Oedipus

Polynices was driven from Thebes and went to Argos, where King Adrastus received him. He raised an army for war against Thebes. Before the campaign, Polynices went to Colonus in Attica to seek support from his exiled father, Oedipus.

Oedipus had been expelled from Thebes after Jocasta’s death and the revelation of his crimes. He had put out his own eyes and wandered with his daughter Antigone. At Colonus, he entered a place sacred to the Eumenides and sat there as a suppliant. Theseus, king of Athens, received him with honour.

Polynices came before Oedipus and asked for his father’s help in the war. Oedipus refused him. He did not offer support to the son who had been among those who failed to aid him when he was expelled from Thebes. Instead, he repeated the curse laid upon Polynices and his brother Eteocles. He prayed that the brothers would die by each other’s hands and would never agree over which of them should rule Thebes.

The quarrel between the brothers had followed an agreement that they should rule in alternate years. Some accounts say that Polynices ruled first and then surrendered the throne to Eteocles. Others say that Eteocles ruled first and refused to give it up. In either case, Polynices was exiled, went to Argos, and prepared for war, while Oedipus rejected his request and renewed the curse.

A plague was devastating Thebes, destroying crops, livestock, and people. Oedipus sent Creon to Delphi for advice. Creon returned with Apollo’s command: the murderer of King Laius must be killed or exiled before the plague would end. Oedipus swore to find the killer, unaware that he was the man he sought.

He summoned the prophet Tiresias. The old man first refused to speak, but finally told Oedipus that he himself was the murderer. Oedipus dismissed this as madness and ordered Tiresias away. Jocasta also rejected the accusation. She said that Apollo had once foretold that Laius would die by his own son’s hand, so she and Laius had arranged for their infant to be killed. She added that Laius had been attacked by robbers where three roads met on the way to Delphi, shortly before Oedipus came to Thebes. Five men had travelled with him, and only one had survived.

Oedipus asked when the murder had occurred and how many men were present. As she answered, he remembered killing a group of travellers at a place where roads met. One man had struck him with a stick after forcing him from the path, and Oedipus had attacked and killed them. He wondered whether their leader had been Laius. He ordered that the surviving servant be brought before him.

Before the shepherd arrived, a messenger came from Corinth and announced that Polybus was dead. Jocasta believed this proved Apollo’s prophecy false, since Polybus had not died by Oedipus’s hand. The messenger then revealed that Oedipus was not Polybus’s son. Polybus had raised him after receiving him from the messenger, who had himself obtained the child from another man. Asked about his true parents, the messenger said he did not know. The Theban shepherd then gave the remaining testimony. He confirmed that Oedipus was the infant born to Laius and Jocasta, the child they had ordered to be exposed. Oedipus understood that he had killed Laius, his father, and married Jocasta, his mother.

Oedipus entered the sacred ground of the Eumenides at Colonus, near Athens, while wandering with his daughter Antigone. He was blind, exiled from Thebes, and regarded as polluted because he had killed his father, Laius, and married his mother, Jocasta. Jocasta had hanged herself after the truth was discovered, and Oedipus had put out his own eyes. The people of Colonus wanted him to leave, but the sacred place offered refuge to suppliants.

Creon came from Thebes to take Oedipus back by force. The safety of Thebes, he claimed, depended on Oedipus’s presence. Polyneices also sought him, hoping to possess a power that would help him attack Thebes. Polyneices and his brother Eteocles had agreed to rule in alternate years, but Eteocles refused to surrender the throne. Polyneices then gathered an army against him. Oedipus rejected the demands of both men.

The Athenian king Theseus received Oedipus with honour and granted him asylum. An oracle that had once brought him terror now gave him comfort. Apollo promised that Oedipus, though disgraced and homeless, would bring a hidden blessing from the gods to the place where his grave would be. Oedipus therefore understood that his death would benefit the land that sheltered him. Ismene, who had come to tell him the oracle’s good news, joined Antigone at his side.

Oedipus then went into the sacred place and disappeared from the earth, or died there mysteriously. Only Theseus knew where he had been buried. Antigone and Ismene were later sent safely home by Theseus. After his death, Oedipus protected Athens. His sons fulfilled his curse during the conflict over Thebes, killing each other in battle.

