<P> Still, he knew that his mother was still alive and refused to attend the funeral at Corinth . To ease the tension, the messenger then said that Oedipus was, in fact, adopted . Jocasta, finally realizing that he was her son, begged him to stop his search for Laius' murderer . Oedipus misunderstood her motivation, thinking that she was ashamed of him because he might have been born of low birth . Jocasta in great distress went into the palace where she hanged herself . Oedipus sought verification of the messenger's story from the very same herdsman who was supposed to have left Oedipus to die as a baby . From the herdsman, Oedipus learned that the infant raised as the adopted son of Polybus and Merope was the son of Laius and Jocasta . Thus, Oedipus finally realized that the man he had killed so many years before, at the place where the three roads met, was his own father, King Laius, and that he had married his mother, Jocasta . </P> <P> Events after the revelation depend on the source . In Sophocles' plays, Oedipus went in search of Jocasta and found she had killed herself . Using the pin from a brooch he took off Jocasta's gown, Oedipus blinded himself and was then exiled . His daughter Antigone acted as his guide as he wandered through the country, finally dying at Colonus where they had been welcomed by King Theseus of Athens . However, in Euripides' plays on the subject, Jocasta did not kill herself upon learning of Oedipus' birth, and Oedipus was blinded by a servant of Laius . The blinding of Oedipus does not appear in sources earlier than Aeschylus . Some older sources of the myth, including Homer, state that Oedipus continued to rule Thebes after the revelations and after Jocasta's death . </P> <P> Oedipus' two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, arranged to share the kingdom, each taking an alternating one - year reign . However, Eteocles refused to cede his throne after his year as king . Polynices brought in an army to oust Eteocles from his position and a battle ensued . At the end of the battle the brothers killed each other after which Jocasta's brother, Creon, took the throne . He decided that Polynices was a "traitor," and should not be given burial rites . Defying this edict, Antigone attempted to bury her brother . In Sophocles' Antigone, Creon had her buried in a rock cavern for defying him, whereupon she hanged herself . However, in Euripides' lost version of the story, it appears that Antigone survives . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Lekythos </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Oedipus slaying the sphinx </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Material </Th> <Td> Pottery, gold </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Created </Th> <Td> 420BC - 400BC </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Period / culture </Th> <Td> Attic </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Place </Th> <Td> Polis - tis - Chrysokhou, tomb, Cyprus </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Present location </Th> <Td> Room 72, British Museum </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Identification </Th> <Td> 1887, 0801.46 </Td> </Tr> </Table>

Returns from delphi with a command from the oracle to find and punish the murderer of laius