1. مهم‌ترین مضمونِ سه نمایشنامه‌ی تبای را می‌توان «سرنوشت» مقدر و ناتوانیِ آدمی در فرارِ از آن دانست؛ حتی اودیپوسِ دانا نیز نتوانست خودش را از دام سرنوشتی که خواهرانِ «مویرای» برای وی ریسیده و بافته بودند، رهایی دهد و خود نیز به سرنوشتِ شوم خاندانش مبتلا شده و فرزندان/برادران و خواهرانش را نیز از آن بی‌نصیب کرد.

اما آنچه که فکر مرا به خود مشغول داشت، شباهتِ اودیپوس و گیلگمش بود؛ هر دوی آن‌ها کاخ پادشاهی و زادگاه‌شان را ترک می‌کنند تا شاید راهی برای فرار از سرنوشت‌شان پیدا کنند. و جالب اینکه هر دو از داناترین و بزرگ‌ترین مردمان خود بودند؛ هم گیلگمش و هم اودیپوس شهرشان را به ترتیب از شرِ گاو آسمان و ابوالهول می‌رهانند و ناجیِ شهر خود می‌شوند. اما مواجهه‌شان با مرگ، یکی مرگ دوستش و دیگری مرگ مردمانش، آن‌ها را با سرنوشتِ محتوم‌شان روبرو می‌کند.
اما چه می‌شود که یک نمایشنامه‌نویسِ آتنی (این دولت‌شهر سعادت‌مند و تمدن‌ساز) بر آن می‌گردد تا این‌گونه تیره و تار به سرنوشتِ گریزناپذیر آدمی و دست و پا زدن‌های بیهوده‌ی وی، زیر نگاه خیره‌ی خدایان بنگرد.

2. اما یکی از قدرتمندترین و یگانه‌ترین شخصیت‌های این سه نمایشنامه، «آنتیگونه» است؛ این شهدختی که شجاعانه پدر پیر و نابینای خود را رهنما و چشم می‌شود و گویی که بار سنگینِ سرنوشتِ او را شریک می‌شود. آنتیگونه به وضوح و با قدرت، سرنوشتِ خانوادگی‌شان را می‌پذیرد و بی هیچ هراسی به استقبال او و به استقبال مرگ می‌رود.
انگار که آنتیگونه‌ی نمایشنامه «اودیپوس در کلونوس»، روش و منشِ مواجهه با سرنوشت و مرگ را از اودیپوسِ نابینا، پدر/برادرش آموخته است، و اکنون در نمایشنامه «آنتیگونه»، یک تنه و کاملاً آگاه از و پذیرای سرنوشتی که برایش رقم خورده، به جنگِ با دژخیمِ زمانه‌اش می رود.

3. مسکوب در ترجمه‌ی خود، نه تنها به خوبی توانسته است که حال و هوای آرکائیکِ نمایشنامه‌ها را ترسیم کند، بلکه متنی یک‌دست و دلنشین ارائه داده است. و البته فکر می‌کنم که چنین نثر و ادبیتی، بر کار دشوارِ به روی صحنه بردن این نمایشنامه ها را دو چندان می افزاید.
و دیگر اینکه مقدمه‌ی مسکوب بر نمایشنامه‌ی اودیپوس شهریار را نپسندیدم و فکر می‌کنم که راه تفسیرِ اسطوره، این نباشد؛ اینکه منِ مخاطب/مقدمه‌نویس/مترجم افکار و تراوشات ذهنیِ خود را حولِ یکی از شخصیت‌ها شکل بدهم و سپس از هر کجا که ذهن‌ام یاری نمود، داستان‌ها و اساطیرِ مختلفِ دیگر را به عنوان شاهد یا هر چیز دیگری به آن الصاق کنم، تا متنی پنجاه صفحه‌ای از آن در آورم که می‌شد تمامی آن را در ده صفحه‌ام خلاصه کرد.



پ نوشت 1: خوانشِ این کتاب در این مقطع، جز به همتِ دوستانِ پیشنهاددهنده و البته همراهی‌کننده‌ی جمع‌خوانی مستطاب حاصل نمی‌شد؛ از همگان‌شان سپاسگزارم.
پ نوشت 2: امتیاز من به نمایشنامه ها، به ترتیب، 5 و 4 و 4.5 می‌باشد.

This is how I feel about Antigone:


Translation Notes
I have read four versions of the Antigone, three versions of Oedipus Rex, and two versions of Oedipus at Colonus, over five years. I don't know why I'm like this either. (Comment your favorite Antigone translations and I'll read them.)

