Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

This is Sophocles' last tragedy, and perhaps the most perplexing one. Why does Oedipus die a mysterious death near Athens after leading a long life of suffering? Perhaps this has to do with Sophocles' new position after Philoctetes. As early as Oedipus the King, Sophocles establishes the position that suffering is necessary to human existence. Unlike Aeschylus and the early Sophocles (in Antigone, for example), who suggests that suffering is a means for human learning, the mature Sophocles dramatically shows us that human beings are incapable of escaping suffering. We suffer for a variety of reasons, and these sufferings have no explanations. Oedipus' fate is not a punishment; it is just an occurence. The prophecy does not tell Oedipus "if you behave immorally, you will sleep with your mom"; the prophecy says, "you are going to sleep with your mom", unconditionally. How can the gods then be justified if things like Oedipus' story can happen? I think theodicy is what Sophocles is trying to deal with in his last two plays. In Philoctetes, the bower Philoctetes is abandoned by his comrades in Lemnos, and is ultimately commanded by Heracles the god to go back to Troy. The dramatic argument in Philoctetes, it seems, is that human beings must suffer, but they must also obey the divine will to live on. Philoctetes obeys Heracles, and according to the myth, Philoctetes does go on to achieve great things. But the problem with that is, firstly, Philoctetes is forced by divine command to go to Troy; and secondly, Philoctetes just happens to be a great hero who will achieve great glory - the every day individual may very well die in oblivion. Oedipus at Colonus, I think, is Sophocles' final response to this problem before he died in 405bc. Oedipus, through out the play, believes in his destiny, which is to die at Colonus. He refused to betray himself by returning to his homeland, and instead believed in the gods and died an exile. Sophocles' choice of Colonus may be important. It echoes Aeschylus' choice for the inclusion of the Furies in The Eumenides. The Eumenides, of course, is a play about divine justice. By making this intertextual link, I think Sophocles is trying to reassert his faith in the gods, even if the faith will seemed to be blind. Interestingly, Oedipus is blind. But if that is the case, what exactly is the relationship between the human and the divine? Certainly the divine, in this play, is not indifferent to human lives. Zeus sends a thunder to Oedipus to tell him it's time to die. But further from that, what else? For example, how can Zeus permit such evil to visit upon Oedipus, who is a good person? Oedipus at Colonus perplexes me greatly, but nonetheless it is an excellent tragedy.