Oedipus King of Thebes: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes

2000 years before a London playwright by the name of William Shakespeare began honing the world’s most famous plays, the Ancient Greeks were creating the art form. Right in the thick of it was Sophocles, who along with Aeschylus and Euripides form the great trinity of Greek playwrights. While there were certainly other Greek playwrights, it is the works of these three that have survived, and Sophocles is often regarded as the best of them, as he was back then. The Suda, a Middle Ages encyclopedia, credited Sophocles with writing over 100 plays and winning dozens of competitions in Athens during its Golden Age. 

Oedipus is one of the most well known mythological figures of the ancient Greeks, and he was immortalized in Sophocles’ trilogy of plays Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus. They were admired in their time by the Ancient Greeks as well. Sophocles’ dramas helped create the genre of tragedy in its day, and people around the world are still familiar with Oedipus and his fate nearly 2500 years later.