Oxford edition, trans. unk (2015): In ninth grade, I read the Theban plays in my English class. I liked them. Antigone, specifically, made a very very large impression on me. I promptly forgot every single thing I thought about them. [I have a terrible memory.] So when audible offered a free audio of the plays with a full-cast narration… I went for it. And of course loved it again. Will need to reread these translations to fully retranslate.
Audio edition, trans. unk (2018): This audio stars the excellent Jamie Glover as Oedipus and the always-talented Hayley Atwell as Antigone, but casting such as Samantha Bond as Jocasta, Michael Melone as Creon, and Lydia Leonard as Ismene stand out as well. This is the reading upon which I decided perhaps Oedipus the King was very good.
Antigonick trans. Anne Carson (2019): More an adaption than a translation, and certainly not my favorite, if only because I love Antigone's original words so much. Worth reading, but after reading Antigone proper. Reviewed here.
The Greek Plays edition trans. Frank Nisetich (2020): I loved the biting stychomythia of this translation.

Play Reviews for Everything

n  →Oedipus the King←n★★★★★
Oedipus means swollen foot, in reference to his broken feet as a child, but holds a double meaning: Oida means I know, and Eidon means I saw, so the term could also be 'seeing foot'. If only he could see where his feet were going. Seeing, indeed, is the primary tension of the play. One eyewitness has two key details to give: the story of exposing the baby for Laius, and the story of watching a stranger kill Laius on a dark road.

What I like about this play is that it is a tragedy where no character has purposefully fucked things up. Every single character — from the later-unsympathetic Creon to the excellently written Jocasta — is sympathetic. It is so upsetting to see it unfold, see these characters have their lives so completely ruined. Around halfway through the play, Jocasta figures it out, and begs Oedipus to stop the process; knowing, but thinking to take it to her grave: he does not take it. Oedipus receives the opportunity to blame it all on Creon and keep his leadership: he does not take it. He is finding the truth for altruism, and will take it to the end.

For Oedipus, his recognition and reversal are a nightmare come true, a dream he never thought could occur. I was near tears during Oedipus’ final speech.

n  →Oedipus at Colonus←n★★★★☆
I actually, in hindsight, am not sure I read this in ninth grade. [We were only actually required to read Antigone.] This is the Family Feelings play, as in… the relationship between Antigone and Ismene and Oedipus is upsetting and I don’t like it. Almost all the action of this one is offstage, which makes it far harder to follow; honestly, this feels like a joiner between Oedipus the King and Antigone. I did enjoy the sense of tragedy and the character development.

n  →Antigone←n★★★★★
What I like about Antigone is Antigone. No, that's not quite right. What I like about Antigone is its focus on very different characters as they try to undermine Creon in three very different ways. Acting from honor, from logic, from empathy, the three youth of the royal family protest his decisions: Antigone representing the god’s honor and the woman’s honor; Ismene representing the woman’s honor; Haemon representing the youth’s honor and the city’s honor. The actions of Antigone, Haemon, and Ismene break the heirarchy down, and though by the end of the play, two lie dead, they have taught Creon his lesson. When the tyrant does not listen to those around him, he has nothing, and leaves the dead in his wake.

Antigone loves her honor before the gods, and will break any heirarchy, woman or not, to get to it; yet the city is on her side, following her lead. Ismene and Antigone have a fascinating sisterly relationship. The stychomythia (certain kind of meter used for conversation) between Haemon and Creon is one of my favorite scenes in any play I’ve read ever.

The 'guard' witnesses two very key events in Antigone's life: he is almost more 'casual', and oddly comedic. He introduces two burials, one scattering of earth, one seemingly divine and done by Antigone. This is not notable on the first readthrough. On the second, the question of who actually does the first burial hits.

Notable in the sense of tragic convention is that the chorus is all-male; in this genre, the chorus is generally the same gender as the protagonists, generally of a lower social position, but sympathetic. Though the chorus here is at times kind to Antigone, they are never fully on her side. By the time she gives her death speech, about to walk into her tomb, we know she is truly alone. Antigone is a spectacle to the chorus, as Oedipus once was.

