Antigone

Antigone is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 441 BCE. It is the third of the three Theban plays but was the first written, chronologically. The play expands on the Theban legend predating it and picks up where Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes ends.

    In the beginning of the play two brothers leading opposite sides in Thebes’ civil war die fighting each other for the throne. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes, has decided Eteocles will be honored and Polyneices will suffer public shame: the rebel brother’s body will not be sanctified by holy rites and will lie unburied on the battlefield, prey for carrion animals like worms and vultures, the harshest punishment at the time. Antigone and Ismene are the sisters of the dead Polyneices and Eteocles. In the opening of the play Antigone brings Ismene outside the palace gates late at night for a secret meeting: Antigone wants to bury Polyneices body in defiance of Creon’s edict. Ismene refuses to help her, fearing the death penalty, but she is unable to stop Antigone from going to bury her brother herself, causing Antigone to disown her out of anger.

Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus (also Oedipus Coloneus) is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles’ death in 406 BCE and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BCE.

    In the timeline of the plays, the events of Oedipus at Colonus occur after Oedipus the King and before Antigone; however, it was the last of Sophocles’ three Theban plays to be written. The play describes the end of Oedipus’ tragic life. Legends differ as to the site of Oedipus’ death; Sophocles set the place at Colonus, a village near Athens and also Sophocles’ own birthplace, where the blinded Oedipus goes with his daughters Antigone and Ismene as suppliants of the Erinyes and of Theseus, the King of Athens.

Oedipus the King

Oedipus the King, also known by its Latin title Oedipus Rex, is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles first performed around 429 BCE. Of his three surviving Theban plays dealing with the story of Oedipus, Oedipus the King was the second written; however, in terms of the chronology of events the plays describe, it comes first, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone.

       Prior to the start of Oedipus the King, Oedipus has become the king of Thebes while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy he would kill his father, Laius (the previous king), and marry his mother, Jocasta (whom Oedipus took as his queen after solving the riddle of the Sphinx). The action of Sophocles’ play concerns Oedipus’ search for the murderer of Laius in order to end a plague ravaging Thebes, unaware the killer he is looking for is none other than himself. At the end of the play, after the truth finally comes to light, Jocasta hangs herself while Oedipus, horrified at his patricide and incest, proceeds to gouge out his own eyes in despair.

    In his Poetics Aristotle refers to Oedipus the King as an example of aspects of Greek tragedy.