Oedipus

Laius, king of Thebes, son of Labdacus and a direct descendant of Cadmus, married Jocaste, the daughter of a noble Theban. An oracle foretold that he would die by the hand of his own son, so he decided to destroy the infant to whom Jocaste had just given birth. With the consent of his wife, whose affection for her husband overcame her love for her child, he pierced the baby's feet, bound them together, and handed the child to a servant, instructing him to abandon him on Mount Cithaeron to perish. But instead of obeying this cruel command, the servant gave the baby to a shepherd who was tending the flocks of Polybus, king of Corinth, and then returned to Laius and Jocaste, telling them that their orders had been carried out. The parents were satisfied with the news and quieted their consciences by thinking that they had prevented their son from committing parricide.

Meanwhile, the shepherd of King Polybus unbound the infant's feet, and because they were badly swollen, he called the child Oedipus, meaning "swollen foot." He then took the boy to his master, the king, who pitied the poor little foundling and asked his wife, Merope, to care for him. Oedipus was adopted by the king and queen as their own son, and grew up believing they were his parents, until one day a Corinthian noble taunted him at a banquet, saying he was not the king's son. Stung by this reproach, the youth appealed to Merope, but receiving an evasive though kind answer, he went to Delphi to consult the oracle. The Pythia gave no reply to his inquiry but instead told him, to his horror, that he was fated to kill his father and marry his own mother.

Filled with dismay, for he loved Polybus and Merope dearly, Oedipus decided not to return to Corinth and instead took the road leading to Boeotia. On his way, a chariot passed him in which sat an old man with two servants, who rudely pushed the pedestrian out of the path. In the scuffle that followed, Oedipus struck the old man with his heavy stick, and the man fell back dead on the chariot seat. Struck with dismay at the unpremeditated murder he had committed, the youth fled, leaving the spot without learning that the old man he had killed was his father, Laius, king of Thebes.

Not long after this, the Sphinx was sent by the goddess Hera as a punishment to the Thebans. Stationed on a rocky height just outside the city, she posed riddles to passers-by, and whoever failed to solve them was torn to pieces and devoured by the monster. In this way, great numbers of Thebans had perished.

Now, after the death of the old king Laius, Creon, the brother of the widowed queen, had seized power and mounted the vacant throne. When at last his own son fell victim to the Sphinx, he resolved at all costs to rid the country of this fearful scourge. He issued a proclamation that the kingdom and the hand of his sister Jocaste would be awarded to whoever succeeded in solving one of the riddles of the Sphinx, for an oracle had foretold that only then would the country be freed from the monster.

Just as this proclamation was being made in the streets of Thebes, Oedipus, with his pilgrim's staff in hand, entered the city. Tempted by the prospect of such a magnificent reward, he went to the rock and boldly asked the Sphinx to pose one of her riddles. She proposed one she thought impossible to solve, but Oedipus solved it at once. Whereupon the Sphinx, full of rage and despair, threw herself into the abyss and perished. Oedipus received the promised reward: he became king of Thebes and the husband of Jocaste, the widow of his father, King Laius.

For many years Oedipus enjoyed great happiness and peace. Four children were born to him: two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. But at last the gods afflicted the country with a grievous pestilence, which caused terrible devastation among the people. In their distress they begged the help of the king, who was regarded as a special favorite of the gods. Oedipus consulted an oracle, and the response was that the pestilence would continue until the land was purified of the blood of King Laius, whose murderer was living unpunished in Thebes.

The king now called down the most solemn curses on the head of the murderer and offered a reward for any information about him. He then sent for the blind old seer Tiresias and begged him, by means of his prophetic powers, to reveal the author of the crime. Tiresias hesitated at first, but yielding to the king's earnest pleas, the old prophet spoke: "You yourself are the murderer of the old king Laius, who was your father; and you are married to his widow, your own mother." To convince Oedipus of the truth of his words, he brought forward the old servant who had abandoned him as a baby on Mount Cithaeron and the shepherd who had taken him to King Polybus. Horrified at this awful revelation, Oedipus, in a fit of despair, deprived himself of sight, and the unfortunate Jocaste, unable to bear her disgrace, hanged herself.

Accompanied by his faithful and devoted daughter Antigone, Oedipus left Thebes and became a miserable, homeless outcast, begging his bread from place to place. At last, after a long and painful journey, he found refuge in the grove of the Eumenides at Colonus near Athens, where his final moments were soothed by the care and devotion of faithful Antigone.