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In this condition the infant was found by a peasant, who carried him to his master and mistress, by whom he was adopted and called OEdipus, or Swollen-foot. Many years afterwards Laius being on his way to Delphi, accompanied only by one attendant, met in a narrow road a young man also driving in a chariot.
King Œdipus, who has slain his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta, is only the wish-fulfillment of our childhood. But more fortunate than he, we have been able, unless we have become psychoneurotic, to dissociate our sexual feelings from our mothers and forget our jealousy of our fathers.
Jocasta sustains this hope she cannot believe a prophecy for it had been foretold that Laius should fall by the hand of his son, and that son had long since perished on the mountains. The queen and Oedipus retire within their palace; the chorus resume their strains; after which, Jocasta reappears on her way to the temple of Apollo, to offer sacrifice and prayer.
Accordingly we find that the oracle does not deter Laius from begetting a son, nor that son from being his slayer. On the whole, I cannot see that your prophecies entitle you to reward, even setting aside the obscurity of the oracles, which are generally contrived to cut both ways.
Knowing no country but Corinth, he pursues his way to Bœotia, and meets Laius in a chariot drawn by mules. A quarrel ensues from the insolence of attendants, and Œdipus kills Laius. The brother of Laius, Creon, succeeds to the throne of Thebes.
To cheer him, the messenger now informs him that he is not the son of Merope and Polybus. A babe had been found in the entangled forest-dells of Cithaeron by a herdsman and slave of Laius he had given the infant to another that other, the messenger who now tells the tale. Transferred to the care of Polybus and Merope, the babe became to them as a son, for they were childless.
Warned by the oracle that he should kill his father, and marry his mother, the son forsook Corinth, and made his abode at Thebes. Meeting Laius in a narrow pass, and provoked by his attendants, he slew them and him. At Thebes there was a female monster, the Sphinx, who propounded a riddle, and each day devoured a man until it should be solved.
Awful indeed is his blindness in not perceiving the truth when it was, as it were, brought directly home to him; as, for instance, when he puts the question to Jocasta, How did Laius look? and she answers he had become gray-haired, otherwise in appearance he was not unlike Oedipus.
Line by line the truth is dragged from him; the abandoned child came from another from a creature of Laius was said to be his son was given him by Jocasta to be destroyed because of an oracle why then passed over to the Corinthian messenger? "through pity, and he saved the child alive, for a mighty misery. If thou art that child, know that thou art born a hapless man".
His remonstrances grow into threats. In his blindness he even accuses Tiresias himself of the murder of Laius and out speaks the terrible diviner: "Ay is it so? Abide then by thy curse And solemn edict never from this day Hold human commune with these men or me; Lo, where thou standest lo, the land's polluter!" A dialogue of great dramatic power ensues.
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