Œdipe (opera) is suspicious that Creon wants to usurp him, and dismisses Tiresias and Creon from his sight. Meanwhile, Jocasta tries to comfort Oedipus, and tells of the circumstances of the killing of Laius, which disturbs Oedipus. The shepherd confirms Jocasta's story. From Corinth, Phorbes then arrives to ask Oedipus to succeed Polybus, and then reveals that Polybus and Merope were his adoptive parents, not his biological parents. It turns out that Merope's own child had died at birth, and Phorbes replaced that child with Oedipus, whom the Shepherd had not the heart to abandon to the elements. Oedipus now understands the
Oedipus Rex descendants (although many scholars regard Laius' transgressions against Chrysippus to be a late addition to the myth). When his son is born, the king consults an oracle as to his fortune. To his horror, the oracle reveals that Laius "is doomed to perish by the hand of his own son". Laius binds the infant's feet together with a pin, and orders Jocasta to kill him. Unable to kill her own son, Jocasta orders a servant to slay the infant for her. The servant then exposes the infant on a mountaintop, where he is found and rescued by a shepherd (in