WHATS DESTINED TO BE SHALL BE. A son was born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes. Laius after learning from an oracle that he was doomed/To perish by the hand of his own son, who will later come to sleep with his wife Jocasta and take his kingdom, he tightly bond the feet of the infant together with a pin and ordered Jocasta to kill the infant. Hesitant to do so, she ordered a servant to commit the act for her. Instead, the servant took the baby to a mountain top to die from exposure. A shepherd rescued the infant and named him Oedipus (or swollen feet). The shepherd carried the baby with him to Corinth, where Oedipus was taken in and raised in the court of the childless King Polybus of Corinth as if he were his own. As a young man in Corinth, Oedipus heard a rumour that he is not the biological son of Polybus and his wife Merope. When Oedipus questioned the King and Queen, they denied it, but, still suspicious, he asked the Delphic Oracle who his parents really are. The Oracle seemed to ignore this question, telling him instead that he was destined to Mate with his own mother, and shed with his own hands the blood of his own sire. Desperate to avoid his foretold fate, Oedipus left Corinth in the belief that Polybus and Merope were indeed his true parents and that, once away from them, he will never harm them. On the road to Thebes, he met Laius, his true father, with some other men. Unaware of each others identities, Laius and Oedipus quarrel over whose chariot had right-of-way. King Laius moved to strike the insolent youth with his sceptre, but Oedipus threw him down from the chariot and killed him, thus fulfilling part of the oracles prophecy. The Kingdom of Thebes was then suffering from a curse cast upon them by a Sphinx, and the only way the curse was going to be lifted was by answering the Sphinx riddle. Queen Jocasta, now a widow, offered a reward to any man who will save the Kingdom from the Sphinx by offering her hand in marriage(the man becomes the king now). Many men tried but all died for the Sphinx would kill them after failing to give the correct answer to the riddle. Oedipus upon learning of the reward, set out to find the Sphinx to try out his luck. He was to either die or be king on his set mission. Luckily he succeeded. Shortly after Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx, which had baffled many diviners: What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening? To this Oedipus replied, Man (who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright later, and needs a walking stick in old age), and the distraught Sphinx threw herself off the cliffside. Oedipuss reward for freeing the kingdom of Thebes from her curse was the kingship and the hand of Queen Dowager Jocasta, his biological mother. The prophecy was thus fulfilled, although none of the main characters knew it. This is one of the #Three_Theban_Plays by an ancient Athenian play writer know as #Sophocles. MORNING GUYS!!
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 06:12:30 +0000
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