Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles(-429)
Playc. 50 pages
“Let every man in mankind's frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find life, at his death, a memory without pain.”
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One great work, every day
by Sophocles(-429)
“Let every man in mankind's frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find life, at his death, a memory without pain.”
Sophocles(-429)
A plague strikes Thebes, and King Oedipus vows to find the source of pollution, not knowing he is the pollution himself. Sophocles constructed this tragedy with such precision that Aristotle used it as his model of the form. The messenger who comes to comfort Oedipus brings the final horror; every attempt to escape fate brings fate closer. Oedipus blinds himself because he saw too much, or too little. The tragedy has been performed continuously for 2,400 years because we still need to watch someone discover what he cannot bear to know. The riddle was always about himself.