Oedipus Case

A group of unhappy citizens of Thebes approach their ruler, Oedipus, represented by a priest. Oedipus asks them what is wrong. They say that they feel their city is dying and everyone is sick and poor. His solution is to send Creon, his brother-in-law to visit Apollo's shrine. Apollo is a god of the Thebes. Apollo says that there is bad blood in Thebes, and that until this blood is gone Thebes will be a sick city.

The people of Thebes figure out that this bad blood belongs to the person, who murdered Laios. Oedipus asks why the case wasn't investigated when the murder happened, because he had not lived in Thebes at that time, the people say they were too busy trying to figure out the Sphinxes riddle ( The Sphinx had ruled the outside of Thebes, asking each person who wanted to enter a question. If the traveler were to answer wrong she would kill and eat them. Oedipus was the first to answer the question correctly freeing Thebes of the Sphinx.) Oedipus vows to get to the bottom of the murder because it harms Thebes, and because Laios was a noble man. The nobles tell Oedipus call Tiresias, a prophet, to help advise him. Tiresias arrives and says that Oedipus is Thebes bad blood and that he killed his father and sleeps with his mother. When Oedipus heard this he accuses Tiresias of lying on Creon's behalf so that Creon can kill Oedipus and take over his position as ruler.

Creon meets up with Oedipus and says that he didn't collaborate with Tiresias because he also owns a third of Thebes but chooses not to rule it, leaving Thebes to Oedipus, which shows that he isn't interested in ruling at all. Jocasta, Oedipus's wife, enters and stops the two men from arguing. She tells him to discard this oracle, and that her son was predicted to kill his father and share her bed, but that this has never happened. She bore a son with Laios, but Laios had the son killed.

Oedipus asks about the place and time of Laios's death. Jocasta informs him and also tells him that there was one survivor who was with Laios when he was attacked, so Oedipus calls for the survivor. Jocasta also adds that Laios had been killed by a group of people.

While waiting for the survivor to arrive, Oedipus tells Jocasta his life story. That when he was young he had heard an oracle that he was to kill his father and sleep with his mother. Upon hearing this, he left his hometown to protect himself and his parents from this prediction. When he was traveling to another town a group of men attacked him. Oedipus killed all of the men except one.

As a result of discovering all of the horrible prophecies true, Jocasta hangs herself. Oedipus finds her body and pierces his eyes until they bleed and he blinds himself. Then, he asks to be exiled from Thebes and leaves to return to his starting place.