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 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