Continuing on to Thebes, he found that the king of the city (Laius) had recently been killed and that the city was at the mercy of the Sphinx. On his way, he met an older man and killed him in a quarrel. Oedipus learned from the oracle at Delphi of the prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother but, unaware of his true parentage, believed he was fated to murder Polybus and marry Merope, and so he left for Thebes. However, the shepherd took pity on the baby and passed him to another shepherd who gave Oedipus to King Polybus and Queen Merope to raise as their own. Laius wished to thwart the prophecy, so he sent a shepherd-servant to leave Oedipus to die on a mountainside. In the best-known version of the myth, Oedipus was born to King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes.

Oedipus represents two enduring themes of Greek myth and drama: the flawed nature of humanity and an individual's role in the course of destiny in a harsh universe. Together, these plays make up Sophocles' three Theban plays. The story of Oedipus is the subject of Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus Rex, which is followed in the narrative sequence by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. A tragic hero in Greek mythology, Oedipus accidentally fulfilled a prophecy that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby bringing disaster to his city and family. Oedipus ( UK: / ˈ iː d ɪ p ə s/, also US: / ˈ ɛ d ə-/ Greek: Οἰδίπους 'swollen foot') was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. Oedipus and the Sphinx by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

The oedipus plays of sophocles