This is an edition of the Theban plays with lengthy introductions on both Greek theatre in general and each one of the plays in particular. They are presented in their chronological order, starting with Antigone, then Oedipus the king and finally the lesser known Oedipus at Colonus. Almost every line from Sophocles is quotable in an everyday situation. He has a hold on essential questions humans have faced throughout ages, which explains why for 24 centuries every reader found a deep meaning and a great wisdom in his words.


Greek theatre is first of all a religious phenomenon. It is really hard to imagine how the Greeks transitioned from a ceremony honoring their Gods to a sophisticated reflection on human condition. It is true that Gods occupy an important place in the plays, but the events and the feelings are always approached from the point of view of the humans. This makes the humans more central than the Gods. We follow characters, victims of an arbitrary and cruel divine will, who demonstrate great ingenuity and determination, to escape their fate only to discover by the end that there was no way out from the very start.


The modern reader might not be convinced of how these dark forces control our existence. We don’t believe in arbitrary Gods anymore. We live after all, in an age of meritocracy and egalitarianism, a king is no longer seen as more fortunate than everybody else and there is possibility for social ascension for everybody and fortunes can be made by individual hard work. But this is exactly the case for Oedipus, his status in Thebes and even his kingship was achieved through his own talent, and also the luck which put him, the right man, in the right spot at the right time. He keeps repeating this throughout the play. Only to discover that those exact events for which he was considered the most fortunate of men were also the causes of his ultimate doom. His skill and determination to save his people from the plague will only uncover the calamities he thought he could escape. This is where the limits of man are dawned. Limits in terms of knowledge, after all we do not know where our own good lies. We strive for or regret what we consider can bring us happiness, assure us a good life, make us the envy of everyone, but we do not know if these promises are real or completely the opposite of what we hoped for. Man constantly fights the wrong battles, misses the point and errs when it comes to the nature of his own Good.


The plays also have a heavy political dimension to them. Not any political theory developments but raw and fundamental matters about life in community. In Antigone, we witness the struggle between bonds of kinship, in the form of the natural rights of the individual to honor his diseased kin, and on the other side, the bonds of citizenship, in the form of the public order which ought to be respected by man made laws. In a context of a war waging society in which individuals are constantly called to sacrifice their lives for the state, the conflict of interests between the individual and the state is taken to astronomical proportions.


In Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus is promised refuge and protection in Athens by its king Theseus. The chorus dwells at length on this act of accepting a new citizen regardless of the extremely profane nature of his past. We have a demonstration of the cohesion of the Atheniens and their desire to collectively respect laws of hospitality and obligation to protect the less fortunate. What makes the life in community one of the most fragile creations of man is that it relies heavily on mutual trust between individuals, a trust without any guarantees. Oedipus keeps asking for reassurances from Thesseus, but the king keeps repeating that it is of no need to renew his promises. Doing so will only make them vulnerable, he keeps strengthening his words with actions, without which this whole edifice of trust which binds him to his citizens will fall apart.


By the end, we go back to the theme of fate to have a glimpse at the views of Oedipus at the end of his life. He reflects on all those events, not rebellious or angry at the Gods, but a man much sure of himself. Although blind, old and destitute, he knows more, more than he ever had. Suffering bears fruits of knowledge. He rejects his individual responsibility, having committed both parricide and incest not knowing what he was doing. He emphasized on his innocence, but without anger, regret or frustration. He came to a total acceptance of what the Gods have decided for him. And so do we, as readers, even if the worst nightmares come to life, after the fear, the rage then the pity, comes a sense of release, after all it is all okay.

Trebuie să recunosc că mi-au plăcut toate.

چه لذتی بردم از خوندن این سه تراژدی یونان باستان.

اصلا باورم نمی‌شد ۲۰۰۰ سال پیش یا همچین حدودی نوشته شده باشن و هنوز انقدر جذاب و گیرا برای من مخاطب قرن بیست و یکمی باشن.

