1 Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus Introduced and Translated by ...

often to a fall which is both defeat and victory at once; the suffering and glory are fused
in an indissoluble unity."
Sophocles shows his characters struggling to right the wrongs they perceive in the
world about them, and there is some objective justification for their struggles. What
Sophoclean heroes do, they also do alone. They die for ideals, which, although somewhat
misguided in their one-sidedness, can still be respected.
Sophocles is said never to have been placed third when he competed. He first
competed in 468 BC, when he defeated Aeschylus, and is said to have been awarded the
prize 24 times (18 at the Greater Dionysia) in contrast to Aeschylus' 13 and Euripides' 4.
Of the plays that survive, only the Philoctetes and the Oedipus at Colonus can be
dated with certainty, and the Antigone approximately, if we believe that it has some
connection with the Samian war. The following chronology is very tentatively suggested:
Antigone 443 or 441 BC
Ajax ca. 442 BC
Women of Trachis ca. 432 BC
Oedipus Tyrannus ca. 427 BC
Electra ca. 413 BC
Philoctetes 409 BC
Oedipus at Colonus 401 BC (posthumous)
The Greek philosopher Aristotle thought that Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus was
the greatest play ever written. It is also an exciting detective story that tells about man
and his struggle to find out who he is. On the temple at Delphi, the shrine of Apollo, the
god of prophesy, was written “Know yourself.” This was advice to everyone to find out
who you are, and know your relationship to the world you live in. In antiquity, this also
meant knowing your relationship to the gods.
Oedipus was a man who did not know either his relationship to the gods or the
people with whom he lived. As a young man, he heard a prophecy saying he would kill
his father and marry his mother. But the oracle at that point did not tell him who his
parents were. It is only at the very end of the play that all the pieces fall tragically into
place. Oedipus will not stop assembling all the pieces, even if seeing the solution means
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