{"collection":"Classics","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/cla/soph/oedipus.htm","path":"cla/soph/oedipus.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/cla/soph/oedipus.htm","text":"London, W. Heinemann; New York, The Macmillan co., [1912-13]\nDramatis Personae\nOEDIPUS\nTHE PRIEST OF ZEUS\nCREON\nCHORUS OF THEBAN ELDERS\nTEIRESIAS\nJOCASTA\nMESSENGER\nHERD OF LAIUS\nThebes. Before the Palace of Oedipus. Suppliants of all ages are seated\nround the altar at the palace doors, at their head a PRIEST OF ZEUS.\nTo them enter OEDIPUS.\nOEDIPUS My children, latest born to Cadmus old,\nWhy sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands\nBranches of olive filleted with wool?\nWhat means this reek of incense everywhere,\nAnd everywhere laments and litanies?\nChildren, it were not meet that I should learn\nFrom others, and am hither come, myself,\nI Oedipus, your world-renowned king.\nHo! aged sire, whose venerable locks\nProclaim thee spokesman of this company,\nExplain your mood and purport. Is it dread\nOf ill that moves you or a boon ye crave?\nMy zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt;\nRuthless indeed were I and obdurate\nIf such petitioners as you I spurned.\nPRIEST Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king,\nThou seest how both extremes of age besiege\nThy palace altars--fledglings hardly winged,\nAnd greybeards bowed with years, priests, as am I\nOf Zeus, and these the flower of our youth.\nMeanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughs\nCrowd our two market-places, or before\nBoth shrines of Pallas congregate, or where\nIsmenus gives his oracles by fire.\nFor, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State,\nSore buffeted, can no more lift her head,\nFoundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.\nA blight is on our harvest in the ear,\nA blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,\nA blight on wives in travail; and withal\nArmed with his blazing torch the God of Plague\nHath swooped upon our city emptying\nThe house of Cadmus, and the murky realm\nOf Pluto is full fed with groans and tears.\nTherefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,\nI and these children; not as deeming thee\nA new divinity, but the first of men;\nFirst in the common accidents of life,\nAnd first in visitations of the Gods.\nArt thou not he who coming to the town\nOf Cadmus freed us from the tax we paid\nTo the fell songstress? Nor hadst thou received\nPrompting from us or been by others schooled;\nNo, by a god inspired (so all men deem,\nAnd testify) didst thou renew our life.\nAnd now, O Oedipus, our peerless king,\nAll we thy votaries beseech thee, find\nSome succor, whether by a voice from heaven\nWhispered, or haply known by human wit.\nTried counselors, methinks, are aptest found\nTo furnish for the future pregnant rede.\nUpraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!\nLook to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore\nOur country's savior thou art justly hailed:\nO never may we thus record thy reign:--\n\"He raised us up only to cast us down.\"\nUplift us, build our city on a rock.\nThy happy star ascendant brought us luck,\nO let it not decline! If thou wouldst rule\nThis land, as now thou reignest, better sure\nTo rule a peopled than a desert realm.\nNor battlements nor galleys aught avail,\nIf men to man and guards to guard them tail.\nOEDIPUS Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too well,\nThe quest that brings you hither and your need.\nYe sicken all, well wot I, yet my pain,\nHow great soever yours, outtops it all.\nYour sorrow touches each man severally,\nHim and none other, but I grieve at once\nBoth for the general and myself and you.\nTherefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.\nMany, my children, are the tears I've wept,\nAnd threaded many a maze of weary thought.\nThus pondering one clue of hope I caught,\nAnd tracked it up; I have sent Menoeceus' son,\nCreon, my consort's brother, to inquire\nOf Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,\nHow I might save the State by act or word.\nAnd now I reckon up the tale of days\nSince he set forth, and marvel how he fares.\n'Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.\nBut when he comes, then I were base indeed,\nIf I perform not all the god declares.\nPRIEST Thy words are well timed; even as thou speakest\nThat shouting tells me Creon is at hand.\nOEDIPUS O King Apollo! may his joyous looks\nBe presage of the joyous news he brings!\nPRIEST As I surmise, 'tis welcome; else his head\nHad scarce been crowned with berry-laden bays.\nOEDIPUS We soon shall know; he's now in earshot range. (Enter CREON.)\nMy royal cousin, say, Menoeceus' child,\nWhat message hast thou brought us from the god?\nCREON Good news, for e'en intolerable ills,\nFinding right issue, tend to naught but good.\nOEDIPUS How runs the oracle? thus far thy words\nGive me no ground for confidence or fear.\nCREON If thou wouldst hear my message publicly,\nI'll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within.\nOEDIPUS Speak before all; the burden that I bear\nIs more for these my subjects than myself.\nCREON Let me report then all the god declared.\nKing Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate\nA fell pollution that infests the land,\nAnd no more harbor an inveterate sore.\nOEDIPUS What expiation means he? What's amiss?\nCREON Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood.\nThis stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state.\nOEDIPUS Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?\nCREON Before thou didst assume the helm of State,\nThe sovereign of this land was Laius.\nOEDIPUS I heard as much, but never saw the man.\nCREON He fell; and now the god's command is plain:\nPunish his takers-off, whoe'er they be.\nOEDIPUS Where are they? Where in the wide world to find\nThe far, faint traces of a bygone crime?\nCREON In this land, said the god; \"who seeks shall find;\nWho sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind.\"\nOEDIPUS Was he within his palace, or afield,\nOr traveling, when Laius met his fate?\nCREON Abroad; he started, so he told us, bound\nFor Delphi, but he never thence returned.\nOEDIPUS Came there no news, no fellow-traveler\nTo give some clue that might be followed up?\nCREON But one escape, who flying for dear life,\nCould tell of all he saw but one thing sure.\nOEDIPUS And what was that? One clue might lead us far,\nWith but a spark of hope to guide our quest.\nCREON Robbers, he told us, not one bandit but\nA troop of knaves, attacked and murdered him.\nOEDIPUS Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,\nUnless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?\nCREON So 'twas surmised, but none was found to avenge\nHis murder mid the trouble that ensued.\nOEDIPUS What trouble can have hindered a full quest,\nWhen royalty had fallen thus miserably?\nCREON The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide\nThe dim past and attend to instant needs.