Oedipus
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~9,470 words · 45 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). Oedipus. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/oedipus
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. Oedipus. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/oedipus.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. Oedipus. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/oedipus.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Oedipus discovers that he is the cause of the plague of Thebes, and what he has done without knowing it.
Context and history
Seneca does not compete with Sophocles; he does something else, drawing out the omens and the horror, so that what in the original is investigation is here an approaching doom. Tiresias's necromancy is not in Sophocles and is Seneca at his purest. The tragedies are not a literary appendix to Seneca's philosophy: they are the main road by which he set it out. Anger, the fear of death and fate, argued for in the letters, are here shown at work.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Effusam redimite comam nutante corymbo, mollia Nysaeis armati bracchia thyrsis! Lucidum caeli decus, huc ades votis quae tibi nobiles Thebae, Bacche, tuae palmis supplicibus ferunt. Huc adverte favens virgineum caput, vultu sidereo discute nubila et tristes Erebi minas avidumque fatum. Te decet cingi comam floribus vernis, te caput Tyria cohibere mitra hederave mollem bacifera religare frontem. Spargere effusos sine lege crines, rursus adducto revocare nodo; qualis iratam metuens novercam creveras falsos imitatus artus, crine flaventi simulata virgo, lutea vestem retinente zona: inde tam molles placuere cultus et sinus laxi fluidumque syrma. Vidit aurato residere curru, veste cum longa tegeres leones, (218) omnis Eoae plaga vasta terrae, qui bibit Gangen niveumque quisquis frangit Araxen. Te senior turpi sequitur Silenus asello, turgida pampineis redimitus tempora sortis; condita lascivi deducunt orgia mystae. Te Bassaridum comitata cohors nunc Edono pede pulsavit sola Pangaeo, nunc Threicio vertice Pindi; nunc Cadmeas inter matres impia maenas comes Ogygio venit laccho, nebride sacra praecincta latus thyrsumque levem vibrante manu, tibi commotae pectora matres fudere comam. iam post laceros Pentheos artus thyades, oestro membra remissae, velut ignotum videre nefas. Ponti regna tenet nitidi matertera Bacchi Nereidumque choris Cadmeia cingitur Ino; ius habet in fluctus magni puer advena ponti, cognatus Bacchi, numen non vile Palaemon. Te Tyrrhena, puer, rapuit manus, at tumidum Nereus posuit mare, (219) caerula cum pratis mutat freta: hinc verno platanus folio viret et Phoebo laurus carum nemus; garrula per ramos avis obstrepit; vivaces hederas remus tenet, summa ligat vitis carchesia.. Idaeus prora fremuit leo, tigris puppe sedet Gangetica.…