A) Odyssey 11.271-280
"I also saw fair Epikaste, mother of king Oedipus, whose awful lot it was to marry her own son without suspecting it in her noos. He married her after having killed his father, but the gods proclaimed the whole story to the world; whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the spite the gods had borne him; but Epikaste went to the house of the mighty gatekeeper Hades, having hanged herself for grief, and the Erinyes haunted him as for an outraged mother - to his ruing bitterly thereafter."

B) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 169-187
Alas, countless are the sorrows I bear! 170 A plague is on all our people, and thought can find no weapon for defense. The fruits of the glorious earth do not grow; by no birth of offspring do women surmount the labors in which they shriek. 175 You can see life after life speed away, like a bird on the wing, swifter than irresistible fire, to the shore of the western god.

With such deaths past numbering, the polis perishes. 180 Unpitied, her children lie on the ground, spreading pestilence, with no one to mourn them. Meanwhile young wives and gray-haired mothers raise a wail at the steps of the altars, some here, some there, 185 and groan in supplication for their terrible pains [ponoi]. The prayers to the Healer ring clear, and with them the voice of lamentation.

C) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 14-57
Oedipus, ruler of my land, you see the age of those who sit on your altars: some, nestlings still too tender for flight; others, bowed with age, priests of Zeus like me; and some, these here, the chosen youth. The rest of the folk sit with wreathed branches in the agora, and before the twin temples of Athena, and where Ismenus gives answer by fire. The polis, as you yourself see, is now sorely buffeted, and can no longer lift her head from beneath the angry waves of death. A blight has befallen the fruitful blossoms of the land, the herds among the pastures, the barren pangs of women. And the flaming god, a most hateful plague, has swooped upon us, and ravages the polis; he lays waste to the house of Cadmus, but enriches Hades with groans and tears. It is not because we rank you with the gods that I and these children are suppliants at your hearth, but because we deem you the first among men in life's common chances and in dealings with the daimones. Coming to the city of the Cadmeans, you freed us of the tax that we rendered to the hard songstress, and when you knew no more than anyone else, nor had you been taught, but rather by the assistance of a god, as the story goes, you uplifted our life. Now, Oedipus, most powerful, we, your suppliants, beseech you to find some succor for us, whether you hear it from some divine omen, or learn of it from some mortal. For I see that the outcome of the counsels of experienced men most often have effect. Come, best [aristos] among mortals, resurrect our polis! Come, take care, since now this land gives you kleos as its savior [sôtêr] for your former zeal. Let it not be our memory of your reign that we were first set up straight and then cast down; resurrect this polis so that it falls no more! With good omen you provided us that past happiness; show yourself the same now too, since if you are to rule this land just as you do now, it is better to be lord of men than of a wasteland. Neither tower nor ship is anything, if it is empty and no men dwell within.

D) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 1197-1203
For he, O Zeus, shot his arrow with peerless skill, and won the prize of an entirely happy prosperity [eudaimôn olbos], having slain the maiden with crooked talons who sang darkly. 1200 He arose for our land like a tower against death. And from that time, Oedipus, you have been called our king, and have been given tîmê supremely, holding sway in great Thebes.

E) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 58-77
My piteous children, I know quite well the desires with which you have come; I know well that you all are sick, and though you are sick I know well that there is not one of you who is as sick as I. Your pain comes on each of you for himself alone, and for no other, but my psukhê groans at once for the polis, for myself, and for you. You are not awakening me from sleep; no, be sure that I have wept many tears, gone many ways in the wanderings of my thought. I have made use of the only remedy which I could find after close consideration: I sent my wife's brother Creon, Menoikeus' son, to Apollo's Pythian residence in order to learn what we might do or say to protect this polis. And now, when the lapse of days is reckoned, I'm troubled about what he is doing, for he tarries oddly beyond the fitting length of time. But when he arrives, I will be kakos if do not perform all that the god reveals.

F) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 95-101
Creon: I will tell you what I heard from the god. Phoebus our lord clearly bids us to drive out the miasma which he said was harbored in this land, and not to nourish it so that it cannot be healed.

Oedipus: With what sort of purification [katharsis]? What is the manner of the misfortune?

Creon: By banishing the man, or by paying back bloodshed with bloodshed, since it is this blood which brings the tempest on our polis.

G) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 241-272
Oedipus: Ban him [the murderer] from your houses, all of you, knowing that this is the miasma as the oracle of the Pythian god has recently shown to me….And for myself I pray that if he should, 250 with my knowledge, become a resident of my house, I may suffer [paskhô] the same things which I have just called down on others. I order you to make all these words come to fulfillment [telos]... And for those who do not obey me, I pray that the gods 270 send them neither harvest of the earth nor fruit of the womb, but that they perish by the present fate, or by one still worse.

H) Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos 1266-1285
And when the hapless woman was stretched out on the ground, then the sequel was horrible to see: for he tore from her raiment the golden brooches with which she had decorated herself, and lifting them struck his own eye-balls, uttering words like these: "No longer will you behold such evils as I was suffering [paskhô] and performing! Long enough have you looked on those whom you ought never to have seen, having failed in the knowledge of those whom I yearned to know - henceforth you shall be dark!" With such a dire refrain, he struck his eyes with raised hand not once but often. At each blow the bloody eye-balls bedewed his beard, and did not send forth sluggish drops of gore, but all at once a dark shower of blood came down like hail. These mingled evils have broken forth upon the heads of them both, not of one alone, on husband and wife together. Their old prosperity [olbos] was once true prosperity, and justly [dikaia] so. But now on this day there is lamentation, atê, death, disgrace; of all the evils that can be named, not one is missing.

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For more on the myths connected with Thebes and the story of Oedipus see the entry for Oedipus on The Greek Mythology Link.

Robin Mitchell-Boyask's Study Guide for Sophocles' Oedipus the King contains study questions and links to many helpful resources.