\nOEDIPUS Well, I will start afresh and once again\nMake dark things clear. Right worthy the concern\nOf Phoebus, worthy thine too, for the dead;\nI also, as is meet, will lend my aid\nTo avenge this wrong to Thebes and to the god.\nNot for some far-off kinsman, but myself,\nShall I expel this poison in the blood;\nFor whoso slew that king might have a mind\nTo strike me too with his assassin hand.\nTherefore in righting him I serve myself.\nUp, children, haste ye, quit these altar stairs,\nTake hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither\nThe Theban commons. With the god's good help\nSuccess is sure; 'tis ruin if we fail. (Exeunt OEDIPUS and CREON.)\nPRIEST Come, children, let us hence; these gracious words\nForestall the very purpose of our suit.\nAnd may the god who sent this oracle\nSave us withal and rid us of this pest. (Exeunt PRIEST and SUPPLIANTS.)\nCHORUS (strophe 1)\nSweet-voiced daughter of Zeus from thy gold-paved Pythian shrine\nWafted to Thebes divine,\nWhat dost thou bring me? My soul is racked and shivers with fear.\nHealer of Delos, hear!\nHast thou some pain unknown before,\nOr with the circling years renewest a penance of yore?\nOffspring of golden Hope, thou voice immortal, O tell me.\n(antistrophe 1)\nFirst on Athene I call; O Zeus-born goddess, defend!\nGoddess and sister, befriend,\nArtemis, Lady of Thebes, high-throned in the midst of our mart!\nLord of the death-winged dart!\nYour threefold aid I crave\nFrom death and ruin our city to save.\nIf in the days of old when we nigh had perished, ye drave\nFrom our land the fiery plague, be near us now and defend us!\n(strophe 2)\nAh me, what countless woes are mine!\nAll our host is in decline;\nWeaponless my spirit lies.\nEarth her gracious fruits denies;\nWomen wail in barren throes;\nLife on life downstriken goes,\nSwifter than the wind bird's flight,\nSwifter than the Fire-God's might,\nTo the westering shores of Night.\n(antistrophe 2)\nWasted thus by death on death\nAll our city perisheth.\nCorpses spread infection round;\nNone to tend or mourn is found.\nWailing on the altar stair\nWives and grandams rend the air--\nLong-drawn moans and piercing cries\nBlent with prayers and litanies.\nGolden child of Zeus, O hear\nLet thine angel face appear!\n(strophe 3)\nAnd grant that Ares whose hot breath I feel,\nThough without targe or steel\nHe stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout,\nMay turn in sudden rout,\nTo the unharbored Thracian waters sped,\nOr Amphitrite's bed.\nFor what night leaves undone,\nSmit by the morrow's sun\nPerisheth. Father Zeus, whose hand\nDoth wield the lightning brand,\nSlay him beneath thy levin bold, we pray,\nSlay him, O slay!\n(antistrophe 3)\nO that thine arrows too, Lycean King,\nFrom that taut bow's gold string,\nMight fly abroad, the champions of our rights;\nYea, and the flashing lights\nOf Artemis, wherewith the huntress sweeps\nAcross the Lycian steeps.\nThee too I call with golden-snooded hair,\nWhose name our land doth bear,\nBacchus to whom thy Maenads Evoe shout;\nCome with thy bright torch, rout,\nBlithe god whom we adore,\nThe god whom gods abhor. (Enter OEDIPUS.)\nOEDIPUS Ye pray; 'tis well, but would ye hear my words\nAnd heed them and apply the remedy,\nYe might perchance find comfort and relief.\nMind you, I speak as one who comes a stranger\nTo this report, no less than to the crime;\nFor how unaided could I track it far\nWithout a clue? Which lacking (for too late\nWas I enrolled a citizen of Thebes)\nThis proclamation I address to all:--\nThebans, if any knows the man by whom\nLaius, son of Labdacus, was slain,\nI summon him to make clean shrift to me.\nAnd if he shrinks, let him reflect that thus\nConfessing he shall 'scape the capital charge;\nFor the worst penalty that shall befall him\nIs banishment--unscathed he shall depart.\nBut if an alien from a foreign land\nBe known to any as the murderer,\nLet him who knows speak out, and he shall have\nDue recompense from me and thanks to boot.\nBut if ye still keep silence, if through fear\nFor self or friends ye disregard my hest,\nHear what I then resolve; I lay my ban\nOn the assassin whosoe'er he be.\nLet no man in this land, whereof I hold\nThe sovereign rule, harbor or speak to him;\nGive him no part in prayer or sacrifice\nOr lustral rites, but hound him from your homes.\nFor this is our defilement, so the god\nHath lately shown to me by oracles.\nThus as their champion I maintain the cause\nBoth of the god and of the murdered King.\nAnd on the murderer this curse I lay\n(On him and all the partners in his guilt):--\nWretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!\nAnd for myself, if with my privity\nHe gain admittance to my hearth, I pray\nThe curse I laid on others fall on me.\nSee that ye give effect to all my hest,\nFor my sake and the god's and for our land,\nA desert blasted by the wrath of heaven.\nFor, let alone the god's express command,\nIt were a scandal ye should leave unpurged\nThe murder of a great man and your king,\nNor track it home. And now that I am lord,\nSuccessor to his throne, his bed, his wife,\n(And had he not been frustrate in the hope\nOf issue, common children of one womb\nHad forced a closer bond twixt him and me,\nBut Fate swooped down upon him), therefore I\nHis blood-avenger will maintain his cause\nAs though he were my sire, and leave no stone\nUnturned to track the assassin or avenge\nThe son of Labdacus, of Polydore,\nOf Cadmus, and Agenor first of the race.\nAnd for the disobedient thus I pray:\nMay the gods send them neither timely fruits\nOf earth, nor teeming increase of the womb,\nBut may they waste and pine, as now they waste,\nAye and worse stricken; but to all of you,\nMy loyal subjects who approve my acts,\nMay Justice, our ally, and all the gods\nBe gracious and attend you evermore.\nCHORUS The oath thou profferest, sire, I take and swear.\nI slew him not myself, nor can I name\nThe slayer. For the quest, 'twere well, methinks\nThat Phoebus, who proposed the riddle, himself\nShould give the answer--who the murderer was.\nOEDIPUS Well argued; but no living man can hope\nTo force the gods to speak against their will.\nCHORUS May I then say what seems next best to me?\nOEDIPUS Aye, if there be a third best, tell it too.\nCHORUS My liege, if any man sees eye to eye\nWith our lord Phoebus, 'tis our prophet, lord\nTeiresias; he of all men best might guide\nA searcher of this matter to the light.\nOEDIPUS Here too my zeal has nothing lagged, for twice\nAt Creon's instance have I sent to fetch him,\nAnd long I marvel why he is not here.\nCHORUS I mind me too of rumors long ago--\nMere gossip.\nOEDIPUS Tell them, I would fain know all.\nCHORUS 'Twas said he fell by travelers.\nOEDIPUS So I heard,\nBut none has seen the man who saw him fall.\nCHORUS Well, if he knows what fear is, he will quail\nAnd flee before the terror of thy curse.\nOEDIPUS Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.