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The mythological background of Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus the King, helps to clarify the true meaning of the play and answers many questions about man's relationship to the Gods. First, Laius and Jocasta, the king and queen of Thebes, were warned by the oracle of Apollo at Delphi that their newborn son was destined someday to kill his father and marry his mother. Laius did not want this to happen, and so he pierced the baby's feet with an iron pin to prevent him from crawling. Then he gave him to a shepherd, with orders to abandon the child in the mountains where the child would die from exposure to the cold. Laius did all this so that the prophecy would not come true. In spite of his effort, Oedipus does not die. He lives in order to teach man a lesson, which is man is only mortal, whereas the Gods are immortal. It only brings to one point, that is every man has a certain fate that follows one for the rest of his life. Thus, man cannot turn aside his destiny when it is miserable, as was the fate of Oedipus. It is important to have answers to the several important questions about Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, which explain exactly how and why Oedipus was ill fated from the beginning...