“You cannot say serene who has death within him, with his eyes fixed on that supreme hour. He must make the pass, first, beyond life: without having suffered the pang of evil.”

“Oedipus is, in a sense, the first detective in history: but Sophocles breaks down – even before they are written – the rules of the detective novel: because the detective, at the end of the investigation, will discover that he is also guilty, and guilty, moreover, of horrible crimes, albeit committed unintentionally.”

Silvia Stucchi

With Oedipus Rex, the reader is confronted with a veritable investigation in which the Grand Inquisitor, after many ups and downs, oversights and misdirection, turns out to be the culprit he was looking for. Behind the just and beloved sovereign Oedipus is the murderous Oedipus who condemns Thebes to plague.
An ancient tragedy that has ridden the centuries through rewrites in literature, theatre and psychoanalysis.

This edition benefits from Ezio Savino’s masterly translation.