\nCHORUS But here is one to arraign him. Lo, at length\nThey bring the god-inspired seer in whom\nAbove all other men is truth inborn. (Enter TEIRESIAS, led by a boy.)\nOEDIPUS Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all,\nLore of the wise and hidden mysteries,\nHigh things of heaven and low things of the earth,\nThou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught,\nWhat plague infects our city; and we turn\nTo thee, O seer, our one defense and shield.\nThe purport of the answer that the God\nReturned to us who sought his oracle,\nThe messengers have doubtless told thee--how\nOne course alone could rid us of the pest,\nTo find the murderers of Laius,\nAnd slay them or expel them from the land.\nTherefore begrudging neither augury\nNor other divination that is thine,\nO save thyself, thy country, and thy king,\nSave all from this defilement of blood shed.\nOn thee we rest. This is man's highest end,\nTo others' service all his powers to lend.\nTEIRESIAS Alas, alas, what misery to be wise\nWhen wisdom profits nothing! This old lore\nI had forgotten; else I were not here.\nOEDIPUS What ails thee? Why this melancholy mood?\nTEIRESIAS Let me go home; prevent me not; 'twere best\nThat thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.\nOEDIPUS For shame! no true-born Theban patriot\nWould thus withhold the word of prophecy.\nTEIRESIAS Thy words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I\nFor fear lest I too trip like thee...\nOEDIPUS Oh speak,\nWithhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know'st,\nThy knowledge. We are all thy suppliants.\nTEIRESIAS Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice\nWill ne'er reveal my miseries--or thine.\nOEDIPUS What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!\nWouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?\nTEIRESIAS I will not vex myself nor thee. Why ask\nThus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?\nOEDIPUS Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.\nWill nothing loose thy tongue? Can nothing melt thee,\nOr shake thy dogged taciturnity?\nTEIRESIAS Thou blam'st my mood and seest not thine own\nWherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.\nOEDIPUS And who could stay his choler when he heard\nHow insolently thou dost flout the State?\nTEIRESIAS Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.\nOEDIPUS Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.\nTEIRESIAS I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,\nAnd give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.\nOEDIPUS Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,\nBut speak my whole mind. Thou methinks thou art he,\nWho planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,\nAll save the assassination; and if thou\nHadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot\nThat thou alone didst do the bloody deed.\nTEIRESIAS Is it so? Then I charge thee to abide\nBy thine own proclamation; from this day\nSpeak not to these or me. Thou art the man,\nThou the accursed polluter of this land.\nOEDIPUS Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,\nAnd think'st forsooth as seer to go scot free.\nTEIRESIAS Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.\nOEDIPUS Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.\nTEIRESIAS Thou, goading me against my will to speak.\nOEDIPUS What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt.\nTEIRESIAS Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on?\nOEDIPUS I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.\nTEIRESIAS I say thou art the murderer of the man\nWhose murderer thou pursuest.\nOEDIPUS Thou shalt rue it\nTwice to repeat so gross a calumny.\nTEIRESIAS Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?\nOEDIPUS Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.\nTEIRESIAS I say thou livest with thy nearest kin\nIn infamy, unwitting in thy shame.\nOEDIPUS Think'st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue?\nTEIRESIAS Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.\nOEDIPUS With other men, but not with thee, for thou\nIn ear, wit, eye, in everything art blind.\nTEIRESIAS Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all\nHere present will cast back on thee ere long.\nOEDIPUS Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power\nO'er me or any man who sees the sun.\nTEIRESIAS No, for thy weird is not to fall by me.\nI leave to Apollo what concerns the god.\nOEDIPUS Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?\nTEIRESIAS Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.\nOEDIPUS O wealth and empiry and skill by skill\nOutwitted in the battlefield of life,\nWhat spite and envy follow in your train!\nSee, for this crown the State conferred on me.\nA gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown\nThe trusty Creon, my familiar friend,\nHath lain in wait to oust me and suborned\nThis mountebank, this juggling charlatan,\nThis tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone\nKeen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind.\nSay, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself\nA prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here\nWhy hadst thou no deliverance for this folk?\nAnd yet the riddle was not to be solved\nBy guess-work but required the prophet's art;\nWherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds\nNor sign from heaven helped thee, but I came,\nThe simple Oedipus; I stopped her mouth\nBy mother wit, untaught of auguries.\nThis is the man whom thou wouldst undermine,\nIn hope to reign with Creon in my stead.\nMethinks that thou and thine abettor soon\nWill rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out.\nThank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn\nWhat chastisement such arrogance deserves.\nCHORUS To us it seems that both the seer and thou,\nO Oedipus, have spoken angry words.\nThis is no time to wrangle but consult\nHow best we may fulfill the oracle.\nTEIRESIAS King as thou art, free speech at least is mine\nTo make reply; in this I am thy peer.\nI own no lord but Loxias; him I serve\nAnd ne'er can stand enrolled as Creon's man.\nThus then I answer: since thou hast not spared\nTo twit me with my blindness--thou hast eyes,\nYet see'st not in what misery thou art fallen,\nNor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate.\nDost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know'st it not,\nAnd all unwitting art a double foe\nTo thine own kin, the living and the dead;\nAye and the dogging curse of mother and sire\nOne day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword,\nBeyond our borders, and the eyes that now\nSee clear shall henceforward endless night.\nAh whither shall thy bitter cry not reach,\nWhat crag in all Cithaeron but shall then\nReverberate thy wail, when thou hast found\nWith what a hymeneal thou wast borne\nHome, but to no fair haven, on the gale!\nAye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not\nShall set thyself and children in one line.\nFlout then both Creon and my words, for none\nOf mortals shall be striken worse than thou.