Oidipous Epi Kolōnōi = Oedipus Tyrannus Coloneus and Antigone = The Theban Plays, SophoclesOedipus at Colonus is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles' death in 406 BC.تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و ششم آگوست سال1974میلادیعنوان: سه نمایشنامه : اودیپوس شاه، اودیپوس در کولونوس، آنتیگون؛ اثر: سوفوکلس؛ مترجم: محمد سعیدی؛ زیرنظر احسان یارشاطر؛ تهران، بنگاه ترجمه و نشر کتاب، نخستین بار سال1334، در196ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان یونا...

The Three Theban Pays are the absolute pillar stone of ancient Greek drama, and in my opinion they contain two of the best plays ever written: Oedipus the King and Antigone. Oedipus the King- because sometimes life's a real bitch. Fate is unavoidable in ancient Greek Tragedy. Trying to avoid it will only lead to it, and doing nothing will lead you there too. So if a God tells you that you will die at the hands of your son, and that he will then go on to steal your wife, you’d best do noth...

This is how I feel about Antigone: Translation NotesI have read four versions of the Antigone, three versions of Oedipus Rex, and two versions of Oedipus at Colonus, over five years. I don't know why I'm like this either. (Comment your favorite Antigone translations and I'll read them.)Oxford edition, trans. unk (2015): In ninth grade, I read the Theban plays in my English class. I liked them. Antigone, specifically, made a very very large impression on me. I promptly forgot every single thing I...

'Take these things to heart, my son, I warn you. All men make mistakes, it is only human.But once the wrong is done, a mancan turn his back on folly, misfortune too,if he tries to make amends, however low he’s fallen,and stops his bullnecked ways. Stubbornness brands you for stupidity – pride is a crime.No, yield to the dead!Never stab the fighter when he’s down. Where’s the glory, killing the dead twice over?”(Tiresias, the blind prophet, to Creon, king of Thebes, uncle of Antigone in ‘Antigone...

I was rather flippant about Greek drama throughout my time at university (much to the chagrin of every single professor teaching the unit), but even I had to concede to the immense talent of Sophocles: to cast a myth like Oedipus' on stage with such eloquence, and without leaning on its sensationalism, is inconceivable elsewhere in the theatrical tradition—unsurprising, then, that his Theban Plays have today become authoritative sources, rather than mere tellings, of the fate of the House of Cad...

This Robert Fagles translation is beautiful--far superior to other versions I've read (Fitts/Fitzgerald or David Greene's, for instance). The language is vibrant and compelling, an important asset for reading drama on the page. If you've not read Sophocles since a forced-and-indifferent slog during high school, I'd encourage you to rediscover it in a better light with this translation. Highly recommended.This was my first time reading all three "Oedipus plays" in succession, and I appreciated th...

I enjoyed rereading this set of plays. This edition sets the stage by giving an introduction before each play. The plays dive into the themes of fate, guilt, civil disobedience and family ties, and other historical Greek motifs. There were text notes after the plays and a Greek persons/mythological/geographical glossary to help with the who/what/where questions. I enjoyed rediscovering this trilogy for a second time. I originally read them when I was in high school and remember them being intere...

Alas, alas, what misery to be wise when wisdom profits nothing! Great books do not reveal themselves all at once. Old classics must be revisited from time to time, at different stages of life, in order to experience the many resonant frequencies of the work. This time around I chose to listen to these Theban plays as an audiobook, with a full cast; and it was far preferable to the mute page. Reading, listening to, or watching the Greek plays may be the nearest we get to time travel. The works

Wonderful. I know we need to read these in modern translations, but how amazing is it that we still have works from ancient Greece? These stories are not at all boring, or dated, or difficult to read. Pick the translation that suits you, whether poetry or prose or somewhere in-between and dive into some incredible drama.

Of happiness the crown and chiefest part Is wisdom, to hold the gods in awe.This is the law That, seeing the stricken heartOf pride brought down,We learn when we are old.I felt an urge to return to the stories that set my mind on fire, way down the tunnels of time, and I chose blindly, or so I thought. Enjoying them even more today than I did the first two dozen times I read them, I nonetheless wondered why these plays ... and why now? In the middle of reading half a dozen other books, I still f...

