The things that make a work of literature compelling, page-turning, a good read, have not changed (any more than human nature has) since these plays were written. They are not considered "classic" works of literature just because they're some of the oldest Western fictions in existence, nor because their author is considered one of the big three (with Aeschylus and Euripides) of Ancient Greek playwrights. Sophocles is famous because of these plays, not the other way around.

Though they probably reverberated more strongly for a Greek of the Classical Period in which they were created, they still have power and substance for a modern audience. As they should: the stories here are tragic in an older and grander sense of the word. We have these terrible tales of the best intentions gone wrong, of iron wills and molten consequences.

Oedipus has come to be the King of Thebes by slaying the Sphinx. The Sphinx exacted a tax on Thebes, a toll of lives. Young men who could not answer her riddle were slain, and consumed. Creon, the regent of Thebes in his brother Laius's absence, was desperate to end this visitation and offered the throne and the Queen to anyone who could solve the riddle and rid Thebes of the monster. When Oedipus answers the riddle, the Sphinx throws herself off of the city parapets and to her own death. Is there a crime that Oedipus commits in the vanquishing of this supernatural force?

The Sphinx was almost certainly set upon Thebes by one or another vengeful god. Almost everything that happens in these plays happens for a god-given reason. It may not be a reason that is at once, or ever, disclosed, but the reason always exists in the form of Divine Will. That Sophocles was a deeply religious and conservative man is known for fact. What that meant for him as the author of these plays, and how that colors the narrative here, can really only be partially grasped by a modern reader.

Similarly, I can't sum up these stories adequately for someone totally new to them; it would take more space than I have here. I can only suggest that you read these plays and think about what the intended message might be. Let the religious, god-fearing Sophocles whisper in your ear and see if you're better off for it.

Though the Sphinx doesn't appear in these plays at all, Sophocles knew that his audience would be familiar with the story of Oedipus. In a way similar to that in which all acts of violence occur off stage, away from the audience, Sophocles has hidden a powerful metaphor in this invisible and already slain Sphinx. Oedipus may not be deserving of his horrible fate but for one thing: he tries to buck the will of the gods. His reward for accomplishing his task is ultimately his torment, his act in vanquishing the Sphinx is the lynch pin of his doom. Laius, his father (and similarly his father before him, according to details of the myth not present in these plays) was also taxed in a similar way and cursed and doomed. So the crime is older and perhaps the Sphinx, at once ruled by yet somehow outside the bounds of the power of the Gods, is destroying herself in grief at seeing the prophecy (which she may have been privy to, being other-worldly) come true.

The worst things that happen here happen as a result of someone who wanted their own way too much. Laius wants not to die at the hands of his own child, not to have that child espouse his own mother, and so he sentences the infant Oedipus to death in exile. A shepherd rescues the abandoned infant. When Oedipus learns of his prophesy to slay his father and wed his mother, he leaves the home of his adopted (and assumed natural) father to cheat his horrible fate. Years later, he wants not to be driven from the road by the chariot and retinue of an important person. Instead of stepping aside, he slays Laius, unwittingly killing his own father. He goes on, through force of will, to banish the Sphinx and win a bed of eventual horror.

Everything that befalls Oedipus in the first play is first prophesied by the Delphic Oracle. I think that many people make the mistake of viewing the Oracle as malevolent or willful force, and its pronouncements as somehow mutable. If you learn anything from the first play, it is that whatever the Oracle foretells, happens. It is precisely the mad scramble of Laius and his ill-fated son Oedipus to avoid the fate the Oracle portends that makes the prophecy come true.

Sophocles primarily warns us in these plays, not so much against this idea of destiny, but against being inflexible. It almost seems like the author is, through Oedipus, his equally resolute offspring, and their uncle (and Oedipus' brother-in-law) Creon, pointing out a fatal flaw. Oedipus's sons battle each other for the throne their father forsake when the truth of his own curse was revealed to him. His daughter and sister, Antigone, wants to spite the lethal edict of a tyrant king, to bury one of those brothers, slain by the army of the other outside the city walls. Her decision to damn herself by serving herself ultimately brings tragedy to Creon, who stubbornly refuses to lift the sentence necessitated by his own edict, even though Antigone is to be married to his own son. At the end of Antigone, we have another ruined tyrant.

Sophocles seems to be saying, yes, will and determination can accomplish much, but at what price? The three plays of this cycle are a cautionary tale. Don't spit into the wind. This will, this hubris of self-determination, takes on an epic scale and becomes less the domain of the individuals that possess it, less the tragic flaw of heroes, than a fault in the blood line.

Oedipus in the second play is a somewhat mended man. Once broken, he seems to have learned humility remarkably well. Blind, led by his daughter, he wishes less to rest in one place than to avoid being a problem, a plague, an unwelcome guest of history and place. He drives himself from town to town, weathering the road poorly but continuing to seek nothing but the road.

It is through this penance that his eventual peace comes at Colonus. By allowing himself to be broken and driven from place to place, he wins an eventual rest. But even here, there are echoesthe glade he finds himself in is one sacred to the Furies, who are so feared that they are referred to only by various other names, most tellingly names like, "those most tender ladies".

We all have our eventual Colonus, and it seems that Sophocles' view is that it will be easier for us if we allow destiny to have its way with us. I wonder what he would have thought of karma, a widely misunderstood concept. It isn't that your deeds dictate future rewards, but rather that your deeds are dictated by this force called karma. Karma is less a punishment-reward scheme and more a way of saying whatever you do and whatever you have done you are destined to do. Roll with it. This karmic interpretation of these plays is a little paradoxical--having been told he was doomed to slay his father and share the bed of his own mother, should Oedipus have just meekly submitted to this horrible fate?--but one could argue that but for Oedipus' damning will, the Oracle would have had something quite different to say.

I found myself sympathizing with Oedipus, his children, his brother-in-law and uncle Creon, and ultimately with Laius, Jocasta (Oedipus' mother and wife) and the congenital determination in them that so offended the gods as to bring this wrath down upon the entire lineage of the royal family of Thebes.

In confronting the horrors of this play (and if you really think about them, these are the worst things that could happen to a person), I was reminded to sympathize with people who, through no wrongdoing of their own, are faced with terrible tragedy and adversity that they cannot hope to overcome except by dying. It somehow makes the pains and suffering most of us go through in the course of an average day seem less terrible, less tragic. I was also reminded to use an irresolute stance with extreme caution, if at all. It got me thinking about all of the times I refused to be swayed, and what came of my determination. Occasionally some good, but mostly ill. Even in the things I have had to fight for in my life, there has been much compromise, much give. Until fairly recently, I viewed that flexion as a bad thing, as a force of entropy. I knew the right way to be, I knew what my world was supposed to be like and how the people in it were supposed to behave, and that was that. Any deviation from, and acquiescence to a difference, was a small defeat. I'm coming to change my mind on it.

For me, the karmic interpretation sticks. In a way, the message hidden behind the happenings is an Eastern, almost Taoist one. The Taoist principle that the strong, rigid tree is blown over in a gale but the light, flexible reed bends and survives applies to every major character in these plays, and I think Sophocles was correct in suggesting it would probably apply to all of us.

This article appears in the third issue of Universal Citizen. This, and back issues, are available from the address at the bottom of this page ($3 each). Universal Citizen is published quarterly by Menace Publishing & Manufacture. We hope you enjoyed reading this excerpt, and we hope you consider buying a copy of the most recent issue or purchasing a subscription for yourself or a friend. We also encourage submissions and feedback.

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