Play: Oedipus at Colonus

Setting and Premise
Sophocles sets the final chapter of Oedipus’s life in Colonus, a village near Athens sacred to the Eumenides. Now blind, aged, and exiled from Thebes, Oedipus arrives led by his devoted daughter Antigone. A prophecy has promised that the place of his death will receive enduring protection and benefit; Oedipus seeks a final resting place where his suffering can be transfigured into a blessing. The opening encounter with Colonus’s citizens, who fear defilement of their sacred grove, establishes the tension between pollution and sanctity that the play will resolve.

Hospitality and Protection
When the locals call for their king, Theseus, he appears as the ideal Athenian ruler: pious, just, and protective of suppliants. Oedipus argues that though he committed dreadful acts, he did so in ignorance, and that his long ordeal has purified him. He asks for asylum, not as a pitiable outcast but as a figure whose presence will bring advantage, as foretold by oracles. Theseus grants him protection and promises to defend him against attempts to reclaim him for Thebes, asserting Athenian hospitality against external pressure.

Creon’s Intrusion
Creon arrives to haul Oedipus back to Thebes, claiming civic duty but wielding coercion. When persuasion fails, he seizes Antigone and Ismene to force Oedipus’s hand. Theseus confronts Creon, rescues the daughters, and rebukes Theban arrogance. The episode contrasts Athens’s lawful generosity with Thebes’s expedient force and underscores Oedipus’s refusal to be used as a political talisman. Oedipus insists that Thebes wronged him by expelling him when he needed compassion, and that he will not return to serve those who once exploited his disgrace.

Polynices’s Plea and the Father’s Curse
Polynices, Oedipus’s estranged son, arrives from Argos seeking his father’s endorsement to reclaim Thebes from his brother Eteocles. He appeals to filial bonds and promises to restore honor to his father. Oedipus rejects him fiercely, recalling his sons’ neglect during his exile and condemning their ambition. He pronounces a terrible prophecy: the brothers will fall by each other’s hands. Antigone pleads for reconciliation, but Polynices departs with only her farewell, resigned to a fate that the play treats as both foretold and tragically chosen.

The Death at Colonus
Omens and thunder announce that Oedipus’s time has come. Theseus, as sacred witness and guardian, accompanies Oedipus to the hidden spot where he will vanish from mortal sight. A messenger reports a solemn, almost ritual passing: Oedipus pauses at boundary markers, prays, and disappears, leaving no corpse to pollute the earth. His death transforms him into a protective hero for the land that receives him. Only Theseus knows the grave’s secret location, to be passed to successors as a source of Athenian security.

Themes and Resonance
The play reimagines Oedipus not as the polluted riddler-king but as a figure of hard-won justice whose innocence of intent matters before the gods. Fate remains inescapable, yet human dignity and piety can shape its meaning. Hospitality, lawful protection, and reverence for sacred spaces define Athens’s civic ideal, dramatized through Theseus’s conduct and the Chorus’s hymns to Colonus’s beauty. Filial devotion and failure sharpen the tragedy: Antigone’s steadfast care contrasts with her brothers’ opportunism, setting the stage for the conflict of Antigone that follows. By ending with a disappearance rather than a spectacle of suffering, the play elevates Oedipus to a source of hidden power, turning the burden of his past into a lasting boon for his final hosts.