Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Jocasta.
The gallery
Oedipus Separating from Jocasta
Alexandre Cabanel, 1843
Cabanel's early academic canvas freezes the palace catastrophe: Oedipus turns from Jocasta as recognition unmakes their marriage. The queen who was mother and wife stands at the hinge of Sophocles' plot — the moment before the noose.
Farewell of Oedipus to the Corpses of His Wife and Sons
Édouard Toudouze, 1871
Toudouze's Prix de Rome painting (École des Beaux-Arts, Paris) lays Jocasta among the dead of the house of Cadmus. Blind Oedipus takes leave of the queen who hanged herself when the bed's riddle was spoken — Theban ruin staged as a funeral farewell.
Oedipus and Jocasta
Émile Bernard, 1930
Bernard's late modernist pair keeps mother and son in the same charged space — Jocasta as consort before the recognition, the double bond made visible without the Sphinx or the noose. A twentieth-century return to the Theban queen at the heart of the tragedy.
Eteocles and Polynices Admonished to Peace by Their Mother Jocasta
After Gerard de Lairesse, c. 1670–1729
Rijksmuseum print (CC0): Jocasta stands between her warring sons, pleading for peace before the Seven march on Thebes. The queen as mediator — the mother who cannot stop the brothers' mutual slaughter that will leave Creon the throne.
Jocasta and Oedipus
Anonymous (after Boccaccio, De mulieribus claris), c. 1474
Hand-colored German woodcut from Steinhöwel's Boccaccio: Jocasta and her son Oedipus as a famous woman of antiquity. Early print culture already fixed the Theban queen beside the son who was also her husband.
On screen
Edipo re
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pasolini's Jocasta is mother and wife in the same frame — the queen who hangs herself when the riddle of the bed is finally spoken aloud.
Oedipus the King
Philip Saville
Saville's adaptation keeps Jocasta in the palace recognition — the mother who sees the truth a breath before her son does.
Oedipus Rex
Tyrone Guthrie
Eleanor Stuart's masked Jocasta speaks Yeats's Sophocles on film — the queen who sees the bed's riddle a breath before the noose.
In music & on stage
Oedipus Rex
Igor Stravinsky
In Stravinsky's Latin ritual Jocasta's voice cuts the oratorio's stone — the queen whose aria knows too much before the messenger arrives.
Night Journey
William Schuman
Martha Graham's ballet unfolds inside Jocasta's recognition — the queen reliving marriage and motherhood in the instant before she hangs herself.
Œdipe
George Enescu
Enescu's four-act Œdipe gives Jocasta her Theban tragedy in full — the mother-wife whose recognition ends in the palace rope.
In play
Oedipus Rex
Sophocles
Sophocles' queen who hung herself when the bed's riddle was spoken — mother and wife in the same recognition, the palace's silent collapse.
The Phoenician Women
Euripides
Euripides keeps Jocasta alive to plead between Eteocles and Polynices — the mother who cannot stop the brothers' mutual slaughter.
Oedipus
Seneca
Seneca's Latin Oedipus intensifies the palace horror — Jocasta's recognition and death staged with Roman tragic gore.