When we face such things the less we say, the better So my review will be brief. Picking this up I was quite a bit intimidated: 3 ancient Greek plays in English translation? I nearly expected not to understand anything at all or barely managing to follow the story. I worried in vain. The whole time Sophocles made me go like this:

This is an edition of the Theban plays with lengthy introductions on both Greek theatre in general and each one of the plays in particular. They are presented in their chronological order, starting with Antigone, then Oedipus the king and finally the lesser known Oedipus at Colonus. Almost every line from Sophocles is quotable in an everyday situation. He has a hold on essential questions humans have faced throughout ages, which explains why for 24 centuries every reader found a deep meaning and...

Ignorance of the Pa is No DefenseMythical King Oedipus comes to the throne after unknowingly killing his pa. He later marries the woman who turns out to be his ma. In a brilliant and still-influential turn of irony, all the action in Oedipus the King occurs on the way he discovers that, in attempting to avoid his prophesied fate, he carries it out.To atone, despite the fact that his appalling marriage to and bedding of his mother were acts committed in ignorance, he blinds himself with needles.A...

7th book of 2022. As I'm moving around the (personally) uncharted land of Greek tragedies, I get to Sophocles. I think most people know the story of Oedipus, or can at least guess with general Freud knowledge, but the subsequent two plays in the 'Cycle' were unknown to me plot-wise. Oedipus the King/Oedipus Rex/Oedipus Tyrannus is the first and famous story from Sophocles, where a man attempts to flee the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Spoiler alert: he does not outr...

Oedipus the King was the first Greek tragedy I read in my life, when I was still of a single-digit school age and not exactly because it was compulsory reading for my class (who wants to inflict uninentional incest on young children, anyhow?). I don't recall how old I was, besides too young, nor the exact circumstances that led me to pick up an "adult" book, but I do recall the copy belonged to an older cousin of mine who was definitely reading it for school, and that I also read Homer's two epi...

3.5**** rounded up Money! Money's the curse of man, none greater.That's what wrecks cities, banishes men from homes,Tempts and deludes the most well-meaning soul,Pointing out the way to infamy and shame.At 176 pages and consisting of 3 plays I was able to read this in one sitting (which never happens to me!). After reading “Greek Tragedy” the other day- one of the plays was Oedipus Rex (or known in this book as Oedipus the King) and I was keen to find out more of what happened after the events

I thoroughly enjoyed this translation of Sophocles Theban plays. Robert Fagles placed the plays in the order written, rather than in their dramatic chronology. At first I thought this was strange, but I followed his lead and read 'Antigone' first. Now, after reading Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, I have a much greater feeling for Antigone's suffering and a much better understanding of Creon's perspective as well. Now I'm ready to re-read Antigone better armed with the facts of their re...

*Note: I only read Oedipus Rex and Antigone, not Oedipus at Colonus.There is literally nothing I could tell you about these plays that you don't already know from the thousands of books and movies that have referenced or been influenced by Oedipus ever since it was first performed. Four stars for overall story and dramatic themes, two stars because I didn't find it a very engaging or enjoyable read, averaged out to a nice three. Five stars for literary importance, though.The self-fulfilling prop...

Loved this one.

So... not over-rated. Fagles' translation is solid, much clearer than his Aeschylus, though I actually prefer the opacity he brought to that text. Of course, that might have been in Aeschylus. I will never learn Greek well enough to tell. Antigone was the earliest of these plays, though the last within the narrative. I can't help but read it with my Hegel glasses on: the clash between Creon and Antigone is an example of a failed conceptual grasp of the world, in which the claims on us of family/...

