Oepidus Rex

Sup /book/

I had a question for you who have read the play Oepidus Rex (Guy kills dad marrys mom unknowingly). The problem I saw with it is a timline confliction. In the play it says that the only person who escapes from witnessing king Laius being murdered was a slave. It says when he got back to tell of the murder of king laius he misconstrued the story to say highwaymen attack the king instead of a lone man (oepidus) who was now the king out of fear that oepidus would have him killed seeing that he later took the thro e to replace Laius after defeating the sphinx. The only problem is that when oepidus questions freon why they hadn't searched for those responsible for the murder of the king he replies simply saying they had too much trouble with the sphinx to look for the kings murderers. But it would be impossible for them to know the king was killed until after oepidus killed the sphinx otherwise the slave would have told the true story of how lauis was killed rather than changing it for fear that oepidus would kill him.

The chronology of the play (not to mention that nobody has ever told King Oidipous what happened) does strain credibility to and beyond breaking point. See, if you can, R. D. Dawe's introduction, p. 16, to his 1982 Cambridge UP edition of the Greek text.

God damn it, it's called Oedipus the King, not Oedipus Rex. You wouldn't call Pokemon Poketto Monsuta, would you?

>>3
It's especially ridiculous as that's not even the original title, haha!

>>3
I would if thats how they marketed it in America.

>>5
Well then your translation is a shit translation!!

>>3
Actually, since the original Greek title in strict transliteration is Oidipous Tyrannos, and it became standard in Latin-speaking Europe, and thereafter in scholarship (of which Latin was the international common language until the late 19th or early 20th century) to refer to Greek works by the Latin translations of their titles, it is fairly unobjectionable to call the play Oedipus Rex, which is an exact Latin rendering of Oidipous Tyrannos - "tyrannos" in Greek at that point meaning "absolute ruler who had gained power by means other than descent".

In case >>7 wasn't clear enough, the point is that "Oedipus the King" and "Oedipus Rex" are exact equivalents of each other in English and Latin respectively, and neither is an exact rendering of the Greek title "Oidipous Tyrannos". The standard Greek word for king, and equivalent of Latin "rex", is "basileus"; while neither English nor Latin has an exact native equivalent of Greek "tyrannos", which is the etymological ancestor, but does not necessarily carry the inherently pejorative sense, of English "tyrant". In the play, Oidipous is called "basileus" once (1201) by the Theban chorus, and "tyrannos" twice (925, 939) but only by the Korinthian messenger. Laios is also called "tyrannos", and related forms are also used of kingship and ruling (380, 408).

>>7
>>8
Who cares???

>>9
You certainly cared enough to post.