Happy Valentine's day, thugs.
Today, we searchin for some muthaf**kin truth with "Oedipus The King" by Sophocles.
Man, it is rainin sh*t on the kingdom of Thebes.
A plague been killin homies by the stack, and now errybody askin King Oedipus what he gonna do bout it.
When word comes from da Oracle of Apollo,
Oedipus finds out that the murderer of the old king, Laius, is in town.
And if he wanna save his people from the plague, dat fool has got to go.
When da blind prophet, Tiresias, swangs in to Thebes, Oedipus ask dis fool, "Who dis mystery killa be?"
Since Mr. T pities dat fool, he aint wanna tell him the cold truth.
Oedpius be like, “Man, cut the bullsh** and start talkin, fool.”
So, Tiresias oblige a brotha and say that Oedipus smoked the ol' king.
Oedipus all like, “What you say?!"
Tired of gettin called out, dat blind prophet starts runnin his mouth:
“Yo Oedipus, stop frontin. You don’t even know who your parents are.
And when you do find da truth, it’s gonna be lights out, playboy."
Then, Oedipus’s hunny, Jocasta, tell him not to pay that hater no mind.
First off, Laius was killed by a crew of gang bangers. And second, some prophecies don’t mean sh*t.
Laius was supposed to be murked by his own son, so he and Jocasta tossed dat baby.
S’all good now, right?
But after Jocasta describes where Laius got shanked, Oeddy be like,
“Oh, sh*t. Now dat you mention it, maybe I did kill dis fool. My bad.”
Back in the day, Oedipus cruised over to Apollo’s Oracle and heard that he was gonna murk his own daddy
and pork his mama.
So, our boy flips sh*t and bounces outta Corinth, never to return.
On the way to Thebes, he wrecked some haters cuz they got all up in his grill.
Turns out, one of those haters was Laius!
Then, Oedipus gets the word from a messenger that Corinth wasn’t actually his original hood.
Naw, Baby Oed was found chillin near a mountain. And according some nappy-ass shepherd,
Lauis’s son was dropped off at the same spot!
Oh sh*t! That means Oedipus been bonin his mama!
His mama!
And his kids are his brothas and sistas?
Aww, man...that's nasty, man. Disgusting.
So, they do the only logical thing: Jocasta kills herself, and Oedipus stabs his eyes out wit gold pins.
Then, Oedipus throws up the deuce to all of Thebes and spends the rest of his days wandering the earth.
This sh*t, right here, is widely considered to be the dankest of all Greek plays.
Even Sigmund Freud, the big daddy of psychoanalytic theory,
say errybody got such a hard-on for this play, cuz we all just like Oedipus —
"his destiny moves us only because it might have been ours — because the oracle laid the same curse upon us
before our birth as upon him.
It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother
and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that this is so."
Lemme lay this on ya, playboy.
Sophocles droppin images of knowledge and ingance on yo bitch ass like you ain’t even know.
For example, Oedipus’s name recalls the Greek word “oida” which means “I know,” or “I have seen.”
Ever since showin out by solvin da riddle of the sphinx,
King Oeddy been gettin mad props for droppin knowledge on all dem Theben suckas.
And now he got a big ol’ head cuz of it.
But after gettin bitch-slapped by the truth, our boy recognize that he don’t know a damn thing.
So, Sophocles spittin some top rank paradox up in here.
When Oedipus had his eyes, he couldn’t recognize the truth.
But when dat fool blind as Tiresias, he can finally see what’s up.
That’s a big-ass reversal son.
In fact, Aristotle was all up on dis play's nuts cuz of dat swole reversal, or "peripeteia," in ancient Greek.
Cuz the playa who was askin da question, ended up being da answer;
the doc who was searchin for the cure, ended up bein the sickness.
In a situation that f**ked up, it’s hard to believe the gods ain’t got his ass on a leash.
Hell, every single prophecy bout daddy-slayin and mama-lovin turned out to be the raw truth.
So if the gods got Oedipus’s game on lock, does he get to do any shot-callin?
Some ivory tower Gs think he do.
In spite of all the wack-ass mess that Oedipus gotta grind through, he still got da freedom to chase da truth.
Every single step of the way, there be haters tryin to tellin him to slow his roll.
But Oedipus ain’t no bitch.
He goes hard in the paint and finds the truth,
even if it means losin his throne, his eyes, and never havin the ability to get a boner again.
Naw I mean?
So, was it worth it? Maybe. But no matter what, you gotta give it up for our boy, Oedipus.
Cuz chasin da truth may be the only real human freedom we got.
Yo, thanks for watchin. Make yo V-Day extra hot with some dope Thug Notes swag.
Be sure to subscribe, and word to yo mama. Peace.