Oedipus at Colonus (also Oedipus Coloneus; , Oidipous epi Kolōnō) is the second of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC.

In the timeline of the plays, the events of Oedipus at Colonus occur after Oedipus Rex and before Antigone; however, it was the last of Sophocles's three Theban plays to be written. The play describes the end of Oedipus's tragic life. Legends differ as to the site of Oedipus's death; Sophocles set the place at Colonus, a village near Athens and also Sophocles's own birthplace, where the blinded Oedipus has come with his daughters Antigone and Ismene as suppliants of the Erinyes and of Theseus, the king of Athens.

Plot

thumb|left|upright=1.3|Oedipus at Colonus, [[Jean-Antoine-Théodore Giroust, 1788, Dallas Museum of Art]]

Led by Antigone, Oedipus enters the village of Colonus, where Theseus is king, and sits down on a stone. They are approached by a villager, who demands that they leave, because that ground is sacred to the Furies, or the Erinyes. Oedipus recognizes this as a sign, for when he received the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, Apollo also revealed to him that at the end of his life he would die at a place sacred to the Furies and be a blessing for the land in which he is buried.

The chorus, consisting of old men from the village, enters and persuades Oedipus to leave the holy ground. They then question him about his identity and are horrified to learn that he is the son of Laius. Although they promised not to harm Oedipus, they wish to expel him from their city, fearing that he will curse it. Oedipus answers by explaining that he is not morally responsible for his crimes, since he killed his father in self-defense. Furthermore, he asks to see their king, Theseus, saying, "I come as someone sacred, someone filled with piety and power, bearing a great gift for all your people." The chorus is amazed and decides to reserve their judgment of Oedipus until Theseus arrives.

Ismene arrives on horseback, rejoicing to see her father and sister. She brings the news that Eteocles has seized the throne of Thebes from his elder brother, Polynices, while Polynices is gathering support from the Argives to attack the city. Both sons have heard from an oracle that the outcome of the conflict will depend on where their father is buried. Ismene tells her father that it is Creon's plan to come for him and bury him at the border of Thebes, without proper burial rites, so that the power which the oracle says his grave will have will not be granted to any other land. Hearing this, Oedipus curses both of his sons for not treating him well, contrasting them with his devoted daughters. He pledges allegiance with neither of his feuding sons, but with the people of Colonus, who thus far have treated him well, and further asks them for protection from Creon.

Because Oedipus trespassed on the holy ground of the Eumenides, the villagers tell him that he must perform certain rites to appease them. Ismene volunteers to go perform them for him and departs, while Antigone remains with Oedipus. Meanwhile, the chorus questions Oedipus once more, desiring to know the details of his incest and patricide. After he relates his sorrowful story to them, Theseus enters, and in contrast to the prying chorus states, "I know all about you, son of Laius." This certainly affected the way that early audiences reacted to the play, just as the invasion of Athens and its diminished power surely affected Sophocles as he wrote it.

The play contrasts the cities of Athens and Thebes quite sharply. Thebes is often used in Athenian dramas as a city in which proper boundaries and identities are not maintained, allowing the playwright to explore themes like incest, murder, and hubris in a safe setting.

Fate

While the two other plays about Oedipus often bring up the theme of a person's moral responsibility for their destiny, and whether it is possible to rebel against destiny, Oedipus at Colonus shows Oedipus's resolution of the problem. In Oedipus Rex, he was told by Tiresias, "You bear your fate and I will bear mine," a message repeated by the Chorus, but scorned by Oedipus, who like his father has believed he can escape his fate. In Oedipus at Colonus, he declares that even though fate, which literally means "necessity" in ancient Greek, is something we must suffer as beyond our choice in its power of necessity and is not a person's creation, we must also find a way to work with it. The key line in the play is when Oedipus declares, "Let us not fight necessity," and Antigone adds, "For you will never see in all the world a man whom God has let escape his destiny!"

Guilt

Oedipus at Colonus suggests that, in breaking divine law, a ruler's limited understanding may lead him to believe himself fully innocent; however, his lack of awareness does not change the objective fact of his guilt.

The presented view of determination of guilt is complex, as illustrated by the dichotomy between the blessing and the curse upon Oedipus. He has committed two crimes that render him a sort of monster and outcast among men: incest and patricide. His physical suffering, including his self-inflicted blindness and lonely wandering, is his 'punishment'. In the play Oedipus is "rationally innocent" – that he sinned unknowingly – which decreases his guilt, allowing his earthly sufferings to serve as sufficient expiation for his sins. In death, he will be favored; the place in which he dies will be blessed.

