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At this point begins the dénouement or disentanglement of the plot, in which. Sophocles was thought especially to excel.

A messenger arrives from Corinth, bringing what he conceives to be good news. Polybus is dead, and Œdipus has been elected by acclamation king of "the city on two seas." Jocasta—who, with a woman's fickleness, is on her way bearing flowers and incense to the altars of the god whom she had just insulted—meets the messenger, and is wild with joy when she hears her own opinion of the falsity of oracles, as she believes, thus undoubtedly confirmed; and she