The illustration shows Oedipus held down as described in the fragment, watched by a figure holding a scepter, presumably his brother-in-law and uncle and eventual successor Creon.

This fragment is translated by Collard and Cropp as 'We pressed the son of Polybus to the ground, destroying his eyes and blinding him.' An illustration on a 2nd-century BCE Etruscan alabaster urn might depict this scene. Ī key fragment (541) is spoken by a servant of Laius, boasting of blinding Oedipus. Three fragments (540, 540a, 540b) describe the Sphinx preparing to pose her riddle, presumably to Oedipus in the confrontation in which Oedipus defeats her by answering the riddle correctly. Another fragment (539a) gives the beginning of a hypothesis of the play, which states that Laius fathered a child despite the fact that the god Apollo forbade him from doing so. In one fragment, John Malalas writes that Euripides wrote a drama about Oedipus, Jocasta and the Sphinx. Also, while in Sophocles' play Jocasta kills herself, remaining fragments of Euripides' play depict Jocasta as having survived and accompanied Oedipus into exile.Ī number of fragments of Oedipus and of ancient writings about Oedipus are extant. Furthermore, Euripides' play implies Oedipus was blinded before it was known that Laius was his father. In Euripides' play, however, it appears Oedipus is blinded by a servant of his father Laius, Oedipus' predecessor as king of Thebes. In Oedipus Rex, the title character blinds himself upon learning his true parentage, accidentally killing his father and marrying his mother Jocasta. What survives of the play covers similar ground as Sophocles' acclaimed Oedipus Rex, but scholars and historians have found there are significant differences. The play is now lost except for some fragments. Oedipus ( US: / ˈ ɛ d ɪ p ə s/ or UK: / ˈ iː d ɪ p ə s/ Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους, Oidípous) is a play by the 5th-century BCE Athenian dramatist Euripides.

Oedipus play