"Son of Laius and Jocasta, heir to the curse that plagued the Labdacids, he was abandoned at birth on Mount Cithaeron, as Apollo had predicted to his father that if he had a son, this son would kill him. The servant tasked with carrying out this mission pierced his feet with a hook so that he could hang the baby from a tree.
This explains why, upon being found by some shepherds, he was called Oedipus, which in Greek means "swollen feet". He was taken to King Polybus of Corinth, who, having no children, although married to Queen Periboea, adopted him. On one occasion, the young man was at a banquet when a Corinthian indiscreetly referred to him as a stepson. Intrigued, Oedipus decided to consult the oracle of Delphi to learn his true origin. Not only did he not get a precise answer, but the young man was confronted with a terrifying revelation.
The answer Oedipus received was that he would not only kill his father but would marry his own mother, fathering a cursed lineage. In an attempt to avoid tragedy, he desperately decided to flee Corinth, leaving behind Polybus and Periboea, whom he truly believed to be his real parents. On the way to Phocis, where the roads to Caulias and Thebes diverge, the poor lad encountered Laius and his escort, composed of four people besides the king: the herald, a charioteer, and two more slaves. This one, full of hubris, ordered him to give way to the King of Thebes. As Oedipus refused to even alter his pace, one of his horses was killed by the king. Unaware of the king's true identity, Oedipus, with the aid of his weapon, the cane that supported him as he walked, and with great violence, beat Laius to death.
Arriving in Thebes, he encountered the Sphinx, a monster that had been ravaging the city for some time. Descended from a family of monsters, her mother, Echidna, had the body of a woman and the tail of a serpent, and devoured all travelers who approached her. Orthrus united with his own mother, and thus became both father and brother to the Sphinx.
She had been sent by Hera to the city of Thebes to punish King Laius, responsible for the suicide of Crissipus, son of Pelops. A mixture of various animals, the Sphinx had the head and bust of a woman, the paws of a lion, the body of a dog, the tail of a dragon, and wings like those of the Harpies.
Installed at the entrance of the city, more precisely on Mount Phiceus, she posed to strangers arriving there a riddle of great complexity and difficult to solve.
Those who were unable to decipher it were summarily eliminated, as the creature not only killed but also devoured its victim. The monster had already claimed many victims and the inhabitants were alarmed when Oedipus, seeking exile, arrived in Thebes. Upon confronting her, he was met with the following question: "What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" Oedipus, without difficulty, replied that this animal was man, who crawls in infancy, then walks on two legs, and in old age, with the weight of years, needs a cane, that is, a third leg to support himself. As it had been foretold by destiny that on the day someone managed to decipher her riddle the Sphinx would die, she threw herself from a precipice and died shattered against the rocks.
Hailed by the grateful population, he became king and, consequently, also received the hand of Queen Jocasta in marriage. In other words, Oedipus fulfilled the second and last part of the prophecy, for by marrying the queen, he was in fact marrying his
own mother. Four children were born of this union: Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone, and Ismene. The King of Thebes reigned peacefully for years until the day when the local population began to be ravaged by a plague. The oracle, consulted again, declared that to stop the epidemic, it was necessary to find Laius's murderer and banish him permanently from Thebes. Tiresias, the great blind seer, brought to the court revealed the truth about the crime and clarified the identity and history
of Oedipus. Jocasta, humiliated and unable to bear the shame, committed suicide. Oedipus, beside his mother's body, blinded himself. Expelled from the city by Eteocles and Polynices, he went into exile accompanied by Antigone, who guided him to Attica, where he was welcomed by Theseus.
Some time later, his sons and Creon, Jocasta's brother, tried to persuade him to return to Thebes, as an oracle had predicted that wherever his tomb was located, the gods would dedicate special protection. It was in vain, because Oedipus refused
categorically to grant their wish and lived his last days in Colonus, a locality situated near Athens. It was for this reason that the city always managed to emerge victorious in disputes against Thebes."
