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of the Townspeople:
[The] old. and young. men , women, some with babies strapped to their
backs - all sprawlin g or crouching on the bare groun d in varying forms
of agonizedsemi-consciousness; moaning, keening. Voices become
more inarticulate. more impatient; then give way to moanin g and
keening again (9).
The gro up of people comin g to the king represents the communal nature of a West
African village . Their wailing and moaning suggest the extre me pain and suffering that
they have been going through . This scene is reminiscent of Thueydides' account of the
plague that ravaged the Athenians after the PeIoponnesian War broke out. The country
dwellers were forced to abandon their homes to the enemy and take refuge within the
city walls; the cver-pcpularicn and tack of supplies may have caused the outbreak of
the plague. Thucydides descri bes the symp toms of the plague which he himself caught
but from which he recovered ; however, Pericles and about a quarter of the people
died:
An ineffectual retching prod ucing violent convulsions fell upon most of
the sufferers ; some as soon as !:heprevious symptoms had abated .
othersDOt long afterwards .. . the burning within them was intense . ..
the disease descended into the bowels and thereproduced violent
ulcer.uion ; severe diarrhoea ar the same time set in. and at a tarter stage
caused exhaustion. which finally with few exceptions carried them off
(II.49 .4-6) .28
H. D. F. Kitto, in 1M:Greeks, discusses the Peleoponnesian War and suggests that in
the dram a produced for the Athenians. and in their name, "Soph ocle s without a word
abou t the war, continued to brood on the ultimate problems of human life and
character" ([37). Contrary to Kitto 's suggestion. in Oedipus RD., Sophocles does
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