سه نمایشنامه «ادیپوس شهریار»، «ادیپوس در کلونس» و «آنتیگنه».

ادیپوس فرزند کایدوس نفرین شده که تقدیرش کشتن پدر و به همسری گرفتن مادر خودش هست. قطعا میدونید که فروید نظریه «عقده ادیپ» رو از این نمایشنامه برداشت کرده.
داستان ادیپوس در مواجهه با تقدیرش و داستان فرزندانش که یکی از اونها آنتیگنه باشه در ادامه نفرین ابدی که خاندانشون بهش گرفتاره توی این سه نمایشنامه نقل میشه.
یک نکته جالب این بود که خب چون نمیتونستن جنگ‌ها رو اون زمان روی صحنه اجرا کنن، یک گروه همسرایان داستان جنگ‌ها رو با آب و تاب نقل میکنه، یعنی رویدادها هم دیالوگ‌طور روایت میشن.

نمایشنامه‌‌ منظوم با ترجمه بی‌نظیر شاهرخ مسکوب که منتج شده به یک نثر کهن فاخر آهنگین که لذت خوندن رو صدچندان میکنه.

علاوه بر همه این نکات من عاشق خدایان یونانی و قصه‌هاشون هستم و چه نقش پررنگی داشتن توی این کتاب. و من از تلفظ اسمهاشون و نیرنگ‌هاشون و بازی‌هایی که با انسان فانی میکنن چقدر کیف کردم.

یک مقدمه مترجم نوشته بر این اثر که شاهکار مسلمه. یک موخره بسیار جذاب هم اضافه کرده راجع به تراژدی آنتیگنه.

اصلا در خوندن این اثر شک نکنید که از هر لحاظ باارزشه.

مرگ را نمیتوان تمنا کرد. او نمی آید تا آدمی را از سرنوشتی که خود ساخته بِرَهد. «آنتیگونه اثر سوفوکلس»

میخوایم خیلی کوتاه راجع به سه شاهکار بی بدیل ، سه تراژدی فراموش نشدنی ، سه نمایشنامه که انقدر مهم اند که همه بر آن ها مسئله دارن ، صحبت کنیم :
«ادیپوس شهریار» ، «ادیپوس در کلونس» و «آنتیگونه»
خیلی کوتاه جهت جلوگیری از اسپویل : خانم ها و آقایان شما با یک شاهکار «ادیپوس در کلونس» و دو ابر شاهکار «آنتیگونه» و «ادیپوس شهریار» طرفید.
ابرشاهکار ها رو هرگز فراموش نمیکنید‌. حق هم دارین. ببینین «ادیپوس شهریار» چه اعجوبه‌ایه که همه از «هایدگر» تا «فروید» و حتی روان شناس های امروزی روش نقد دارن و مسئله‌شونه.

و «آنتیگونه» آنتیگونه‌ای که شاید بتونم بگم از «ادیپوس شهریار» هم (کمی) بهتره. آنتیگونه‌ای که مجموعه‌ای از جدال هاست‌. جدال شناختن شر و خیر ، جدال ظالم و مظلوم ، جدال دادخواهی و عدالت خواهی ، جدال با قدرت تقدیر روزگار و در نهایت جدال با پذیرش سرنوشت. باید اثر رو بخونین تا بفهمین بعد از خوندنش تا چه حد منقلب میشید.

«آنتیگونه» و «ادیپوس شهریار» رفتن توو لیست صد داستانم

The three plays in which Sophocles sets forth the unhappy fate of Oedipus and his descendants are characterized by profound dramatic compression and unfailingly incisive insights into human character. And as presented for modern audiences by the renowned translator Robert Fagles, the plays Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone speak to modern audiences with the same power that they possessed when they were originally staged at Athens’ Theatre of Dionysus in the 5th century B.C.