English-language translations

  • George Adams, 1729 – prose
  • Thomas Francklin, 1759 – verse: full text
  • Edward Plumptre, 1878 – verse: (full text available at Wikisource)
  • Lewis Campbell, 1883 – verse (full text at Wikisource, rev. edition of 1906)
  • Richard Claverhouse Jebb, 1904 – prose: (full text, with audio, available at Wikisource)
  • Francis Storr, 1912 – verse: (full text, with audio, available at Wikisource)
  • W. B. Yeats, 1934 – mixed prose and verse
  • Robert Fitzgerald, 1940 – verse
  • E. F. Watling, 1947 – verse
  • Gilbert Murray, 1948 – verse: full text
  • Theodore Howard Banks, 1953 – verse
  • Paul Roche, 1958 – verse
  • Robert Fagles, 1984 – verse
  • Don Taylor, 1986 – prose
  • Carl R. Mueller and Anna Krajewska Wieczorek, 2000 – verse
  • Ruby Blondell, 2002 – verse
  • Eamon Grennan and Rachel Kitzinger, 2004 – verse
  • David R. Slavitt, 2007 – verse
  • George Theodoridis, 2009 – prose: full text
  • Ian C. Johnston, 2015 – verse full text
  • Frank Nisetich, 2016 – verse

Adaptations

  • Œdipe à Colone, 1786 opera by Antonio Sacchini
  • Edipo a Colono, 1817 incidental music by Gioachino Rossini for Sophocles' play
  • Ödipus in Kolonos, 1845 incidental music by Felix Mendelssohn for Sophocles' play
  • Broadway adaptation, 1976, with Alexis Minotis as Oedipus
  • Don Taylor's 1986 television adaptation starring Anthony Quayle and Juliet Stevenson
  • Lee Breuer and Bob Telson, The Gospel at Colonus, 1986
  • Patrick Stewart and Tim Philip-Smith, BBC radio 4 play
  • Justin Fleming, Child of the Dark Sun, 2016

References

Bibliography

  • Andreas Markantonatos. Tragic Narrative: A Narratological Study of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus. Walter de Gruyter, 2002.
  • Kaggelaris, Nikos (2016). "Ο Οιδίπους του Σοφοκλή στη Μήδεια του Μποστ" [Sophocles' Oedipus in Bost's Medea] [in Greek] in Mastrapas, A. N. – Stergioulis, M. M. (eds.) Σοφοκλής ο μεγάλος κλασικός της τραγωδίας [Seminar 42: Sophocles the great classic of tragedy], Athens: Koralli, pp. 74–81

Further reading

  • Bowman, L. M. 2007. "The Curse of Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus." Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity 16:15–25.
  • Compton-Engle, Gwendolyn. 2013. "The Blind Leading: Aristophanes' 'Wealth' and 'Oedipus at Colonus'." Classical World 106.2: 155–170.
  • Easterling, P. E. 1997. "The Language of the Polis in Oedipus at Colonus." In Acta: First Panhellenic and International Conference on Ancient Greek Literature (23–26 May 1994). Edited by J. -T. A. Papademetriou, 273–283. Hellenic Society for Humanistic Studies International Centre for Humanistic Research Studies and Researches 38. Athens: Hellenic Society for Humanistic Studies.
  • Hesk, J. 2012. "Oedipus at Colonus." In Brill’s Companion to Sophocles. Edited by A. Markantonatos, 167–189. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.
  • Kelly, A. 2009. Sophocles. Oedipus at Colonus. London: Duckworth.
  • Linforth, I. M. 1951. Religion and Drama in Oedipus at Colonus. University of California Publications in Classical Philology 14/4. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Markantonatos, A. 2007. Oedipus at Colonus: Sophocles, Athens, and the World. Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 87. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
  • Rosenmeyer, T. G. 1952. "The Wrath of Oedipus." Phoenix 6:92–112.
  • Saïd, S. 2012. "Athens and Athenian Space in Oedipus at Colonus." In Crisis on Stage: Tragedy and Comedy in Late Fifth-Century Athens. Edited by A. Markantonatos and B. Zimmermann, 81–100. Trends in Classics supplement 13. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
  • Scharffenberger, E. W. 2017. "Oedipus at Colonus." In Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Sophocles. Edited by R. Lauriola and K. Demetriou, 326–388. Brill's Companion to Classical Reception 10. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.

See also

  • Antinatalism
  • (multiple English translations)
  • Oedipus at Colonus at Perseus Digital Library