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I wanted to be true and be looked at with respect. “No one suffered for Thebes more than I did, I sorrow more for them than for myself because I felt every bodies pain”. I was a true leader and one who always put my people before myself. I was one who understood what it was to be a ruler of a kingdom, and I did what needed to be done. I knew what my duty was and that was what I wanted to follow. I needed to save thousands of people and I would go to any means to find the truth to do so, even if it lead to my own demise.
The fault behind my fate lay partly on Apollo and on the prophecy that he told. Had I bee
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Why? Why do these things happen to me? Why when I try to be the best do I seem to get the worst? Was it my fate that led me here? I was destined to follow the prophecy at birth. However, it has “all come true, all burst to light! O light – now let me look my last on you! I stand revealed at last – cursed in my birth, cursed in marriage, cursed in the lives I cut down with these hands”. It has cost me almost everything, and as far as I knew I left Corinth to prevent this humiliation of wedding my mother and killing my father. No matter whose fault it was I should have realised that no mere mortal can change the will of the gods, and that I am only a pawn in the game of life and Apollo is the one who chooses how I am to move. I made the mistake of trying to change and flee from the curs. Although, was it not Apollo who started this nightmare by telling Jocasta and Laius what the future would bring them? Yes! That is the key to my innocence. I did not know what I was getting myself into before I went to Thebes. n blind to the prophecy I would have remained in Corinth and ruled as a true leader, and I would not have killed my father and married my mother. My fate lay in the hands of Apollo and he let the secret out. I do admit that I made some mistakes in my life, but who doesn’t. We are all born into a world we did not choose or create, stumbling blindly toward self-awareness and often knowingly deny who we are for shame or sake of others.
How can you blame me for committing murder when my own father, my own flesh and blood was the one who wanted me dead? Laius wanted me dead because he valued his own life more than he valued the life of his child (me). How can I go on with my life and see my children who are also my siblings? How could I look at the people I have ruled knowing that I caused them grief, and that I caused the plague on Thebes? When I reflect on these points I see that honor, is my only guide.
As I destroyed the sphinx by answering its riddle, I destroyed myself by answering the riddle of my own birth.
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