Exodos

The Second Messenger comes out of the palace. Greek convention forbids violence on stage, so the audience hears what has happened in narrative form. Jocasta, the messenger says, rushed to the bridal chamber, slammed the doors behind her, and called out the name of Laius — remembering the son she had borne him, by whom she had then conceived more children. She hanged herself. Oedipus burst in moments later, found her hanging, cut the noose, took the gold brooches from her gown, and drove them into his own eyes again and again. They would never see, he cried, the evils he had suffered and committed. The blood ran down his face like a black storm of hail.

The doors open. Oedipus comes out, blind, feeling his way. He addresses the chorus — what god has driven me to this? — and they cannot answer. He asks why he was ever saved on the mountain. Creon arrives in the quiet authority of the new ruler. He does not gloat. He instructs the servants to bring Oedipus inside and to wait on Apollo before deciding the questions of exile or burial.

Oedipus asks for three things: exile from Thebes; burial for Jocasta; one last embrace with his daughters. Creon grants the last at once. Antigone and Ismene are brought out. Oedipus holds them, weeping, and tells them their lives will be hard — no one will marry them, the curse on his house will follow them. Creon, gently but firmly, leads him indoors; the gods, he reminds him, will decide the rest. The chorus closes with the line that has become the play's signature: count no man happy until he has crossed the boundary of life free from pain. The plague is lifted by the same logic that opened the play. The price has been the king.