In 300 words or less, identify two instances of figurative language from the fourth stasimon and explain what they mean and why they are significant.

There are several similes and metaphors, types of figurative language, in Oedipus Rex. For example, in line 75, Oedipus says, "You have not roused me like a man from sleep" to the children gathered around him. In this example, Oedipus says that he is wide awake and compares himself to someone who has not just been awakened. In line 182, Oedipus says, "I am stretched on the rack of doubt." This is a kind of metaphor in which Oedipus compares himself to someone who is stretched on a rack, but the rack is not a physical rack but an emotional rack made of self-doubt. In line 200-203, the Chorus says, "You may see them one with another, like birds swift on the wing, quicker than fire unmastered, speeding away to the coast of the Western God." In this simile, the women of Thebes are compared to fast birds who fly away, faster than a raging fire, to the land of Death. The coast of the Western God stands for the realm of the God of Death. This simile means that the women of the city are perishing.