Tragedy in Ovid's Metamorphoses common one throughout the world of ancient tragedy. This theme is most clearly illustrated in Aeschylus' great trilogy the Oresteia and in Sophocles' trilogy on Oedipus. As in Hecuba's speech, characters from the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles both lament their great losses and what has led them to this point. One of the best examples of this theme that Ovid so clearly draws upon is the speech given by a messenger in Oedipus Rex that tells of the death of Jocasta and the blinding of Oedipus. This famous speech follows in the same theme of that given by Hecuba,
Oedipus (Euripides) jealousy of Oedipus, which led to the catastrophe. Most scholars agree that the play ended with Jocasta joining Oedipus in exile. The date for "Oedipus" has not been definitively established but metrical analysis on the extant fragments, particularly the incidence of resolutions by Cropp and Fick, indicates that the play was likely written in the latter part of Euripides' life, between 419 BCE and 406 BCE, and most likely after 415 BCE. Oedipus (Euripides) Oedipus ( or ; , "Oidípous") is a play by the 5th-century BCE Athenian dramatist Euripides. The play is now lost except for some fragments. What