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Examples include the final section (lines 908–1077) of Aeschylus' The Persians (472 BCE) in which Xerxes laments the defeat of his Persian army, the final appearance of Antigone in Sophocles' Antigone (c.442 BCE), the interaction between the chorus and Oedipus when he returns having blinded himself in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex (c.429 BCE), and ...
Antigone tries to reconcile Oedipus and his son, but Oedipus reacts by accusing her of disloyalty and cursing both Polynices and Eteocles. Only when Polynices begs his father to kill him with his own hands does Oedipus take pity on his son. This act of forgiveness earns the mercy of the gods. The wrath of the Furies is appeased.
Oedipus Rex is widely regarded as one of the greatest plays, stories, and tragedies ever written. [21] [22] In 2015, when The Guardian ' s theatre critic Michael Billington, selected what he thinks are the 101 greatest plays ever written, Oedipus Rex was placed second, just after The Persians. [23]
The play is one of a triad of tragedies known as the three Theban plays, following Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus. Even though the events in Antigone occur last in the order of events depicted in the plays, Sophocles wrote Antigone first. [1]
In the oldest version of the story, the burial of Polynices takes place during Oedipus' reign in Thebes, before Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta. However, in other versions such as Sophocles' tragedies Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone, it occurs in the years after the banishment and death of Oedipus and Antigone's struggles against Creon.
Antigone describes the grove to Oedipus, who foresees that he will peacefully die there. Creon then suddenly arrives to tell the news that Thebes is again under threat, and to offer Oedipus the throne back. Oedipus refuses, to which Creon takes Antigone hostage. Theseus and the Athenians arrive and free Antigone from Creon.
Sophocles wrote more than 120 plays, [3] but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. [4] For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens , which took place during the ...
Antigone by Frederic Leighton, 1882. Antigone cremates Polynices by night. Haemon comes to warn her just before Adrastus and his guards arrive. Adrastus realises Creon's orders have been disobeyed. He believes Haemon is the culprit and arrests him. Creon sentences him to death, but Antigone arrives to explain that the cremation is all her own work.