Oedipus grew up in Corinth as the son of King Polybos and Queen Merope.
But when, during a party, a drunken guest called him a false prince and a foundling, he began to have doubts.
He was not satisfied with the vague answers from those he called his parents and wanted to get clear answers from the Oracle of Delphi.
But instead of finding out whether he is really Polybos and Merope's son, he hears the prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother.
Horrified that it would be his fate to commit family murder and incest, he left Corinth and wanted to stay away from those he called mother and father.
On his aimless journey, he met an old man and his servants at a fork in the road. In an argument about who had the right of way, a fight broke out in which Oedipus killed the servants and the old man. The last survivor fled and when he arrived in Thebes, he told that King Laios had been attacked by robbers and murdered (he did not dare to tell the truth because he wanted to hide his cowardice).
Oedipus moved on, unaware that he had killed his biological father.
Then Oedipus learned that Thebes was haunted by a monster, the Sphinx (a creature with the body of a lion, the head of a woman and the wings of a bird of prey). The monster posed a riddle to everyone and anyone who couldn't solve it was devoured by it.
Creon, Queen Jocasta's brother and brother-in-law of the slain King Laios, decreed that whoever freed Thebes from the Sphinx would become king and husband of the dowager queen Jocasta.
Oedipus was ready to take on the challenge and thus end his life as an aimless wanderer.
He faced the Sphinx and the riddle was:
Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at midday and three legs in the evening?
Oedipus replied that it was man. In the morning of his life, he walks on all fours as a baby. At midday of his life he walks as an adult on two legs and by the evening of his life he is old and dependent on a stick as a third leg.
Because her riddle was her greatest power, the Sphinx committed suicide out of grief by throwing herself to her death.
Oedipus was celebrated as a hero and liberator, became king and married Jocasta. But without knowing it, Oedipus had married his own mother.
Jocasta bore her husband (and son) four children: the sons Eteocles and Polynices and the daughters Antigone and Ismene.
Years later, Thebes was struck by a plague and King Oedipus was ready to do something about it.
His ambassadors went to Delphi and returned with the instructions that only if the murderer of King Laios was found, punished and disappeared from the city, then Thebes would be saved.
King Oedipus set out to reconstruct King Laios' final moments. But then he found out (in some versions it was the blind seer Tiresias who gave the clues) that he himself was the murderer of King Laios.
Oedipus had to realize that he had still fulfilled the prophecy that he wanted to prevent.
King Laios also wanted to prevent a prophecy, namely that he would be killed by his own son as a result of a curse because he had once raped Chrysippus, the son of his friend King Pelops, and driven him to death.
Oedipus was abandoned after his birth and then placed in the care of the King and Queen of Corinth.
Jocasta, filled with terror, hanged herself in her room.
Full of grief, Oedipus took the golden clasps of his wife and mother and put out his eyes so that he would never see the world again.
Creon took the throne as regent and Oedipus went into exile.
According to another version, his own sons chased him away.
Only his daughter Antigone was willing to accompany him.
Oedipus and Antigone wandered around for years until Oedipus found peace in Colonus and died.
* One version says that he simply died.
* Another version says that he went to the grove of the Eumenides and then let them drag him into the underworld.
* Another version says that Oedipus simply sat down on a rock, the earth cracked open and he sank into the underworld without resistance.
After her father's death, Antigone returned to Thebes, where she was caught up in tragic events and her fate was sealed. But this is another story.

With Hero Forge I designed the tragic hero Oedipus and his daughter Antigone as anthropomorphic lions.