Merope (Oedipus) eventually finds out that the old man whom he killed on his way to Thebes was his own biological father, King Laius, husband of Jocasta, and that he fulfilled the prophecy. Merope (Oedipus) In Greek mythology, Merope (; ) was Queen of Corinth, and wife of King Polybus. The royal couple adopted a baby found by shepherds and named him Oedipus. To avoid the prediction of an oracle that he will kill his father and marry his mother, Oedipus goes in voluntary exile to Thebes. On his way he has a quarrel with an old man, and kills him, and
Oedipus and the Sphinx and evil, but also between the sexes, and that the opening poem of "Buch der Leider" by Heinrich Heine was the source for the idea of the painting. In that poem the Sphinx triumphs over Oedipus. In a Freudian interpretation, it has been argued that the Sphinx represents the castrating effect of Moreau's mother that he has seeking to escape. At the time the painting was created, Moreau's father had recently died. By contrast, Henri Dorra has suggested that the poses of the sphinx and Oedipus are derived from the Greek etymological meaning of the word sphinx, which is to