The story of Oedipus is perhaps one of the most tragic of the Greek myths, and that’s
saying something.
A tale of accidental despair and unfortunate disaster, the famed King of Thebes and his
harrowing legend remain as well known today as ever.
So, who was Oedipus, and why is he remembered?
Let’s find out together, right now.
The story of Oedipus begins before his birth.
Laius, the childless King of Thebes, decided to consult the Oracle at Delphi to learn if
he and his wife Jocasta would ever have any children.
To his utter dismay, instead he was warned to not pursue a child for any son born was
destined to kill him.
Taking this advice very much to heart, Laius tried staying away from his wife’s bed as
much as he could, but his resilience was undone by a night of revels and sweet-tasting wine.
Jocasta fell pregnant and, in due time, gave birth to a baby boy.
In an attempt to avoid the prophecy becoming true, Laius told his servants to pierce the
baby's ankles, so that it would not be able to even crawl, let alone cause him harm; afterward,
so as to be even safer, he gave his son to a servant, telling him to leave the baby in
the mountains to die.
The servant, unable to do such a thing, instead handed the baby over to a shepherd who tended
his flock on that same mountain.
A Corinthian, the shepherd took pity on the boy and brought him to the court of King Polybus
and Queen Merope of Corinth.
The royal couple, also childless, decided to adopt the poor baby and raise him as their
own.
They named the boy after his ankle wounds: Oedipus means “Swollen Foot.”
Many happy years later, a grown Oedipus was told by a drunkard one day that Polybus and
Merope were not his birth parents.
Oedipus confronted the king and queen of Corinth with the accusation, but they denied it.
Unsatisfied, Oedipus travelled to the same oracle in Delphi that his birth parents had
consulted.
The oracle informed him that he was destined to murder his father and marry his mother.
Believing this to reference the King and Queen of Corinth and in an attempt to avoid such
a fate, he decided not to return home to Corinth, but to travel instead to Thebes, which was
closer to Delphi.
On his way to Thebes, the first of several desperately tragic moments in his life would
occur, the significance of which was fully unbeknownst to him at the time.
At a narrow three-way intersection near Davlia, he came across a chariot carrying King Laius,
his biological father.
Unaware of the man’s true identify, Oedipus and Laius' charioteer started quarrelling
over who had the right of way.
The quarrel ended up with Oedipus killing both the charioteer and his father, thus unknowingly
fulfilling the first half of his prophecy.
Only one of Laius’ servants managed to save his life from the wrath of Oedipus and make
his escape.
Soon after, Oedipus came across the terrible Sphinx who had plagued the region of Thebes
for some time, destroying crops and devouring travellers who had either refused to answer
her riddle or answered it incorrectly.
The Sphinx asked Oedipus the same question she had asked the unfortunate ones before
him: “What walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three at night?”
No one had ever answered the question correctly before.
But Oedipus thought carefully and eventually solved the riddle: “Man – who crawls on
all fours as a baby, then on two legs as an adult, and then with a walking stick when
in old age.”
The Sphinx, unable to bear the fact that her riddle had been answered correctly, hurled
herself off the rock she was sitting on and to her death.
Following the death of the King at the unknowing hands of Oedipus, Thebes had an interim ruler,
Creon, the brother of the widowed Jocasta and Oedipus’ uncle.
Creon had decreed that anyone who could manage to kill the Sphinx would be rewarded the hand
of the queen and the throne of Thebes.
Consequently – unbeknownst to him or, for that matter, anyone else – Oedipus’ reward
for rescuing Thebes from the Sphinx would end up being a most bitter one: his father’s
crown and marriage to his mother.
Neither recognizing the other, Oedipus and Jocasta would have four children together.
Many years later, Thebes is hit with a terrible plague.
Oedipus, determined to cure his city, does everything in his power to get to the bottom
of the matter; and after Creon returns from a consultation with the Oracle at Delphi with
the news that the plague is divine retribution for the killer of Laius never being taken
to justice, Oedipus gives a solemn oath to find him and punish him severely.
Creon suggests that they try to find the blind prophet, Tiresias, who was widely respected.
Oedipus sent for Tiresias, who warned him not to seek Laius' killer.
In a heated exchange, Tiresias was provoked into exposing Oedipus himself as the killer,
and the fact that Oedipus was living in shame because he did not know who his true parents
were.
Oedipus angrily blamed Creon for the false accusations, sensing a plot to overthrow his
rule and leading to a heated argument.
Jocasta tries comforting Oedipus and, in the process, informs him about the events which
led to the death of her husband.
They sound strikingly similar to his chance encounter with the unknown charioteer at Davlia,
and, visibly shaken, Oedipus sends for the sole survivor of the murder to hear a first-hand
account, fearing that he had in fact been the one to kill Laius.
Before the servant arrives however, a messenger from Corinth enters the court and informs
everyone that King Polybus had died.
Still believing that Polybus is his real father, Oedipus is somewhat relieved to hear this
as it renders the prophecy false; however, fearing that the second part of the prophecy
may still materialize, he declines to attend the funeral in order to avoid meeting his
mother.
The messenger informs Oedipus that he doesn’t need to worry about that, he knows full well
that Polybus and Merope aren’t his real parents for he is the very same shepherd who
handed them the ankle-pierced Oedipus when he was still a baby.
The very same baby that was the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta.
The truth finally becomes clear to Jocasta, that the prophecy had come true and she had
indeed married her own son and the killer of her husband and she flees in despair.
The summoned survivor of the late Kings murder arrives and gives his description of the scene
to Oedipus, who upon hearing the details feels his heart sink as the realisation sweeps throughout
his body.
The prophecy was real.
He was the son of Jocasta, he had killed his own father and married his mother.
Desperately searching for Jocasta, he eventually found her lifeless body.
She had hung herself in despair.
Consumed with sorrow, Oedipus tears out a golden pin from her gown and uses it to blind
himself.
As he had promised to do to the killer of Laius, he then banished himself from the city,
eventually dying whilst in the company of King Theseus of Athens.
A tragic tale of cruel prophecy and extremely unfortunate events.
A story that speaks of how highly the power and importance of fate was considered in the
ancient Greek world.
No matter how much the characters attempted to avoid the fates foretold for them, in the
end, and unknowingly to them all, their journey played out exactly as predicted.
I will leave you then with a simple question.
Do you believe in fate?