Thread drift alert!

Sinsull,

I'm not sure I remember my Sophocles all that well, but I think the way Oedipus worked was this:

Oedipus killed Laius on the road between Corinth and Thebes, and he was never aware it was the King of Thebes he had killed. When he got to Thebes, people knew that the king was dead, but not that Oedipus had killed him. Oedipus solved the riddle of the Sphinx, saving the town, and he was given the kingship and Jocasta's hand as reward.

Thus, she never knew this was the man who killed Laius, and he never knew this was the wife of someone he killed, until years later, when Tieresias solves Laius's murder.

One could say, he simply should not have married anyone old enough to be his mother, and she should not have married anyone young enough to be her son, just to be safe. But then, he might have looked older than he was, and she younger than she was. If she was twenty when he was born, say she's now fifty and looks forty, and he's now thirty and looks forty. Shit happens!