Classical Mythology

(^382) THE GREEK SAGAS: GREEK LOCAL LEGENDS
through his ankles. The servant entrusted with the task pitied the baby, and in-
stead gave him to a Corinthian shepherd (for the Theban and Corinthian sum-
mer pastures were adjacent on Cithaeron). The shepherd in turn brought the in-
fant to his master, Polybus, king of Corinth. The child was brought up as the
son of Polybus and his queen, Merope, and was called Oedipus (which means
"swellfoot") from the injury to his ankles.
Years later, a drunken companion jeered at Oedipus during a feast at Corinth
and said that he was not Polybus' natural son. In alarm and shame at the taunt
(which soon spread through the city), Oedipus left Corinth to ask the oracle at
Delphi who his parents were. The oracle warned him in reply to avoid his home-
land, since he must murder his father and marry his mother. So he determined
not to return to Corinth and took the road from Delphi that led to Thebes. What
happened then, Oedipus himself relates to Jocasta (Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus
800-813):
f
As I came on my journey to this junction of three roads, a herald and a man
(like him whom you described) riding in a horse-drawn chariot blocked my way;
they violently drove me off the road. In anger I struck the driver, who was push-
ing me aside; and when the old man saw me passing by him, he took aim at the
Oedipus and the Sphinx. Interior of Attic red-figure cup by the Oedipus painter, ca.
470 B.C. Oedipus, dressed as a traveler, ponders the riddle of the Sphinx, who sits on an
Ionic column. The Sphinx is winged, with a woman's head and a lion's body and tail.
(Vatican Museums.)