Original subtitles

(tense music)

(tense music)

- [Narrator] The people of Thebes

would never forget this tragedy,

nor the walls, nor the trees, nor the gods,

for no mortal had ever known such a terrible fate,

none more cruelly crushed by destiny.

(tense music)

This is the story of Oedipus.

When the King Labdacus of Thebes died,

his son Laius was only a year old.

The child could've been entrusted to a tutor,

a regent could've been appointed,

but two imposters usurped the throne of Thebes,

forcing the young Laius out of the city.

Laius found refuge in Elis, at the palace of King Pelops.

18 years would pass.

King Pelops had a son, Chrysippus,

whose education had been entrusted to his prodigy, Laius.

Chrysippus was a handsome boy.

Laius's heart was overcome

and he fell helplessly in love with his pupil.

Chrysippus rejected his advances.

All he wanted from Laius was his friendship.

So Laius set out to obtain by force

what he had failed to obtain through seduction.

And he abducted Chrysippus

and raped him.

Not only did Laius violate the young boy's integrity,

he also broke the sacred laws of hospitality,

thus betraying the trust King Pelops had placed in him.

That evening, Chrysippus, overcome with shame,

dared not return to the palace,

so he took refuge in a barn, where he took his own life.

(door opens)

When King Pelops discovered his son's lifeless body,

he called on the gods to punish Laius.

(tense music)

And not only Laius, but all of his descendants,

so that his lineage would not perpetuate

and be wiped out forever.

(tense music)

Horrified by the crime he had committed

and terrified by the curse of Pelops, Laius fled.

He returned to Thebes,

where the two usurpers who had exiled him had died.

The throne was vacant,

and Laius could take it in full legitimacy.

As his queen, he chose a young woman of noble descent,

her name, Jocasta.

The months passed, then one year, two,

the king and his queen were still childless.

The couple wondered, and the people gossiped.

Laius decided to visit the temple of Apollo at Delphi

to find out from the gods

what he should do to have a son and heir.

He had forgotten how Pelops

had implored the gods to put a curse on him,

but the gods never forgot so easily.

The Pythia, the oracle of Delphi,

announced to Laius,

"Laius, ruler of Thebes,

"however hard you try to give your wife a child,

"the gods forbid it.

"If, by some misfortune, you do father a son,

"he will kill you." (tense music)

Laius was distraught.

He was condemned to die by the hand of his own son.

For the prophecy not to come true,

he no longer visited his queen

and contented himself with the company of young boys.

But one day, desire got the better of him,

and he slipped into the bed next to Jocasta.

(tense music)

Nine months later,

she bore a child,

a son.

(tense music)

It was then that the oracle's words came back to him.

"If, by some misfortune, you do father a son,

"he will kill you."

Laius implored the pity of the gods

while pacing the corridors of his palace.

He sought a way out,

a way of deflecting fate

and ensuring the prophecy wouldn't come true.

Could he kill his own son?

No, that was unthinkable.

The gods would double their wrath.

Suddenly, an idea came to him.

He summoned a shepherd

and ordered him to take the newborn

into the mountains and abandon him

so that he would be devoured by wild beasts.

To make sure the child couldn't escape,

he commanded him to pierce his ankles with an iron rod

to sever the tendons.

A fate reserved for animals which you don't want to escape.

The shepherd set off with the boy.

He soon arrived at the edge

of the dense forest of Mount Cithaeron.

The child smiled at him, the shepherd hesitated.

(tranquil music)

It wasn't in his heart to abandon a newborn in such a way.

Just then, a man appeared,

he was on his way to Corinth.

The shepherd begged him to take the child with him.

That way, he would be safe,

far from Thebes and the murderous eyes of Laius.

The man pondered for a while,

then he remembered King Polybus and Queen Merope,

who reigned over Corinth.

He knew that the royal couple were despairing

at not being able to have a child.

If the newborn survived the injuries to his feet,

he might satisfy the king and queen,

and the man might be given a reward.

And indeed,

when he arrived in Corinth and presented them with the boy,

they were overjoyed.

They immediately adopted him and named him Oedipus,

which means swollen feet.

So, Oedipus was raised in Corinth,

surrounded by the love and affection

of those who would become his parents.

As he grew, although he still walked with a slight limp,

Oedipus drew the admiration of everybody.

No one doubted that one day he would be

a worthy successor to King Polybus.

(tense music)

But one night during a grand banquet,

one of the guests, drunk on wine,

declared to the young Oedipus,

"You know what? You're an illegitimate child."