A son was born to Laius and Jocasta, King and Queen of Thebes in Boeotia. They rejoiced and asked the priests of Apollo to foretell the deeds their heir would perform. The oracle brought grief instead of hope. The child was destined to kill his father, marry his mother, and bring great misfortunes upon his native city. Another account says that Laius had been warned not to have a child, because the son born to him would become his father’s murderer.

Laius therefore ordered a servant to take the infant out of the city and kill him. The servant could not carry out the whole command. He pierced or bound the child’s ankles, then left him exposed in a remote place, sometimes identified as Mount Cithaeron. In one account, the infant was hung by his ankles from a tree. The servant returned without being questioned, and the household believed that the prophecy could no longer be fulfilled.

The child survived. A shepherd found him and rescued him. One account names the rescuer Euphorbos. Because he could not afford to raise the infant, he passed him to another herdsman, who tended the flocks of Polybus, King of Corinth. The child was brought to the king’s wife, Merope, and she adopted him. Polybus and Merope had no children, so they raised him as their son.

The boy was called Oedipus, a name connected with his swollen feet. His injuries were healed, but he grew up in Corinth unaware of his true parentage. He believed that Polybus and Merope were his biological parents. Thus the infant whom Laius and Jocasta had exposed was rescued by shepherds and raised in the royal household of Corinth.

Oedipus answered the Sphinx’s riddle and defeated the monster that had persecuted Thebes. The Sphinx killed herself after he gave the correct answer. The grateful Thebans hailed Oedipus as their saviour and installed him on the vacant throne. They arranged for him to marry Jocasta, the widow of the dead king, Laius.

Oedipus did not know that Laius was his real father, or that Jocasta was his mother. Before this, he had met Laius at a crossroads while travelling away from Delphi. A dispute over the right of way arose between Oedipus and the elderly man in the chariot. Oedipus killed him and his charioteer, Polyphontes, without knowing who they were. Some accounts say that Laius travelled with four attendants, and that Oedipus killed all five men.

Oedipus had been born to Laius and Jocasta, but Laius had abandoned him on Mount Cithaeron after pinning his ankles together. A shepherd who had been ordered to expose the child gave him to a member of the Corinthian king’s household. Polybus and Merope, king and queen of Corinth, raised him as their son. Later, after hearing that Polybus was not his true father, Oedipus went to Delphi. The oracle declared that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He left Delphi to avoid returning to Corinth, but his efforts brought the prophecy to fulfilment.

As king of Thebes, Oedipus married Jocasta, and she bore him four children: Eteocles, Polyneices, Antigone, and Ismene. Neither Oedipus nor Jocasta knew their true relationship at the time. Later, Teiresias revealed what had happened. Jocasta learned that Oedipus had killed Laius and that she had married her son, and she hanged herself. Oedipus then blinded himself and wandered through Greece.

A plague fell on Thebes. In Sophocles’ account, Oedipus sent Creon, Jocasta’s brother, to Delphi to ask how the city could be freed. The oracle declared that Laius’s murderer must be found and expelled. Oedipus began the inquiry without knowing that he was the man sought. Messengers gave evidence about Laius’s death. A servant then confessed that he had not killed Laius’s infant son, as he had claimed, but had exposed him on a mountain. The child had been taken to Corinth and raised by its king and queen.

The evidence came together. Oedipus understood that he had unknowingly fulfilled the fate he had fled Corinth to avoid. The man he had killed at the meeting of three roads was Laius, his father. Jocasta was his mother, so his marriage had made him both her husband and her son. When Jocasta learned the truth, she went into the palace and hanged herself. Oedipus found her body. In despair, he used one of her ornaments to blind himself. He did not kill himself, because he believed that he was a source of pollution to the living and the dead.

Oedipus gave up the throne. Creon became regent. Oedipus’s sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and his daughters, Antigone and Ismene, remained in Thebes. The Thebans later expelled him. Blind and penniless, he travelled on foot with Antigone. They reached Colonus, near Athens, and entered a place sacred to the Eumenides. Theseus, king of Athens, received them. Ismene later joined them. Oedipus died at Colonus, where he had found refuge.