Oedipus determination, in this case, to rule, can be seen as one of the main reasons for his downfall. In the story, The Sphinx presented the following riddle for those who sought to rule Thebes: What is it that walks on 4 feet and 2 feet and 3 feet and has only one voice, when it walks on most feet it is the weakest? (page, line #). Oedipus answered Man, the precise answer to which won him the crown (page, line #). Socrates used the riddle as a metaphor for Oedipus life. This riddle is a metaphor for the life of Oedipus, where he as any child of man would crawl on hands and knees or all four feet as The Sphinx had said when a man is the weakest would be as a small child. Depending entirely on others for all their human needs. Just as how he was taken by his parents to the mountain and spared by the shepherd when he was the most venerable his will to live or die was entirely d
ecided by others. As a man grows older and matures, he walks on two feet. This is a metaphor for when Oedipus leaves his family to escape his prophecy. In a rage, he murders a band of travelers and has unintentionally killed his birth father. Oedipus answers the riddle of The Sphinx and in turn, then becomes king of Thebes. This is why he marries his own mother because he unknowingly is given her as a prize of becoming king. Years after their marriage, and four childbirths, the plague sweeps through Thebes inhabitants. The Gods tell Oedipus he must locate the killer of Laius, his father. Being the determined man Oedipus is, he finally learns the wretched truth that he was his very own fathers murderer. After learning this certainty, Jocasta, his mother-wife hangs herself in disgust that she had delivered the children of her own son. Seeing this horrible truth leads Oedipus to gouge out