Costume Design - Oedipus

Tiresias: Purple

Purple is a color usually associated with royalty, so the initial thought would be to give this color to somebody like Oedipus or Jocasta. However, the color also means spirituality and wisdom. Tiresias, a man who has Apollo’s sight, is called into Thebes to help find the murderer of Laius.

Creon: Yellow

The color yellow is a stand-in for intelligence and wisdom, traits that Creon has. He has more knowledge on the situation and on the state of things in Thebes than Oedipus, especially when Oedipus accuses him of treachery. In addition, can mean betrayal, just like the charge that was once on his head.

Oedipus: Black

Oedipus makes a statement in his striking black tunic. Black is the symbol of the power, determination, and authority that he wields. It also signifies the ignorance of his prophesy, and the mourning and remorse he is in at the end of the tragedy.

Shepard: Brown

This color has two meanings that apply to the Shepard. One is the earth and outdoors, where the Shepard works. The other is mourning. The holder of the terrible truth, the Shepard knows that Oedipus will fall into despair when he tells him the truth.

Messenger: Blue

The messenger’s loyalty and devotion to Oedipus gains him this royal color. The messenger, a representative of Corinth, wants to bring Oedipus back as the ruler of Corinth.

Jocasta: Orange

This color accurately symbolizes Jocasta’s attraction to Oedipus as both a wife and as a mother. It also stands for her warnings to Oedipus not to pursue the identity of her late husband’s murderer.

The Diary of Jocasta

The Diary of Jocasta

Day XX, Month XX, Year XXXX

Why has Apollo come to this? Thebes is in disarray because of my late husband’s murder, and that prophet Tireses has to come and blurt out the truth right to Oedipus! “You are the curse, the corruption of the land! (401)” It was a good thing that there was a convenient misconception from that lone survivor; had Oedipus been told that he should look for one man and not that the lone survivor“said thieves attacked them (139)”, all of Thebes would be brought into further turmoil. If the truth ever got out that Oedipus is actually the killer, then the charges that he decreed will be brought down upon himself, and our town will likely be led by Creon. Oedipus already said to Creon “I want you dead (698)”; I fear that my brother won’t be kind to those close to my son and husband. Even so, I fear that everyone will find out soon enough. With Apollo breathing down our necks, it will only be a matter of days until we will find out the horrible truth. Oh! I fear that I may not live the day after the news breaks!

Discrimination

As we stepped off Nessus’s boat and onto land,

My eyes cast a glance upon an endless row

Of shacks that sat along the fiery river.

The places were in no better care than were

The many shantytowns that came plenty

After the darkest Tuesday: old wood made me deter

Myself from deciding to enter any

Of these ugly houses. They were together

Packed inward, with the space of just one body

Separating one dwelling from another.

The denizens of this unsightly area

Were cloaked in nothing but simple attires

That once covered their bodies from the neck down.

Now the garments were tattered, torn, singed, soiled,

And any combination of the four looks

Of a wanderer. An unknown action had

Burned the bodies of these helpless wretched souls,

While the brothers of Nessus lashed their backs

With metal hook whips dipped into the river.

A large wave from the molten Phlegethon

Struck one of the homes, setting the shack alight.

The fire spread to the other shacks in the

Instant that a horsefly takes to flap its wings.

The centaurs whipped the souls of the condemned and,

With the lack of water apparent, ordered

Them to destroy their own places so as to

Halt the spread of the fire. The blaze caught

The denizens as they took down their own quarters,

Charring their flesh even as they continued

To take down the scorching embers of old wood

.

“It appears that we have come not at the right

Time, master,” I say. “Everyone seems to be

In a panic regarding this fervent blaze.”

 “The fires here are a constant occurrence,”

My guide explained. “More are by the horizon.

This place holds many persons of prominence

Who violently rejects people unlike himself.

It is not wise to linger; the fire will cease

Only at the gate that holds the suicides.”

With that, my great master ushered me to turn,

Towards the forest that grew at the black edge

Of the community that forever burns.

As the poets step off of Nessus’s boat after crossing the Phlegethon, they arrive at a large decrepit village, comprised of wooden shanties. The people here are charred to various degrees, and are whipped with molten hooks. A wave of fire causes a blaze to erupt. With no water available, the souls are ordered to take down their shacks to stop the blaze. Those closest to the fire are burned alive, but are forced to continue to demolish their burning homes.

This is the QUARTERS OF THE DISCRIMINANT, which houses the souls of those who judged people based on their beliefs or skin color. The souls are forced to live in the shacks of slavehouses, with only a simple cloth as their personal belongings. The fire is the rejection that the souls emanated in their lifetime: no matter how much they tried to stop it, they could never put it out completely before it burned them. This is only heightened by the presence of the overseeing centaurs.