"Illegitimate?"

A shocked Oedipus asked the gathering

to tell him this was untrue,

that he was indeed the natural-born son

of Merope and Polybus.

Nobody moved.

Eyes looked down.

Oedipus rushed to his father and demanded the truth.

Polybus was troubled

and reassured him as he could.

Oedipus truly was his son,

whatever the conditions of his birth.

(tense music)

But this imprecise explanation

left the young man even more distraught.

"So be it, the gods will be able to tell me the truth."

So Oedipus set off for Delphi

to ask the oracle who his real parents were.

But the oracle didn't tell him.

On the contrary, the high priestess, the Pythia,

announced the most terrifying and lamentable of fates.

"You will kill your father and sleep with your mother."

Horrified, the young man decided not to return to Corinth.

He wanted to flee as far away as possible,

to put the greatest distance

between himself and his beloved parents

so that this terrible prophecy could never be fulfilled.

Escaping from this imposed fate

became Oedipus's sole objective.

He climbed on his chariot and set off.

He wandered here and there, crossing villages,

a ghostly silhouette indifferent to everything.

He had no more homeland, no country to call his own.

He was nothing.

One day, at a place where three roads to Delphi met,

Oedipus encountered another chariot

driven by an elderly man with a certain distinction.

At his side was a servant.

At this spot,

the road was too narrow

for the two chariots to pass face on.

The impatient charioteer ordered Oedipus to give way.

Before Oedipus had a chance to react,

the man drove his chariot (tense music)

and team directly at him.

But that day, strength was on the young man's side.

Oedipus drew his sword

and plunged it into his opponent's entrails.

It all happened so fast

that the servant had no time to intervene.

Fearing that he would be killed as well,

(tense music) he took flight.

He ran and ran until he felt his lungs would burst,

but didn't give up until he reached

the walls of his city, Thebes.

There,

he dropped to his knees and announced the terrible news,

"The king, the King Laius has just been assassinated."

This misfortune only added to the climate of fear

which had reigned for years over the city,

because not far from the gates of Thebes,

a monstrous creature had taken up residence

on a promontory.

One of the most fearsome divinities of the underworld,

the sphinx.

The sphinx had a female head and bosom,

but the body and haunches of a lioness

and the wings of an eagle.

She asked each traveler who happened by to solve a riddle,

always the same one, and no one had ever solved it.

So each one was devoured.

Oedipus was still wandering the roads

when he came across Thebes.

He was shocked by the morbid atmosphere in the city.

(tense music)

The citizens walked to and fro, their eyes down and sad.

He asked a passerby why.

"The king is dead," he explained,

"and the regency has been entrusted

"to the queen's brother Creon."

Creon had promised the hand of his sister Jocasta,

and hence, the throne,

to any man who could free Thebes

from the sphinx's influence.

Hearing this,

Oedipus saw a fine opportunity

to put an end to his wandering,

by winning the heart of a queen and the throne.

So he decided to confront the sphinx.

(tense music)

The creature was there.

An ironic smile on her lips,

here was some new prey.

"Go ahead, I'm listening," shouted Oedipus.

The sphinx presented him with her riddle:

"Which creature has four feet in the morning,

"two at noon, and three at night?"

Oedipus put his mind to work.

His life, which he risked losing,

passed slowly before his eyes.

And then, without fear, Oedipus finally replied, "Man.

"An infant has four feet,

"because he crawls with his knees and hands,

"as an adult, he has two feet, because he walks upright,

"and old, he has three, because he walks with a cane."

The sphinx suddenly leapt into the air.

Oedipus was sure that he saw sparks in her eyes.

He had defeated her.

The creature flung herself off the promontory,

falling to her death on the rocks below.

(tense music)

Oedipus was now Oedipus Rex, King of Thebes.

The years passed,

Oedipus had married Jocasta, as was agreed.

She had borne him four children,

two sons, Eteocles and Polynices,

and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

Oedipus had now reached the age

of the charioteer he had killed one day.

It was then that he was to face one final challenge,

(tense music)

the most terrible of all.

An appalling disease was spreading through Thebes,

striking down both young and old.

The women were giving birth to stillborn babies,

so the people appealed to Oedipus,

begging him to save them.

He who had conquered the sphinx

would surely find a way to rid the city of this scourge.

Oedipus left again for Delphi.

The oracle might be able to enlighten him

on the reasons behind this mysterious sickness.

