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.

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).