ABSTRACT
The Oedipus of Sophocles has been always considered as the master-piece of antient tragedy, as the Iliad of Homer is in epic poetry, and the Laocoon and Venus of Medicis in sculpture. Art is one thing, and the delicacies of art another. Oedipus is supposed to be the son of Polybus, not of Laius. Oedipus however retires, fully determined to obey the Oracle, if it be possible, and to discover who was the murderer of Laius. This scene is the beginning of the intrigue; this is the entrance to that theatrical labyrinth in which Oedipus is so soon to lose himself, in order to be found the most wretched of mankind. Oedipus appears as a king who is active for their relief; as a legislator, whose first act of obedience to the Oracle, is to oblige all his assembled subjects to agree with him in imprecating the most horrible curses on the unknown criminal.
