The Three Theban Plays

The Theban Trilogy consists of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone - together these tell the tragic story of Oedipus the king of Thebes, and his daughter Antigone. Oedipus the King (in Latin Oedipus Rex) sees the youthful Oedipus consults the Oracle at Delphi, wherein it predicts that he will "Mate with [his] own mother, and shed/With [his] own hands the blood of [his] own sire". Oedipus at Colonus has the elderly Oedipus, by now ostracised and distrusted by society at large for his earlier, unintended wrongdoing. Blind after gouging out his own eyes in reaction to the revelations of the first play, it is his daughter/sister Antigone who escorts him to King Theseus. The final play in the Trilogy is Antigone - this title sees Oedipus offspring navigate the drama of a Civil War in Thebes. All three compositions are superb examples of Greek drama; owing to their revelatory contents and narrative twists, Sophocles' Theban plays remain popular to this day.