Sophocles

Sophocles, one of the most influential writers of Ancient Greece

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Sophocles

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Oedipus at Colonus

Oedipus at Colonus is one of the three Theban plays and was written shortly before Sophocles' death, in 406 BC. It was produced by his grandson, also called Sophocles, in 401 BC, at the Festival of Dionysus, in Sophocles memory.
Cicero considered it the "most tender of poems". In the chronology of the plays, the events of Oedipus at Colonus, occur after Oedipus the King and before Antigone.
Oedipus at Colonus is about Oedipus' last tragic years. The real place of Oedipus death is not something for exact determination, but Sophocles set the place at Colonus. The village, situated near Athens, was also Sophocles' own birthplace.

The blinded Oedipus arrives at Colonus with his daughter Antigone. Oedipus enters the village, led by Antigone and sits down, to rest, on a stone. A villager approaches them and demands that they leave. His argument is that the ground they are sitting is sacred to the Furies, or Eumenides. Oedipus sees a sign in the villagers’ words.
He remembers the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. But he also remembered that the prophecy revealed to him that he would die at a place sacred to the Furies.

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Oedipus at Colonus - Sophocles