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King Laius of Thebes learned from an oracle that he was destined to be killed by
his own son, who would then marry his mother Jocasta, he decided that his
newborn son could not be allowed to live.
He ordered a servant to leave him to die on a lonely mountain. A passing
shepherd found the infant and took him to Polybus, the king of Corinth. The
queen, who had never had children of her own, was delighted that the gods had
sent them a son.
They named the boy Oedipus (swollen foot), and they loved him so much that
they never told him he was adopted. Thus, when Oedipus heard an oracle proclaim
that he would kill his own father and marry his mother, he decided to leave
Corinth rather than bring harm to the parents he loved so much.
As he wandered, he came to a crossroads, where a haughty man in a chariot
ordered him off the road and threatened him with a whip. Oedipus, who was after
all a prince, answered the man with equal arrogance. When the man tried to
strike him, Oedipus pulled him from his chariot and killed him.
Eventually Oedipus came to the gates of Thebes. Guarding the gates was a
terrible monster with the body of a lion and the head and torso of a woman. She
allowed no one to enter or leave the city without answering the riddle that she
posed. If the traveler could not answer correctly, she would kill and devour
him. As no one had yet come up with the right answer, the sphinx was well-fed,
and the city of Thebes was effectively cut off from all trade and all contact
with the world outside the city walls.
When Oedipus reached the gates of the city, the creature posed her riddle:
What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the
evening?
Oedipus solved the riddle, answering that man crawls on all fours in
infancy, walks upright on two legs in adulthood, and uses a cane as a third leg
in old age.
The sphinx was so frustrated that Oedipus had answered her riddle that she
threw herself from the city walls, and died. The Thebans were immensely grateful
to Oedipus for having rid them of the monstrous sphinx. The gratitude of
the people for their deliverance was so great that they made Oedipus their king,
giving him in marriage their queen Iocaste.
Oedipus, ignorant of his parentage, had already become the slayer of his
father; in marrying the queen he became the husband of his mother. These horrors
remained undiscovered, till at length Thebes was afflicted with famine and
pestilence, and the oracle being consulted, the double crime of Oedipus came to
light. Iocaste put an end to her own life, and Oedipus, seized with madness,
tore out his eyes and wandered away from Thebes, dreaded and abandoned by all
except his daughter Antigone.
After many years of wandering, he arrived at the shrine of the Eumenides
at Colonus, near Athens. There he died, after having atoned for his crimes by
virtue of his years of suffering and sorrow. |
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