And the Pythia gave this answer to Oedipus:

"The reason plague has descended on your city

"is because its walls harbor an assassin,

"the murderer of King Laius.

"As long as he is not uncovered and chased out of the city,

"disease will spread until all are dead."

(tense music)

Oedipus knew he had to find the former king's assassin.

He dispatched emissaries throughout Greece.

In Thebes, houses were searched,

people questioned, rewards promised.

But nobody knew a thing.

So Oedipus called on the famed blind prophet Tiresias.

He who could understand birdsong

would surely know the name of the guilty man.

But Tiresias too claimed to know nothing.

But in the way the prophet replied,

Oedipus sensed that he wasn't telling the whole truth.

He ordered him, insisted, threatened him, but in vain.

Tiresias's stubbornness infuriated Oedipus.

So Queen Jocasta decided to intervene.

She recalled that on the day her husband was killed,

he had been accompanied by a servant,

he who broke the news to the city.

Back then, he had given only one account of the event,

Laius perished at the hands of young bandits

on a narrow road at a crossing not far from Delphi.

That was all.

Oedipus's face drained of all color.

The crossing, the narrow road near Delphi,

he remembered only too well,

but he soon felt reassured.

The servant had spoken of bandits,

whereas Oedipus had fought the old man alone,

so it couldn't have been him.

It was only a coincidence, two very different events.

(tense music)

Oedipus had to find King Laius's servant,

but after so many years, how was that possible?

He had vanished the day after the murder,

and no one knew what had become of him.

It was just then that a messenger arrived from Corinth,

bringing bad tidings,

King Polybus was dead.

Polybus, the man whom Oedipus thought of as his father,

the man he had fled

for fear of one day becoming his involuntary assassin.

Polybus had died peacefully and simply of old age.

(tense music)

Oedipus was at first grief-stricken,

but was soon overcome with relief.

The oracle of Delphi,

the prophecy that had haunted him all these years,

it was finally untrue.

He could no longer kill his father,

because his father was already dead.

But his relief was short-lived.

The messenger went on,

"King Oedipus,

"the death of Polybus frees me of the oath I swore to him,

"and I can at last speak the truth.

"Polybus and Merope are not your parents."

Oedipus was aghast.

The messenger continued,

"It was I who took you and gave you to the royal couple,

"you, an infant with pierced ankles."

(tense music)

With a trembling voice, Oedipus asked,

"But who was it who gave you this child?"

Just then,

an old shepherd dressed in rags burst through the crowd.

He approached and murmured something in a low voice.

Those close enough to hear froze in fright.

"I recognize you, messenger of Corinth.

"Yes, it's you.

"It was I who entrusted you with the babe with pierced feet,

"whose father had condemned to a terrible death.

"But I didn't have the heart to abandon him to the wolves

"and the folk of the forest."

Oedipus froze, "But this infant, who gave it to you?"

(tense music)

The old shepherd looked at Oedipus

with his weary eyes and muttered,

"The child was the son of King Laius and Queen Jocasta."

Jocasta heard everything.

Her head spun, now she finally understood,

there was no doubt about it, Oedipus was her son.

(tense music)

She rushed from the throne room.

And so it came to pass that while he had done everything

to avoid the prophecy made at Delphi,

Oedipus had fulfilled it.

The unfortunate son had indeed killed his father

and married his own mother.

Oedipus turned to Jocasta, but she had gone.

Filled with dread, (tense music)

he rushed to the palace and entered the room of the queen.

There was Jocasta,

dead,

swinging,

a rope around her neck.

His heart broken and his soul destroyed,

Oedipus ripped the golden pins (tense music)

which fastened his mother's robes,

and expressing all the anger, violence, wrath,

and cruelty of an executioner,

he screamed out,

and he plunged the golden pins into his own eyes.

That way, he would never see day, or night, or men again.

Oedipus left the city,

accompanied by his daughter Antigone.

He went into voluntary exile,

a limping, blind man wandering the roads of Greece.

He was victimized and chased out of towns and cities.

But was Oedipus guilty?

Yes, he had killed his own father,

but he had no idea of their relationship

and had killed him in self-defense.

Yes, he had slept with his mother,

but he had no idea who she was

after his victory over the sphinx.

Wedding Jocasta was the reward he could not refuse.

Destined to commit these crimes even before his birth,

Oedipus had simply (tense music)

fulfilled his fate.

(tense music)

Nothing could've prevented this, except death.

And the more he fought against his fate,

the more he brought about its fulfillment.

(tense music)