"Oedipus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a mountain near Thebes. Apollo told Creon that she could not be vanquished, till some one had expounded her riddle. The riddle was—"What creature is that, which has four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" Oedipus expounded it, telling her it was a man,—who when a child, creepeth on all fours; in his middle age, walketh on two legs, and in his old age, two and a staff. This put the Sphynx into a great rage, who, finding her riddle solved, threw herself down and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Over what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could she have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not been in her library? A modern reader can make shift without Oedipus and Medea, while he possesses Othello and Hamlet. If he knows nothing of Pyrgopolynices and Thraso, he is familiar with Bobadil, and Bessus, and Pistol, and Parolles. If he cannot enjoy the delicious irony of Plato, he may find some compensation in that of Pascal. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... letter S is an emblem of a somewhat different kind; and, as it proves, more difficult to bring to a satisfactory solution than the symbols of heraldic blazon. As an initial it will bear many interpretations—it may be said, an indefinite number, for every new Oedipus has some fresh conjecture to propose. And this brings me to render the account required by Dr. Rock of the reasons which led me to conclude that the letter S originated with the office of Seneschallus or Steward. I must still refer to the Gentleman's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... of management caused me some amusement. The solemn clang of a gong presaging doom as dire as OEDIPUS'S (and incidentally inaudible to cigarette smokers in the foyer) gives notice of the resumption of the play, while at the end of the Acts the curtain flutters up and down at a feverish pace as if the idea was to get in as many "calls" as possible before the applause stops. Are we as guileless ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 25, 1919 • Various
... the emotions are to elevate, and the tragedy is to please us by the tears it draws! Imagine our shock if a poet were to place on the stage some wise gentleman with whom we dined yesterday, and who was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother. But when Oedipus commits those unhappy mistakes nobody is shocked. Oxford in the nineteenth century is a long way off from Thebes three thousand or ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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