CREON:

Question

CREON:
Good news, for e'en intolerable ills,
Finding right issue, tend to naught but good.
OEDIPUS:
How runs the oracle? thus far thy words
Give me no ground for confidence or fear.
CREON:
If thou wouldst hear my message publicly,
I'll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within.
OEDIPUS:
Speak before all; the burden that I bear
Is more for these my subjects than myself.
CREON:
Let me report then all the god declared.
King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate
A fell pollution that infests the land,
And no more harbor an inveterate sore.
OEDIPUS:
What expiation means he? What's amiss?
CREON:
Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood.
This stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state.
OEDIPUS:
Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?
CREON:
Before thou didst assume the helm of State,
The sovereign of this land was Laius.
OEDIPUS:
I heard as much, but never saw the man.
CREON:
He fell; and now the god's command is plain:
Punish his takers-off, whoe'er they be.
OEDIPUS:
Where are they? Where in the wide world to find
The far, faint traces of a bygone crime?
In this land, said the god; "who seeks shall find;
Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind."
OEDIPUS:
Was he within his palace, or afield,
Or traveling, when Laius met his fate?
CREON:
Abroad; he started, so he told us, bound
For Delphi, but he never thence returned.
OEDIPUS:
Came there no news, no fellow-traveler
To give some clue that might be followed up?
CREON:
But one escape, who flying for dear life,
Could tell of all he saw but one thing sure.
OEDIPUS:
And what was that? One clue might lead us far,
With but a spark of hope to guide our quest.
CREON:
Robbers, he told us, not one bandit but
A troop of knaves, attacked and murdered him. So, On page 3, what happened on the story based on the text. Please use short sentences

Answer 1

Creon brings news from the oracle. The land is suffering from a pollution. Oedipus wants to hear the message publicly. Creon reveals that the oracle demands the punishment of Laius's killers. Oedipus wants to know who they are. He learns that Laius was killed before he took the throne. Creon explains that Laius was attacked while traveling to Delphi. A sole survivor escaped and reported that a group of bandits murdered Laius. Oedipus is determined to find the truth.