Fourth Episode

Jocasta enters carrying offerings to Apollo. Her husband is too shaken to pray himself. As she places her offerings on the altar, a stranger arrives from Corinth and asks for Oedipus. His news is short and good: Polybus has died of old age, and the Corinthians wish Oedipus to come and be their king. Jocasta sends for her husband and turns to him triumphantly — Polybus is dead, and not by Oedipus's hand; the oracles, she says, are dust and ashes.

Oedipus rejoices. The man he believed to be his father has died of natural causes; he is free of half the prophecy. But one fear remains — Merope, his mother, still lives. He will not go to Corinth while she is alive, in case the second half catches him. The Corinthian, listening with the easy curiosity of a man who thinks he is bringing only good news, breaks in to soothe him. There is no need to fear Merope. She was not his mother. Polybus was not his father. The Corinthian himself received Oedipus as an infant on the slopes of Mount Cithaeron — pinned at the ankles — from one of Laius's herdsmen, and carried him to the childless Polybus.

Jocasta sees it. She understands the whole truth in a single moment, while Oedipus is still asking the next question. He is pressing the Corinthian for the herdsman's name. She begs him in three short, broken lines to stop. Don't ask. Be content. He hears her as a queen embarrassed at the prospect of her husband turning out to be low-born, and snaps that he will not be ashamed of his origins. She cries out — alas, doomed man — and rushes into the palace.