Oedipus’ wife, Jocasta, intervenes and tries to resolve the dispute by persuading Oedipus to not put that much faith in oracles, because, if they had been accurate all the time, her former husband Laius should have died at the hands of his son, and, yet, he was murdered by robbers at the meeting of three roads. Oedipus doesn’t believe him and blames Teiresias and Creon for conspiring against him. Soon after, the blind prophet Teiresias tells him that he should look no further than himself: the perpetrator is none other but him. Ever just, Oedipus curses the murderer of Laius and announces his intention before his trusting subjects to do whatever it takes to find and punish him. And only by discovering and banishing this man, Thebes can save itself from total destruction. Angered with the city for sheltering the murderer of its previous king, Laius, the gods have stricken Thebes with a fertility plague. The play opens many years after Oedipus saves Thebes and becomes its king by way of solving the riddle of the Sphinx, and at a time of great misfortune. Ever since Aristotle almost universally regarded as the greatest of all Ancient Greek tragedies, Oedipus Rex-or Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King-was probably produced in 429 BC, shortly after a plague that had devastated Athens the year before.
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