Notable Lines (Frank Nisetich translation):
ANTIGONE: No dread of what some man might think would ever make me… be guilty before the gods. (457-459)
ANTIGONE: And I can’t join in hate, but only in love. (528)
ANTIGONE: Your thoughts appealed to some, mine to others.
ISMENE: And yet we’re both found guilty, both alike. (558-559)
CREON: Rulers own their cities--isn’t that the saying?
HAEMON: A fine ruler you’d make, alone, in a desert.
CREON: This fellow, it seems, is on the woman’s side.
HAEMON: If you’re a woman: it’s you I care for. (738-741)
HAEMON: Do you want to talk and talk and never listen? (755)

These plays are an excellent look at the nature of humanity, the hypocrisy of us and the fact that we all have our good sides and our bad. I know I will not be ending my love affair with Antigone anytime soon.

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عالی بود... سه نمایشنامه‌ی پشت‌سر هم از ادیپ. یکی از بهترین تراژدی‌های یونانی

Oedipus the King was the first Greek tragedy I read in my life, when I was still of a single-digit school age and not exactly because it was compulsory reading for my class (who wants to inflict uninentional incest on young children, anyhow?). I don't recall how old I was, besides too young, nor the exact circumstances that led me to pick up an "adult" book, but I do recall the copy belonged to an older cousin of mine who was definitely reading it for school, and that I also read Homer's two epics round the same time.

No, I wasn't traumatised. No, I don't recall being grossed out of my young wits by the amount of age-inappropriate content. No, I didn't find the story disturbing at all. No, I didn't have nightmares, and didn't remember the plot for long after.

Yes, it's probably behind my grown-up tolerance for the likes of House Lannister. Ahem!

More seriously, I never read the entire trilogy until now. Mostly because I already knew what was coming after the first play, and that more or less spoilt it for me. But currently I'm on a Big Three Tragedians reading binge, and it was Sophocles' turn. Looking in my shelves, turns out I've hoarded about seven different translations of his plays, from which I selected Robert Fagles as the best of the lot after sample-reading the others (Bagg and Kitto are next for the top three, by the way).

Did I like the two other plays that complete the Oedipan cycle, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone? Yes! Definitely yes, it's the only trilogy that got 5 stars for all three in a row, despite not being my favourite drama plot. It's too good to rate lower, in my opinion. And seeing the quality, it made me wish Sophocles' complete take on the House of Atreus hadn't been lost.

As a curious observation, there's an interesting little detail here: Sophocles chose to have Oedipus get divine compensation for his tragic fate upon death, by an ending that looked similar to biblical tales of similar tone, and also reminded me somewhat of J. R. R. Tolkien's Túrin, another tragically cursed character also driven to unintentional incest by forces beyond his control. Very interesting! What it is, I won't be telling, just do read it.

بنگريد، فرزندان تباي
اين اديپوس
بزرگتر مردان و رازگشاي ژرفترين معماها بود
و بهروزي تابناكش محسود همگان
بنگريد كه چگونه در گرداب تيره بختي غوطه ور است.

پس بدانيد كه انسان فاني بايد هميشه فرجام را بنگرد و هيچكس را نمي توان سعادتمند دانست مگر آنگاه كه قرين سعادت در گور بيارمد.

King Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices agree to share the throne of Thebes after their father's death. Initially, the brothers plan to alternate years, but after Eteocles' first year in power he refuses to give up the throne. This causes a civil war.
When Act I begins, the civil war is already over. Both brothers are dead, and their sisters, Antigone and Ismene, are in mourning. Their uncle Creon has assumed control of Thebes.
While Antigone is awaiting execution, the blind prophet Tiresias informs Creon that he has angered the gods. Creon decides to release Antigone, only to discover that she has committed suicide.

"In certain heroic natures unmerited suffering and death can be met with a greatness of soul which, because it is purely human, brings honor to us all."

The plays and messages were excellent (I mean how can one go wrong with Sophocles?), but this translation took a nosedive with the last play Antigone. The slang and too modern language (i.e. "blockhead", "I won't take the rap") sounded like dissonant music to my ear. I had to pull out my 1967 Penguin Classic edition from H.S. days to finish this last play. In HS we only read Oedipus Rex, so the Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone were fresh reads for me. If you are looking for a review that discusses the story or a scholarly treatise, you'll have to look elsewhere; there are plenty by better writers than I.
I did have one niggle, as the plays presented in the trilogy are not presented in their chronologically written order, so do I assume the story of Oedipus was already well known to the citizens before Antigone was staged as a play as it already refers to the curse of the house of Oedipus as a few other actions from the other plays.
I also seemed to have missed why Oedipus after unknowingly fulfilling the tragic prophecy from his birth, exiling and blinding himself, yet still showed the same hubris from Oedipus Rex in Oedipus at Colonus, was allowed a death that was near divine.
Antigone was definitely my favorite character and my hats off to Sophocles for developing a strong female character in a male dominated mortal world.

