Francisci Porti Cretensis... In omnes Sophoclis tragoedias prolegomena, ut vulgo vocantur

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PROLEGOMENA OF FRANCISCUS PORTUS OF CRETE

ON OEDIPUS TYRANNUS.

Laius had taken a sterile wife, the daughter of Creon. Desirous of offspring and a successor to the kingdom, he consulted the Oracle as to what he might do to obtain legitimate children from the gods. He received this response:
"Laius, son of Labdacus, you ask for a blessed offspring of children? I will give you a dear son, but it is fated that you shall abandon the light at the hands of your son, for Zeus, the son of Cronus, consented to the cursed prayers of Pelops, whose dear hero son he was, and he prayed for all these things for himself."

Having received this response, Laius refrained from congress with his wife Jocasta, intending, of course, to take precautions for himself. But on a certain day, when he had indulged his spirit more freely and, having drunk well, had forgotten the oracle, he had congress with his wife. Jocasta, having become pregnant from that congress, eventually brought forth an infant. Laius then, remembering the Oracle, handed the infant to a servant to be carried off and killed. The servant, pitying his age and beauty, did not kill the infant, but having pierced his feet with iron and inserted a willow-switch, he hung him from a tree on Mount Cithaeron. A certain shepherd of Polybus, king of the Corinthians, was grazing various flocks of sheep on that mountain. When he heard the wailing of the infant, he ran up, took the infant, and, captivated by the elegance of his form, gave him to his wife to be reared. The boy grew in age and form such that the shepherd gave him as a gift to Polybus, his master, who loved him in place of a son (for he himself was also bereft of children) and treated him royally. But when he had been called a bastard by a certain man, he became angry and wanted to know from which parents he was born. Oedipus, therefore, uncertain of which parents he was born, set out from Corinth to Delphi to consult the Oracle about that matter. When he had reached a certain narrow pass in the territory of Phocis...