The setting of the Oedipus the King as in the case of most Greek tragedies, does not require a change of scene. Throughout the play the skene with at least one door represents the facade of the royal palace of Thebes. Even when action takes place inside the palace, such as Jocasta's suicide and Oedipus's self-blinding, there is no shift of scene. These interior actions are described in a speech delivered by a messenger rather than enacted before the audience (1237-1286).1 The messenger speech eliminates the need for scene changes, which, due to the limited resources of the ancient theater, would have been difficult and awkward. Sophocles, like Aeschylus and Euripides, made a virtue of the necessity of this convention of the ancient theater by writing elaborate messenger speeches which provide a vivid word picture of the offstage action.