Translator: Robert Fagles
Publisher: Penguin Books (1984 Penguin Classics Edition)
Bought from: Book Depository
Introduction
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays are extant. In terms of career, his came towards the end of Aeschylus’ and was probably contemporaneous with Euripides’. Sophocles wrote 123 plays but only seven survive intact. He is said to have won between 20-25 dramatic competitions in Athens. In comparison, Aeschylus won 14-15 competitions (sometimes placing second to Sophocles) while Euripides won only 4 or 5.
The three plays collected in this volume, in order of writing, are Antigone (c 442 BC), Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) and Oedipus at Colonus (c. 405 BC). In terms of the story’s internal timeline, the order is Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. 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. The three plays are often published together under the title The Theban Plays. But Sophocles wrote the plays not as a unified trilogy but as parts of different sets. The three plays relate to the myth of Oedipus, king of Thebes (hence the title The Theban Plays). Thebes was a city founded by Cadmus and an important part of ancient Greek mythology.
The events in The Theban Plays take place before the Trojan War (the dividing line between Greek mythology and Greek history). In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus meets the shade of Jocasta (named Epicasta in that play). Homer briefly tells the story of Oedipus but with some differences from Sophocles’ version.
Most people, even those who have never actually read the plays, will be familiar with the broad outline of the story of Oedipus. Indeed, the term “Oedipal” has entered modern English.
What is it about?
Oedipus the King takes place in Thebes. As the play begins, Oedipus has been king of Thebes for many years. Lately, a plague has struck the city. Oedipus hears a prophecy from Apollo that the plague will only be eradicated if Laius’ killer is brought to justice. Oedipus is determined to solve the cold case. As a result of his investigation, Oedipus himself unwittingly exposes the horrific sins he has committed. The familiar back story is retold. Laius and Jocasta ordered their infant son Oedipus killed because the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi had prophesised that Laius would be killed by his son. Oedipus ended up adopted in Corinth. An adult Oedipus himself received a prophecy that he would marry his mother and kill his father. To avoid this fate, he fled his adopted parents (he did not know he was adopted). 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. Oedipus arrived in Thebes and, after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, he married Jocasta and becomes King of Thebes. 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. Odysseus refuses to listen and finally learns the truth. Jocasta commits suicide from shame and Oedipus blinds himself.
In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus, accompanied by his daughter Antigone, goes to Colonus, a town near Athen (Colonus is believed to be Sophocles’ birthplace). Oedipus has been exiled by his sons Eteocles and Polynices. In Colonus, he learns that that Apollo has prophesised that the place where he dies will be blessed. 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 the meantime, back in Thebes, Jocasta’s brother Creon and Eteocles have banished Polynices. Polynices has fled to Argos and is amassing an army to attack Thebes. Creon and Polynices track Oedipus down separately and each wants him to die in their respective territory. Oedipus rebuffs both of them. He foresees that his sons will kill each other in the coming battle. Oedipus dies offstage in the presence of only Theseus. A grieving Antigone leaves for Thebes to convince Polynices to stop his march against Thebes.
Antigone is set in Thebes and begins soon after the siege by the Seven Against Thebes led by Polynices was repelled. Polynices and Eteocles have killed each other, just as Oedipus has foreseen. Creon buries Eteocles but orders Polynices’ body to remain unburied on penalty of death. Antigone defies Creon and buries his brother. Creon orders Antigone to be buried alive in a cave for disobeying his edict. Tiresias warns Creon to free Antigone and properly bury Polynices or bear the consequences, including losing a son of his own loins. Creon relents but he is too late. Antigone has committed suicide. The tragedy is complete when he hears that his son Haemon, who was to have married Antigone has killed himself as has Eurydice, Creon’s wife and Haemon’s mother, after she loses her only son.
