Oedipus was born in Thebes, the great city of Boeotia in central Greece, the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta. Laius had once been a guest in the house of Pelops, the Phrygian prince whose name gave the Peloponnese its name, and he had violated the laws of hospitality by abducting Pelops's son Chrysippus. For this crime, the gods cursed Laius with a prophecy: his own son would one day kill him. When Jocasta gave birth to a boy, Laius pierced the infant's ankles with a bronze pin, binding his feet together so that he could not crawl away, and commanded a servant to expose the child on Mount Cithaeron, the mountain that rises between Boeotia and Attica, where the wolves and the cold would finish what the pin had begun.

The servant could not do it. He gave the child to a shepherd from Corinth, and the shepherd brought the baby to Polybus and Merope, the king and queen of Corinth, who were childless and overjoyed to receive him. They named him Oedipus, the Swollen Foot, because of the wounds in his ankles, and they raised him as their own son. Oedipus grew up in Corinth believing himself to be the prince of that wealthy city, and he might have lived a happy life if he had never visited Delphi, the most famous oracle in the Greek world, where a priestess called the Pythia sat above a chasm and spoke prophecies inspired by the god Apollo.

At Delphi, the oracle gave Oedipus a terrible answer: he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Believing that Polybus and Merope were his true parents, Oedipus resolved never to return to Corinth. He set out on the road that led eastward toward Boeotia, and at a place where three roads met near the town of Daulis, he encountered a carriage drawn by horses and driven by an old man. The road was narrow, and both claimed the right of way. The old man struck Oedipus with his goad, and Oedipus, young and proud, struck back with a fury that killed not only the old man but all but one of his attendants. The old man was Laius, the king of Thebes, his true father, and the prophecy was already half fulfilled.

Oedipus continued to Thebes, where he found the city in terror. The Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the face of a woman, had taken up residence on a rock outside the city and was devouring every traveller who could not answer her riddle: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?" Many had tried and died. Oedipus, hearing the riddle, answered without hesitation: "Man, who crawls as a baby, walks upright in his prime, and uses a staff in old age." The Sphinx, defeated, threw herself from her rock and died, and the Thebans, grateful and desperate for a king, offered Oedipus the throne and the hand of the widowed queen. He accepted both, not knowing that the widow was his own mother, Jocasta, and that the throne was his by blood and by murder.

For many years, Oedipus ruled Thebes wisely and well. He had four children by Jocasta: two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. The city prospered under his rule, and his fame as the man who had defeated the Sphinx spread across Greece. But the gods do not forgive a curse, and the truth could not stay hidden forever. A plague descended upon Thebes, a sickness that killed the cattle, withered the crops, and brought death to the women in childbirth. Oedipus sent his brother-in-law Creon to Delphi to ask what sin had caused the disaster, and the oracle answered that the murderer of Laius must be found and punished. Oedipus, determined to save his city, launched an investigation that would destroy him.

The prophet Tiresias, the blind seer of Thebes who had been given the gift of prophecy by Athena, the goddess of wisdom, knew the truth but refused to speak it. Oedipus, in his pride and his fear, accused Tiresias of conspiring with Creon to seize the throne, and the prophet, angered beyond endurance, spoke the words that shattered the king's world: "You are the murderer you seek." Piece by piece, the evidence emerged. The shepherd who had saved the infant Oedipus came forward. The surviving attendant of Laius identified the crossroads. Jocasta, realising the truth before her husband did, rushed to her chamber and hanged herself. Oedipus, finding her body, took the golden pins from her dress and gouged out his own eyes, screaming that he would no longer look upon a world where such horrors were possible.

The blinded king was driven into exile by Creon, who became the regent of Thebes. Oedipus wandered the roads of Greece, led by his daughter Antigone, who refused to abandon him despite the shame that clung to his name. For years they travelled, dependent on the charity of strangers, until they reached the grove of the Eumenides, the Furies, at Colonus, a village near Athens. There, Theseus, the king of Athens, received Oedipus with honour, and the blind king, in gratitude, promised that his tomb would protect the city of Athens from invasion. The earth opened at Colonus, and Oedipus descended into it, guided by the voice of the gods, and became a hero whose spirit guarded Athens long after his death.