Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)

For works with similar titles, see Oedipus Rex.

English-language translations of
Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (Oedipus the King)
by Sophocles

Οἰδίπους Τύραννος (Oidipous Tyrannos, Latin: Oedipus rex), or Oedipus the King, is a play written by Sophocles in 429 BCE. The tragedy tells the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes, while unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father, Laius, and marry his mother, Jocasta.

Oedipus Rex is one of the three "Theban" plays of Sophocles, treating the story of Oedipus and his children. However, the three plays were not created as a trilogy, and were written out of chronological sequence at different times in Sophocles' career.

English-language translations of Οἰδίπους Τύραννος include:

Oedipus Tyrannus, translated by Lewis Theobald (1715)
Œdipus Tyrannus, translated by Theodore Alois Buckley (1849)
Œdipus the King, translated by E. H. Plumptre (1878)
Oedipus the King, translated by Richard Claverhouse Jebb [1904] (1917)
King Oedipus, translated by Lewis Campbell (1906)
Sophocles' King Oedipus, a version for the modern stage (translated by William Butler Yeats) – Copyrighted in the United States until 2024 due to (Renewal: R162692 )