by Sophocles
A plague is destroying Thebes. Its king, Oedipus, who once saved the city by answering the Sphinx's riddle, vows to find the murderer of the previous king, Laius, whose unpunished death has polluted the city. Pursued past every warning to stop, the investigation reveals that Oedipus himself is the killer: that Laius was his father and Queen Jocasta his mother, exactly as a prophecy foretold. Jocasta hangs herself; Oedipus blinds himself and is sent into exile.
Sophocles takes a myth the audience already knew and turns the play into a single, tightening act of detection in which the man hunting the criminal is the criminal. Aristotle treated it in the Poetics as the model tragedy — for its reversal and recognition arriving together, and for a downfall that flows from character and choice rather than mere bad luck.
The prophecy is fulfilled, yet every step toward it is a choice Oedipus makes freely: to leave Corinth, to kill the stranger at the crossroads, to keep asking questions. The play holds both truths at once rather than choosing.
Where to look: the crossroads story; “I must pursue this to the end”; the shepherd's confession.
Oedipus has working eyes but cannot see the truth; the blind prophet Tiresias sees everything. When Oedipus finally understands, he puts out his own eyes — blindness as the price and the emblem of knowing.
Where to look: the Tiresias scene; “you have eyes but cannot see”; the messenger's account of the self-blinding.
Oedipus's faith in his own intellect, his fury at Tiresias and Creon, his contempt for oracles. The Chorus warns that arrogance “breeds the tyrant”.
Where to look: the quarrel with Creon; Jocasta's dismissal of prophecy; the second choral ode.
One man's unpunished crime infects the whole polis. The king's body and the city's health are bound together; justice is owed to the community, not just to the dead.
Where to look: the priest's opening plea; Oedipus's public curse on the murderer.
Oedipus acted in ignorance — but takes the punishment entirely on himself. The play separates legal innocence from a tragic sense of being contaminated.
Where to look: the closing exchange with Creon; “the hand that struck was mine”.
From saviour and “first of men” to “most accursed” in a single day. The Chorus's last word: call no one happy until they have passed the final day free of pain.
Where to look: the Corinthian messenger (who thinks he brings good news); the closing lines.
“You have your eyes but cannot see where you are in sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with.”
Tiresias to Oedipus — wording varies by translation
Plays were performed once, in daylight, at a civic religious festival honouring the god Dionysus, before thousands of citizens. Three playwrights competed with three tragedies each plus a satyr play. Actors wore masks, a singing-and-dancing Chorus mediated the action, and violence happened offstage, reported by messengers.
Sophocles (c. 496–406 BCE) was the most successful of the tragedians and also served Athens as a general and priest. He is credited with adding a third speaking actor and reducing the Chorus's dominance, sharpening the focus on individual character and choice.
Every spectator knew the Oedipus myth. The suspense is not what happened but how and when Oedipus will be forced to see it — dramatic irony sustained across the whole play.
The play dates from around the time a devastating plague struck Athens (430 BCE) during the Peloponnesian War. Questions about divine justice and whether oracles could be trusted were genuinely alive for the first audience.
In the Poetics, Aristotle uses Oedipus to define tragic form: hamartia (error or flaw), peripeteia (reversal), anagnorisis (recognition) and catharsis. That framework has shaped how the play is read ever since — and is worth arguing with.
Intelligent, decisive, quick to anger; saved Thebes from the Sphinx. He drives the investigation that destroys him and insists on knowing the worst.
Tries to calm Oedipus by arguing that prophecies fail. She works out the truth before he does, and hangs herself.
Knows the truth from the start and is forced to speak it. Living proof of the play's sight-and-blindness paradox.
Measured and reasonable; wrongly accused by Oedipus of plotting for the throne. Takes power at the end with notable restraint.
Prays, comments, warns against pride, and pronounces the play's final judgement on human happiness.
Between them they supply the last pieces (the Corinthian's “good news” and the old shepherd's reluctant confession) that complete the recognition.
Thebes is dying. The oracle's answer: the killer of Laius is in the city and must be driven out.
He publicly curses the unknown murderer with exile and misery — unknowingly cursing himself.
Provoked, Tiresias names Oedipus as the killer. Oedipus accuses him and Creon of treason. Sight and blindness set against each other.
To prove oracles false, Jocasta describes Laius killed “where three roads meet” — and gives Oedipus his first cold shock of doubt.
News that Oedipus's “father” Polybus has died of old age seems to disprove the prophecy — until the messenger reveals Oedipus was adopted.
The last surviving witness admits he handed the infant on rather than leaving it to die. Oedipus understands everything and rushes into the palace.
