This rich and challenging play ranges over the supreme myth of Oidipous and his doomed family. With its brooding imagery, extravagant language, ebullient rhetoric and scenic display it is quintessential Euripides. With its broad, yet unified, thematic sweep it offers important points of comparison with other Theban plays and valuable insights into late fifth century religion, politics and society.For this volume Elizabeth Craik has prepared a new edition of the play, with a selective apparatus. Suspect lines are clearly marked; but the fundamental integrity of the tradition is defended. Text with facing translation, commentary and notes.