Laius, King of Thebes, and his wife Jocasta cast out their infant son Œdipus to die. But the shepherd commissioned to do away the child gave it instead to a stranger, who carried it to Corinth. There the little Œdipus, fostered by a Corinthian couple, was brought up as their son. In the strength of his manhood setting forth to make his own way, he met in a narrow pass another traveler who haughtily bade him yield passage. The dispute warmed to blows. Œdipus killed him. It was his own father Laius. Proceeding to Thebes, Œdipus found the throne vacant and the city in terror of the monster Sphinx. He silenced the Sphinx, and, hailed by the people as their deliverer, he became their king and married the widowed queen Jocasta, his own mother. But Apollo having in time sent a pestilence upon Thebes, Œdipus was besought by the people to be once more their savior. His emissary to the oracle, Creon his brother-in-law, brought back word that Thebes must put away the unclean person who had slain Laius. By searching investigation Œdipus discovered that he himself was the pollution, that he had slain his own father and married his own mother, that not only he but his children were accursed, that the outlawry which he had invoked upon the guilty fell upon his own head. Thereupon he put out his eyes in an agony of horror, after Jocasta had killed herself, and groped his way from Thebes led by his wretched daughters. This is the legend. Its events extend over many years. Which of them shall be chosen for the stage as having most dramatic value? Which to an audience can be made most significant; and how shall these vital scenes be arranged in such continuous and progressive movement as will convey, and at the same time enhance, our sense of the movement of life? Sophocles with his own dramatic skill, but in the form typical of all the best Greek tragedy, arranged his whole action within the compass of its last poignant hours. Omitting nothing that is emotionally essential, nothing that is essential to clear understanding, he yet relegated some events to the background in order to represent fully the great crisis. He gathers together the whole visible action into an hour and a half on the stage and a half-dozen persons; and in this brief compass he unfolds that action with increasing intensity by making every scene move from the last and to the next, on to the awful close.