Oedipus Cycle

A king tries in vain to avert a horrific fate in this epic tragedy, widely considered a masterpiece. Oedipus was warned that his destiny is for him to kill his father and marry his mother. So he fled his home and has now become the king of Thebes, taking the throne after the death of its previous occupant, Laius, and marrying his widow, Jocasta. But just as Laius long ago labored to defy a prophecy and ultimately failed, so will Oedipus, in this masterpiece by the great tragedian of ancient Greece.

The ancient Greek tragedy about the exiled king's final days-and the power struggle between his two sons. The second book in the trilogy that begins with Oedipus Rex and concludes with Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus is the story of an aged and blinded Oedipus anticipating his death as foretold by an earlier prophecy. Accompanied by his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, he takes up residence in the village of Colonus near Athens-where the locals fear his very presence will curse them. Nonetheless they allow him to stay, and Ismene informs him his sons are battling each other for the throne of Thebes. An oracle has pronounced that the location of their disgraced father's final resting place will determine which of them is to prevail. Unfortunately, an old enemy has his own plans for the burial, in this heart-wrenching play about two generations plagued by misfortune from the world's great ancient Greek tragedian.

The classic Greek tragedy about a woman who valiantly defies a tyrant to honor her brother and please the gods. When Polynices-a military leaders in Thebes's civil war-dies on the battlefield, Thebes's ruler, Creon, decrees that Polynices's body will lie unburied and left as prey for the vultures. But Antigone, the late warrior's sister, answers to a higher authority than the state and breaks the law to follow her conscience and bury her brother with the proper rites. Antigone's act of civil disobedience urges great upheaval in this timeless play that explores the conflicts that can arise between worldly and divine law, and the questions raised by the idea of individual freedom.