Oedipus (Euripides) blinded before it was known that Laius was his father. Also, while in Sophocles' play Jocasta kills herself, remaining fragments of Euripides' play depict Jocasta as having survived and accompanied Oedipus into exile. A number of fragments of "Oedipus" and of ancient writings about "Oedipus" are extant. In one fragment, John Malalas writes that Euripides wrote a drama about Oedipus, Jocasta and the Sphinx. Another fragment (539a) gives the beginning of a hypothesis of the play, which states that Laius fathered a child despite the fact that the god Apollo forbade him from doing so. Three fragments (540, 540a, 540b)
Laius raped the king's son, Chrysippus, and carried him off to Thebes while teaching him how to drive a chariot, or as Hyginus records it, during the Nemean games. This abduction is thought to be the subject of one of the lost tragedies of Euripides. With both Amphion and Zethus having died in his absence, Laius became king of Thebes upon his return. After the rape of Chrysippus, Laius married Jocasta or Epicasta, the daughter of Menoeceus, a descendant of the Spartoi. Laius received an oracle from Delphi which told him that he must not have a child, or the child