![]() ![]() However, later in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, it is revealed that the servant passed the baby to a shepherd, who presented him to Polybus and Merope, the childless King and Queen of Corinth. A mountain shepherd then found him there and cut him down, a moment that is depicted in several works of art. In certain versions of the tale, the servant followed through on the command and left the infant hanging by his ankles from a tree. Also unable to follow through with infanticide, the servant took him out to a mountain on the pretense of exposing him and leaving him there to die. She commanded a servant of the palace to kill the baby instead. The Rescue of the Infant Oedipus, by Salvator Rosa, 1663, The Royal Academy of Arts Jocasta could not bring herself to commit the murder and instead passed on the grisly duty. He pierced the baby’s ankles, riveted them together with a pin, and ordered his wife to kill her son. ![]() When Jocasta bore a son, the future Oedipus Rex, Laius panicked. The Oracle told Laius that any son he produced was destined to kill him. Unable to conceive a child, Laius went to Delphi to speak to the Oracle of Apollo. ![]() Oedipus Rex The Infant The Infant Oedipus Revived by the Shepherd Phorbas, by Antoine Denis Chaudet, 1810-1818, The Louvre ![]()
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