Oedipus The King Pages 182-185 [10/07/2011]

Today I read paged 182-185 of Oedipus The King. Creon is now the sole defense of the country. He consulted the gods about Oedipus and instead of death Creon is going to drive him far away where he can't hear a human voice and Oedipus will stay there forever. Creon also let Oedipus see his kids and hold them. But he had to give them back and then Creon took him away.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 176-181 [10/06/2011]

Today I read pages 176-181 of Oedipus The Kind. Oedipus's wife was actually his birth mom, and when he was a baby she gave him to the shepherd with orders to kill the baby. Jocasta was terrified over the horrible prophecies. But he didn't kill the baby, instead he gave the baby to Laius's father, Polybus. The shepherd pitied the baby, he also told Oedipus that King Laius,

"hoped he'd take him off to his own country,

far away, but he saved him for this, this fate.

If you are the man he says you are, believe me,

you were born for pain."

His wife Jocasta killed herself after storming out of the room earlier. She was ripping her out as she rushed up to her room, slamming doors, flinging herself across the bridal-bed. Oedipus found Jocasta hanging by her neck. He cried as he slipped the halter from her throat, and laid her down in a slow embrace. Then he took the long gold pins that held her robe and dug them into his eye sockets as he said,

"You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused

Too long you looked on the ones you never should have seen,

blind to the ones you longed to see, to know! Blind

from this hour on! Blind in the darkness-blind!"

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Oedipus The King Pages 171-175 [10/05/2011]

Today I read pages 171-175 of Oedipus The King The messenger told Oedipus that Polybus wasn't his real father.

"Polybus was nothing to you, that's why, not in blood."

He even said that Polybus and himself were equals.

"No more than I am. He and I are equals."

Oedipus was confused because the messenger was a stranger. He meant nothing to Oedipus so how could he be equal to his father?

"Neither was he, no more your father than I am."

"Then why did he call me his son?"

"You were a gift-"

The messenger was the person who found Oedipus to give to Polybus. He found him down the woody flanks of Mount Cithaeron. He was a herdsman scraping for wages. But he was also Oedipus's savior. When he first found him his ankles were pinned together and he set him free. The messenger actually got Oedipus from another shepherd who was a servant of Laius. Oedipus set out to solve the mystery of his birth. Jocasta really doesn't want him to search for his parents but he refuses to let it go. After telling a servant to go get the herdsman he then tells him to,

"Leave her to glory in her royal birth." - referring to Jocasta

Jocasta got aggravated and shot back saying,

"Man of agony-

that is the only name I have for you,

that, no other-ever, ever, ever!"

She then stormed out of the room but it doesn't even faze Oedipus at all. He was to focused on finding out who his birth parents were. He met the shepherd that gave him to the messenger. The shepherd didn't want to tell Oedipus anything but Oedipus started to violently threaten the old man. He admitted to giving the messenger the baby and he also said,

"I wish to god I'd died that day."

After more threats to harm the old shepherd he told them that the child came from the house of Laius. Then he finally said,

"All right! His son, they say it was-his son!"

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 166-170 [10/04/2011]

Today I read pages 166-170 of Oedipus The King. Oedipus believes that he indeed killed the previous King Laius, but he also has a witness that he didn't question yet and he sees this witness as his last hope. If the witness's story matched Jocasta's, he can't be the killer, because she said 'thieves'. However, if the witness only mentions one killer, Oedipus is clearly guilty. Jocasta, Oedipus's wife, went to the temples of the gods with her branch and incense in hand. She starts to beg Apollo to cleanse her and Oedipus and to set them free of defilement. Jocasta's life changed in the blink of an eye. She even compared it to a plane crashing.

"Look at us, passengers in the grip of fear,

watching the pilot of the vessel go to pieces."

A messenger from Corinth comes to King Oedipus's palace and tells Jocasta that Polybus is dead and Corinth now wants Oedipus to be their king. Jocasta remembered that this is the same man Oedipus fled not to kill and thought to herself,

"-and now he's dead,

quite by chance, a normal, natural death,

not murdered by his son."

