Oedipus the King Sophocles

428 B.C.E. 7 Men, 1 Woman, Chorus

Setting – All of the action takes place in front of Oedipus’ palace at Thebes. In ancient Greece.
Like, before 428 B.C.E.

Plot – Thebes is facing a terrible plague of sterilization and the people call on Oedipus to fix it.
Consulting the oracle reveals that the king before Oedipus, Laius, was murdered and his
murderer must be put to death. After the prophet Teiresias says that Oedipus is the murderer and
Oedipus accuses his brother-in-law Creon of treachery, Oedipus begins to uncover details about
his past of which he was unaware. Jocasta, former wife of Laius and now wife of Oedipus, tells
him that the son of she and Laius was prophesied to kill Laius, so they tossed the baby to the
wild hillside, so Laius was not killed by the child but later at a crossroads while traveling. This
strikes a memory in Oedipus, who realizes he killed Laius when running from a prophecy
foretelling that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother. He sends for the only
surviving servant of Laius’ party to confirm if indeed Laius was the man he had killed,
meanwhile a messenger comes to tell him that his father Polybus is dead and also casually
reveals the information that Oedipus is not actually the son of Polybus but that the messenger
was given Oedipus as a baby and delivered him to Polybus and Merope to adopt. The servant of
Laius arrives and conveniently turns out to be the servant that was charged with getting rid of
Laius and Jocasta’s baby but instead gave it to the messenger who gave it to Polybus and
Merope. So Oedipus finds out that he did indeed murder his father and sleep with his mother.
Horrified, Jocasta hangs herself. Also Horrified, Oedipus gouges out his own eyes and banishes
himself.

Items of Note – It’s a translation so of course it doesn’t have rhythm and meter in English like
Shakespeare, but I kept being annoyed that it didn’t. I would be interested in seeing a production
of it to see how the director and actors work with the ancient text and make the story engaging,
because reading it I found it hard to keep from getting bogged down in the words.