Description
A priest and the chorus of Thebans arrive at the palace to call upon their King, Oedipus, to aid them with the plague. Oedipus had sent his brother-in-law Creon to ask help of the oracle at Delphi, and he returns at that moment. Creon says the plague is the result of religious pollution, caused because the murderer of their former King, Laius, had never been caught. Oedipus vows to find the murderer and curses him for the plague that he has caused.
Author
Sophocles (c. 496–406 BCE) made Greek tragedy feel inevitable. Oedipus hunts a crime and finds himself; Antigone buries a brother and breaks a state. Gods, chorus, and human stubbornness share the stage without anyone being merely a symbol. Sophocles wrote into old age, refining a form he had helped perfect: fewer actors, tighter action, a moral intelligence that never lectures. Read him for the shock of a story that knows more than its hero.
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