in town?
What festivals will you attend that will not
send you home in tears, instead of joy?

It is here where the closing words from Oedipus have the most meaning.  Oedipus no longer thinks of himself.  Thinking of his children's impending marriage, Oedipus begs for his children and no longer can think of himself as anything more than a creature that embodies what it means to be pathetic:

When you come to the age ripe for marriage,
who will he be who will run the risk, children,
to take for himself the reproaches that will
be banes for my parents and offspring alike?
What evil is absent? Your father
slew his father; he ploughed his mother,
where he himself was sown, and he sired
you in the same fount where he himself was sired.
Such taunts you will hear, and then who will marry you?

Oedipus' closing words remind the reader that it is not for individual fame or claims to power that drive the individual.  It is the avoidance of further hurt or pain, the cries of a father for his children, that represent the foundational hope for human beings.

In the closing words of the Chorus, this similar mourning for the condition of being human is echoed.  The "sea of dire misfortune" is a deep one, indeed.  It is one that overcomes human beings and the Chorus is able to speak about it from the position of eyewitness.  The best one can hope for, according to the closing line of the drama and the chorus, is to avoid suffering anything "grievous."  It is in this where success can be seen.  In this message, the Chorus reflects what Oedipus' own predicament reveals.  The essence of mortality becomes the avoidance of this "sea of dire misfortune" and nothing more.

There is not but one thing to be learned from the drama of Oedipus.  There are many truths to be learned from his narrative.  I would think one of the most important elements to learn is that complexity marks human consciousness.  Oedipus believes that there are simple and direct answers to everything.  The plague and suffering has hit his people?  Simple:  He will "fix" everything.  Tiresias says something to his disliking?  Simple:  He will "banish" him.  There is an oracle saying something ominous?  Simple:  Oedipius' autonomy and free will can overcome it.  In the end, this is what the play teaches us in that there are no simple answers to the fundamental questions of human consciousness.  Individuals must wade through complex waters and reflect in order to find whatever an appropriate answer might be.  In the world of questions such as, "Who am I?"  or "Why is there suffering?" or "What shall I do?" one cannot hope to find simple and rash answers.  There is only obscurity.  When Oedipus sees the results of his desire for simplicity in the form of his dead wife/ mother, it is clear that he understands this.  This is why his blinding is the ultimate response to the simplicity he has displayed.  The ending of the narrative is one where blindness and obscurity will always accompany him.

This depends to a great degree on the individual reader. In antiquity, the plot and background of the play would have been known to the viewers before they entered the theatre. Thus what they would learn is more a matter of what the play revealed about the nature of people in relationship to the gods and fate than a particular subject matter.

For a modern student, the play serves as an introduction to a chronologically distant culture and set of values and beliefs. It can serve to challenge certain individualistic assumptions students may have with its emphasis on the importance of the polis and the inevitability of fate.  It also contributes knowledge of the historical background out of which much of western literature developed.