\nOEDIPUS Must I endure this fellow's insolence?\nA murrain on thee! Get thee hence! Begone\nAvaunt! and never cross my threshold more.\nTEIRESIAS I ne'er had come hadst thou not bidden me.\nOEDIPUS I know not thou wouldst utter folly, else\nLong hadst thou waited to be summoned here.\nTEIRESIAS Such am I--as it seems to thee a fool,\nBut to the parents who begat thee, wise.\nOEDIPUS What sayest thou--\"parents\"? Who begat me, speak?\nTEIRESIAS This day shall be thy birth-day, and thy grave.\nOEDIPUS Thou lov'st to speak in riddles and dark words.\nTEIRESIAS In reading riddles who so skilled as thou?\nOEDIPUS Twit me with that wherein my greatness lies.\nTEIRESIAS And yet this very greatness proved thy bane.\nOEDIPUS No matter if I saved the commonwealth.\nTEIRESIAS 'Tis time I left thee. Come, boy, take me home.\nOEDIPUS Aye, take him quickly, for his presence irks\nAnd lets me; gone, thou canst not plague me more.\nTEIRESIAS I go, but first will tell thee why I came.\nThy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me.\nHear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest\nWith threats and warrants this long while, the wretch\nWho murdered Laius--that man is here.\nHe passes for an alien in the land\nBut soon shall prove a Theban, native born.\nAnd yet his fortune brings him little joy;\nFor blind of seeing, clad in beggar's weeds,\nFor purple robes, and leaning on his staff,\nTo a strange land he soon shall grope his way.\nAnd of the children, inmates of his home,\nHe shall be proved the brother and the sire,\nOf her who bare him son and husband both,\nCo-partner, and assassin of his sire.\nGo in and ponder this, and if thou find\nThat I have missed the mark, henceforth declare\nI have no wit nor skill in prophecy. (Exeunt TEIRESIAS and OEDIPUS.)\nCHORUS (strophe 1)\nWho is he by voice immortal named from Pythia's rocky cell,\nDoer of foul deeds of bloodshed, horrors that no tongue can tell?\nA foot for flight he needs\nFleeter than storm-swift steeds,\nFor on his heels doth follow,\nArmed with the lightnings of his Sire, Apollo.\nLike sleuth-hounds too\nThe Fates pursue.\n(antistrophe 1)\nYea, but now flashed forth the summons from Parnassus' snowy peak,\n\"Near and far the undiscovered doer of this murder seek!\"\nNow like a sullen bull he roves\nThrough forest brakes and upland groves,\nAnd vainly seeks to fly\nThe doom that ever nigh\nFlits o'er his head,\nStill by the avenging Phoebus sped,\nThe voice divine,\nFrom Earth's mid shrine.\n(strophe 2)\nSore perplexed am I by the words of the master seer.\nAre they true, are they false? I know not and bridle my tongue for\nfear,\nFluttered with vague surmise; nor present nor future is clear.\nQuarrel of ancient date or in days still near know I none\nTwixt the Labdacidan house and our ruler, Polybus' son.\nProof is there none: how then can I challenge our King's good name,\nHow in a blood-feud join for an untracked deed of shame?\n(antistrophe 2)\nAll wise are Zeus and Apollo, and nothing is hid from their ken;\nThey are gods; and in wits a man may surpass his fellow men;\nBut that a mortal seer knows more than I know--where\nHath this been proven? Or how without sign assured, can I blame\nHim who saved our State when the winged songstress came,\nTested and tried in the light of us all, like gold assayed?\nHow can I now assent when a crime is on Oedipus laid?\nCREON Friends, countrymen, I learn King Oedipus\nHath laid against me a most grievous charge,\nAnd come to you protesting. If he deems\nThat I have harmed or injured him in aught\nBy word or deed in this our present trouble,\nI care not to prolong the span of life,\nThus ill-reputed; for the calumny\nHits not a single blot, but blasts my name,\nIf by the general voice I am denounced\nFalse to the State and false by you my friends.\nCHORUS This taunt, it well may be, was blurted out\nIn petulance, not spoken advisedly.\nCREON Did any dare pretend that it was I\nPrompted the seer to utter a forged charge?\nCHORUS Such things were said; with what intent I know not.\nCREON Were not his wits and vision all astray\nWhen upon me he fixed this monstrous charge?\nCHORUS I know not; to my sovereign's acts I am blind.\nBut lo, he comes to answer for himself. (Enter OEDIPUS.)\nOEDIPUS Sirrah, what mak'st thou here? Dost thou presume\nTo approach my doors, thou brazen-faced rogue,\nMy murderer and the filcher of my crown?\nCome, answer this, didst thou detect in me\nSome touch of cowardice or witlessness,\nThat made thee undertake this enterprise?\nI seemed forsooth too simple to perceive\nThe serpent stealing on me in the dark,\nOr else too weak to scotch it when I saw.\nThis thou art witless seeking to possess\nWithout a following or friends the crown,\nA prize that followers and wealth must win.\nCREON Attend me. Thou hast spoken, 'tis my turn\nTo make reply. Then having heard me, judge.\nOEDIPUS Thou art glib of tongue, but I am slow to learn\nOf thee; I know too well thy venomous hate.\nCREON First I would argue out this very point.\nOEDIPUS O argue not that thou art not a rogue.\nCREON If thou dost count a virtue stubbornness,\nUnschooled by reason, thou art much astray.\nOEDIPUS If thou dost hold a kinsman may be wronged,\nAnd no pains follow, thou art much to seek.\nCREON Therein thou judgest rightly, but this wrong\nThat thou allegest--tell me what it is.\nOEDIPUS Didst thou or didst thou not advise that I\nShould call the priest?\nCREON Yes, and I stand to it.\nOEDIPUS Tell me how long is it since Laius...\nCREON Since Laius...? I follow not thy drift.\nOEDIPUS By violent hands was spirited away.\nCREON In the dim past, a many years agone.\nOEDIPUS Did the same prophet then pursue his craft?\nCREON Yes, skilled as now and in no less repute.\nOEDIPUS Did he at that time ever glance at me?\nCREON Not to my knowledge, not when I was by.\nOEDIPUS But was no search and inquisition made?\nCREON Surely full quest was made, but nothing learnt.\nOEDIPUS Why failed the seer to tell his story then?\nCREON I know not, and not knowing hold my tongue.\nOEDIPUS This much thou knowest and canst surely tell.\nCREON What's mean'st thou? All I know I will declare.\nOEDIPUS But for thy prompting never had the seer\nAscribed to me the death of Laius.\nCREON If so he thou knowest best; but I\nWould put thee to the question in my turn.\nOEDIPUS Question and prove me murderer if thou canst.\nCREON Then let me ask thee, didst thou wed my sister?\nOEDIPUS A fact so plain I cannot well deny.\nCREON And as thy consort queen she shares the throne?\nOEDIPUS I grant her freely all her heart desires.\nCREON And with you twain I share the triple rule?\nOEDIPUS Yea, and it is that proves thee a false friend.\nCREON Not so, if thou wouldst reason with thyself,\nAs I with myself. First, I bid thee think,\nWould any mortal choose a troubled reign\nOf terrors rather than secure repose,\nIf the same power were given him? As for me,\nI have no natural craving for the name\nOf king, preferring to do kingly deeds,\nAnd so thinks every sober-minded man.