She finds out soon after though that Polybus died of sickness and old age. The death of his father seemed to lift a huge weight off of Oedipus's shoulders.

"But now, all those prophecies I feared-Polybus

packs them off to sleep with him in hell!

They're nothing, worthless."

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 162-165 [10/03/2011]

Today I read pages 162-165 of Oedipus The King. Jocasta, Oedipus's wife, told Oedipus the story of King Laius's death. Oedipus found out that Laius was cut down where three roads meet. It was a place called Phocis. It had two branching roads, one from Daulia, and one from Delphi, they all came together and formed a crossroads. As he learnt more about the previous king, Oedipus starts getting worried. He even said,

"I think I've just called down a dreadful curse

upon myself-I simply didn't know!"

Then Oedipus told Jocasta about the time he went to Delphi with his parents not knowing. Apollo denied Oedipus the facts that he had came for. Apollo started to cry in pain, terror, and disaster,

"You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring

a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see-

you will kill your own father, the one who gave you life!"

After hearing that, Oedipus ran away, far away to a place where these things wouldn't happen. Thats when he reached the same crossroads where King Laius was murdered. As Oedipus walked through the crossroads he saw a man that looked just like Jocasta's description of King Laius. This stranger and another old man were about to thrust Oedipus off the road and that when he strikes this man who may have been King Laius. At the end of the story he tells Jocasta,

"I killed them all-every mother's son!"

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 157-161 [9/30/2011]

Today I read pages 157-161 of Oedipus The King. Creon felt really bad about the charges that Oedipus publicly gave to him. Creon really wanted a chance to talk to Oedipus but Oedipus didn't really want to listen to anything he had to say and just kept on yelling at him and insisting that Creon really was trying to kill him and become king.

"You-here? You have the gall

to show your face before the palace gates?

You, plotting to kill me, kill the king-

I see it all, the marauding thief himself

scheming to steal my crown and power!"

Creon even tells Oedipus that he should go to Delphi himself and see if he really went there and if he reported the message he gave him word for word. If he hadn't, he told Oedipus that he can go ahead and arrest him or execute him. Creon was trying to keep Oedipus from ruling unjustly because Oedipus wants to charge him but he has no facts to prove that he did what Oedipus said he did. Oedipus is just using what he thinks and what he came up with himself to make a ruling which isn't fair at all.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 153-156 [9/29/2011]

Tiresias the blind prophet shows up and everyone expects him to know everything. Oedipus asks him to help find the killer and Tiresias refuses to say what he knows. Oedipus then accuses Tiresias of being the killer and Tiresias responded by saying that Oedipus is the curse and the Corruption of the land.

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Oedipus The King Pages 148-152 [9/28/2011]

The chorus was calling on all of the gods to destroy the god of death. I really like how Sophocles described death on page 200.

"Like seabirds winging west, outracing the day's fire

down the horizon, irresistibly

Streaking on the shores of evening

Death

So many deaths, numberless deaths on deaths, no end-"

I found that description to be really deep and while reading it I was able to visualize everything.

Oedipus knows exactly what he has to do to save his town and knows that praying to the gods wont help which is why he says,

"You pray to the gods? Let me grant your prayers."

He then tells them about the killer that they have to find and tells them to banish him.

"Drive him out, each of you, from every home.

He is the plague, the heart of our corruption-"

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 146-148 [9/27/2011]

Today I read pages 146-148 of Oedipus The King. Oedipus's brother in law, Creon, came back from Delphi after finding out how to save Thebes. The gods told him that murder sets the plague-storm on the city and there was a previous king, Laius who was murdered. Appolo is now commanded Oedipus to,

"Pay the killers back-whoever is responsible."

