ŒDIPUS THE KING.
ARGUMENT.
Laios, King of Thebes, married Jocasta, daughter of Menœkeus, and they had no child. And he, grieved thereat, sought counsel of the God at Delphi, and the God bade him cease to wish for children, for should a son be born to him, by that son he should surely die.[1] And then it came to Pass that Jocasta bare him a son. And they, fearing the God's word, gave the boy to a shepherd, that he might cast it out upon the hill Kithæron: and so they were comforted, and deemed that they by this device had turned the oracle into a thing of nought. And thirty years afterwards, when Laios was well stricken in years, he went again on a pilgrimage to Delphi; and thence he never came back again,—slain on the way, men knew not by whose hands. And at that time the Sphinx made havoc of Thebes and all the coasts thereof so that they had no heart nor power to search into the matter of the king's death, but sought only for some one to answer the monster's riddle,[2] and save the city and its people. And a stranger came to the city, Œdipus of Corinth, son, as it was said, of Polybos and Merope, and answered the riddle aright,[3] and slew the Sphinx. And then the people of the city in their joy chose Œdipus as their king, in
- ↑ THE ORACLE TO LAIOS.
Laios, Labdacos' son, thou askest for birth of fair offspring;
Lo! I will give thee a son, but know that Destiny orders
That thou by the boy's hand must die, for so to the curses of Pelops,
Whom of his son thou hast robbed, Zeus, son of Kronos, hath granted,
And he, in his trouble of heart, called all this sorrow upon thee. - ↑ THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX.
There lives upon earth a being, two-footed, yea, and with four feet,
Yea, and with three feet, too, yet his voice continues unchanging;
And, lo! of all things that move in earth, in heaven, or in ocean,
He only changes his nature, and yet when on most feet he walketh,
Then is the speed of his limbs most weak and utterly powerless. - ↑ ANSWER OF ŒDIPUS.
Hear thou against thy will, thou dark-winged Muse of the slaughtered,
Hear from my lips the end, bringing a close to thy crime.
Man is it thou hast described, who, when on earth he appeareth,
First as a babe from the womb, fear-footed creeps on his way,
Then when old age cometh on, and the burden of years weighs full heavy,
Bending his shoulders and neck, as a third foot useth his staff.
