Oedipus Rex reveals the prophecy which caused him to leave Corinth (791-93): "that I was fated to lie with my mother," "and show to daylight an accursed breed" "which men would not endure, and I was doomed" "to be murderer of the father that begot me." The implication of Laius's oracle is ambiguous. One interpretation considers that the presentation of Laius's oracle in this play differs from that found in Aeschylus's Oedipus trilogy produced in 467 BC. Helaine Smith argues: Sophocles had the option of making the oracle to Laius conditional ("if" Laius has a son, that son will kill him) or
Oedipus Rex Jean Cocteau in French and then translated by Abbé Jean Daniélou into Latin; the narration, however, is performed in the language of the audience. Oedipus rex was written towards the beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassical period, and is considered one of the finest works from this phase of the composer's career. He had considered setting the work in Ancient Greek, but decided ultimately on Latin: in his words "a medium not dead but turned to stone." Michael Pennington starred as Oedipus with Claire Bloom as Jocasta, Sir John Gielgud as Tiresias and John Shrapnel as Creon in Don Taylor's 1986 translation/adaptation