Scene 1
The plague at the palace doors
Suppliants of every age — children, elders, priests with olive branches wreathed in wool — sit at the altar before the palace. Oedipus comes out to them. The Priest of Zeus speaks for the city: the crops are blighted, the cattle dying, the women dying in childbirth, and Thebes looks to the man who once solved the Sphinx's riddle to save it again. Oedipus answers that he has already sent Creon, his brother-in-law, to consult Apollo at Delphi. As he speaks, Creon arrives. The oracle's answer is plain: Thebes is polluted by the unavenged murder of Laius, and will not heal until the murderer is found and driven out. Oedipus pledges to find the killer.
Scene 2
The chorus prays to Apollo
The Chorus of Theban Elders enters and sings the play's opening ode. They have heard that an oracle has come back from Delphi and they are waiting to learn what it says. Their fear is the city's fear — the plague is killing Thebes, the dead lie unburied, the women's labors come to nothing. They call on Athena, Artemis, and Apollo to defend the city as they did long ago. They invoke Zeus, Dionysus, the Healer of Delos, every god who has ever helped Thebes. They beg Bacchus to drive the war-god Ares out of the land. The ode is the city speaking out of its own grief, before any name has been named.
Scene 3
The curse and the prophet
Oedipus comes back out and addresses the city. He pronounces a sweeping curse on whoever killed Laius, and on anyone who shelters him: no fire, no water, no prayer, no household will accept that man. He binds himself to the curse — even if the killer turns out to live in his own house. He summons Tiresias, the blind prophet, to help. Tiresias arrives led by a boy and refuses to speak. Oedipus, enraged, accuses the prophet of complicity in the murder. Goaded, Tiresias finally names Oedipus as the killer himself and prophesies that the man with two good eyes will be blind before the day is out. Oedipus dismisses every word and sends him away.
Scene 4
The chorus cannot believe it
The chorus is left alone on stage. They sing the First Stasimon, weighing what they have just heard. Apollo's word has named the killer; the killer is somewhere in flight, hunted by the Fates. They cannot deny that. But they will not accept Tiresias's accusation against Oedipus. Where is the proof? They know of no quarrel between the house of Labdacus, Laius's family, and the son of Polybus. The seers may be wise, but seers are also wrong, and the king saved Thebes from the Sphinx when the seers could not. They will not condemn him on a prophet's word. Until the truth is shown plainly, they hold to the king who has been their salvation.
Scene 5
The quarrel with Creon
Creon has heard what Oedipus accused him of and comes out to defend himself. Oedipus is contemptuous from the first word — the brazen-faced rogue, the would-be murderer. Creon answers calmly. He argues that a man who already shares power without responsibility would be mad to scheme for the throne; he asks for evidence; he reminds Oedipus that he himself proposed sending for Tiresias. Oedipus refuses to listen and threatens Creon with death. Jocasta comes out and rebukes both men for letting private fury erupt in public while the city is dying. The chorus joins her. Oedipus, against his own judgment, lets Creon go — warning him he is sparing him only at the queen's word.
Scene 6
A short ode, a queen at the door
A short interlude. The chorus, instead of a full ode, exchanges lines with Jocasta, urging her to take her husband inside. She asks how the quarrel began; the chorus says only that rumor bred unjust suspicion, and that the city is too sorely distressed for old wounds to be reopened. Oedipus, still on stage, complains that the chorus is softening his zeal. The chorus answers that they would be witless to cast aside the king who guided the city through its worst danger. The exchange is brief and uneasy. It is the only stasimon in the play that does not stand alone — a sign that the action will not pause.
Scene 7
The crossroads
Jocasta asks Oedipus what has shaken him. He tells her Creon has named him as the murderer. She tries to comfort him with a story. An oracle once came to Laius, predicting he would be killed by his own son; instead Laius was killed by foreign robbers at a place where three roads meet. So oracles cannot be trusted. Oedipus, hearing the crossroads, goes still. He asks her to describe Laius and the place. The descriptions match. He tells her about a furious quarrel he had on the road from Corinth, an old man in a chariot, a fight in which he killed them all. He clings to one thread: the witness said robbers, plural. He sends for him.
Scene 8
The chorus defends the gods
The chorus, alone, sings the play's most famous lyric. After Jocasta has dismissed oracles as fraud, the elders defend them. May my lot be still to follow the old laws ordained on high, they sing, whose birthplace is Olympus and not mortal speech. These laws never sleep; the god in them does not grow old. Insolence breeds tyrants; the proud sinner falls from his height. If men can scoff at oracles and rise to honor, why dance the sacred dances anymore? The ode is in part a defense of religion against political convenience, in part the chorus declaring that they will hold to the gods whatever happens to the king.
Scene 9
The Corinthian, and the trapdoor
Jocasta returns with offerings to Apollo, asking the gods to ease her husband's mind. As she prays, a messenger arrives from Corinth. Polybus has died of old age, and the Corinthians want Oedipus to come and reign. Jocasta seizes on it — the prophecy was empty. Oedipus exults. But one fear remains: his mother Merope is still alive. The Corinthian, trying to ease the king's worry, reveals that Merope was never his real mother. He himself received Oedipus as an infant on Mount Cithaeron from a herdsman of Laius and gave him to the childless Polybus. Jocasta understands the truth in a flash. She begs Oedipus to stop. He hears her as a queen embarrassed by his low birth.
Scene 10
The herdsman, and the chorus's lament
The herdsman is led on stage, old and reluctant. The Corinthian recognizes him at once. The herdsman tries to deny everything; Oedipus threatens him with torture; he confesses. He was given the infant by Jocasta herself with orders to expose it on Mount Cithaeron. He could not bring himself to kill it; he gave it to the Corinthian shepherd. The child was the son of Laius. Oedipus understands and cries out that he is revealed accursed — the killer of those he should not have killed. He runs into the palace. The chorus, alone, sings the great lament: count no man happy, for the most exalted of mortals can be brought down by a single day.
Scene 11
The blinding, and the price
A second messenger comes out of the palace. Jocasta rushed to the bridal chamber, locked the doors, called out the name of Laius, and hanged herself with a running noose. Oedipus broke the doors down, found her, took the gold brooches from her gown, and drove them into his own eyes. The palace doors open. Oedipus comes out blind, blood running down his face. Creon arrives in measured authority and leads him gently inside. Oedipus asks for exile; Creon says the gods will decide. The daughters Antigone and Ismene are brought out for one last embrace. The chorus closes the play: count no man happy until he has crossed the boundary of life free from pain.