Jocasta's suicide and Oedipus's self-blinding are reported. The blinded king begs for exile; Creon takes charge; the Chorus closes.
“It was Apollo who brought this bitterness to pass — but the hand that struck my eyes was mine, and no one else's.”
Oedipus, after the blinding — wording varies by translation
The play is studied in translation and wording differs between editions — always check these against the version your class uses, and quote that one in an essay.
“You have your eyes but cannot see where you are in sin, nor where you live, nor whom you live with.”Tiresias to Oedipus — Episode 1
“How terrible — to see the truth when the truth is only pain to him who sees.”Tiresias — Episode 1
“You mock my blindness? Yet you have eyes and cannot see your own destruction.”Tiresias — Episode 1
“Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich, he will grope his way toward a foreign soil, a stick tapping before him step by step.”Tiresias, prophesying Oedipus's future — Episode 1
“The double lash of your mother's and your father's curse will whip you from this land.”Tiresias — Episode 1
“You, you'll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused!”Oedipus, as he strikes out his eyes (reported by the Messenger) — Exodos
“What good were eyes to me? Nothing I could see could bring me joy.”Oedipus — Exodos
“Apollo, friends, Apollo — he ordained my agonies... but the hand that struck my eyes was mine, mine alone.”Oedipus — Exodos
“No skill in the world, nothing human can penetrate the future.”Jocasta — Episode 2
“Fear? What should a man fear? It's all chance, chance rules our lives.”Jocasta — Episode 3
“Better to live at random, best we can.”Jocasta — Episode 3
“Many a man before you, in his dreams, has shared his mother's bed.”Jocasta, urging Oedipus not to fear the oracle — Episode 3
“The prophecies of Apollo... have all been proven worthless.”Jocasta, after the news of Polybus's death — Episode 3
“If such deeds are honoured, why should I dance to honour the gods?”Chorus, when prophecy seems to fail — Second stasimon
“It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought this bitter bitterness, my sorrows to completion.”Oedipus — Exodos
“This day will bring your birth and your destruction.”Tiresias — Episode 1
“Pride breeds the tyrant, violent pride, gorging, crammed to bursting with all that is overripe and rich with ruin.”Chorus — Second stasimon
“I'll bring it all to light myself!”Oedipus, vowing to find Laius's killer — Prologue
“Now my curse on the murderer. Whoever he is, a lone man unknown in his crime... may he wear out his life in misery.”Oedipus, unknowingly cursing himself — Episode 1
“You think you can keep this up and never suffer?”Tiresias to Oedipus — Episode 1
“You and your kind, plotting against me — you want to strip me of power.”Oedipus, accusing Creon — Episode 2
“I have no desire for power itself when I can rule as a subject.”Creon, defending himself — Episode 2
“Two men of sense — and you fan the flames of your fury over private wrongs, while the land lies sick.”Jocasta, to Oedipus and Creon — Episode 2
“O wealth and sovereignty and skill surpassing skill... how great a grudge is stored against you.”Oedipus / Chorus on power — Episode 1 –2
“I count myself the son of Chance, the great goddess, giver of all good things.”Oedipus — Episode 3
“The years that are my kinsmen have marked me sometimes low, sometimes high.”Oedipus — Episode 3
“I must know my birth, no matter how base... I will not be dishonoured.”Oedipus — Episode 3
“You are the murderer you hunt.”Tiresias to Oedipus — Episode 1
“I stand at the edge of dreadful words.” — “And I of dreadful hearing. But I must hear.”The Herdsman and Oedipus — Episode 4
“O god — all come true, all burst to light! O light — now let me look my last on you.”Oedipus, the moment of recognition — Episode 4
“How could the furrows my father plowed have endured to bear me in silence?”Oedipus — Exodos
“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.”The Priest — Prologue
“Drive the corruption from the land, don't harbour it any longer, past all cure — root it out!”Creon, relaying the oracle — Prologue
“I will fight for him as if he were my father.”Oedipus, of the dead Laius — Episode 1
“The city reeks with death in her streets... and no grief for the dead can wring a tear.”Chorus — Parodos
“I have polluted the marriage bed and I am the pollution the gods demand be cast out.”Oedipus (close paraphrase) — Exodos
“Drive me out of the land at once, far from sight, where I can never hear a human voice.”Oedipus to Creon — Exodos
“People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him.”Chorus — Exodos
“Time, who sees all things, has found you out against your will.”Chorus / Messenger — Exodos
“Count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last.”Chorus, closing lines — Exodos
“I was saved for something greater and more terrible still.”Oedipus (close paraphrase) — Exodos
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