Summary of Oedipus Rex in Poem

It all started with the murder of the King,
now the people of Thebes can no longer dance and sing.
They enter a world of disaster and despair,
a feeling that no one can no longer bare.

Suddenly comes Creon bearing good news,
he says the plague would end and no longer fuse
If the murderer of the King to be found.
So Oedipus promises to banish him from Thebes' ground.
He calls for Teiresias, a blind prophet, but can surely see,
and is told that the murderer was actually he.
Oedipus refuses to listen and ignores,
until Jocasta, his wife, comes through the doors.

She tells him not to worry and that his prophecies are not real,
she narrates a story not knowing that the truth would reveal.
The King was told he was going to die by his son,
so he gives his child to a Shepard thinking the prophecy was done.
But soon he was killed where the three roads had met,
a memory of Oedipus' that he had never forget.
He has killed a stranger in the same place,
and asks Jocasta to describe his face.

He becomes troubled and a witness he calls,
to make sure of this story that might cause his life to fall.
The messenger tells Oedipus that his parents are not really his own,
and he becomes more alarmed now that his real parents are unknown.
He swears to himself that the secret will be revealed,
no matter how much Jocasta protests and how uncomfortable he feels.

The servant of Laius afraid to speak,
tells Oedipus that it was him that he himself seeks.
He was the child that was given to the Shepard,
who killed his father and married his mother.
Devastated, Jocasta hangs herself taking away her life.
Oedipus asks to see the daughters of his mother and wife.
He begs Creon to forever take care of children and weeps,
And then he banishes himself, for that was his promise he must keep.