The legends surrounding the royal house of Thebes inspired Sophocles to create a powerful trilogy of mankind's struggle against fate. "King Oedipus" tells of a man who brings pestilence to Thebes for crimes he doesn't realise he has committed, and then inflicts a brutal punishment on himself. It is a devastating portrayal of a ruler brought down by...more

Aristotle called "Oedipus The King," the second-written of the three Theban plays written by Sophocles, the masterpiece of the whole of Greek theater. Today, nearly 2,500 years after Sophocles wrote, scholars and audiences still consider it one of the most powerful dramatic works ever made. Freud sure did. The three plays--"Antigone," "Oedipus the ...more

Antigone defending her integrity and ideals to the death, Oedipus questing for his identity and achieving immortality - these heroic figures have moved playgoers and readers since the fifth century BC. Towering over the rest of Greek tragedy, these three plays are among the most enduring and timeless dramas ever written. Robert Fagles' translation ...more

Faithful as translations and vigorous and straightforward both to read and to act, these versions were written, like their originals, for immediate staage-production. Kitto has deliberately used a fairly strict meter, allowing himself no greater number of verses than Sophocles used, and where the original is formal--as in the line-by-line dial...more