Nutshell: dude screws his mother in order to give psychoanalysis a set of master narratives.

Not a true trilogy, and written out of the order of this presentation, these texts commence from the unlikely proposition that Oedipus is somehow guilty for having scum parents--for the fact that "before three days were out / after his birth King Laius pierced his ankles / and by the hands of others cast him forth / upon a pathless hillside" (Oedipus Rex ll. 717-20) and thereafter, not knowing his father, killed him in apparent self-defense. Oedipus has no problem, it seems, believing "Was I not born evil? / Am I not utterly unclean?" (op. cit. ll. 822-23), insofar as "I and no other have so cursed myself. And I pollute the bed of him I killed" (id. ll. 820-21).

The action of the play itself begins in medias res with the proposition that Thebes suffers:

A blight is on the fruitful plants of the earth,
A blight is on the cattle in the fields,
a blight is on our women that no children
are born to them. (id. ll. 25-28)

This is immediately recognizable as the locus classicus of the fantasy of demographics, the ideological trans-genre concerned with irrational fears regarding biopolitical management of populations, most recently and stunningly articulated in Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse books as a 'wombplague.' (We see the same concern show up negatively in the fear of other species’ fertilities, such as in the Alien films or Jurassic Park.)

It is not for his own fault, but rather in a representative capacity, that Oedipus steps into liability for crime, to the extent that he "groans for city and myself and you at once" (id. l. 62), and likewise as a guarantor, in that the crime is a debt to be repaid ("redeem the debt of our pollution" (id. l. 313)), that conflates oikos and polis ("Are you not ashamed to air your private griefs when the country's sick?" (id. l. 635)). He is certainly a tyrant, endorsing torture (id. l. 1154) and confusing the legislative and judicial functions with his office (id. l. 235 et seq.)--but also the entire regime of making policy contingent upon religion is revealed to be the essence of tragedy here, insofar as Oedipus on the one hand enjoins the priest to diagnose the cause of the wombplague to be the foundational regicide, but then on the other hand comes to distrust priestly advice when Tiresias identifies him as the corruption, and thereby thinks it a coup d'etat by Creon, "robbery of my crown" (id. l. 535)--a fatal equivocation, surely, indicating the instability that shall always result for states who leave arbitration of the real to "go to the oracle at Pytho and inquire about the answers" (id. l. 604). If this theological determination of policy is not the fundamental pollution of the tragedy, then fault must rather be in the chorus of Theban citizens, who inform Oedipus that "you would better be dead than blind and living" (id. l. 1367)--states that approve of infanticide likely earn a wombplague.

The second text by internal chronology, Oedipus at Colonus, brings his long exile to an end, in the neighborhood of Athens--and its resolution seems like the close of a trilogy, similar to how Aeschylus' Eumenides closes out the Oresteia. The conflict in this text involves the civil war between his sons via Jocasta--both try to enlist him for whatever reason; he declines both; he cuts a deal with Theseus to be buried secretly near Athens, near the shrine of the Erinyes ("most feared Daughters of darkness and mysterious earth" (op. cit. 39-40)). The text is something of an enigma--what exactly is the story, and what is at stake?

The answer is in the third volume of Agamben's Homo Sacer, Stasis, discussing not only the conflation of oikos with polis but also the 'rules' of civil war, as discussed in the review, supra:

One curiosity of the stasis is that the Solonian constitution required the citizens to take one side or the other therein, lest the non-participant be afflicted with atimia (no-honor, or so? i.e., ‘dishonor’) “the loss of civil rights”—“not taking part in the civil war amounts to being expelled from the polis and confined to the oikos” (17). The corollary curiosity is that the constitution furthermore prohibits prosecution of crimes committed during the stasis--the amnestia, less a forgetting and more a refusal to make use of memory (21).

Oedipus, by his refusal to participate in the civil war, must be expelled definitively from the polis--his exile is made executory, say--but he cannot abide in the oikos, as the royal household tends to merge with the polis in a monarchy, but also because his household is already totally fucked up. And because he does not participate, there shall be no amnesia/amnesty for him. To the extent that these unstated rules of the stasis were salient for Athenian audiences, this must have been a powerful text--similar in effect to how the Oresteia catches Orestes in the contrary obligations to avenge one's father's death but not commit matricide. Athenian Theseus cuts the gordian knot here: "I shall not refuse this man's desire: I declare him a citizen" (id. l. 636)--which only replicates the problem of tyranny noted in connection with Oedipus Rex, conflating the legislative and judicial functions with his Athenian executive office.