Aside from inspiring Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic concept of the “Oedipus complex,” Oedipus the King is a classical tragedy that also works as the world’s first detective story. Oedipus, king of Thebes, has been a hero to his people ever since he ended the monstrous Sphinx’s hold over the city by solving the Sphinx’s riddle. According to Apollodorus, the dialogue (not included in Sophocles' play) went something like this:

SPHINX: Which creature has one voice, and yet becomes four-footed, and then two-footed, and then three-footed?
OEDIPUS: Man -- who crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and then uses a walking stick in old age.
SPHINX: [throws herself from top of high hill to her death]

Now, many years later, the city of Thebes is afflicted by plague; and in response to the Theban people’s pleas for help, King Oedipus has sent Creon, the brother of his wife Jocasta, to ask Apollo’s oracle at Delphi why the city is cursed with plague. Creon returns from Delphi with the oracle’s verdict: the city is polluted. The murderer of Oedipus’ predecessor Laius still lives in Thebes, the oracle says, and must be expelled before Thebes can be freed from the plague.

Small wonder that, in 429 B.C. when the play is thought to have premiered, plague was on Sophocles’ mind, and on the minds of the Athenian people generally. Two years before, the Peloponnesian War between Athens had begun. The war’s first year had ended with a devastating plague outbreak; among the bubonic illness’s many victims was Pericles, the city’s wise and eloquent leader. It is more than understandable that Sophocles and his audience would both be drawn to a story about people seeking leadership in the midst of a devastating outbreak of plague.

Oedipus, a man of action, begins seeking information regarding the murderer of Laius, and, in a moment of supreme dramatic irony, pronounces a grim curse against the unknown killer: “Whoever he is…let that man drag out/his life in agony, step by painful step -- /I curse myself as well…if by any chance/he proves to be an intimate of our house,/here at my hearth, with my full knowledge,/may the curse I just called down on him strike me!” (p. 172). Oedipus has no idea that he has just condemned himself.

At the suggestion of a leading Theban citizen (the choragos or choral leader for the play), Oedipus summons the blind prophet Tiresias. When Tiresias is reluctant to speak, Oedipus loses his temper, mocks Tiresias for being blind, and accuses Tiresias of plotting to help seize power. Tiresias, getting angry himself, makes a fateful statement in response: “So,/you mock my blindness? Let me tell you this./You with your precious eyes,/you’re blind to the corruption of your life….All unknowing/you are the scourge of your own flesh and blood…and the double lash of your mother and your father’s curse/will whip you from this land one day…darkness shrouding/your eyes that now can see the light!” (p. 183) The whole play is filled with this sort of dramatic irony.

Oedipus comes to seem more and more unbalanced, accusing Creon, without evidence, of seeking to usurp the throne of Thebes. Oedipus’ wife, the queen Jocasta, intervenes, and tries to reassure Oedipus, telling him that “An oracle came to Laius one fine day…and it declared/that doom would strike him down at the hands of a son,/our son, to be born of our own flesh and blood. But Laius…was killed by strangers,/thieves, at a place where three roads meet” (p. 201). Jocasta’s words, meant to reassure Oedipus, only make him more afraid; for he once killed a man after a quarrel at a place where three roads meet.

Oedipus also reveals that in Corinth, where he grew up as the son of King Polybus and his wife Merope, he was told at a feast by a drunken guest that he was not his father’s son. Troubled by the accusation, Oedipus traveled to Delphi to consult the oracle, and heard the following dreadful prophecy: “You are fated to couple with your mother, you will bring/a breed of children into the light no man can bear to see -- /you will kill your father, the one who gave you life!” (p. 205) Oedipus fled Corinth that day, determined to avoid the dreadful prophecy; his path took him toward Thebes, where he overcame the Sphinx and won the hand of Jocasta. He starts to sense that, in trying to flee his fate, he has raced towards it.

Jocasta has heard the same prophecies; and while they wait for the shepherd who was assigned to kill the baby child of Jocasta and Laius, she tells her own story of terrifying prophecy: “Apollo was explicit:/my son was doomed to kill my husband…my son,/poor defenseless thing, he never had a chance/to kill his father. They destroyed him first” (p. 208).

