Oedipus Rex
Sophocles, -429
A plague-stricken city, a king who promises to find a murderer, and an investigation that keeps turning back on the investigator.
Sophocles
-496–-406
Sophocles writes about people who act with total conviction and then have to live inside the consequences, and the plays keep their grip because the arguments on both sides are still worth having. Start with «Oedipus Rex», where a ruler's promise to clean up his city turns into a search for himself, or with «Antigone», where a sister's duty to her dead brother collides with the new king's idea of order. Both are short, plain-spoken dramas about stubbornness, family and the cost of doing what you think is right.
Feels like freedom, dread and defiance.
Start with Oedipus Rex.
Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays and served as an Athenian general; only seven of his tragedies survive whole.
What stays unforgiven when a crime becomes the price of peace?
My lot be still to leadThe life of innocence and flyIrreverence in word or deed,To follow still those laws ordained on highWhose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky.No mortal birth they own,Olympus their progenitor alone:Ne’er shall they slumber in oblivion cold,The god in them is strong and grows not old. Books by Sophocles
Antigone
Sophocles, -441
A young woman defies a new king to bury her brother, and discovers how much a city will sacrifice to enforce its own order.
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