Oedipus the King (in Contemporary English)

This version of Oedipus exists primarily to solve a practical problem. I wanted to provide a affordable version of the play (as well as other ancient texts) for my college freshmen, but I did not want to go with an older translation, so I decided to produce a new version of the play that would not be subject to copyright. Though I have a beginner’s knowledge of the language, I am no scholar of ancient Greek. So I produced this edition of the play relying primarily on two sources: the old Harvard Classics edition and the 1912 Loeb Classical Library Greek edition edited by Francis Storr. For some passages, I also consulted Robert Fagles’ translation as well as the Fitts-Fitzgerald version. The resulting text is, I think, a good contemporary Oedipus that might be helpful to teachers and students who want an inexpensive and accessible version of the play. Special thanks goes to Dr. Stephen Slimp of the University of West Alabama, who provided a great deal of help to me in translating a number of passages from Greek.