A messenger from Corinth brings what seems like news that would make the curse moot: King Polybus has died. But the messenger also reveals that many years ago, he gave the baby Oedipus to Polybus, having accepted the baby from another shepherd. And, sure enough, that other shepherd, now an old man, once he has been brought to court and threatened with torture, reveals that he took a baby from Jocasta, under orders to kill the child; but he could not bring himself to do so, and therefore he gave the baby to the messenger.

Through this backwards-in-time progression, gathering evidence from Creon and Tiresias and Jocasta and the messenger and the shepherd, Oedipus has confirmed that he murdered his father and married his mother. He blinds himself and sends himself into exile, and the choragos, echoing the Athenian lawgiver Solon, cautions the audience that one should “count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last” (p. 251).

Oedipus at Colonus is, of these plays, the one that most often goes unread, but it provides a helpful link between the events of Oedipus the King and Antigone. The blind Oedipus, cast out of Thebes by his own sons Eteocles and Polyneices, has wandered the world as a blind beggar for years. Accompanied by his daughter Antigone, he has now arrived at the grove of the Furies at Colonus. The legendary hero-king Theseus of Athens, who (unsurprisingly) is usually depicted quite sympathetically in Athenian drama, offers welcome and refuge to Oedipus. Moved by Theseus’ kindness, Oedipus reflects, “Oh Theseus,/dear friend, only the gods can never age,/the gods can never die. All else in the world/almighty Time obliterates, crushes all/to nothing” (p. 322). The Athenian audience of the time would no doubt have detected the new note of humility in the once arrogant Oedipus.

Creon, angling to take over the rule of Thebes, pretends to sympathize with Oedipus but in fact keeps trying to solidify his power, seeking to make off with Oedipus’ daughters Ismene and Antigone. Theseus is having none of that, telling Creon, “You have come to a city that practices justice,/that sanctions nothing without law” (p. 341). Creon insolently responds that he had thought better of the Athenians, that “they’d never harbor a father-killer…worse,/a creature so corrupt, exposed as the mate,/the unholy husband of his own mother” (p. 343). Quick to judge, never able to let go of the past, Creon will face his own comeuppance in time.

Meanwhile, Oedipus’ sons Eteocles and Polyneices, once ruling Thebes together, have had a falling-out; Eteocles has become sole king, and has sent Polyneices into exile. Polyneices seeks out his estranged father and begs Oedipus to relent in his curse against his sons, pointing out that, now that Polyneices is himself an exile, “We share the same fate” (p. 363). But Oedipus rejects his faithless son, becoming a bit of a Teiresias-style prophet himself when he prophecies that Eteocles and Polyneices, brothers turned enemies, will kill one another when Polyneices raises an army of Argive mercenaries and makes war against Thebes: “Die!/Die by your own blood brother’s hand – die! – /killing the very man who drove you out” (p. 363).

Clearly, Oedipus still has much of his old spirit; but it seems that time and suffering have taken away much of his former arrogance, leaving a humbler man with what an Athenian audience of the time would have regarded as a proper reverence for the gods. Accordingly, he is granted the sort of apotheosis characteristic of a hero’s destiny: a messenger reports that when Theseus accompanied Oedipus to the place where everyone thought Oedipus would die, “we turned/in a moment, looked back, and Oedipus – /we couldn’t see the man – he was gone – nowhere!” (p. 381). Theseus indicates that he will keep forever the secret of the place from which Oedipus departed this world, stating that Oedipus told him “that if I kept my pledge/I’d keep my country free of harm forever” (p. 388). Oedipus at Colonus ends on a note of foreboding, as Antigone and Ismene leave Colonus for Thebes, hoping against hope that they can keep their brothers Eteocles and Polyneices from plunging the Theban people into all the horrors of civil war.

