The Theban Plays: King Oedipus; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Sophocles (Author), E. F. Watling (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: June 30, 1950

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 his own oath. "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 in his own authority.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“[Oedipus the King] is Sophocles’ most famous play and the most celebrated play of Greek drama . . . Aristotle cites it as the best model for a tragic plot . . . Freud recognized the play’s power to dramatize the process by which we uncover hidden truths about ourselves . . . Sophocles is more interested in how Oedipus pieces together the isolated fragments of his past to discover who and what he is and in tracing the hero’s response to this new vision of himself.”
—from the Introduction by Charles Segal --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Sophocles was born in 496 BC. His long life spanned the rise and decline of the Athenian Empire. He wrote over a hundred plays, many of which are published as Penguin Classics, drawing on a wide and varied range of themes. E.F. Watling translated a range of Greek and Roman plays for Penguin, including the seven plays of Sophocles and the tragedies of Seneca.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics; later printing edition (June 30, 1950)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140440038
• ISBN-13: 978-0140440034
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Drama > Classical & Early

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars of course it's predictable, June 3, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Theban Plays (Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) (Hardcover)

The previous reviewers who denigrate Oedipus as "predictable" only reveal their own ignorance. Any member of an Ancient Greek audience already knew the story of Oedipus, it'd be like complaining that upon going to Easter Mass, you found the story of the Crucifixion to be predictable; the point was never to have a twist, but to create a relationship between the characters and members of the audience, placing the viewers in direct relation to the mystery of life. The language is gorgeous besides.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The pinnacle of Greek tragedy..., February 11, 2002

By 

Paper Man (Naperville, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Theban Plays: King Oedipus; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

These three plays stand as the best of the Greek tragedies, superior to the works of Sophocles' rivals Euripides and Aeschylus, mainly because these plays hold more depth and allow for more cultural analysis.
They may seem long-winded at times, even repetitive, but I assure potential readers that there is a point to the speeches, and that many 'extraneous' phrases divulge the author's meaning or bias.
Highly recommended.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insights of the Theban Plays, January 1, 2007

By 

Steven A. Peterson (Hershey, PA (Born in Kewanee, IL)) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Theban Plays: King Oedipus; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

The Theban plays are extraordinarily rich in their observations on the human condition; let us consider lessons to be drawn from these.

The first tragedy, King Oedipus, begins with the city of Thebes suffering great afflictions. King Oedipus swears that he will find the cause of the evil and improve the lot of the Thebans. His uncle, Creon, found that the pestilence would be lifted when the murderer of the previous king, Laius, was brought to justice. Oedipus immediately ordered that the killer be found.

Laius, the old king, had been killed while on a trip. Oedipus came to Thebes from Corinth and married Laius' widow, Jocasta, and became king. This followed by some years a curse laid upon Laius and Jocasta, reported by an oracle of the god Apollo, in which it was said that their son would kill the father and marry the mother. To prevent this, the King and Queen had their son taken away. Instead of destroying the child, the person charged with preventing the curse from coming true gave the boy away. This child, of course, was Oedipus, who later returned to Thebes and, indeed, married Jocasta, his mother, after having unwittingly killed Laius, his father.

Not knowing these facts at the time, Oedipus railed against what he saw as Creon's lust for the throne. Oedipus gives Creon the choice of death or banishment; Creon chose the latter. As his mother/wife, Jocasta, related how his father had died, at a point in a road with three forks, it dawned upon Oedipus that he was the killer of Laius.

Oedipus blinds himself and goes into exile, to fulfill the terms that he had originally stated as the penalty for the guilty person confessing to the murder of Laius. In our modern sense, it is unfair what happened to Oedipus. He had been a good king, ruling well, loved by his people. When he killed his biological father, he was not aware of that relationship and, even more to the point from our contemporary perspective, it was very close to self-defense.

Thus, the powerful lesson--misfortune can sweep over the best of us, no matter our intentions (and Oedipus' were clearly good) or behavior. In short, we do not and cannot fully control our individual fates.

Antigone is the third of the Theban trilogy. Since Oedipus went into exile, much had happened. At the beginning of this play, Creon has become King of Thebes. Before, Oedipus' two sons had vied for power. Eteocles became the ruler of Thebes, after having pushed aside Creon. Polynices resolved to, in turn, replace his own brother. Polynices gathered together an army to seize Thebes. In the ensuing battle, both brothers died. Creon emerged as regent. He ordered that Eteocles, because he had defended the city, should be buried in an honorable fashion. Polynices, since he had tried to take the city by force, would be left in the open, unburied, where his body lay from battle. Any person, decreed Creon, who tried to bury the body in accord with the traditions of the time would be executed.

Antigone, youngest daughter of Oedipus, refused to obey the ruling; she argued that to adhere to human law violates ". . .the holiest laws of heaven." Which is higher and more compelling? Human law? The laws of the gods? Antigone chose the laws of the gods. Antigone hastens to bury her brother as well as she can. She is seized and taken before Creon.
To complicate matters, Creon's son, Haemon, is betrothed to Antigone, and he urged clemency upon his father, arguing that many Thebans felt that Antigone's adherence to traditional norms was the right position. Creon has a temper tantrum upon hearing this, whereupon Haemon argues that he is trying to save his father by urging him to consider lenience for Antigone, fearing that the people will be outraged and threaten Creon's rulership.

Finally, Creon realizes that he may lose all. But it is too late. Antigone has hung herself in the cave where she was condemned to starve to death; Haemon, upon her death, killed himself. When Creon's wife, Eurydice, heard the news, she committed suicide. Creon grieves and speaks of ". . .the curse of my stubborn will!"

And what is the right thing to do? To follow the sovereign's expression of law, as King Creon claims? To follow the traditional morality, as Antigone does? It is not clear. Humans may not always be able to know what is right, what the truth is, what the good is. Wisdom comes from modesty; hubris is a symptom of supreme foolishness.

The Theban plays, in the end, make us think about the extent to which people, in reality, can actually control their destiny. Or the extent to which their fates are controlled by other forces. . . . The translation is serviceable; the introduction is readable and useful.