EDIPUS, an ancient Grecian king, whose tragical sorrows were a favourite subject of the classical poets, was the son of Laius and Jocasta, the King and Queen of Thebes. The following is the ordinary account of the cruel destiny of his life. King Laius had been warned beforehand by an oracle that he should be slain by his son. Accordingly, no sooner was the infant born, than with his feet bored and bound together, he was carried away and exposed on Mount Cithæron. A shepherd chancing to pass that way, took him up and conveyed him to Polybus, the tyrant of Corinth. This king, being childless, adopted the infant, and seeing his little feet swollen, called him Edipus. Years passed by; and the foundling was growing up at the Corinthian court a young man, and the reputed son of Polybus, when one
day he heard his supposed parentage tauntingly questioned. This threw him into the torture of uncertainty, and hurried him away to consult the oracle of Delphi. The oracle would give no other response than the prediction that he should slay his father and marry his mother. Shuddering under the prophecy, Oedipus resolved to return no more to Corinth, and, led blindly on by Destiny, he bent his steps towards Thebes. On a narrow part of the road between Delphi and Daulis, a menial driving an elderly personage in a chariot called to him saucily to get out of the way. The insult was resented; a scuffle ensued; and the young traveller slew his two opponents. The elderly personage was Laius; and thus part of the horrible prediction had been fulfilled. Unconscious of what he had done, Oedipus held on his way; and arriving at Thebes, found the neighbourhood in a terrible dilemma. The Sphinx, settled upon a rock, was exacting, on pain of death, from all who passed by an answer to a riddle; every one in turn was failing in the attempt to give a solution; and the population was fast wasting away before the clutches of the monster. At this juncture Oedipus solved the fatal enigma, and the Sphinx fell lifeless from her lofty seat. The hand of Queen Jocasta was bestowed as a reward upon the deliverer of the people; and thus the fulfilment of the predicted destiny was completed. Several years, however, passed before it was known. At length a plague fell upon the Thebans; the oracle declared that the calamity could only be stopped by the discovery of the murderer of Laius; the seer Tiresias made this discovery; and the revolting secret burst disastrously upon the royal family. Jocasta hung herself; Oedipus tore out his eyes. In course of time he wandered forth, led by his daughter Antigone, and after much travel, found himself near Colonus in Attica. Entering the unapproachable grove of the Furies, he remained there under the protection of these dread goddesses till his death. The history of Oedipus furnished the subject of several ancient tragic poems. The Oedipus Tyrannus and the Oedipus Colonus by Sophocles, and the Oedipus by Seneca, are still extant.