[Footnote 22: Laius, king of Thebes, warned by the oracle that he would be killed by his own offspring, exposed his son Oedipus on Mount Cithæron. The infant was found by a shepherd, and carried to Polybus, king of Corinth, who adopted him. Arrived at man's estate, he too was informed by the oracle that he would take the life of his father, and commit incest with his mother. Believing that the king and queen who brought him up were his parents, he determined not to go back to Corinth, and in attempting to avert his destiny, he fulfilled it. As he journeyed towards Thebes he met his real father, Laius, and slew him in a conflict which grew out of a dispute with his charioteer.] [Footnote 23: Or the temple at Delphi, where Oedipus went to consult the oracle.] [Footnote 24: The Sphinx sat upon a rock near Thebes propounding a riddle to every one who passed by, and destroying all who were unable to explain it. The Thebans proclaimed that whoever would rid the kingdom of this scourge should marry the widow of Laius, and succeed to the vacant throne. Oedipus, by solving the riddle, drove the Sphinx to commit suicide, and in accepting the reward, he unconsciously verified the remainder of the oracle.] [Footnote 25: Oedipus behaves with the fury of a blustering bully, instead of that patient submission and pathetic remorse which are so suited to his condition.--WARTON.] [Footnote 26: In the first edition he had written Which shall o'er long posterity prevail. The more forcible phrase which he substituted for "long posterity," was from Dryden's Virg. Æn. iii. 132: And children's children shall the crown sustain.] [Footnote 27: This couplet follows closely the translation of Stephens: Put on that diadem besmeared with gore Which from my father's head these fingers tore.] [Footnote 28: Dryden's Virg. Æn. iii. 78: Broke ev'ry bond of nature and of truth] [Footnote 29: Pope uses "preventing" in the then common but now obsolete sense of "anticipating."] [Footnote 30: A river in the lower world.] [Footnote 31: Great is the force and the spirit of these lines down to verse 183; and indeed they are a surprising effort in a writer so young as when he translated them. See particularly lines 150 to 160.--WARTON.] [Footnote 32: The entrance to the infernal regions was said to be through a cave in the Tænarian promontory, which formed the southern extremity of Greece.]