Themes
One of the main themes of the plays is the role fate plays in the lives of the main characters. The Olympian gods do not appear directly in the plays (unlike Homer’s poems). But the will of these gods - or fate - affects the characters through the prophesies emanating from the Delphic oracle. The narrative is propelled by the prophecies heard first by Oedipus’ parents and then himself. The characters do everything they can (ie. they exercise their free will) to avoid their fate but everything they do just seem to bring them closer and closer to fulfilling the prophecies. The big question is then whether anyone can be held morally responsible for his or her own actions if everything that happens is fated to happen. In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus defends himself as follows:
“Bloodshed,
incest, misery, all your mouth lets fly at me,
I have suffered it all, and all against my will!
Such was the pleasure of the gods, raging,
perhaps against our race from ages past.
But as for me alone -
say my unwilling crimes against myself
and against my own were payment from the gods
for something criminal deep inside me ... no, look hard,
you’ll find no guilt to accuse me of - I am innocent!
Come, tell me: if, by an oracle of the gods,
some doom were hanging over my father’s head
that he should die at the hands of his own son,
how, with any justice, could you blame me?
I wasn’t born yet, no father implanted me,
no mother carried me in her womb -
I didn’t even exist, not then! And if,
once I come to the world of pain, as come I did,
I fell to blows with my father, cut him down in blood -
blind to what I was doing, blind to whom I killed -
how could you condemn that involuntary act
with any sense of justice?
And my mother ...
She was my mother, yes, she bore me -
oh the horror - I knew nothing, she knew nothing! -
and once she’d borne me then she bore me children,
her disgrace. But at least I know one thing:
You slander her and me of your own free will,
but I made her my bride against my will,
I repeat this to the world against my will. No,
I’ll not be branded guilty, not in that marriage,
not in the murder of my father, all those crimes
you heap on me relentlessly, harrowing my heart.”
(lines 1096-1131)
Blindness - both real and metaphorical - is a recurrent theme. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus presses Tiresias to tell him about Laius’ murder. Oedipus who is sighted is blind to his own role in Laius’ murder. Tiresias who is literally blind knows everything and ultimately declares that the murderer is a native citizen of Thebes, brother and father to his own children and son and husband to his own mother. The theme of blindness returns in Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus is now blind and he acquires an almost supernatural ability to foresee what will happen to his sons if they persist in their civil war. He tells Polynices:
“... you’ll never tear that city down. No,
you’ll fall first, red with your brother’s blood
and he stained with yours - equals, twins in blood”
(lines 1554-1556).
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays are extant. In terms of career, his came towards the end of Aeschylus’ and was probably contemporaneous with Euripides’. Sophocles wrote 123 plays but only seven survive intact. He is said to have won between 20-25 dramatic competitions in Athens. In comparison, Aeschylus won 14-15 competitions (sometimes placing second to Sophocles) while Euripides won only 4 or 5.
The three plays collected in this volume, in order of writing, are Antigone (c 442 BC), Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) and Oedipus at Colonus (c. 405 BC). In terms of the story’s internal timeline, the order is Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. 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. The three plays are often published together under the title The Theban Plays. But Sophocles wrote the plays not as a unified trilogy but as parts of different sets. The three plays relate to the myth of Oedipus, king of Thebes (hence the title The Theban Plays). Thebes was a city founded by Cadmus and an important part of ancient Greek mythology.
The events in The Theban Plays take place before the Trojan War (the dividing line between Greek mythology and Greek history). In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus meets the shade of Jocasta (named Epicasta in that play). Homer briefly tells the story of Oedipus but with some differences from Sophocles’ version.
Most people, even those who have never actually read the plays, will be familiar with the broad outline of the story of Oedipus. Indeed, the term “Oedipal” has entered modern English.
What is it about?
Oedipus the King takes place in Thebes. As the play begins, Oedipus has been king of Thebes for many years. Lately, a plague has struck the city. Oedipus hears a prophecy from Apollo that the plague will only be eradicated if Laius’ killer is brought to justice. Oedipus is determined to solve the cold case. As a result of his investigation, Oedipus himself unwittingly exposes the horrific sins he has committed. The familiar back story is retold. Laius and Jocasta ordered their infant son Oedipus killed because the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi had prophesised that Laius would be killed by his son. Oedipus ended up adopted in Corinth. An adult Oedipus himself received a prophecy that he would marry his mother and kill his father. To avoid this fate, he fled his adopted parents (he did not know he was adopted). 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. Oedipus arrived in Thebes and, after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, he married Jocasta and becomes King of Thebes. 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. Odysseus refuses to listen and finally learns the truth. Jocasta commits suicide from shame and Oedipus blinds himself.
