In Which I Attempt to Recall the Plot of Oedipus Rex

A few nights ago, my husband and I were lying in bed chit chatting when the conversation steered in the direction of Oedipus. (You know you have a steamy marriage when your pillow talk consists of Greek tragedies. Oedipus, of course, is that guy who grew up to kill his father and marry his mother and later gouged his eyes out once he realized what he had done. Like I said. Steamy.) At some point in the conversation, my recollection of the tale gets fuzzy as I try to retell it. Here's what my shoddy memory produced:

Oedipus is walking down the road with his army (because he and his army just go on leisurely strolls) when up ahead they see a cyclops. The cyclops is blocking the road announcing: "Bleeaarrgh, you cannot pass unless you can solve my riddle! Or you can kill me. So, riddle me this. I am dark, but I am light. I am one but I am--" So of course Oedipus easily slays the riddling cyclops because of its lack of peripheral vision and proceeds on his way down the road.

Now at this point my husband is baying that I'm telling it completely wrong and I concede that maybe I do have a few details wrong. However I am thoroughly convinced that Oedipus had to slay a cyclops at some point in the story. Then I think, "Wait, maybe that's the part of the story where he kills his father instead!" So I revise my story.

Oedipus and his army are strolling down a road when an equally large opposing army approaches from the other direction. The road isn't wide enough for the two armies to simply pass each other (at least without the hassle of getting everybody into single file. I mean, how tedious and unnecessary for an army.) so the leader of the opposing army, who happens to be Oedipus' father, challenges Oedipus to a riddle-off. The fact that he is Oedipus' father is unbeknownst to either guy, so this is where the tale gets sad. Oedipus accepts the challenge to his father's riddle-off, but before he can solve the first one, Oedipus kills him because he knew he wasn't especially good at riddles and he really wanted to pass this army.

As the opposing army witnesses their leader getting cheaply slain by Oedipus, they bow to their new leader. So Oedipus inherits his father's kingdom including his lovely wife (aka, Oedipus' mom. Eww!) Aaaand the rest, they say, has already been mentioned in the first paragraph.

When I finished my recounting, my husband was dumbfounded. "I thought you were an English major."

I am. ~*~Validation!~*~

He then told me how the story of Oedipus really goes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King) [not sure why that's not coming out as a link. I hope you don't mind the ol' copy and paste method]. Turns out I was actually pretty close with the riddling cyclops. Except it was a Sphinx and it didn't tell riddles.

Fortunately I'm not as uncultured as all that. At least I didn't say anything as asinine as "Oh Oedipus Rex, that sounds like a dinosaur who did nasty things with his mom."

Our nerdy conversation progressed into the Oedipus trilogy, including Antigone, Oedipus' daughter who ventured on a similar odyssey as her father including outwitting a riddling cyclops whom she duped into buying her dinner. But that's a whole nother tale for a whole nother steamy evening. Thanks for reading. Or should I say...my apologies?