In an attempt to prevent this prophecy's fulfillment, when Jocasta indeed bore a son, Laius had his son's ankles pierced and tethered together so that he could not crawl Jocasta then gave the boy to a servant to abandon ("expose") on the nearby mountain. The Oracle prophesied that any son born to Laius would kill him. Having been childless for some time, Laius consulted the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Oedipus was the son of Laius and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes. However, the most popular version of the legend comes from the set of Theban plays by Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. Variations on the legend of Oedipus are mentioned in fragments by several ancient Greek poets including Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides.
The legend of Oedipus has been retold in many versions and was used by Sigmund Freud to name and give mythic precedent to the Oedipus complex. Oedipus then seized two pins from her dress and blinded himself with them.
Jocasta, upon realizing that she had married her own son, hanged herself. Years later, to end a plague on Thebes, Oedipus searched to find who had killed Laius and discovered that he himself was responsible. Oedipus answered the monster's riddle correctly, defeating it and winning the throne of the dead king – and the hand in marriage of the king's widow, who was also (unbeknownst to him) his mother Jocasta.ĭetail of ancient fresco in which Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx. Continuing on to Thebes, he found that the king of the city (Laius) had recently been killed and that the city was at the mercy of the Sphinx. On his way, he met an older man and killed him in a quarrel. Oedipus learned from the oracle at Delphi of the prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother but, unaware of his true parentage, believed he was fated to murder Polybus and marry Merope, and so he left for Thebes. However, the shepherd took pity on the baby and passed him to another shepherd who gave Oedipus to King Polybus and Queen Merope to raise as their own. Laius wished to thwart the prophecy, so he sent a shepherd-servant to leave Oedipus to die on a mountainside. In the best-known version of the myth, Oedipus was born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. Oedipus represents two enduring themes of Greek myth and drama: the flawed nature of humanity and an individual's role in the course of destiny in a harsh universe. Together, these plays make up Sophocles' three Theban plays. The story of Oedipus is the subject of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex, which is followed in the narrative sequence by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. Oedipus ( UK: / ˈ iː d ɪ p ə s/, also US: / ˈ ɛ d ə-/ Greek: Οἰδίπους "swollen foot") was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. Oedipus and the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
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