In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus, accompanied by his daughter Antigone, goes to Colonus, a town near Athen (Colonus is believed to be Sophocles’ birthplace). Oedipus has been exiled by his sons Eteocles and Polynices. In Colonus, he learns that that Apollo has prophesised that the place where he dies will be blessed. 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 the meantime, back in Thebes, Jocasta’s brother Creon and Eteocles have banished Polynices. Polynices has fled to Argos and is amassing an army to attack Thebes. Creon and Polynices track Oedipus down separately and each wants him to die in their respective territory. Oedipus rebuffs both of them. He foresees that his sons will kill each other in the coming battle. Oedipus dies offstage in the presence of only Theseus. A grieving Antigone leaves for Thebes to convince Polynices to stop his march against Thebes.
Antigone is set in Thebes and begins soon after the siege by the Seven Against Thebes led by Polynices was repelled. Polynices and Eteocles have killed each other, just as Oedipus has foreseen. Creon buries Eteocles but orders Polynices’ body to remain unburied on penalty of death. Antigone defies Creon and buries his brother. Creon orders Antigone to be buried alive in a cave for disobeying his edict. Tiresias warns Creon to free Antigone and properly bury Polynices or bear the consequences, including losing a son of his own loins. Creon relents but he is too late. Antigone has committed suicide. The tragedy is complete when he hears that his son Haemon, who was to have married Antigone has killed himself as has Eurydice, Creon’s wife and Haemon’s mother, after she loses her only son.
Themes
One of the main themes of the plays is the role fate plays in the lives of the main characters. The Olympian gods do not appear directly in the plays (unlike Homer’s poems). But the will of these gods - or fate - affects the characters through the prophesies emanating from the Delphic oracle. The narrative is propelled by the prophecies heard first by Oedipus’ parents and then himself. The characters do everything they can (ie. they exercise their free will) to avoid their fate but everything they do just seem to bring them closer and closer to fulfilling the prophecies. The big question is then whether anyone can be held morally responsible for his or her own actions if everything that happens is fated to happen. In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus defends himself as follows:
“Bloodshed,
incest, misery, all your mouth lets fly at me,
I have suffered it all, and all against my will!
Such was the pleasure of the gods, raging,
perhaps against our race from ages past.
But as for me alone -
say my unwilling crimes against myself
and against my own were payment from the gods
for something criminal deep inside me ... no, look hard,
you’ll find no guilt to accuse me of - I am innocent!
Come, tell me: if, by an oracle of the gods,
some doom were hanging over my father’s head
that he should die at the hands of his own son,
how, with any justice, could you blame me?
I wasn’t born yet, no father implanted me,
no mother carried me in her womb -
I didn’t even exist, not then! And if,
once I come to the world of pain, as come I did,
I fell to blows with my father, cut him down in blood -
blind to what I was doing, blind to whom I killed -
how could you condemn that involuntary act
with any sense of justice?
And my mother ...
She was my mother, yes, she bore me -
oh the horror - I knew nothing, she knew nothing! -
and once she’d borne me then she bore me children,
her disgrace. But at least I know one thing:
You slander her and me of your own free will,
but I made her my bride against my will,
I repeat this to the world against my will. No,
I’ll not be branded guilty, not in that marriage,
not in the murder of my father, all those crimes
you heap on me relentlessly, harrowing my heart.”
(lines 1096-1131)
Blindness - both real and metaphorical - is a recurrent theme. In Oedipus the King, Oedipus presses Tiresias to tell him about Laius’ murder. Oedipus who is sighted is blind to his own role in Laius’ murder. Tiresias who is literally blind knows everything and ultimately declares that the murderer is a native citizen of Thebes, brother and father to his own children and son and husband to his own mother. The theme of blindness returns in Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus is now blind and he acquires an almost supernatural ability to foresee what will happen to his sons if they persist in their civil war. He tells Polynices:
“... you’ll never tear that city down. No,
you’ll fall first, red with your brother’s blood
and he stained with yours - equals, twins in blood”
(lines 1554-1556).
