At the outset of the play, Oedipus is the beloved ruler of the city of Thebes, whose citizens have been stricken by a plague. Consulting the Delphic oracle, Oedipus is told that the plague will cease only when the murderer of Queen Jocasta's first husband, King Laius, has been found and punished for his deed. Oedipus resolves to find Laius's killer. His investigation turns into an obsessive reconstruction of his own hidden past when he discovers that the old man he killed when he first approached Thebes as a youth was none other than Laius. At the end, Jocasta hangs herself in shame, and the guilt-stricken Oedipus blinds himself.
The stirring tale of a legendary royal family's fall and ultimate redemption, the Theban trilogy endures as the crowning achievement of Greek drama. Essential reading for English and classical studies majors.
"To Laius, King of Thebes, an oracle foretold that the child born to him by his queen Jocasta would slay his father and wed his mother. So when in time a son was born the infant's feet were riveted together and he was left to die on Mount Cithaeron. But a shepherd found the babe and tended him, and delivered him to another shepherd who took him to his master, the King of Corinth. Polybus being childless adopted the boy, who grew up believing that he was indeed the King's son. Afterwards doubting his parentage he inquired of the Delphic god and heard himself the word declared before to Laius." -Preface
King Oedipus/Oedipus at Colonus/Antigone Three towering works of Greek tragedy depicting the inexorable downfall of a doomed royal dynasty The legends surrounding the house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create this powerful trilogy about humanity's struggle against fate. King Oedipus is the devastating portrayal of a ruler who brings pestilence to Thebes for crimes he does not realize he has committed and then inflicts a brutal punishment upon himself. Oedipus at Colonus provides a fitting conclusion to the life of the aged and blinded king, while Antigone depicts the fall of the next generation, through the conflict between a young woman ruled by her conscience and a king too confident of his own authority. Translated with an Introduction by E. F. WATLING
The ancient Greek tragedy about the exiled king’s final days—and the power struggle between his two sons. The second book in the trilogy that begins with Oedipus Rex and concludes with Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus is the story of an aged and blinded Oedipus anticipating his death as foretold by an earlier prophecy. Accompanied by his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, he takes up residence in the village of Colonus near Athens—where the locals fear his very presence will curse them. Nonetheless they allow him to stay, and Ismene informs him his sons are battling each other for the throne of Thebes. An oracle has pronounced that the location of their disgraced father’s final resting place will determine which of them is to prevail. Unfortunately, an old enemy has his own plans for the burial, in this heart-wrenching play about two generations plagued by misfortune from the world’s great ancient Greek tragedian.
Oedipus Rex, also known by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed around 429 BC. Originally, to the ancient Greeks, the title was simply Oedipus, as it is referred to by Aristotle in the Poetics.
AN EPIC TRAGEDY, WIDELY CONSIDERED TO BE A MASTERPIECE Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ finest play is considered by many to be the greatest of the classic Greek tragedies. First produced sometime around 429 BC, it exhibits near-perfect harmony of character and action and is a work of extraordinary power which has circulated throughout world culture for thousands of years. After Laius, King of Thebes, learns from an oracle that he is doomed to perish by the hand of his own son, he orders his wife Jocasta to kill his newly born son. Unable to do it, Jocasta entrusts a servant with the task instead, who takes the baby to a mountaintop and leaves him to die of exposure. A passing shepherd rescues the baby and names him Oedipus, taking him to Corinth where he is raised by the childless King Polybus as if it were his own. When Oedipus learns that he is not the biological son of Polybus, he seeks the counsel of the Oracle of Delphi who relates to him that he is doomed to kill his father and marry his mother. The play is a unique combination of a murder mystery, a political thriller, and a psychological whodunit. This ironic story of patricide and incest tells how Oedipus, who has become King of Thebes, in order to stop a plague in his kingdom, is determined to find and punish the former king’s assassin, only to learn that the murderer is himself. At the end of the play, after this truth comes to light, the queen, Jocasta hangs herself while Oedipus, horrified at his patricide and incest, gouges out his own eyes in despair.