Scene 5 Summary

A second messenger enters with the news that Jocasta has committed suicide. He relates that she came inside, pulling at her hair and calling to her dead husband Laius. She was horrified that her son had killed her husband, and that she had married him and bore unnatural children by him. She locked herself in her room. Then, Oedipus came in looking for Jocasta, also horrified over the tragedy. He broke down her door and found that Jocasta had hanged herself.

The messenger continues telling the story of how Oedipus cut down Jocasta's body and lay her on the ground. He took the golden brooches from her robes and stabbed out his own eyes with them, so that he could no longer see suffering. Oedipus has vowed to banish himself from Thebes.

The blinded Oedipus enters, and the chorus cries out how horrible...