Beat 3 – Go
Oedipus invokes a curse upon the murderer: “may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom.” This promise and the need to discover the individual makes it essential to take action. The first step is for Oedipus to go and learn more about Laius’ death.
Beat 4 – Search
Oedipus begins the search for the murderer by commanding that everyone with knowledge of Laius’ death must come forward. He promises that no one will be punished, no matter what they share.
Teiresias, an old blind prophet, tells Oedipus that he himself is the pollution in the land: “you are the murderer of the kind whose murderer you seek.”
Jocasta and others share what they know about Laius’s murder. Some of the details differ from what Oedipus has heard before. One peasant in particular, a survivor of the attack that killed Laius, seems to be the key to the truth. A search for him is undertaken.
Beat 5 – Find
While waiting for the shepherd to be found, a messenger arrives with the sorry news that Oedipus’s father, Polybus, has died a natural death. Oedipus is elated, knowing that while some of the details of Laius’ death point to him as the killer, it cannot be him because his father has just passed many miles away.
There’s still the problem of the plague, but Oedipus takes satisfaction in knowing he has not fulfilled the prophecy told before his birth.
Beat 6 – Take
The shepherd arrives with a story that differs in one key detail from the one recalled by Jocasta: It was not a band of robbers but a single robber who struck Laius dead. As the shepherd relates more details of the murder, Oedipus grows more concerned as he realizes that he is the one who killed the former king in retaliation for Laius first striking him.
This news is horrible to take, but Oedipus holds on to his assurance that he was justified in killing the king.
But not for long. The shepherd reveals that King Laius had a son. To keep the baby from growing up to fulfill the dire prophecy, Laius damaged the tendons in the baby’s feet and instructed the shepherd to leave him to die on a mountain. But the shepherd gave the baby to Polybus instead.
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