After many years in exile from Thebes for his inadvertent sins of fratricide and incest, former Theban king Oedipus, now an old, blind beggar, and his daughter Antigone arrive at Colonus, a city near Athens, and are standing upon ground that is sacred to the Eumenides (or Furies), the goddesses of vengeance. Oedipus reveals that years ago, when the oracle of Apollo, the god of prophecy, foretold of Oedipus’ fratricide and incest, Apollo also said that Oedipus’ death on the sacred ground on which he stands would bless the land in which he would be buried.
Oedipus at Colonus depicts Oedipus’ transformation from a blind beggar disgraced and exiled for his sins to a figure of immense power, capable of granting (or withholding) divine blessings, and the end of his life.