Antigone shows a woman’s strength under the most difficult circumstances imaginable; accordingly, it may have been the most challenging, of all these plays, for Sophocles’ original Athenian audiences, with their unexamined assumptions regarding male domination in their society. By the time of the play’s beginning, the attempts of Antigone and her sister to prevent civil war have proven unavailing; the Theban civil war has already taken place. Polyneices’ rebel army of Argive mercenaries, led by the “Seven Against Thebes,” has been defeated, and the warring brothers Eteocles and Polyneices have killed one another in battle.

Creon now rules as king of Thebes, and he has ordained that, while Eteocles is to receive an honourable burial as a man who defended his city, Polyneices’ body is to be left out on the plain, to rot and be eaten by animals – a terrible profanation, and an offence against the gods. The Chorus of Theban elders express the Athenian audience’s likely sensibilities at Creon’s cruel and impious act when they declare that “Numberless wonders/terrible wonders walk the world but none the match for man” (p. 76).

It soon emerges that someone has performed the customary burial ceremonies over the exposed body of Polyneices; Creon is outraged by this open defiance of his royal command. Antigone, caught by sentries performing the rituals, readily admits to what she has done, citing as her reason for disobeying Creon’s directive her adherence to higher, divine laws: “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” (p. 82). Creon orders Antigone’s execution and that of her sister Ismene, but Antigone scornfully rejects Ismene’s wish to share her sister’s fate, as the fearful Ismene refused to join with Antigone in performing the burial ceremonies over the body of Polyneices.

Creon’s son Haemon, betrothed to Antigone, pleads for the life of his fiancée, but in vain; Creon ordains that Antigone shall be buried alive, put into a tomb under the earth. The blind prophet Teiresias calls upon Creon to turn from his destructive and impious path, pointing out the unnatural, morally inverted quality of Creon’s actions: “[Y]ou have thrust/to the world below a child sprung for the world above,/ruthlessly lodged a living soul within the grave – /then you’ve robbed the gods below the earth,/keeping a dead body here in the bright air,/unburied, unsung, unhallowed by the rites” (p. 115).

Creon at first remains stubborn, accusing Teiresias of taking bribes and being a prophet-for-hire; Teiresias angrily tells Creon that the Furies are ready “to strike you down with the pains that you perfected!” (p. 115). Once Teiresias has gone, Creon finally rethinks his prideful ways and resolves to set Antigone free. But his change of heart comes too late: the despairing Antigone has killed herself. Haemon, finding his beloved dead in the tomb, first raises his hand in anger against his father but then turns his anger against himself, taking his own life and joining Antigone in death. Creon’s wife Eurydice, hearing of the death of her beloved son, likewise commits suicide. Creon, lamenting his fatal pride – “Ohhh, so senseless, so insane…my crimes,/my stubborn, deadly --” (p. 124) -- is left an empty shell of a man, longing for death. It is left to the Chorus to sum up a key theme not just of Antigone, but of the Theban trilogy generally:

“Wisdom is by far the greatest part of joy,
And reverence toward the gods must be safeguarded.
The mighty words of the proud are paid in full
with mighty blows of fate, and at long last
Those blows will teach us wisdom.” (p. 128)

The grim trilogy sets forth with particular force the ancient Greek idea that hubris (fatal pride) can lead to hamartia, the fatal action that causes one to fall from greatness. As set forth in poetic modern English by the great translator Robert Fagles of Princeton University, with a helpful introduction and notes by Bernard Knox from Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies, this Penguin Books edition of Sophocles’ Theban plays is a great way to get to know one of the most important dramatic trilogies ever written.

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.

Excellent edition of the Oedipan Cycle by Grene & Lattimore.

I was prompted to reread Antigone by my reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and it's a good thing I took the time - the influence of Sophocles' play on that work can hardly be overstated. After a reading, one is tempted to opine that Hegel's book on one level constitutes a kind of philosophical criticism of the play in a manner anticipating Walter Benjamin.