In the third text, the Antigone, the Seven against Thebes that had been contemplated in Oedipus at Colonus has come to pass, Oedipus' sons are dead, and Jocasta's brother, Creon, steps into the state of exception as sovereign with the notion that "the very gods who shook the state with mighty surge have set it straight again" (op. cit. at 162), an orthopolitics that he as homo sacer embodies. His first act, once again conflating oikos and polis, and once again merging legislative and judicial function with his own office, declares that faithful Eteocles receives a state burial, whereas faithless Polyneices must remain unburied "a dinner for the birds and for the dogs" (id. l. 206). The contrary injunctions of loyalty to household and loyalty to state force Creon and Antigone to different acts--and the chorus of numbnut conservative Thebans here however admits "my mind is split at this awful sight" (id. l. 373), an ideological diremption of no easy resolution (perhaps the sort that causes stasis--Marx's 'between equal rights, force decides'). It is difficult to avoid Antigone's egalitarian position--"Death yearns for equal law for all the dead" (id. l. 519), whereas Creon is quite a bit less sympathetic ("No woman rule me while I live" (id. l. 524)). Both Antigone and Creon are in violation of Agamben's rules of the stasis, we should note, insofar as he is not engaging in amnesia/amnesty, and she had stayed with her father in the initial part of the war, only picking a side when the war was over.

Good times for the whole family. When Seneca gets a hold of this narrative, he skips much of the detective-type inquiry into uncovering the murderer of Laius and skips right to the main question of how in the holy hell does Tiresias know so much? In Sophocles, Tiresias simply shows up and tells everyone what happened. Seneca, however, is not satisfied with this sort of lazy storytelling. Rather, Seneca's Tiresias employs Tiresias' daughter, Manto, to read the sacrificial flames (op. cit. l. 309 et seq.), to read the affect of the sacrificial animals (id. l. 330 et seq.), to read the flowing of the animal's blood (id. l. 350 et sq.), and to read the entrails of the dead animal (id. l. 370 et seq.)--discovering therein "what monstrosity is this? A foetus in an unmated heifer!"--surely the worst sign possible when one is reading entrails? Thereafter, a priest is employed in necromantic arts of summoning the dead (id. l. 550 et seq.). It all leads to the same result, just a bit more interest in the techne of prophetics, without disturbing the flaw of including them at the foundation of policy.

n  Alas, alas, what misery to be wise when wisdom profits nothing!n

Great books do not reveal themselves all at once. Old classics must be revisited from time to time, at different stages of life, in order to experience the many resonant frequencies of the work. This time around I chose to listen to these Theban plays as an audiobook, with a full cast; and it was far preferable to the mute page.

Reading, listening to, or watching the Greek plays may be the nearest we get to time travel. The works immerse us in a foreign world. What struck me most was the Greek attitude towards freedom and fate. Shakespearean tragedy is reliant on human choice. As A.C. Bradley notes, the tragedy is always specific to the individual, to the extent that the tragedy of one play would be impossible for the protagonist of another. Put Hamlet in Othello’s place, or vice versa, and he would make short work of the play’s problem. The tragedy in a Greek play is, by contrast, inevitable and universal. By the time that the curtain is raised in Oedipus Rex, the Theban king has long ago sealed his doom.

There is nothing special about Oedipus that marks him for a tragic fate. His tragedy could have befallen a Hamlet or an Othello just as readily as an Oedipus. This changes the entire emotional atmosphere. Whereas in a Shakespearean tragedy we feel a certain amount of dramatic tension as the protagonists attempt to avert crisis, in Greek tragedy there is instead a feeling of being swept along by an invisible, inexorable force—divine and mysterious. It is animated by a far more pessimistic philosophy: that honest, noble, and wise people who do nothing wrong can be dragged into the pit of misery by an inscrutable destiny.

As a result, the plays can sometimes engender a feeling of mystery or even of vague mysticism, as we consider ourselves to be the mere playthings of forces beyond all control and understanding. Characters rise to power in such a way that we credit their virtues for their success; and yet their precipitate fall shows that there are other forces at play. Life can certainly feel this way at times, as we are buffeted about, lifted up, and cast down in a way that seems little connected to our own actions. For this reason, I think that the fatalistic pessimism of these plays is both moving and, at times, even consoling.

