While Œdipus suspects Tiresias, Tiresias returns the accusation. If he exposes himself, his punishment will be reduced to exile. Œdipus swears to find the culprit, who will be cursed and condemned to the wrath of the gods. The oracle reveals that the epidemic will end once Laius’ murderer, present in the city, is unmasked and punished. Œdipus asks Creon, Jocasta’s brother, to go to Delphi in order to consult Apollo. As a reward, Jocasta, King Laius’ widow, becomes OEdipus’ wife and OEdipus the ruler of the city. Defeated, the Sphinx dies, laughing out loud, whilst Thebes is delivered. Without hesitation, Œdipus answers “Man”. He awakens the monster who asks him to name someone or something greater than fate. To save the city, Œdipus decides to confront it. Defending himself, Œdipus unknowingly kills the man who is none other than Laius, his father, and flees.Īt the gates of Thebes, the watchman guards the Sphinx, a winged, bloodthirsty monster that kills all those who do not answer its riddle. After a violent flash of lightning arouses his suspicions and makes him curse the gods, he encounters the chariot of an old man who orders him to step aside in no uncertain terms. Relieved of the nightmares that have plagued him, he considers returning to his city. After revealing the prophecy to his mother, OEdipus decides to leave Corinth to escape the prediction.Īt the junction of three roads, where the Shepherd who once saved him is also to be found, OEdipus hesitates as to which way to go. She is unaware that her real child, who died at birth, has been replaced by Œdipus, whom the Shepherd did not have the courage to kill. He questions the king and queen about his true identity. Œdipus has just returned from Delphi, where the oracle has foretold his terrible fate. Twenty years later in Corinth, in the palace of King Polybus and Queen Merope. Horrified by the confirmation of the omen, Laius entrusts his child to a shepherd and asks him to kill him on the mountainside. The punishment of the gods is without appeal: the child will be murder his father and marry his mother. He blames Laius for not having listened to Apollo, who had ordered him not to have offspring. The blind old soothsayer, Tiresias, interrupts the festivities.
In the royal palace, the people of Thebes are celebrating the birth of Œdipus, the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. Laius returns to the throne of Thebes, makes Jocasta his wife and, in making her pregnant, knowingly contravenes the oracle pronounced against him by Apollo for having raped a child and precipitated his death. The archer god forbids Laius to bring a child into the world without the child killing his father and committing adultery with his mother. A grief-crazed Pelops calls down the curse of Apollo upon Laius. The child, overcome with shame, hangs himself. One morning, Laius, responsible for teaching him to drive a chariot, rapes Chrysippus. Taking sanctuary with King Pelops when chased out of Thebes by tyrants who have usurped his throne, Laius, still a young man, falls in love with Chrysippus, his host’s son. Prologue (Addition of Wadji Mouawad to the original libretto by Wajdi Mouawad.