Alternate title: in which everyone stabs or hangs themselves. Seriously, this book features a hell of a lot of suicide. And I get it - finding out that you've been banging your son for the past 15-20 years can't be a pleasant experience. But this just ended up feeling repetitive to me. The biggest problem with this one for me, I suspect, is that all the action in the story takes place off stage. And I totally understand why that's the case, but it means that all the reader/viewer gets is recaps

This review is of the translation by Robert Fagles.The Fagles translation is the best, in my opinion. I'm not the biggest fan of the Robert Fitzgerald (ft. Dudley Fitts) translation, although it's the edition I first studied. One major issue I had with Fitzgerald's translation was how he translated the word Ζεύς as "God." Initial capital, God. Interestingly, the Ancient Greek word Ζεύς is indeed the etymological ancestor of Modern English deity and French dieu, from Latin deus. In Attic Greek th...

As always, I am torn among the many translations. I have this Penguin edition, translated by Robert Fagles (1982), and the older (1949) translation by Dudley Fitts & Robert Fitzgerald. Fagles' translation reads well, but so does Fitzgerald's. Fitzgerald breaks down the play to scenes, which I like--even though these are short plays, I find Fagles' no-break translation rather tiresome. (I have no idea which style is more faithful to the ancient Greek original.) Sometimes the two translations are

Sadness seems to be a constant presence in my reading life these days. The didacticism and the role fate plays in Greek tragedies, I thought, were not my forte, but sylphs are the proof, how deeply I am in love with them now. The Theban Plays has been a great start for Greek tragedies. The helplessness and the doomed lives consistently made their presence felt.The Theban Plays is essentially a collection of three plays by Sophocles: King Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone (sequentially). W...

This review is of the translation by Brian Doerries.From here:Here are Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone in fresh new versions for contemporary readers and audiences. Each has been the basis for groundbreaking theatrical performances by Theater of War Productions, in which actors present dramatic readings, followed by town hall-style discussions. These forums are designed to confront social issues by evoking raw, personal reactions to themes highlighted in the plays. The Oedipus...

Thing I like the most about Sophocles is his openness regarding darker fierceer aspects of human nature and the vile consequences,even if its the kings who r being unreasonable (read tyrants) he explicitly calls them out on it unlike many other ancient "king-pleasers", also I loved his love for his own city. Antigone is probably one of my most fvrt stubborn famme fatale characters, well what can you do, like father like daughter! It never ceases to amaze me though that all these ancient times mo...

Nutshell: dude screws his mother in order to give psychoanalysis a set of master narratives.Not a true trilogy, and written out of the order of this presentation, these texts commence from the unlikely proposition that Oedipus is somehow guilty for having scum parents--for the fact that "before three days were out / after his birth King Laius pierced his ankles / and by the hands of others cast him forth / upon a pathless hillside" (Oedipus Rex ll. 717-20) and thereafter, not knowing his father,...

42. Sophocles I : Oedipus The King; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone (The Complete Greek Tragedies)published: 1954 (my copy is a 33rd printing from 1989)format: 206 page Paperbackacquired: May 30 from a Half-Price Booksread: July 3-4rating: 4½ Each play had a different translator- Oedipus the King (circa 429 bce) - translated by David Grene c1942- Oedipus at Colonus (written by 406 bce, performed 401 bce) - translated by Robert Fitzgerald c1941- Antigone (by 441 bce) - translated by Eliz...

I was prompted to reread Antigone by my reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and it's a good thing I took the time - the influence of Sophocles' play on that work can hardly be overstated. After a reading, one is tempted to opine that Hegel's book on one level constitutes a kind of philosophical criticism of the play in a manner anticipating Walter Benjamin. In any case, it is a towering work of literature and poetry, and very profound, and very moving. I should really read a Greek play e...

Star missing because I don't know Greek, and this translation is older than I am. I read Antigone in trans as a college freshman, taught Oedipus a couple dozen times, always applicable to the current epidemic--AIDS/ HIV, or whatever, first scene, citizens prostrate before the ruler who brought on the disaster, unbenownst. NOW we have a BENOWNST disaster-bringer to prostrate ourselves before--the Swamp-Drainer with his Cabinet of Swamp Monsters. And the Congress, the Full Swamp, has just eliminat...