That is the only way to save their city so they have to search for the killer.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Oedipus The King Pages 143-145 [9/26/2011]

Today I read pages 143-145 of Oedipus The King. Oedipus is being approached by his people and they all huddle around his alter and begin to pray. He sees the priest and asks him to explain why they are doing this. The priest tells Oedipus that Thebes is dying and everyone believes that if anyone can fix things its Oedipus.

"Act now-we beg you, best of men, raise up our city!"

Oedipus had a response that I wasn't expecting. He basically told his people that he understands they are all in pain but he's in more pain then they are.

"But sick as you are, not one is sick as I.

Your pain strikes each of you alone, each

in the confines of himself, no other. but my spirit

grieves for the city, for myself and all of you."

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 220-224 [9/23/2011]

Today I finished reading Lysistrata. It had a very simple ending. The Athenians and Spartans made peace and the wives were allowed to have sex with there husbands again.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 215-219 [9/22/2011]

Today I read pages 215-219 of Lysistrata. On page 215 you can tell that the men are getting very sexually frustrated. After Myrrhine leaves her husband, Kinesias, after teasing him and not getting him off, Kinesias says,

"Now what shall I do? Whom shall I screw?

The mens leader then responds with,

"What kidney could bear it,

what soul, what balls,

what loins, what crotch,

thus stretched on the rack

and deprived of a morning fuck?"

Kinesias even goes on to say that he wants there to be a huge tornado that sweeps Myrrhine up, twirls her into the sky, and then lets go of her, and as she falls back down to earth Kinesias wants her to land right on his penis.

The men are all getting very sexually frustrated. On the bottom of page 215, Herald, who is a Spartan, enters and asks Kinesias where the Senate of Athens or the Prytanies are. At first Kinesias thought the Spartan was hiding a spear in his clothes. He soon finds out that the Spartan women are also not having sex with there husbands and Herald was actually trying to hide his hard-on.

The Athenians and the Spartans both arranged for ambassadors to negotiate a treaty. They invite lysistrata to there meeting because they know that she's the one in control of everything. Lysistrata talked to the Athenians and Spartans and basically said, how could you be at war when both of you have helped each other out in a huge way? You have no reason to fight.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 211-214 [9/21/2011]

Today I read pages 211-214 of Lysistrata. A husband actually came to where all of the women were staying and asked for his wife to speak with him. Lysistrata actually sent Myrrhine, his wife, to go and tease him. You could tell that Kinesias was very sexually frustrates. He was willing to do it anywhere he just wanted it right away. At this point I think Lysistrata's plan was really beginning to work.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 206-210 [9/20/2011]

Today I read pages 206-2010 of Lysistrata. All of the women were really starting to break, they all wanted to go home and have sex with there husbands. Lysistrata kept them locked up and refused to let them give up and go back on their vow. They were making up all kinds of outrageous excuses. One women even pretended to be going into labor yet she wasn't pregnant the day before.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 201-205 [9/19/2011]

Today I read pages 201-205 of Lysistrata. One thing I found really interesting was an argument that Lysistrata had with magistrate. Lysistrata was telling him that the women will handle everything. Magistrate got upset because as a man he feels that he should be the one handling things and taking care of everything.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 197-201 [9/16/2011]

The men try to gain control over the women that are now rebelling. My favorite part is the back and forth between the women's leader and the men's leader. The witty comments that both make are fast. The men always turn to violence while the women are always able to come up with something smart to say in return.
[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 194-197 [9/15/2011]

Lysistrata told the women her plan to stop the war. Her plan is for all the women to dress really slutty around their husbands all the time but deny them sex. All the women swear over a bowl of wine to not have sex with their husbands until the war is brought to an end.
[No participation grade this is a make up blog]

Lysistrata Pages 191-193 [9/14/2011]

Today I started reading Lysistrata. This play takes place back when women were only seen as house wives and sexual objects. The play begins with Lysistrata, a strong minded feminist, gathering all women to tell them her idea on how to end the war. Lysistrata seems to think shes a better women then everyone else and that shes smarter and above all.

[No participation grade this is a make up blog]