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In teasing out his own identity, Oedipus,
yes, has to reckon with his lineage, his

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background, with Jocasta and with Laius.
And as these things come to the fore,

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these awful conclusions he has to wrestle
with them and wind up in a terrible state

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of, of, of awful suffering.
But, as that part of his story is

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unfolding, another one is also piecing
itself together, which is another piece of

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what Greek identity is all about, not just
your lineage, recall, but also where

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you're from, the city, the land you're
from.

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Oedipus' story of where he's from is
interesting and complex.

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And, we can take a look at a, a map to try
to get a grip on how this story starts.

10
00:00:48,314 --> 00:00:53,088
You'll see here we've got Thebes,
Cithaeron and Corinth up here on our map

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showing us all the pieces they are around
from mainland Greece, down to the

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Peloponnese or the Corinthian peninsula
in-between.

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Thebes is a famous place, has a, a rich,
complex background.

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We're gonna talk about that next.
We'll also see that playing out in

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Euripides's back [inaudible] we're gonna
talk about next for this unit.

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Then also Corinth, another famous place,
well-known very civilized, very well

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well-settled.
Cithaeron is a different thing, Cithaeron

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is a tractless wilderness out on the
hillside, no civilization it's unsettled

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not, not kind of any well-known famous of
Liaus's place.

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Oedipus in trying to figure out his own
background and trying to figure out the

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land he's from yet toys with this
connection to Thebes on the one hand and

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the connection to Corinth on the other
hand,

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Where does he fit.
But as the play developes the mean vector

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connecting Oedipus to the, to the soil
around him actually goes back to this

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trackless wilderness of Cithaeron. Oedipus
is going to be a hero such as he is.

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From a place that is absolutely
uncivilized.

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We start to learn has this important role
in the story.

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It's looked at, at the very beginning the,
the question about land and what.

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Where Oedipus is connected to.
It comes up when Creon is talking.

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He's characterized in the oracle that he
got from, from, Delphi.

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In line 1.10 he tells us that the clue is
in the land.

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Now yes that's has one meaning.
He's talking to Oedipus about how they

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have to find the murderer of Laius and the
murderer of Laius is still among them.

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So the clue is in their land.
But the statement's also very general and

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in that sense invites us to read into what
I think a second layer of meaning.

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That says the clue to finding out what
you're all about Oedipus is also going to

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be in the land.
The story unfolds.

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Oedipus starts to develop a further and
deeper identity to this Cithaeron.

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This nowhere's,
Noman's land in the middle between the two

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places he thinks he might belong to,
Thebes and Corinth.

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We hear from a Corinthian Oh sorry from
Jocasta starting line 7.20.

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Talking about how Laius cast Oedipus out
forth on a pathless hillside.

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Cast Oedipus forth on a pathless hillside.
Oedipus at this point doesn't know it's

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him that they're talking about.
It's just the infant son.

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Unnamed as of yet infant son.
But you can see Oedipus starts to realise

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that there's some connection here that's
going to be happening with him.

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On 10.27 this starts to come home.
The Corinthian messenger who starts to

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piece together Oedipus's story in front of
him.

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Talks about on Cithaeron slopes in the
twisting thickets you were found.

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He has a connection to this pathless
hillside.

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The chorus at 10.95 shortly after that
tells us, or addresses Cithaeron directly

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saying, Oedipus honors you as native to
him and mother and nurse at once.

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Cithaeron is now getting the position of
being the actual lineage that makes

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Oedipus who Oedipus is.
And then Oedipus himself, a, a couple of

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points at the closing of the play, talks
directly to Cithaeron.

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Cithaeron, why did you receive me?
Why having received me, did you not kill

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me straight?
And then, finally, lines 1451 to three

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Leave me in the mountains where Cithaeron
is,

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That's called my mountain.
Which my father and my mother, while they

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were living, would have made my tomb.
But instead, for Oedipus, this becomes his

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womb.
Cithaeron, he starts to honor, as the

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entity that gives him his starting life.
He claims to be directly from the land.

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Now this piece of Greek identity,
remember, we've talked about lineages that

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have to do with your, your background
lineage identities that have to do with

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background lineage, your name, where
you're from, and your story about your

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past.
We've looked at how Oedipus', Biological

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lineage is compromised.
Cithaeron introduces us to how his

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connection to the land is compromised, so
he has to kinda find a pathless

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uncivilized place in the middle that he's
from between these two great places,

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But doesn't really belong to either of
them.

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And then his name is gonna come back to
haunt him too as we get toward the close

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and his own past comes fully together in
what we've already seen and that will come

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back down to weight on him even more
greatly in our next piece as we look at

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the connection between heroes and their
land.