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He foresees that his sons will kill each other in the coming battle. Creon and Polynices track Oedipus down separately and each wants him to die in their respective territory. Polynices has fled to Argos and is amassing an army to attack Thebes. In the meantime, back in Thebes, Jocasta’s brother Creon and Eteocles have banished Polynices. Oedipus is warmly welcomed by Theseus the legendary king of Athens and he gratefully offers to die in Colonus as his gift to Athens. In Colonus, he learns that that Apollo has prophesised that the place where he dies will be blessed. Oedipus has been exiled by his sons Eteocles and Polynices. In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus, accompanied by his daughter Antigone, goes to Colonus, a town near Athen (Colonus is believed to be Sophocles’ birthplace).
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Jocasta commits suicide from shame and Oedipus blinds himself. Odysseus refuses to listen and finally learns the truth. Back in the present day, as the evidence lead ever closer to the horrific truth, first Tiresias, the blind seer and then Jocasta plead with Oedipus to stop his investigation. Oedipus arrived in Thebes and, after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, he married Jocasta and becomes King of Thebes. He ran into a man and his servants on a cross road and, after what must be one of the earliest examples of road rage, killed the man (who was actually Laius) and all his servants except one who would later positively identify Oedipus as Laius’ killer. To avoid this fate, he fled his adopted parents (he did not know he was adopted). An adult Oedipus himself received a prophecy that he would marry his mother and kill his father. Laius and Jocasta ordered their infant son Oedipus killed because the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi had prophesied that Laius would be killed by his son. As a result of his investigation, Oedipus himself unwittingly exposes the horrific sins he has committed. Oedipus is determined to solve the cold case. Oedipus hears a prophecy from Apollo that the plague will only be eradicated if Laius’ killer is brought to justice. As the play begins, Oedipus has been king of Thebes for many years. Indeed, the term “Oedipal” has entered modern English.
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Most people, even those who have never actually read the plays, will be familiar with the broad outline of the story of Oedipus. Homer briefly tells the story of Oedipus but with some differences from Sophocles’ version. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus meets the shade of Jocasta (named Epicasta in that play). The events in The Theban Plays take place before the Trojan War (the dividing line between Greek mythology and Greek history). Thebes was a city founded by Cadmus and an important part of ancient Greek mythology. The three plays relate to the myth of Oedipus, king of Thebes (hence the title The Theban Plays). But Sophocles wrote the plays not as a unified trilogy but as parts of different sets. The three plays are often published together under the title The Theban Plays. Oedipus the King is the masterpiece of the three plays and is sometimes regarded as the greatest extant Greek tragedy and one of the greatest work of world literature. In terms of the story’s internal timeline, the order is Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. The three plays collected in this volume, in order of writing, are Antigone (c 442 BC), Oedipus the King (c. In comparison, Aeschylus won 14-15 competitions (sometimes placing second to Sophocles) while Euripides won only 4 or 5. He is said to have won between 20-25 dramatic competitions in Athens. Sophocles is one of three classical Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. Sophocles wrote 123 plays but only seven survive intact. Publisher: Penguin Books (1984 Penguin Classics Edition)