Virgil states that the fire will engulf their area soon, so they do not speak to anyone, and walk into the next ring of level seven. 

An Interview with Aeneas

The Latium Times

Interview with Aeneas

LT: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Aeneas. It has been thirty years to the day that our former home, Troy, was burned to the ground by the Greeks. Now that there has been time to step back and analyze the entire war, tell us in your own words how the ill-fated war against the Greeks started.

A: It started with the gods. That is the truth in the matter. My mother Venus was in a quarrel with Juno and Minerva as to who was the most beautiful woman of the goddesses. She was chosen by our late Paris, and rewarded him with the most beautiful woman in the world, who happened to be Helen.

LT: Do you blame your mother for causing this war?

A: Absolutely not! Would you ever blame your mother if she was captured by the Dorians? It was Juno’s husband that deserves the blame. He was initially asked to pick who was the most beautiful, but backed out when he realized what fury the “lesser beauties” would deal to him. If I had the luck chance to be able to alter fate, I would have had him choose his wife. After all, when you marry someone, you consider them to be the most beautiful person in your eyes,

LT: So you consider Juno to be more beautiful than Venus?

A: I never said that she was. A goddess of beauty and love is no doubt very beautiful, and had she not already filled the role of my mother, I would vie for her romance to be mine, as many men do doubt do. However, everything is relative to the eyes of the beholder.

LT: Earlier, you mentioned fate. Do you believe that it was simply our fate to lose our beloved homeland?

A: Yes and no.

LT: How so?

A: For fate, it can be summed up by one person. Once Achilles rejoined the battlelines for the Dorians, I knew instantly that it was almost a matter of time before we would fall. How could one army after all beat the almost divine being who was almost invincible? Against fate, however, you could also call that just common knowledge, as even great Hector’s wife prepared for his funeral as he left the wondrous gates of Troy for the last time. Also, it would be better if certain influential people did not know about one’s fate.

LT: For instance, the gods?

A: Exactly. My mother revealed to me that one of the gods had been aiding Hector while he was chased by Achilles. However, once our Great Father revealed that it was Hector’s fate to die, that god left him to die by the hands of Achilles!

LT: I take that to believe that you don’t believe in fate?

A: Correct. It was not predestined that the Greeks happened to take down Troy with a wooden horse. It was not predetermined that great King Priam would see his last son murdered before his eyes, then be killed himself by the brutal murderer. It was not the foreshadowed result that we would settle in Latium, though I do admit that the spirits played a hand in that one. Back on topic, everything happens in the world because they simply happen. They can be altered by the slightest beat of a dove’s wings, or they could not. Nobody told me the exact plans of my life by reading them on a scroll.

LT: But we do have evidence of you contradicting what you just said numerous times, like the spirits you just mentioned.

A: If I said that I didn’t believe that I was to be the leader of the remnants of Troy, nobody would follow me. It is very easy to believe in one’s “oracle” of their life if they don’t question it, and even easier to pull an Oedipus trying to escape it. As for myself, I just used the spirit’s guidance as a motivation to get as far from those Myrmidons as possible. None of us wanted them as neighbors anymore.

LT: How do you feel when someone comes up to you and says that the gods controlled everything?

A: It makes me sick. For one thing, they erroneously group our allies, who include my own mother, with the likes of Juno and Minerva. More importantly, they resign themselves to the fact that this was out of human’s hands. I disagree strongly with this. If everyone does not have the courage to push against the grain of what they have been told all of their lives, then there would be a lot more ambition, and less of this fate talk.

LT: Thank you for taking this time to talk to us today.

A: It’s my pleasure.

Haiku & Hint Fiction - Helen and Cassandra

Helen’s Tears

My heart weeps for him

As does all of Troy for our

Lost hero, Hector.

Cassandra’s Lament

Woe to me for being cursed by the great Apollo! All of Troy could have to postpone the fate of great Hector of Troy!

I Am Poem - Hector

I am Hector

Breaker of Horses₁

Relative of Scamandrius₂

Resident of Troy

Who loves Andromache₃

Who fears the possibility of the enslavement of his wife₄

Who needs glory

Who wishes that his son will be strong and brave like he is₅

Who admires Deiphobus₆

₁ – The Death of Hector, line 38

₂ – Hector Returns to Troy, lines 13, 15

₃ – Hector Returns to Troy, lines 118-119

₄ – Hector Returns to Troy, lines 92-94

₅ – The Death of Hector, lines 107-109

₆ – The Death of Hector, lines 122-126