Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/598

 584 OEHLENSCHLlGER (ENOTHERA him two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. A pesti- lence desolating the land on account of this in- cestuous alliance, the oracle ordered the expul- sion of the murderer of Laius ; and a procla- mation was issued announcing a curse upon the unknown criminal, and declaring him an exile. (Edipus was informed by the prophet Tiresias that he himself was the parricide and the husband of his mother. Jocasta hanged herself, and (Edipus put out his eyes. After this, according to one form of the legend, (Edipus was driven from Thebes by his sons and Oreon, his brother-in-law, and under the guidance of his daughter Antigone went to Attica. According to another, he became de- pendent upon his sons, on whom he imprecated a curse, praying to the gods that there might be endless war between them, and that they might perish each by the hand of the other. After Eteocles and Polynices had slain one another, Oreon succeeded to the throne and drove out (Edipus, who finally reached the groves of the Eumenides, near Colonus in At- tica, where he was received with distinguished honor by Theseus. There he died, and his burial place was concealed by the Eumenides, whose favor he had conciliated. The tragedies of ^Eschylus and Euripides founded upon this legend are lost ; but two by Sophocles remain, entitled " (Edipus Tyrannus " and " (Edipus at Oolonus." Seneca also wrote one, and in mod- ern times Corneille and Voltaire. OEHLENSCHLAGER, Adam Gottlob, a Danish poet, born in Copenhagen, Nov. 14, 1779, died there, Jan. 20, 1850. His father was steward of the royal palace of Frederiksborg, where the son spent his early life. He was sent to school at Copenhagen at the age of 12, and soon after began to write verses and plays which were performed by himself and his schoolmates. His acquaintance with the brothers Oersted led to his studying law in the university of Copen- hagen. In 1803 he published a volume of poetry, containing the play of " The Eve of St. John," which with his drama of " Aladdin " procured him a travelling stipend from the gov- ernment. In Germany he mastered the Ger- man language, into which he translated his works. At Halle he wrote " Hakon Jarl," the first and one of the finest of his purely Scan- dinavian tragedies (English translation by F. 0. Lascelles, London, 1874) ; and at Paris he produced "Palnatoke," considered by some his masterpiece, and "Axel and Valborg," all dramas of powerful interest. At Rome, where he became intimate with Thorwaldsen, he composed " Correggio," which became very popular on the Danish and German stage (Eng- lish translation by Theodore Martin, 1854). Oehlenschlager returned to Denmark in 1810, and soon afterward became professor of es- thetics at the university of Copenhagen. His works include novels, poems, translations, and a great variety of miscellanies. On his first visit to Sweden in 1829 he received a brilliant ovation, and his 70th birthday was celebrated with a grand festival in Copenhagen. Of his 24 tragedies, on which his fame chiefly rests, 19 are devoted to Scandinavian subjects. In ad- dition to those mentioned, the most striking are " Canute the Great," " The Varangians in Constantinople," "Land Found and Lost," illustrating the early voyages of the Northmen to America, " Dina," and " Tordenskjold." In his Nordens Guder ("Gods of the North"), published in 1819, he collected the scattered legends of the Eddas. An English metrical translation of this by W. E. Frye was published in Paris in 1845. Oehlenschlager also transla- ted the "Midsummer Mght's Dream" and Beskow's Swedish dramas into Danish, and Holberg's "Danish Theatre" into German. His collected works in Danish, including his Erindringer or "Recollections," an autobiog- raphy, amount to 41 volumes; those in Ger- man of all kinds to 21. A critical edition of his Poetuke Skrifter was published by Lieben- berg in Copenhagen (32 vols., 1857-'65), and a German edition of his Lebenserinnerungen at Leipsic (4 vols., 1850-'51). OELS, a town of Prussian Silesia, in a valley on the Oelsa, 10 m. N. E. of Breslau; pop. in 1871, 8,124. It contains a mediaeval castle, in a park surrounded by a wall and moat, with gardens and a picture gallery ; a Catholic and four Protestant churches, a synagogue, a Prot- estant gymnasium, a theatre, and a retreat for the widows of clergymen. There are exten- sive manufactories of cloth. In the vicinity are the villages and ducal villas of Wilhel- minenort and Sibyllenort. It is the capital of a mediatized principality, formerly a duchy, in- cluding Oels-Bernstadt, besides the circles of Oels and Trebnitz, the domain of Medzibor, and the town and district of Konstadt ; aggre- gate pop. about 170,000. The duchy of Oels originally belonged to the dukes of Silesia, and after passing through many hands the right of succession to it was conceded by Frederick the Great in 1785 to the duke Frederick William of Brunswick, who fell in 1815 in the battle of Quatre-Bras. His son Charles ceded it in 1824, under the name of Brunswick-Oels, to his broth- er William, the present duke of Brunswick. (BVOTUEK A (Gr. oZvof, wine, and %a, a hunt, the roots of some species being supposed to provoke a relish for wine), a genus of plants known as evening primrose, and belonging to the family onagracea. The family is showy, and includes the well known Fuchsia, gaura, Clarlcia, and others cultivated for their flowers. The genus cenothera, except one Tasmanian spe- cies, is purely extra-tropical American, and in- cludes about 100 species, all herbs, or at most slightly woody at base ; the flowers have a f our- lobed calyx, four petals, eight stamens, and one style, with a knob-like or f our-lobed stigma ; the parts of the flower, being adherent to the ova- ry, appear as if situated at the top of it ; the fruit is sometimes woody, variously shaped, and usually four-celled, with numerous seeds. The