Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #2)

by Stephen Fry

Loud screams came from another part of the palace. The moment Straton had told his story of taking the baby Oedipus from Mount Cithaeron to Corinth, Jocasta had understood the terrible truth and taken her own life. When Oedipus followed the screams to her bedchamber, he saw her body hanging from the ceiling and his daughters weeping beneath it. He sent them from the room. It was all clear. He was the killer of Laius who had brought the plague to Thebes. That would have been terrible enough on its own. Now he knew that the whole truth was deeper, darker, and more unbearable still. Laius had been his father. He had taken his mother Jocasta to be his wife, and had four children by her. He had loudly and publicly hunted for the truth and boasted that he would find it but—as blind Tiresias had warned him—he had not been able to see. He was a pollutant. A contaminant. He was the disease.