\nNow all my needs are satisfied through thee,\nAnd I have naught to fear; but were I king,\nMy acts would oft run counter to my will.\nHow could a title then have charms for me\nAbove the sweets of boundless influence?\nI am not so infatuate as to grasp\nThe shadow when I hold the substance fast.\nNow all men cry me Godspeed! wish me well,\nAnd every suitor seeks to gain my ear,\nIf he would hope to win a grace from thee.\nWhy should I leave the better, choose the worse?\nThat were sheer madness, and I am not mad.\nNo such ambition ever tempted me,\nNor would I have a share in such intrigue.\nAnd if thou doubt me, first to Delphi go,\nThere ascertain if my report was true\nOf the god's answer; next investigate\nIf with the seer I plotted or conspired,\nAnd if it prove so, sentence me to death,\nNot by thy voice alone, but mine and thine.\nBut O condemn me not, without appeal,\nOn bare suspicion. 'Tis not right to adjudge\nBad men at random good, or good men bad.\nI would as lief a man should cast away\nThe thing he counts most precious, his own life,\nAs spurn a true friend. Thou wilt learn in time\nThe truth, for time alone reveals the just;\nA villain is detected in a day.\nCHORUS To one who walketh warily his words\nCommend themselves; swift counsels are not sure.\nOEDIPUS When with swift strides the stealthy plotter stalks\nI must be quick too with my counterplot.\nTo wait his onset passively, for him\nIs sure success, for me assured defeat.\nCREON What then's thy will? To banish me the land?\nOEDIPUS I would not have thee banished, no, but dead,\nThat men may mark the wages envy reaps.\nCREON I see thou wilt not yield, nor credit me.\nOEDIPUS None but a fool would credit such as thou.\nCREON Thou art not wise.\nOEDIPUS Wise for myself at least.\nCREON Why not for me too?\nOEDIPUS Why for such a knave?\nCREON Suppose thou lackest sense.\nOEDIPUS Yet kings must rule.\nCREON Not if they rule ill.\nOEDIPUS Oh my Thebans, hear him!\nCREON Thy Thebans? am not I a Theban too?\nCHORUS Cease, princes; lo there comes, and none too soon,\nJocasta from the palace. Who so fit\nAs peacemaker to reconcile your feud? (Enter JOCASTA.)\nJOCASTA Misguided princes, why have ye upraised\nThis wordy wrangle? Are ye not ashamed,\nWhile the whole land lies striken, thus to voice\nYour private injuries? Go in, my lord;\nGo home, my brother, and forebear to make\nA public scandal of a petty grief.\nCREON My royal sister, Oedipus, thy lord,\nHath bid me choose (O dread alternative!)\nAn outlaw's exile or a felon's death.\nOEDIPUS Yes, lady; I have caught him practicing\nAgainst my royal person his vile arts.\nCREON May I ne'er speed but die accursed, if I\nIn any way am guilty of this charge.\nJOCASTA Believe him, I adjure thee, Oedipus,\nFirst for his solemn oath's sake, then for mine,\nAnd for thine elders' sake who wait on thee.\nCHORUS (strophe 1)\nHearken, King, reflect, we pray thee, but not stubborn but relent.\nOEDIPUS Say to what should I consent?\nCHORUS Respect a man whose probity and troth\nAre known to all and now confirmed by oath.\nOEDIPUS Dost know what grace thou cravest?\nCHORUS Yea, I know.\nOEDIPUS Declare it then and make thy meaning plain.\nCHORUS Brand not a friend whom babbling tongues assail;\nLet not suspicion 'gainst his oath prevail.\nOEDIPUS Bethink you that in seeking this ye seek\nIn very sooth my death or banishment?\nCHORUS No, by the leader of the host divine!\n(strophe 2)\nWitness, thou Sun, such thought was never mine,\nUnblest, unfriended may I perish,\nIf ever I such wish did cherish!\nBut O my heart is desolate\nMusing on our striken State,\nDoubly fall'n should discord grow\nTwixt you twain, to crown our woe.\nOEDIPUS Well, let him go, no matter what it cost me,\nOr certain death or shameful banishment,\nFor your sake I relent, not his; and him,\nWhere'er he be, my heart shall still abhor.\nCREON Thou art as sullen in thy yielding mood\nAs in thine anger thou wast truculent.\nSuch tempers justly plague themselves the most.\nOEDIPUS Leave me in peace and get thee gone.\nCREON I go,\nBy thee misjudged, but justified by these. (Exeunt CREON.)\nCHORUS (antistrophe 1)\nLady, lead indoors thy consort; wherefore longer here delay?\nJOCASTA Tell me first how rose the fray.\nCHORUS Rumors bred unjust suspicious and injustice rankles sore.\nJOCASTA Were both at fault?\nCHORUS Both.\nJOCASTA What was the tale?\nCHORUS Ask me no more. The land is sore distressed; 'Twere better\nsleeping ills to leave at rest.\nOEDIPUS Strange counsel, friend! I know thou mean'st me well,\nAnd yet would'st mitigate and blunt my zeal.\nCHORUS (antistrophe 2)\nKing, I say it once again,\nWitless were I proved, insane,\nIf I lightly put away\nThee my country's prop and stay,\nPilot who, in danger sought,\nTo a quiet haven brought\nOur distracted State; and now\nWho can guide us right but thou?\nJOCASTA Let me too, I adjure thee, know, O king,\nWhat cause has stirred this unrelenting wrath.\nOEDIPUS I will, for thou art more to me than these.\nLady, the cause is Creon and his plots.\nJOCASTA But what provoked the quarrel? make this clear.\nOEDIPUS He points me out as Laius' murderer.\nJOCASTA Of his own knowledge or upon report?\nOEDIPUS He is too cunning to commit himself,\nAnd makes a mouthpiece of a knavish seer.\nJOCASTA Then thou mayest ease thy conscience on that score.\nListen and I'll convince thee that no man\nHath scot or lot in the prophetic art.\nHere is the proof in brief. An oracle\nOnce came to Laius (I will not say\n'Twas from the Delphic god himself, but from\nHis ministers) declaring he was doomed\nTo perish by the hand of his own son,\nA child that should be born to him by me.\nNow Laius--so at least report affirmed--\nWas murdered on a day by highwaymen,\nNo natives, at a spot where three roads meet.\nAs for the child, it was but three days old,\nWhen Laius, its ankles pierced and pinned\nTogether, gave it to be cast away\nBy others on the trackless mountain side.\nSo then Apollo brought it not to pass\nThe child should be his father's murderer,\nOr the dread terror find accomplishment,\nAnd Laius be slain by his own son.\nSuch was the prophet's horoscope. O king,\nRegard it not. Whate'er the god deems fit\nTo search, himself unaided will reveal.\nOEDIPUS What memories, what wild tumult of the soul\nCame o'er me, lady, as I heard thee speak!\nJOCASTA What mean'st thou? What has shocked and startled thee?\nOEDIPUS Methought I heard thee say that Laius\nWas murdered at the meeting of three roads.\nJOCASTA So ran the story that is current still.\nOEDIPUS Where did this happen? Dost thou know the place?\nJOCASTA Phocis the land is called; the spot is where\nBranch roads from Delphi and from Daulis meet.\nOEDIPUS And how long is it since these things befell?\nJOCASTA 'Twas but a brief while were thou wast proclaimed\nOur country's ruler that the news was brought.\nOEDIPUS O Zeus, what hast thou willed to do with me!\nJOCASTA What is it, Oedipus, that moves thee so?