According to legend, before Oedipus was born it was prophesied that he would murder his father and marry his mother. To prevent this calamitous turn of events, the father, Laius, king of Thebes, ordered the child's feet to be bound and pierced by a stake, and that he be abandoned on a hillside to die.
It is said that when a shepherd by the name of Phorbas, who was in the service of Polybos, king of nearby Corinth, came across the infant Oedipus, he was moved by pity and rescued the child. Unlike Phorbas, who knows nothing of the prophecy, we watch the scene having heard the entire story. We know that the shepherd will take the child to Corinth, where he will be raised by king Polybos as his own son. That Oedipus will one day meet Laius and, ignorant of his identity, kill him in self-defence in a roadside quarrel. That he will go on to Thebes, defeat an evil sphinx that plagues the city, be hailed a hero, and marry the newly widowed queen. However much we may wish it to be otherwise (for his sake and our own), we know that his innocence will not protect him from the tragedies that continue to unfold: Jocasta's suicide upon discovering his identity, his own degradation and death in exile.
This sculpture by Antoine-Denis Chaudet ( 1763–1810) shows Phorbas in the act of saving the child. I find it moving beyond words.
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