When 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.

Product SKU: G-003S