Oedipus (Euripides) Oedipus (Euripides) Oedipus ( or ; , "Oidípous") is a play by the 5th-century BCE Athenian dramatist Euripides. The play is now lost except for some fragments. What survives of the play covers similar ground as Sophocles' acclaimed "Oedipus Rex", but scholars and historians have found there are significant differences. In "Oedipus Rex", the title character blinds himself upon learning his true parentage, accidentally killing his father and marrying his mother Jocasta. In Euripides' play, however, it appears Oedipus is blinded by a servant of his father Laius, Oedipus' predecessor as king of Thebes. Furthermore, Euripides' play implies Oedipus was
Oedipus Rex the prophecy that the king had sought to avoid by exposing Oedipus at birth is fulfilled. Before arriving at Thebes, Oedipus encounters the Sphinx, a legendary beast with the head and breast of a woman, the body of a lioness, and the wings of an eagle. The Sphinx was sent to the road approaching Thebes as a punishment from the gods, and would strangle any traveler who failed to answer a certain riddle. The precise riddle asked by the Sphinx varied in early traditions, and is not stated in "Oedipus Rex", as the event precedes the play; but the most