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| King Oedipus |
Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Thebes,the Theban King Laius and his Queen Jocasta tried so long to begot a child but they could not. King Laius then decided to pay an Oracle a visit to know if his wife would ever have a child for him. To his greatest shock, the Oracle revealed to him that the gods had made it so because any son born to him was destined to kill him and marry his wife, Jocasta.
In order to avoid the prophecy from coming to pass, King Laius did all he could to stay away from his wife's bed. One drunken night, King Laius returned drunk and laid with his wife, Jocasta. She became pregnant. When the queen was due, she was delivered of a baby boy. Instead of being a source of joy, the child became the worst fear of the Royal family.
To prevent the prophecy from coming to pass, King Laius asked his servants to tie the baby's ankles and take him far away ,deep in the woods and leave him there to die, so he would not be able to cause him harm. The servants did as he asked. King Laius was relieved, with the boy gone, he thought the prophecy had been thwarted.
It happened that a kind Shepherd passed by where the child was abandoned, he found him and took him to the king and Queen of Corinth,King Polybus and Queen Merope. The Corinth king and queen had no child of their own, so they adopted the baby and raised him as their own. Seeing his ankle wound, the royal family decided to give him the name, Oedipus, which means swollen foot.
When Oedipus had become a man, he was one day told by a drunkard that King Polybus and Queen Merope were only his foster parents and not his birth parents. Shocked at the revelation, Oedipus confronted King Polybus and Queen Merope about this, they denied it and dismissed the rumor. But Oedipus began having doubts. He decided to travel to Delphi to learn the truth from the famous oracle herself. When he got to the Oracle, he was told that he, Oedipus, would one day kill his father and marry his own mother. Shaken to the bone, Oedipus hurried away from Delphi forgetting to ask the question that brought him to the temple. Still thinking that King Polybus and Queen Morope were his real parents, Oedipus fled Corinth in an attempt to protect them from the prophecy.
Oedipus headed towards Thebes , the city close to Delphi but unknown to him, he was heading to his hometown, the kingdom of his actual parents, King Laius and Queen Jocasta. His inevitable fate was beginning to unfold.
On his way, Oedipus reached a place where three roads meet. He saw a chariot approaching, the chariot was carrying king Laius, Oedipus' real father. Oedipus and King Laius' charioter started quarreling over who had the right to go first. As the charioteer tried to run him over, Oedipus killed him, King Laius stepped in and Oedipus killed him too, thus unknowingly fulfilling the first half of the prophecy.
Coincidentally, a fleeing slave who was also travelling on that road at that time witnessed the whole scene.
Still on the journey to Thebes Oedipus came across a horrific flashy Sphinx, who had plagued the region of Thebes for a long time. The Sphinx was a creature with a body of a lion, strong wings like an Eagle and the head of a woman. It stopped all those traveling to Thebes and asked them a riddle. If the traveler refused to answer or were unable to answer correctly, the monster would kill and devour them. But if they gave the right answer they were free to continue the journey.
The she-monster approached Oedipus and asked him,"what walks on four feet in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the night ?" Oedipus thought for a while and replied," the answer is man, a man as an infant crawls on all fours, as an adult, he walks on two legs and at old age with a walking stick.``
This reply got the Sphinx so mad, no one had ever replied to the riddle correctly. In anger, she threw herself off the cliff to death. Oedipus was freed to go ahead into Thebes.
Before this incident, Creon, the brother of the widowed queen of Thebes, Jocasta, had made a decree that any man who freed Thebes from the terrible Sphinx would be rewarded with the throne and the hand of the queen in marriage. And after Oedipus freed the land from the terrible Sphinx he was given the throne of his father and the hand of his mother in marriage.
The prophecy had been fulfilled. Neither Oedipus nor jocasta recognized each other and together they had four children.
Years later, a terrible curse descended on Thebes; plants and animals perished , the land was rendered infertile and the people began to starve. King Oedipus sent his uncle Creon to the oracle of Delphi to find out the cause of the plaques and he also sent for the blind prophet of Thebes , Tiresias ,who although blind could see more than any man.
Creon returned with the words of the oracle at Delph that the kingdom was suffering because the murderer of King Laius had not been brought to justice. Oedipus, who had no idea it was him, swore to find the killer and send him on exile. When the blind prophet Tiresias, was asked everything he knew about the situation, he responded that the man who was presently king was responsible for the murder.
Confused, Oedipus blamed Creon and Tiresias for plotting to overthrow him. Jocasta tried to calm him down by narrating to him how Laius was killed. Oedipus became nervous, the story sounded similar to what happened to him many years ago, when he killed a certain man where three roads meet. Yet he chose not to believe; King Polybus and Queen Morope were his parent, they had to be. When Oedipus realized that there was a slave who witness the incident, he sent for him. Just then a messenger from Corinth arrived at the court to inform him that King Polybus was dead. Still believing that Polybus was his father, Oedipus was relieved. In an attempt to avoid the second part of the prophecy, he refused to attend the funeral to avoid meeting his mother, Morope. It was there that the messenger revealed to Oedipus that Polybus and Morope were not his real parents. When asked how he knew this, the messenger said that he was the Shepherd who handed Oedipus to the royal family many years ago.
Doubting the entire story, Oedipus waited for the shepherd to arrive. But Jocasta, who had been watching all along, did not need any more evidence than these, she fled to her chambers in great distress, the warnings of the oracle from the very beginning had come to pass. In tears, Queen Jocasta hanged herself in her chamber.
The slave arrived and recognized Oedipus as the one who murdered king Laius years ago. It was a terrible moment for King Oedipus, his worst fears had come through. What he ran away from for so long had found him; he had killed his own father and married his mother. When Oedipus found Jocasta dead in her chambers he took pins from Jocasta's gown and blinded himself. To keep the promise that he would exile the killer of King Laius, Oedipus banished himself from Thebes; he believed his life was cursed.
MORAL LESSON.
Destiny can only be delayed but never denied.
We should avoid making decisions when we are too happy, too sad and too angry.
When we run away from making mistakes we end up with them.
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