Two quotes that tell what Oedipus thinks of himself are a
bit hard to find in the events of the play that precede Oedipus' dramatic fall from
grace and his re-entrance as tragically blind and
destitute.
However, here is a moment, mid-riddle
unravelling, in which Oedipus grapples with the possibility that he might be a low born
son of a servant:
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Break out what will! I at least shall
be
willing to see my ancestry, though
humble.
...I account myself a child of
Fortune,
beneficent Fortune, and I shall not
be
dishonoured. She's the mother from whom I
sprang;
the months, my brothers, marked me, now as
small,
and now again as mighty. Such is my
breeding,
and I shall never prove so false to
it,
as not to find the secret of my birth. (Sophocles,
1076-86)
Once Oedipus is
confronted with the whole horrible "secret of [his] birth," he has this to
say:
O
Polybus and Corinth and the house,the old house that I
used to call my father's--what fairness your were nurse
to, and what foulnessfestered beneath! Now I am found to
bea sinner and a son of sinners. (Sophocles,
1394-8)
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