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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Tiresias' occupation?
(a) Prophet.
(b) Priest.
(c) Weaponsmith.
(d) Herald.

2. Who kills Polyxena?
(a) Pyrrhus.
(b) Menelaus.
(c) Ulysses.
(d) Agamemnon.

3. How does Jocasta kill herself?
(a) She throws herself out of a tower.
(b) She hangs herself.
(c) Fire.
(d) Oedipus' sword.

4. For whom do Hecuba and the chorus lament, though they say nothing will ever adequately express their loss?
(a) Hector.
(b) Achilles.
(c) Priam.
(d) Paris.

5. What does Oedipus do to Creon at the end of the third act?
(a) He exiles him.
(b) He imprisons him.
(c) He tortures him.
(d) He kills him.

6. Who is Oedipus' father in Corinth?
(a) King Polybus.
(b) King Priam.
(c) King Atreus.
(d) King Menelaus.

7. According to Andromache, what is the worst fate for a Trojan woman?
(a) Death in the name of the Greeks.
(b) Marriage to a Greek.
(c) Exile from their home.
(d) Abandonment by their husbands.

8. What is Tiresias unable to do in the second act of "Oedipus"?
(a) Save Jocasta's life.
(b) Explain the Oracle's prophecy.
(c) Authenticate Oedipus' royal blood.
(d) Raise Laius' ghost.

9. What is significant about Hecuba's exit at the end of the play?
(a) It infers that she is going to murder Ulysses.
(b) It infers that she has committed suicide.
(c) It infers that she will be staying in Troy.
(d) It infers that the gods have taken her away with them.

10. What does Oedipus believe about the news from Creon from the ghost?
(a) Creon is covering up for the real murderer.
(b) Creon and Tiresias are conspiring to take the throne.
(c) An evil spirit is tormenting Creon.
(d) Tiresias has betrayed the gods.

11. What does Oedipus reveal to Jocasta at the end of the play?
(a) He is leaving Thebes.
(b) He is cursed by the gods.
(c) He is her son.
(d) He never loved her.

12. What message does the ghost of Jocasta's husband send?
(a) Polybus is his murderer.
(b) Creon is his murderer.
(c) Tiresias is his murderer.
(d) Oedipus is his murderer.

13. What course of action does Tiresias propose he take in order to help avenge the king's murder?
(a) He will sacrifice himself to the gods for the end of the plague.
(b) He will pray to Zeus for guidance.
(c) He will summon the king's ghost.
(d) He will go to the Oracle himself.

14. What does the messenger reveal to Oedipus about his past?
(a) Oedipus has no royal blood.
(b) The messenger is Oedipus' father.
(c) Oedipus was adopted.
(d) Oedipus' mother is Jocasta.

15. What happened when Polyxena was sacrificed in honor of Achilles?
(a) Her body was taken away by Apollo.
(b) The land went silent.
(c) The gods cried out that she would be avenged.
(d) The tomb soaked up her blood.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the messenger reveal that Oedipus refuses to do in the fifth act?

2. According to Hecuba, what was ignored before the fall of Troy?

3. According to Hecuba, what also died on the same day as her warrior son?

4. Because of the plague, what does Oedipus consider doing because he is unable to stop it in the first act of the play?

5. Who is Hecuba?

(see the answer keys)

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