priest" are all the same insult. Angry that Teiresias should dare accuse him of being the cause of the kingdom's troubles, Oedipus accuses Teiresias not only of being a false prophet for profit, but also of conspiring with Creon to take his throne.
  6. reverberate
    ring or echo with sound
    Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach,
    What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then
    Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found
    With what a hymeneal thou wast borne
    Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale!
    Oedipus gets a huge hint here that there's something seriously wrong with his marriage (a hymeneal is a wedding march) that would make his cries reverberate off mountains. But he is so angry that he does not see the truth and believes instead that Teiresias is just being foolishly rude.
  7. petulance
    an irritable feeling
    This taunt, it well may be, was blurted out
    In petulance, not spoken advisedly.
  8. glib
    artfully persuasive in speech
    Thou art glib of tongue, but I am slow to learn
    Of thee; I know too well thy venomous hate.
  9. repose
    freedom from activity
    First, I bid thee think,
    Would any mortal choose a troubled reign
    Of terrors rather than secure repose,
    If the same power were given him?
  10. probity
    complete and confirmed integrity
    Respect a man whose probity and troth
    Are known to all and now confirmed by oath.
  11. truculent
    defiantly aggressive
    Thou art as sullen in thy yielding mood
    As in thine anger thou wast truculent.
  12. unrelenting
    not to be placated or appeased or moved by entreaty
    Let me too, I adjure thee, know, O king,
    What cause has stirred this unrelenting wrath.
  13. suffice
    be adequate, either in quality or quantity
    Yet was I quits with him and more; one stroke
    Of my good staff sufficed to fling him clean
    Out of the chariot seat and laid him prone.
    And so I slew them every one.
  14. ethereal
    of heaven or the spirit
    My lot be still to lead
    The life of innocence and fly
    Irreverence in word or deed,
    To follow still those laws ordained on high
    Whose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky
  15. emulous
    eager to surpass others
    But O may Heaven the true patriot keep
    Who burns with emulous zeal to serve the State.
Created on Wed Jul 16 15:07:31 EDT 2025 (updated Wed Jul 16 15:15:04 EDT 2025)

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