‘I’ve been learning from my suffering, this
mixture of interminable years.’

‘Oedipus at Colonus is the field of extreme paradoxes/contrasts/stupors. […] Oedipus from transgressor becomes the most faithful follower of the gods, and their instrument. From hunted exile and wanderer he becomes the cornerstone of physical and supernatural events. The blind man is seer, the supplicant pleads, the powerless is empowered, the dead man is immortal, by the nature of the hero the gods grant.’
(Rosita Copioli)

While in Oedipus Rex he was a rebel, in Oedipus at Colonus the blind and old Oedipus, exiled for years after his banishment from Thebes, follows the oracles of the gods to the end. He arrives at the forest in Athens inhabited by the Erinyes, who avenge the crimes of blood. The wanderer is now rooted in a sacred place, from a blind man he has become a seer, from a dead man he will become a hero: the supreme degree of immortality that the Greeks of the classical age considered possible.

This edition benefits from the masterly translation by Ezio Savino.