Oedipus 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
Oedipus and the Sphinx which also contains the gory remains of conflict. Another critic observed that a Greek sphinx, half-woman and half-vulture, was shown, rather than an Egyptian seated sphinx, but felt that whereas Ingres had presented a modern Oedipus, Moreau had better interpreted the classical Oedipus. After the "Salon", Moreau quickly gained a reputation for eccentricity. One commentator said Moreau's work was "like a pastiche of Mantegna created by a German student who relaxes from his painting by reading Schopenhauer". The painting was first sold by the artist in 1864 to Prince Napoléon Bonaparte, who had a reputation as a discerning connoisseur, and