Oedipus was shocked that the citizens of Thebes hadn't already done so. Oedipus begged and pleaded that if any of the citizens knew anything about the murder to come forward. That if the people helped him not cause them harm, even if that person was the guilty party, he would simply exile them so that Thebes could prosper. Oedipus asks the prophet only to learn that he was the one who killed the king. Oedipus was beside himself with grief, the one thing he had tried to prevent his entire adult life had come true without his knowledge. Oedipus had killed his father and married his mother. After hearing her worst fears, Jocasta hanged herself, when Oedipus found her he was even more devastated, he went a little crazy. 'He tears off her pins, the long gold pins that hold her clothes in place…he plunges them into the sockets of her eyes, shouting: “you, you will no longer see the pain I have suffered”…” (1403-1407). Oedipus blinds himself because he is so horrified by what his life has become that he can no longer bear to see anything. Oedipus makes the decision to leave Thebes so that the people he has protected all this time would be safe. From his birth, Oedipus' life was decided for him. The choices he made may seem like they were made of his own free will, but a prophecy made about him when he was born finally came true. Oedipus tried to change the outcome of his life by distancing himself from everyone he cared about so as not to make the prophecy come true, in doing so he went exactly back to where he started and killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus' life was destined to be like this: “it is mine alone, my destiny: I am Oedipus”.!”