The Oedipus complex

OEDIPUS: 

In Greek mythology, son of Layo and Jocasta, Kings of Thebes. Layo was warned porun Oracle that his own son would give him death. To avoid it, the King attached the foot of his son and left him on a mountain, which meant that he would find death.
The child however was found alive and rescued by a shepherd who gave him up to the King of Corinth, Polybus, who called the child Oedipus, meaning "swollen foot".
It raised him as their own. The young Oedipus did not know that it was adopted and when the Oracle presaged him that he kills his father laugh, left Corinth to avoid that fate with Polybus, whom both loved and believing his father. With the passage of time, he stumbled Layo (his biological father) whom he mistook for the head of a gang of thieves. And he slew him. The first prophecy was fulfilled. Oedipus did not know it.
Lonely and helpless, he came to Thebes where, by defeating the Sphinx responding to your quest and save the people from their terrors, was declared King and gave to Jocasta as a wife. No one knew who had killed Layo, nor was his mother Jocasta.
For many years the couple lived without knowing which were mother and son. When a plague struck Thebes, Oracle indicates that Layo crime should be punished and Oedipus eventually discovers that he had killed his father.
Jocasta, realizing that he had lived in incest, is killed. Oedipus starts is the eyes. For many years, his daughter Antigone accompanied him and led until Oedipus died, after Apollo had promised him that the place of his death would be sacred. Antigone became the symbol of filial love. The story of Oedipus was skillfully dramatized by the Greek tragic poet Sophocles (496 466 BC.).
Article translated for educational purposes from: Planeta Sedna