Oedipodea

The first poem in the lost Theban cycle the Oedipodea is a poem that relates the story of Oedipus. The poem is noted for having some slight varieties from the original such as the children of Oedipus being not born out of the incestuous marriage with his mother but of another marriage.

## Content

The content of the Oedipodea is must harder to determine as the Fragments are very scant. Various sources have been used to attempt to reconstruct an outline of the poem. One of which is the Pisander's scholium to Euripides' Phoenissae, which relates the arrival of the Sphinx to the rape of Chrysippus by Laius and thus might have also influenced his death by his son. However, the source is of some doubt since it takes information from several sources.

Only three Fragments of the poem survive but these tell quite a bit about the poem.

> The authors of the Story of Oedipus (say) of the Sphinx: "But furthermore (she killed) noble Haemon, the dear son of blameless Creon, the comeliest and loveliest of boys."
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Here the sphinx is portrayed much more as a devouring monster. Haemon's death occurring before the arrival of Oedipus is a strong difference between the version that was related in Sophocles' Antigone.

> That he had children by his mother, I do not believe; witness Homer, who wrote in the Odyssey, ‘And I saw Oedipus’ mother, fair Epicaste, who unwittingly did a terrible thing in marrying her own son, who had killed his father; and the gods soon made it known among people’. How did they soon make it known, if Oedipus had four children by Epicaste? No, they had been born from Euryganeia, the daughter of Hyperphas. This is made clear also by the poet of the epic that they call Oedipodea.
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This Fragment shows that in the epic cycle Oedipus remarried after the death of Epicaste and that his children were born from her. Thus the four children of Oedipus were not a result of incest. One of the reasons that this might have been added was the importance of Geology to the epic poems. Epics were used by Greek Kings to show lineage to heroes from the heroic times. Since there were many King who claimed to be related to the Labdacids it would not have been prudent to portray their heritage as being corrupted by incest.

It is also doubted as to whether Oedipus was blinded in the epic or not. His second marriage, the birth of his children and his continued rule of Thebes suggest that he was not blinded like in tragedy. However the Scholium of Pisander does state that he was blinded between the two marriages.

A further fragment in sometimes attributed the epic which contains the riddle between Oedipus and the Sphinx. Yet it is possible that this could have originated from an earlier tradition as some pottery indicates. The depiction of Oedipus' encounter with the Sphinx on pottery also brings up the question as to how Oedipus disposed of the creature. For some pottery depicts Oedipus as being a monster slaying hero taking on the Sphinx with a sword and also slaying other creatures such as the Teumessian Fox.

## Theban Cycle

### Next Poem

Thebaid

1. ↑ Ettore Cingano, ‘Oedipodea’, in Marco Fantuzzi and Christos Tsagalis
(ed.), *The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception* (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Pres, 2016), p. 213-226.