Oedipus the King is Sophocles' legendary rendition of the myth of the great king Oedipus, perhaps the best known of all of the Greek Tragedies.

When an oracle foretells that the young prince Oedipus will grow up to murder his father he is cast out of the kingdom by the king who hopes by doing so that he will avoid his fate. Oedipus grows up and many years later, not knowing his own identity, or the identity of his father, meets him at a crossroad where they argue and the king is killed. The rest of the tale pivots around the unraveling of this tangled family history and the appalling discovery of, not only patricide, but Oedipus' subsequent incest in unwittingly marrying his own mother.