\nOEDIPUS Ask me not yet; tell me the build and height\nOf Laius? Was he still in manhood's prime?\nJOCASTA Tall was he, and his hair was lightly strewn\nWith silver; and not unlike thee in form.\nOEDIPUS O woe is me! Mehtinks unwittingly\nI laid but now a dread curse on myself.\nJOCASTA What say'st thou? When I look upon thee, my king,\nI tremble.\nOEDIPUS 'Tis a dread presentiment\nThat in the end the seer will prove not blind.\nOne further question to resolve my doubt.\nJOCASTA I quail; but ask, and I will answer all.\nOEDIPUS Had he but few attendants or a train\nOf armed retainers with him, like a prince?\nJOCASTA They were but five in all, and one of them\nA herald; Laius in a mule-car rode.\nOEDIPUS Alas! 'tis clear as noonday now. But say,\nLady, who carried this report to Thebes?\nJOCASTA A serf, the sole survivor who returned.\nOEDIPUS Haply he is at hand or in the house?\nJOCASTA No, for as soon as he returned and found\nThee reigning in the stead of Laius slain,\nHe clasped my hand and supplicated me\nTo send him to the alps and pastures, where\nHe might be farthest from the sight of Thebes.\nAnd so I sent him. 'Twas an honest slave\nAnd well deserved some better recompense.\nOEDIPUS Fetch him at once. I fain would see the man.\nJOCASTA He shall be brought; but wherefore summon him?\nOEDIPUS Lady, I fear my tongue has overrun\nDiscretion; therefore I would question him.\nJOCASTA Well, he shall come, but may not I too claim\nTo share the burden of thy heart, my king?\nOEDIPUS And thou shalt not be frustrate of thy wish.\nNow my imaginings have gone so far.\nWho has a higher claim that thou to hear\nMy tale of dire adventures? Listen then.\nMy sire was Polybus of Corinth, and\nMy mother Merope, a Dorian;\nAnd I was held the foremost citizen,\nTill a strange thing befell me, strange indeed,\nYet scarce deserving all the heat it stirred.\nA roisterer at some banquet, flown with wine,\nShouted \"Thou art not true son of thy sire.\"\nIt irked me, but I stomached for the nonce\nThe insult; on the morrow I sought out\nMy mother and my sire and questioned them.\nThey were indignant at the random slur\nCast on my parentage and did their best\nTo comfort me, but still the venomed barb\nRankled, for still the scandal spread and grew.\nSo privily without their leave I went\nTo Delphi, and Apollo sent me back\nBaulked of the knowledge that I came to seek.\nBut other grievous things he prophesied,\nWoes, lamentations, mourning, portents dire;\nTo wit I should defile my mother's bed\nAnd raise up seed too loathsome to behold,\nAnd slay the father from whose loins I sprang.\nThen, lady,--thou shalt hear the very truth--\nAs I drew near the triple-branching roads,\nA herald met me and a man who sat\nIn a car drawn by colts--as in thy tale--\nThe man in front and the old man himself\nThreatened to thrust me rudely from the path,\nThen jostled by the charioteer in wrath\nI struck him, and the old man, seeing this,\nWatched till I passed and from his car brought down\nFull on my head the double-pointed goad.\nYet was I quits with him and more; one stroke\nOf my good staff sufficed to fling him clean\nOut of the chariot seat and laid him prone.\nAnd so I slew them every one. But if\nBetwixt this stranger there was aught in common\nWith Laius, who more miserable than I,\nWhat mortal could you find more god-abhorred?\nWretch whom no sojourner, no citizen\nMay harbor or address, whom all are bound\nTo harry from their homes. And this same curse\nWas laid on me, and laid by none but me.\nYea with these hands all gory I pollute\nThe bed of him I slew. Say, am I vile?\nAm I not utterly unclean, a wretch\nDoomed to be banished, and in banishment\nForgo the sight of all my dearest ones,\nAnd never tread again my native earth;\nOr else to wed my mother and slay my sire,\nPolybus, who begat me and upreared?\nIf one should say, this is the handiwork\nOf some inhuman power, who could blame\nHis judgment? But, ye pure and awful gods,\nForbid, forbid that I should see that day!\nMay I be blotted out from living men\nEre such a plague spot set on me its brand!\nCHORUS We too, O king, are troubled; but till thou\nHast questioned the survivor, still hope on.\nOEDIPUS My hope is faint, but still enough survives\nTo bid me bide the coming of this herd.\nJOCASTA Suppose him here, what wouldst thou learn of him?\nOEDIPUS I'll tell thee, lady; if his tale agrees\nWith thine, I shall have 'scaped calamity.\nJOCASTA And what of special import did I say?\nOEDIPUS In thy report of what the herdsman said\nLaius was slain by robbers; now if he\nStill speaks of robbers, not a robber, I\nSlew him not; \"one\" with \"many\" cannot square.\nBut if he says one lonely wayfarer,\nThe last link wanting to my guilt is forged.\nJOCASTA Well, rest assured, his tale ran thus at first,\nNor can he now retract what then he said;\nNot I alone but all our townsfolk heard it.\nE'en should he vary somewhat in his story,\nHe cannot make the death of Laius\nIn any wise jump with the oracle.\nFor Loxias said expressly he was doomed\nTo die by my child's hand, but he, poor babe,\nHe shed no blood, but perished first himself.\nSo much for divination. Henceforth I\nWill look for signs neither to right nor left.\nOEDIPUS Thou reasonest well. Still I would have thee send\nAnd fetch the bondsman hither. See to it.\nJOCASTA That will I straightway. Come, let us within.\nI would do nothing that my lord mislikes. (Exeunt OEDIPUS and JOCASTA.)\nCHORUS (strophe 1)\nMy lot be still to lead\nThe life of innocence and fly\nIrreverence in word or deed,\nTo follow still those laws ordained on high\nWhose birthplace is the bright ethereal sky\nNo mortal birth they own,\nOlympus their progenitor alone:\nNe'er shall they slumber in oblivion cold,\nThe god in them is strong and grows not old.\n(antistrophe 1)\nOf insolence is bred\nThe tyrant; insolence full blown,\nWith empty riches surfeited,\nScales the precipitous height and grasps the throne.\nThen topples o'er and lies in ruin prone;\nNo foothold on that dizzy steep.\nBut O may Heaven the true patriot keep\nWho burns with emulous zeal to serve the State.\nGod is my help and hope, on him I wait.\n(strophe 2)\nBut the proud sinner, or in word or deed,\nThat will not Justice heed,\nNor reverence the shrine\nOf images divine,\nPerdition seize his vain imaginings,\nIf, urged by greed profane,\nHe grasps at ill-got gain,\nAnd lays an impious hand on holiest things.\nWho when such deeds are done\nCan hope heaven's bolts to shun?\nIf sin like this to honor can aspire,\nWhy dance I still and lead the sacred choir?\n(antistrophe 2)\nNo more I'll seek earth's central oracle,\nOr Abae's hallowed cell,\nNor to Olympia bring\nMy votive offering.\nIf before all God's truth be not bade plain.\nO Zeus, reveal thy might,\nKing, if thou'rt named aright\nOmnipotent, all-seeing, as of old;\nFor Laius is forgot;\nHis weird, men heed it not;\nApollo is forsook and faith grows cold. (Enter JOCASTA.)\nJOCASTA My lords, ye look amazed to see your queen\nWith wreaths and gifts of incense in her hands.