Sophocles was a friend of Herodotus and a contemporary of the other Greek tragedy playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides. He wrote over 120 plays and seven of those survive. The Theban Plays (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone) cover major events in the life of the mythical king Oedipus of Thebes and of his children.

In this podcast episode, I talk about the two Sophoclean plays about Oedipus and share what I learned about Sophocles’ discussion of prophecy, the Greek concept of a curse, and the little tiny light at the end of this disastrous tunnel of tragedy.

I read translations by David Grene, Paul Woodruff, and Robert Fagles.