In any case, it is a towering work of literature and poetry, and very profound, and very moving. I should really read a Greek play every three or six months. They are simply among the greatest poetical achievements in the repertoire of human literature.

Roche's translation is very fine, and is marred by only one defect - he uses a now-dated method of translating the Greek of commoners into a contemporaneous slang, in this case rendering the dialog of a sentry with many lines into a kind of pastiche of Attic high speechmaking and what I take to be a kind of Cockney slang. Doing so produces such improbable juxtapositions as:

Watching we were, till the midday sun
a great blazing ball
bashed down on us something fierce....

Just no.

One problem with this approach is that slangs are quite regional, so it makes the language proximate in time, but also highly localized in space. There is substantial dissonance in hearing the East End while seeing ancient Thebes.

Other than that, Roche's translation is superb.

Star missing because I don't know Greek, and this translation is older than I am. I read Antigone in trans as a college freshman, taught Oedipus a couple dozen times, always applicable to the current epidemic--AIDS/ HIV, or whatever, first scene, citizens prostrate before the ruler who brought on the disaster, unbenownst. NOW we have a BENOWNST disaster-bringer to prostrate ourselves before--the Swamp-Drainer with his Cabinet of Swamp Monsters. And the Congress, the Full Swamp, has just eliminated the non-partisan Ethics Committee, made it part of the partisan Congressional Ethics, as my physician friend has said, "Didn't take 'em long to hook up the sewer system to the swamp."
But I still don't know what to think of reading lit in trans., which I usually avoid. Just haven't committed to learn ancient Greek. I've read a bit of Seneca's Oedipus, but.. And here's a translation from 1939. Classic, but not classical, what?

نمایشِ آنتی‌گون و بخش‌های پراکنده‌ای از دو نمایشِ دیگه رو از ترجمه‌های فارسی هم خوندم و باید بگم که بیشتر از متن انگلیسی،ازشون خوشم اومد
هم به‌خاطر نثرِ تقریبا کهنی که داشت و هم متنِ انگلیسی یک جورهایی فاقدِ «لحن» بود. نثرش متعلق به قرن بیستم بود انگار

بریده :

تو را دوبار معذب ساخته‌اند. یک‌بار در تن و یک‌بار در جان، کاش اصلا به وجود نیامده بودی که این معما را بخوانی
تو را عقیده هرچه هست،باشد اما به گمان من، سعادت آدمی در آن است که اصلا در این جهان نباشد و چون به ناچار، زندگی انسان در این عالم آغاز می‌شود، پس هرچه زودتر به فرجام رسد،بهتر است و راهی که به سرمنزل مقصود می‌رسد، هرچه سریع‌تر پیموده شود، طی آن آسان‌تر باشد

...
چیست که با عشق برابری تواند کرد؟ یا کیست که در جنگ با او مقهور نشود؟ کدام قدرت است که زور عشق بر او نچربد؟ در اقطار بعیده‌ی این جهان و در عرصه‌ی پهناور دریاها، عشق حاضر و موجود است. در عارض شکفته‌ی دختری که به انتظار محبوب خود نشسته‌است، آیات عشق خوانده می‌شود. جنونِ عشق گریبان‌گیرِ خدایان و آدمیان هردو می‌شود

Alternate title: in which everyone stabs or hangs themselves.

Seriously, this book features a hell of a lot of suicide. And I get it - finding out that you've been banging your son for the past 15-20 years can't be a pleasant experience. But this just ended up feeling repetitive to me.

The biggest problem with this one for me, I suspect, is that all the action in the story takes place off stage. And I totally understand why that's the case, but it means that all the reader/viewer gets is recaps of what's been happening off stage, and frankly? It dragged.

Antigone was probably the most interesting of the three plays for me, but even that wasn't the most fascinating subject matter. So I appreciate them for their historical merit and value. But I won't be rereading them in a hurry.

سه نمایشنامه عالی با ترجمه فوق‌العاده با یک مقدمه و موخره بی‌نظیر