The Thebaid

In this volume of Racine's plays we find "The Thebaid," the first of twelve plays by the author. Racine draws upon Sophocles' "Antigone" and Euripides' "Phoenician Women" for this drama. The play concerns the struggle and death of the young son of Oedipus, as well as that of Antigone. The plot follows that of the other Theban plays in which we find Eteocles and Polynices, two warring brothers, Jocasta, their mother, Antigone, their sister, and Menoeceus and Haemon, their two cousins. All attempt unsuccessfully to quell the conflict between these two brothers in this tragic drama.