The main theme in Antigone is sadly only too familiar to anyone reading after 9/11. The play deals with the balance between the state v an individual’s rights. Creon, newly crowned king of Thebes decrees that Eteocles who died fighting for Thebes will be buried with a hero’s honors. Polynices, even though he is Creon’s own nephew, will not be buried or even mourned because he is an enemy of the state, a terrorist in modern parlance. Creon declares:
“As I see it, whoever assumes the task,
the awesome task of setting the city’s course,
and refuses to adopt the soundest policies
but fearing someone, keeps his lips locked tight,
he’s utterly worthless. So I rate him now,
I always have. And whoever places a friend
above the good of his own country, he is nothing:
I have no use for him ...
I could never stand by silent, watching destruction
march against our city, putting safety to rout,
nor could I ever make that man a friend of mine
who menaces our country. Remember this:
our country is our safety.
Only while she voyages true on course
can we establish friendships, truer than blood itself.
Such are my standards. They make our city great ...
These are my principles. Never at my hands
will the traitor be honored above the patriot.
But whoever proves his loyalty to the state -
I’ll prize that man in death as well as death.”
(lines 194-235)
For Creon, strict obedience to the laws of the state is not negotiable. He tells his son Haemon:
“... whoever steps out of line, violates the law
or presumes to hand out orders to his superiors,
he’ll win no praise from me. But that man
the city places in authority, his orders
must be obeyed, large and small,
right and wrong.
Anarchy -
show me a greater crime in all the earth!
She, she destroys cities, rips up houses,
breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout.
But the ones who last it out, the great mass of them
owe their lives to discipline.”
(lines 746-756)
Antigone directly challenges Creon. She claims that her right to bury her brother Polynices trumps Creon’s laws: “[Creon] has no right to keep me from my own” (line 59). She says that it is her moral, perhaps even religious duty, to defy Creon’s decree:
he’ll win no praise from me. But that man
the city places in authority, his orders
must be obeyed, large and small,
right and wrong.
Anarchy -
show me a greater crime in all the earth!
She, she destroys cities, rips up houses,
breaks the ranks of spearmen into headlong rout.
But the ones who last it out, the great mass of them
owe their lives to discipline.”
(lines 746-756)
Antigone directly challenges Creon. She claims that her right to bury her brother Polynices trumps Creon’s laws: “[Creon] has no right to keep me from my own” (line 59). She says that it is her moral, perhaps even religious duty, to defy Creon’s decree:
“... It wasn’t Zeus, not in the least,
who made this proclamation - not to me.
Nor did that Justice, dwelling with the gods
beneath the earth, ordain such laws for men,
Nor did I think your edict had such force
that you, a mere mortal, could overide the gods,
the great unwritten, unshakeable traditions.
They are alive, not just today or yesterday:
they live forever, from the first of time,
and no one knows when they first saw the light.”
(lines 499-508)
But Antigone is not alone in claiming the religious high ground. Creon says the gods do not care that Polynices lies unburied:
“Exactly when did you last see the gods
celebrating traitors? Inconceivable!”
(line 326-327)
How is the book?
who made this proclamation - not to me.
Nor did that Justice, dwelling with the gods
beneath the earth, ordain such laws for men,
Nor did I think your edict had such force
that you, a mere mortal, could overide the gods,
the great unwritten, unshakeable traditions.
They are alive, not just today or yesterday:
they live forever, from the first of time,
and no one knows when they first saw the light.”
(lines 499-508)
But Antigone is not alone in claiming the religious high ground. Creon says the gods do not care that Polynices lies unburied:
“Exactly when did you last see the gods
celebrating traitors? Inconceivable!”
(line 326-327)
How is the book?
This is a hardcover version under the Penguin Classics series. Robert Fagles’ translation is accessible. Bernard Knox wrote very good introductions and endnotes for each plays.
Finally
Highly recommended.
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