\nI had a mind to visit the high shrines,\nFor Oedipus is overwrought, alarmed\nWith terrors manifold. He will not use\nHis past experience, like a man of sense,\nTo judge the present need, but lends an ear\nTo any croaker if he augurs ill.\nSince then my counsels naught avail, I turn\nTo thee, our present help in time of trouble,\nApollo, Lord Lycean, and to thee\nMy prayers and supplications here I bring.\nLighten us, lord, and cleanse us from this curse!\nFor now we all are cowed like mariners\nWho see their helmsman dumbstruck in the storm. (Enter Corinthian\nMESSENGER.)\nMESSENGER My masters, tell me where the palace is\nOf Oedipus; or better, where's the king.\nCHORUS Here is the palace and he bides within;\nThis is his queen the mother of his children.\nMESSENGER All happiness attend her and the house,\nBlessed is her husband and her marriage-bed.\nJOCASTA My greetings to thee, stranger; thy fair words\nDeserve a like response. But tell me why\nThou comest--what thy need or what thy news.\nMESSENGER Good for thy consort and the royal house.\nJOCASTA What may it be? Whose messenger art thou?\nMESSENGER The Isthmian commons have resolved to make\nThy husband king--so 'twas reported there.\nJOCASTA What! is not aged Polybus still king?\nMESSENGER No, verily; he's dead and in his grave.\nJOCASTA What! is he dead, the sire of Oedipus?\nMESSENGER If I speak falsely, may I die myself.\nJOCASTA Quick, maiden, bear these tidings to my lord.\nYe god-sent oracles, where stand ye now!\nThis is the man whom Oedipus long shunned,\nIn dread to prove his murderer; and now\nHe dies in nature's course, not by his hand. (Enter OEDIPUS.)\nOEDIPUS My wife, my queen, Jocasta, why hast thou\nSummoned me from my palace?\nJOCASTA Hear this man,\nAnd as thou hearest judge what has become\nOf all those awe-inspiring oracles.\nOEDIPUS Who is this man, and what his news for me?\nJOCASTA He comes from Corinth and his message this:\nThy father Polybus hath passed away.\nOEDIPUS What? let me have it, stranger, from thy mouth.\nMESSENGER If I must first make plain beyond a doubt\nMy message, know that Polybus is dead.\nOEDIPUS By treachery, or by sickness visited?\nMESSENGER One touch will send an old man to his rest.\nOEDIPUS So of some malady he died, poor man.\nMESSENGER Yes, having measured the full span of years.\nOEDIPUS Out on it, lady! why should one regard\nThe Pythian hearth or birds that scream i' the air?\nDid they not point at me as doomed to slay\nMy father? but he's dead and in his grave\nAnd here am I who ne'er unsheathed a sword;\nUnless the longing for his absent son\nKilled him and so I slew him in a sense.\nBut, as they stand, the oracles are dead--\nDust, ashes, nothing, dead as Polybus.\nJOCASTA Say, did not I foretell this long ago?\nOEDIPUS Thou didst: but I was misled by my fear.\nJOCASTA Then let I no more weigh upon thy soul.\nOEDIPUS Must I not fear my mother's marriage bed.\nJOCASTA Why should a mortal man, the sport of chance,\nWith no assured foreknowledge, be afraid?\nBest live a careless life from hand to mouth.\nThis wedlock with thy mother fear not thou.\nHow oft it chances that in dreams a man\nHas wed his mother! He who least regards\nSuch brainsick phantasies lives most at ease.\nOEDIPUS I should have shared in full thy confidence,\nWere not my mother living; since she lives\nThough half convinced I still must live in dread.\nJOCASTA And yet thy sire's death lights out darkness much.\nOEDIPUS Much, but my fear is touching her who lives.\nMESSENGER Who may this woman be whom thus you fear?\nOEDIPUS Merope, stranger, wife of Polybus.\nMESSENGER And what of her can cause you any fear?\nOEDIPUS A heaven-sent oracle of dread import.\nMESSENGER A mystery, or may a stranger hear it?\nOEDIPUS Aye, 'tis no secret. Loxias once foretold\nThat I should mate with mine own mother, and shed\nWith my own hands the blood of my own sire.\nHence Corinth was for many a year to me\nA home distant; and I trove abroad,\nBut missed the sweetest sight, my parents' face.\nMESSENGER Was this the fear that exiled thee from home?\nOEDIPUS Yea, and the dread of slaying my own sire.\nMESSENGER Why, since I came to give thee pleasure, King,\nHave I not rid thee of this second fear?\nOEDIPUS Well, thou shalt have due guerdon for thy pains.\nMESSENGER Well, I confess what chiefly made me come\nWas hope to profit by thy coming home.\nOEDIPUS Nay, I will ne'er go near my parents more.\nMESSENGER My son, 'tis plain, thou know'st not what thou doest.\nOEDIPUS How so, old man? For heaven's sake tell me all.\nMESSENGER If this is why thou dreadest to return.\nOEDIPUS Yea, lest the god's word be fulfilled in me.\nMESSENGER Lest through thy parents thou shouldst be accursed?\nOEDIPUS This and none other is my constant dread.\nMESSENGER Dost thou not know thy fears are baseless all?\nOEDIPUS How baseless, if I am their very son?\nMESSENGER Since Polybus was naught to thee in blood.\nOEDIPUS What say'st thou? was not Polybus my sire?\nMESSENGER As much thy sire as I am, and no more.\nOEDIPUS My sire no more to me than one who is naught?\nMESSENGER Since I begat thee not, no more did he.\nOEDIPUS What reason had he then to call me son?\nMESSENGER Know that he took thee from my hands, a gift.\nOEDIPUS Yet, if no child of his, he loved me well.\nMESSENGER A childless man till then, he warmed to thee.\nOEDIPUS A foundling or a purchased slave, this child?\nMESSENGER I found thee in Cithaeron's wooded glens.\nOEDIPUS What led thee to explore those upland glades?\nMESSENGER My business was to tend the mountain flocks.\nOEDIPUS A vagrant shepherd journeying for hire?\nMESSENGER True, but thy savior in that hour, my son.\nOEDIPUS My savior? from what harm? what ailed me then?\nMESSENGER Those ankle joints are evidence enow.\nOEDIPUS Ah, why remind me of that ancient sore?\nMESSENGER I loosed the pin that riveted thy feet.\nOEDIPUS Yes, from my cradle that dread brand I bore.\nMESSENGER Whence thou deriv'st the name that still is thine.\nOEDIPUS Who did it? I adjure thee, tell me who\nSay, was it father, mother?\nMESSENGER I know not.\nThe man from whom I had thee may know more.\nOEDIPUS What, did another find me, not thyself?\nMESSENGER Not I; another shepherd gave thee me.\nOEDIPUS Who was he? Would'st thou know again the man?\nMESSENGER He passed indeed for one of Laius' house.\nOEDIPUS The king who ruled the country long ago?\nMESSENGER The same: he was a herdsman of the king.\nOEDIPUS And is he living still for me to see him?\nMESSENGER His fellow-countrymen should best know that.\nOEDIPUS Doth any bystander among you know\nThe herd he speaks of, or by seeing him\nAfield or in the city? answer straight!\nThe hour hath come to clear this business up.\nCHORUS Methinks he means none other than the hind\nWhom thou anon wert fain to see; but that\nOur queen Jocasta best of all could tell.\nOEDIPUS Madam, dost know the man we sent to fetch?\nIs the same of whom the stranger speaks?\nJOCASTA Who is the man? What matter? Let it be.\n'Twere waste of thought to weigh such idle words.