Já tinha lido esta peça muitos anos atrás. Mas agora li-a com muito mais proveito, pois li a Ilíada recentemente e estava, portanto, muito mais familiarizado com o "espírito" grego. E a tradução portuguesa da Edições 70, apesar de ser em prosa, é de leitura muito, muito poética, como aliás é tão típico dos portugueses. As frases são tão bem redigidas, a sonoridade é tão bem construída e natural ao mesmo tempo! Foi um grande prazer.

Quanto ao conteúdo, uma das coisas que mais me marcaram foi a idéia de a progênie carregar consigo o legado dos atos abomináveis cometidos pelos pais. Prefiguração do tema judaico-cristão do pecado original? Antes, creio eu, expressão de uma mesma realidade, porém num plano menos profundo, menos abrangente, já que os gregos concebiam a transcendência de uma maneira mais, por assim dizer, naturalista; isto é, como algo que se passaria em um mundo quase que contíguo a este aqui.

honestly, I feel bad for Oedipus. He left his house to do the right thing and try to avoid killing his dad, just to come across his real dad and kill him anyway. It's really unfortunate and it really sucks for him. And then he had to go and skewer his eyeballs like yikes he's not having a good time, is he ?

RIP Oedipus eyes, I'm sorry this happened to you. Honestly, I know this play is super tragic, and it actually is interesting how he tried to avoid his fate which led to him fulfilling it anyway but you can't not laugh at his misfortune. Or maybe I have to laugh to avoid thinking about the fact his siblings are his children

Thebai halkı hastalık, kıtlık, ölü doğan çocuklar gibi büyük felaketlerle boğuşmaktadır. Thebai'nin Kral'ı Oidipus güçlü, dürüst ve adil bir adamdır. Sarayının önüne gelip ondan çare bulmasını bekleyen halka elinden geleni yapacağını söyler, öyle de yapar. Öğreneceklerinin başına ne belalar açacağını nereden bilsin? Tam bir facia!

Kitabı hala okumamış olanlar önsözü kitabı bitirdikten sonra okursa çok daha iyi olur, yoksa kitabın sonunu okumuş olmak keyfinizi epey kaçırabilir. Epeydir okumayı düşündüğüm Henry Bauchau'nun Oedipus ve Antigone serisini okumadan önce bu seriyi tekrar tazelemek istedim.

"Cuadrúpedo en la aurora, alto en el día
y con tres pies errando por en vano
ámbito de la tarde, así veía
la eterna esfinge a su inconstante hermano,

el hombre, y con la tarde un hombre vino
que descifró aterrado en el espejo
de la monstruosa imagen, el reflejo
de su declinación y su destino.

Somos Edipo y de un eterno modo
la larga y triple bestia somos, todo
lo que seremos y lo que hemos sido.

Nos aniquilaría ver la ingente
forma de nuestro ser; piadosamente
Dios nos depara sucesión y olvido."
— n  Jorge Luis Borgesn (Edipo y el enigma)



(Francis Bacon - Sphinx)

"Όταν κάποιος είναι θνητός, περιμένοντας να δούμε την τελευταία μέρα
ας μην τον καλοτυχίζουμε, πριν φτάσει στο τέλος της ζωής του
χωρίς κάτι δυσάρεστο να πάθει."

(εκδ. ΖΗΤΡΟΣ, μετάφραση Θ. ΜΑΥΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ)

¡Que buen libro ! Me alegra haberlo rescatado del cajón donde guardaba mis lecturas de instituto. Tiene mucha fuerza.

Well that was awesome.

As a student in a Greek high school I was more or less forced to read this, translate it from the ancient Greek text for my exams to "prove" I deserved to go to the next educational level (where we did Homer), do assignments on it, listen to my professors as they spoke of its "meaning" and ask myself why Sophocles wrote it to begin with. And I HATED the damn thing. I hated Oedipus just as much as I hated Sophocles.

However, when I left high school, I realized that people - not only in Greece, but around the world - praised it as a masterful writing. Even though a Greek tragedy - with the always heavy hovering Fate over the heroes and their family tree - it's so much more than what my high school teacher told us it was. I wasn't mature enough to understand it then (I viewed Oedipus as a incestuous, poor bastard at the time!) I'm old enough to do so now. And not many things can be said about its vastly horrific grandeur.

hot girls kochaja rozszerzony polski

n  "Look and learn all citizens of Thebes. This is Oedipus.
He, who read the famous riddle, and we hailed chief of men,
All envied his power, glory, and good fortune.
Now upon his head the sea of disaster crashes down.
Mortality is man’s burden. Keep your eyes fixed on your last day.
Call no man happy until he reaches it, and finds rest from suffering."n

I believe that in one way or another, everyone - at least to some extent - has heard of the story of Oedipus and Jocasta. It's one of those tales that's been on our collective consciousness forever even though we may not even be able to assertively answer about its origins. The same might be said, for example, of Odysseus and Don Quixote: they've been so used and re-used, adapted and re-adapted throughout so many generations and in so many different formats that one might as well state they were simply born within us, for they're public and common knowledge. I, for one, believed Oedipus and Jocasta's tale came from the Bible! As I was never a religious person and therefore never payed much attention to it - and unfortunately never decently studied Greek mythology -, I used to unconsciously attribute to the Bible the origins of all stories which seemed to me as too ancient to properly date. I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed about that, Sophocles. I stand corrected now.

