Approaching the middle of the play, Oedipus begins to realize for the first time that he might in fact be the man who killed Laius. As Jocasta tells him the place and time of the death of Laius, Oedipus cries in despair, "O Zeus, what plaything will you make of me?- (Sophocles 41). He begins to realize the coincidence between the death of Laius and that of the man he killed before he took the power at Thebes "but he has yet to discover that this man was his father.
Oedipus finally begins to show his insight when he realizes that there is a great chance that Laius was indeed the man he killed where the three roads met. He cries, "Oh lost! Yes, surely lost! Self damned, I think, just now and self-deceived- (Sophocles 42). He is clearly beginning to gain spiritual insight because he accepts the fact that he is damned.
Oedipus finally realized that as the Gods had preordained, he killed his father and married his mother. Realizing that he is damned he cries, .
Lost! Ah lost! At last it's blazing clear. .
Light of my days, go dark. I want to gaze no more.
My birth all sprung revealed from those it never should,.
Myself entwined with those I never could.
And I the killer of those I never would (Sophocles 67).
At this point in the play, Oedipus has heard the shepherd declare his true origin. .
Thus he now knows that his real parents are Lauis and Jocasta, and that fate has .
taken its inevitable course.