Of the three, the most artistically perfect is Oedipus Rex, which Sophocles wrote at the height of his career. Antigone, the last play, was actually written first; and Oedipus at Colonus was written over thirty years, at the very end of Sophocles’ life.

Though arguably the worst of the three, Antigone is the most thematically interesting. It pits two ethical concepts against one another with intense force, specifically different sorts of loyalty. Is it better to be loyal to one’s family, to the gods, to the state, or to the ruler? Creon’s interdiction, though vengeful and petty, is understandable when one remembers that Polynices is a traitor responsible for an attack on his homeland that doubtless cost many citizens’ lives. Creon could have justified his decree as a discouragement of future disloyalty. Antigone believes that duty to family transcends the duty of a citizen, and the events justify this belief.

It must be admitted, however, that this ethical question is muddled by the religious nature of central issue. Few people nowadays can believe that burial rites are important enough to merit self-sacrifice and civil disobedience. When the superstitious element is removed, Antigone’s ethical superiority seems questionable at best. Certainly there are many cases when loyalty to the family can be distinctly unethical. If a sister sheltered a brother who just escaped imprisonment for murder, I think this would be an unequivocally immoral act. But since burial does not involve help or harm to anyone, the ethical question becomes largely symbolic—if no less interesting.

Even if the emotional import of these plays has been somewhat dulled by the passing years, they remain amazingly alive and direct. The power of these plays is such that, even now, when the Greek gods have passed into harmless myth, here we can still feel the sense of awe and terror in the face of a divine order that passes beyond understanding. It would take a long time for theater to again reach such heights.

As always, I am torn among the many translations. I have this Penguin edition, translated by Robert Fagles (1982), and the older (1949) translation by Dudley Fitts & Robert Fitzgerald.

Fagles' translation reads well, but so does Fitzgerald's. Fitzgerald breaks down the play to scenes, which I like--even though these are short plays, I find Fagles' no-break translation rather tiresome. (I have no idea which style is more faithful to the ancient Greek original.)

Sometimes the two translations are so quite different that I wonder if they come from the same original (perhaps there are variations?) Here is the same speech by Antigone:

Fitzgerald

I dared.
It was not God's proclamation. That final Justice
That rules the world below makes no such laws.

Your edict, King, was strong,
But all your strength is weakness itself against
The immortal unrecorded laws of God.
They are not merely now: they were, and shall be,
Operative for ever, beyond man utterly.

I knew I must die, even without your decree:
I am only mortal. And if I must die
Now, before it is my time to die,
Surely this is no hardship: can anyone
Living, as I live, with evil all about me,
Think Death less than a friend? ...

Fagles

Of course I did. 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 override the gods,
the great unwritten, unshakable 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.

These laws--I was not about to break them,
not out of fear of some man's wounded pride,
and face the retribution of the gods.
Die I must, I've known it all my life--
how could I keep from knowing?--even without
your death-sentence ringing in my ears.
And if I am to die before my time
I consider that a gain. Who on earth,
alive in the midst of so much grief as I,
could fail to find his death a rich reward? ...

As you see, Fagles tends to be wordy. And where did the line "not out of fear of some man's wounded pride" come from? (I sorta like it, however. Ah, the two equally proud characters--Antigone and Creon. I can see both sides' points.)

These plays were offered at Dionysia events to honor Dionysus, the god of joy and entertainment. I find it interesting that tragedies were the main part of this theatrical event. Apparently, ancient Greeks knew the positive, cleansing effect of a good cry.

در کل فوق العاده بود.
کم و بیش با نمایشنامه اول آشنا بودم و کلا داستان ادیپوس و مخصوصا سرنوشتش توی نمایشنامه اول برام مسخره و غیرقابل قبول بود اما وقتی کامل خوندمش به شدت تحت تاثیر قرار گرفتم مخصوصا با دیالوگ های خود اودیپوس در قسمت های پایانی.
هر سه تا نمایشنامه پایان های به شدت فوق العاده و مو بر تن راست کنی داشتن فقط یه مشکل کوچیک با پایان ادیپوس در کلنوس داشتم که اونم این بود که خیلی دوست داشتم چیزی که ادیپوس به تسئوس نشون میده رو بدونم چیه و تو نمایشنامه بخونمش.
و چه ترجمه ی فوق العاده ای هم هست ترجمه شاهرخ مسکوب قشنگ ترجمه ی جان داریه و نثرش کاملا حس داره، حتی میشه گفت به شدت کوبنده اس.