Every time I read an ancient text I recurrently find myself to blame because of the same mistake: being surprised by its quality despite being written so long ago. It turns out more and more I agree with an analysis I've read somewhere that states that, unlike science, there is no progress, no discovery in art. An artist, while he creates, is not helped by the efforts of all the others - like scientists are - and depends upon his own individual truths. The ancient art is in no way a primitive version of the art created by our contemporaries. So it should not be astonishing to me that a text written thousands of years ago possesses the same qualities or refinement of awarded pieces that only now cracked their fifty years of age mark.

Putting the story itself a little aside, it's precisely this refinement, this brilliance in the construction of the narrative that impressed me so much. The pace, the development of the action and disentanglement of this intricate plot was written so masterfully that it requires little investigation in discovering the reasons why it became so influential to the subsequent generations. Now, I'm not knowledgeable enough to affirm that Sophocles himself wasn't influenced by other works that preceded him, so I'm not claiming unprecedented originality to his name here, but merely(!) talent in using the most appropriate techniques to write so many wondrous predicates into this marvelous play. The ability with which he created, sustained and solved the various mysteries that surround this classical tragedy is very remarkable, as well as a striking mixture of pity and horror that the themes developed here successfully imposes on the reader.

Themes such as fate, free will, interference in human life by the Gods (for some that hasn't changed much, has it?) and its inflexible exploration of human nature and suffering are skillfully written in the form of intense dialogues and shocking revelations that could even prove too disturbing had not been Sophocles accurate treatment, much like the reader likely pities Phedre's actions instead of automatically blaming her for her fate. The ever so mesmerizing battle between destiny and logical consequences also plays a big role here: does fate completely control Oedipus's actions - is it all predetermined? -, or is he simply a victim of his own doings, even if unknowingly?

Oedipus Rex (also known as Oedipus the King and Oedipus Tyrannus) tells the story of Oedipus, a man that's respected and loved in Thebas, where he is King after solving the riddle of the Sphinx and marrying Jocasta, the widow of the previous king. After a plague threatens his kingdom, he is begged by a chorus of Thebans for help and Oedipus sends for an oracle in order to find some guidance. As it turns out, Tiresias, the blind prophet, believes the King is the only one to blame for his malady. At first outraged and, because of it, incensed into proving his innocence, he starts connecting the clues that he receives from various bits of information gathered by different sources. As it turns out, Oedipus, after leaving his home in Corinth due to a prophecy which stated he would murder his father and sleep with his mother, entered a fight with some men at a crossroads and ended up killing them, before arriving in Thebes. One of these men was Laius, Jocasta’s husband and previous King. In order to escape the prophecy, Oedipus fell into it, as he was Laius’s son who was sent away to be killed many years ago exactly because he received an oracle that he would be murdered by his own son. Oedipus’s life ended up being spared and, unknown to him, he was adopted by the King of Corinth. Now it was clear to him that, besides murdering his father, he has slept with his own mother and fathered children that were also his brothers and sisters. Jocasta, upon finding out this complex imbroglio, can't deal with the unimaginable situation and kills herself. Completely horrified and ruined by everything he found out, Oedipus blinds himself (ironically at the precise moment when he sees the whole truth) so he wouldn't ever again need to see his own feelings of shame and humiliation mirrored in the faces of the others.

I've read some criticism stating that some of the drama in the play is a bit over the top, and while I wouldn't agree and, more importantly, couldn't possibly begin to imagine myself in the same situation, I guess it was in vogue at the time that the heroes would suffer so much when they'd find their worlds turned upside down that they would impose on themselves severe sentences such as mutilations or death. Part of their heroism is exactly accepting to endure serious consequences, not once pleading blamelessness. Even later, in Shakespeare, we were still to find six or seven characters dying just like that, entire families decimated because of the belief that there could be no way out once the universe had programmed their fates.

Film adaptation: as influential as this story was everywhere, of course it wouldn’t lack adaptations in film. When I found out there was one Edipo Re (1967), directed by Pasolini, I instantly picked it to watch as I imagined that controversial material filmed by controversial director could only result in very interesting movie - to say the least! Much to my surprise, the ick factor was greatly downplayed and this time the Italian director focused more on the emotional aspects of his narrative than on the sexual ones. His rendition was very faithful to the story, although the linear narrative lacked the sophistication employed by Sophocles that chose to slowly reveal details of the plot by making use of different characters referring to past events. The power of the prophecy and the influence in human lives by the Gods were also not as active as in the original story. The intro Pasolini used though was very interesting: it begins in modern days where a father is very jealous of his son's connection with his mother and decides to get rid of him, as if he was anticipating an Oedipus complex situation; after that, time goes back to the ancient days.

Rating: I can't wait to read more from Sophocles and if my anticipation for the remaining plays in this trilogy (Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone) means anything, is that it's a great testament of Oedipus Rex's qualities and how highly I enjoyed this short but intense reading experience: 5 stars.

I actually like this one better than Antigone, the subject is very disturbing, but I liked the writing a lot.

"From these hands of mine you drank my own, your father's blood."

this play is so good. i do not like it :(

plays that feel like biting electrical wires. plays that feel like eating glass. the tragedy of this play is the dramatic irony--the Knowing the entire time & having to watch the truth unfold, with slow horror-movie inevitability, for oedipus himself--a man who wants nothing more than to find the truth, to untangle this riddle like he did with that of the sphinx. and it's that curiosity and sense of noble duty that undoes him. plays that make you have to draw a little :{ face in the margins three or four times

(talk about bad breaks. can you imagine being the guy who solved the sphinx's riddle, and all anyone ever wants to talk about is how you fucked your mom?)

translations read: whichever one i read on genius.com that time, frank nisetich