\nOEDIPUS No, with such guiding clues I cannot fail\nTo bring to light the secret of my birth.\nJOCASTA Oh, as thou carest for thy life, give o'er\nThis quest. Enough the anguish I endure.\nOEDIPUS Be of good cheer; though I be proved the son\nOf a bondwoman, aye, through three descents\nTriply a slave, thy honor is unsmirched.\nJOCASTA Yet humor me, I pray thee; do not this.\nOEDIPUS I cannot; I must probe this matter home.\nJOCASTA 'Tis for thy sake I advise thee for the best.\nOEDIPUS I grow impatient of this best advice.\nJOCASTA Ah mayst thou ne'er discover who thou art!\nOEDIPUS Go, fetch me here the herd, and leave yon woman\nTo glory in her pride of ancestry.\nJOCASTA O woe is thee, poor wretch! With that last word\nI leave thee, henceforth silent evermore. (Exit JOCASTA.)\nCHORUS Why, Oedipus, why stung with passionate grief\nHath the queen thus departed? Much I fear\nFrom this dead calm will burst a storm of woes.\nOEDIPUS Let the storm burst, my fixed resolve still holds,\nTo learn my lineage, be it ne'er so low.\nIt may be she with all a woman's pride\nThinks scorn of my base parentage. But I\nWho rank myself as Fortune's favorite child,\nThe giver of good gifts, shall not be shamed.\nShe is my mother and the changing moons\nMy brethren, and with them I wax and wane.\nThus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth?\nNothing can make me other than I am.\nCHORUS (strophe)\nIf my soul prophetic err not, if my wisdom aught avail,\nThee, Cithaeron, I shall hail,\nAs the nurse and foster-mother of our Oedipus shall greet\nEre tomorrow's full moon rises, and exalt thee as is meet.\nDance and song shall hymn thy praises, lover of our royal race.\nPhoebus, may my words find grace!\n(antistrophe)\nChild, who bare thee, nymph or goddess? sure thy sure was more than\nman,\nHaply the hill-roamer Pan.\nOf did Loxias beget thee, for he haunts the upland wold;\nOr Cyllene's lord, or Bacchus, dweller on the hilltops cold?\nDid some Heliconian Oread give him thee, a new-born joy?\nNymphs with whom he love to toy?\nOEDIPUS Elders, if I, who never yet before\nHave met the man, may make a guess, methinks\nI see the herdsman who we long have sought;\nHis time-worn aspect matches with the years\nOf yonder aged messenger; besides\nI seem to recognize the men who bring him\nAs servants of my own. But you, perchance,\nHaving in past days known or seen the herd,\nMay better by sure knowledge my surmise.\nCHORUS I recognize him; one of Laius' house;\nA simple hind, but true as any man. (Enter HERDSMAN.)\nOEDIPUS Corinthian, stranger, I address thee first,\nIs this the man thou meanest!\nMESSENGER This is he.\nOEDIPUS And now old man, look up and answer all\nI ask thee. Wast thou once of Laius' house?\nHERDSMAN I was, a thrall, not purchased but home-bred.\nOEDIPUS What was thy business? how wast thou employed?\nHERDSMAN The best part of my life I tended sheep.\nOEDIPUS What were the pastures thou didst most frequent?\nHERDSMAN Cithaeron and the neighboring alps.\nOEDIPUS Then there\nThou must have known yon man, at least by fame?\nHERDSMAN Yon man? in what way? what man dost thou mean?\nOEDIPUS The man here, having met him in past times...\nHERDSMAN Off-hand I cannot call him well to mind.\nMESSENGER No wonder, master. But I will revive\nHis blunted memories. Sure he can recall\nWhat time together both we drove our flocks,\nHe two, I one, on the Cithaeron range,\nFor three long summers; I his mate from spring\nTill rose Arcturus; then in winter time\nI led mine home, he his to Laius' folds.\nDid these things happen as I say, or no?\nHERDSMAN 'Tis long ago, but all thou say'st is true.\nMESSENGER Well, thou mast then remember giving me\nA child to rear as my own foster-son?\nHERDSMAN Why dost thou ask this question? What of that?\nMESSENGER Friend, he that stands before thee was that child.\nHERDSMAN A plague upon thee! Hold thy wanton tongue!\nOEDIPUS Softly, old man, rebuke him not; thy words\nAre more deserving chastisement than his.\nHERDSMAN O best of masters, what is my offense?\nOEDIPUS Not answering what he asks about the child.\nHERDSMAN He speaks at random, babbles like a fool.\nOEDIPUS If thou lack'st grace to speak, I'll loose thy tongue.\nHERDSMAN For mercy's sake abuse not an old man.\nOEDIPUS Arrest the villain, seize and pinion him!\nHERDSMAN Alack, alack!\nWhat have I done? what wouldst thou further learn?\nOEDIPUS Didst give this man the child of whom he asks?\nHERDSMAN I did; and would that I had died that day!\nOEDIPUS And die thou shalt unless thou tell the truth.\nHERDSMAN But, if I tell it, I am doubly lost.\nOEDIPUS The knave methinks will still prevaricate.\nHERDSMAN Nay, I confessed I gave it long ago.\nOEDIPUS Whence came it? was it thine, or given to thee?\nHERDSMAN I had it from another, 'twas not mine.\nOEDIPUS From whom of these our townsmen, and what house?\nHERDSMAN Forbear for God's sake, master, ask no more.\nOEDIPUS If I must question thee again, thou'rt lost.\nHERDSMAN Well then--it was a child of Laius' house.\nOEDIPUS Slave-born or one of Laius' own race?\nHERDSMAN Ah me!\nI stand upon the perilous edge of speech.\nOEDIPUS And I of hearing, but I still must hear.\nHERDSMAN Know then the child was by repute his own,\nBut she within, thy consort best could tell.\nOEDIPUS What! she, she gave it thee?\nHERDSMAN 'Tis so, my king.\nOEDIPUS With what intent?\nHERDSMAN To make away with it.\nOEDIPUS What, she its mother.\nHERDSMAN Fearing a dread weird.\nOEDIPUS What weird?\nHERDSMAN 'Twas told that he should slay his sire.\nOEDIPUS What didst thou give it then to this old man?\nHERDSMAN Through pity, master, for the babe. I thought\nHe'd take it to the country whence he came;\nBut he preserved it for the worst of woes.\nFor if thou art in sooth what this man saith,\nGod pity thee! thou wast to misery born.\nOEDIPUS Ah me! ah me! all brought to pass, all true!\nO light, may I behold thee nevermore!\nI stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed,\nA parricide, incestuously, triply cursed! (Exit OEDIPUS.)\nCHORUS (strophe 1)\nRaces of mortal man\nWhose life is but a span,\nI count ye but the shadow of a shade!\nFor he who most doth know\nOf bliss, hath but the show;\nA moment, and the visions pale and fade.\nThy fall, O Oedipus, thy piteous fall\nWarns me none born of women blest to call.\n(antistrophe 1)\nFor he of marksmen best,\nO Zeus, outshot the rest,\nAnd won the prize supreme of wealth and power.\nBy him the vulture maid\nWas quelled, her witchery laid;\nHe rose our savior and the land's strong tower.\nWe hailed thee king and from that day adored\nOf mighty Thebes the universal lord.\n(strophe 2)\nO heavy hand of fate!\nWho now more desolate,\nWhose tale more sad than thine, whose lot more dire?\nO Oedipus, discrowned head,\nThy cradle was thy marriage bed;\nOne harborage sufficed for son and sire.\nHow could the soil thy father eared so long\nEndure to bear in silence such a wrong?\n(antistrophe 2)\nAll-seeing Time hath caught\nGuilt, and to justice brought\nThe son and sire commingled in one bed.\nO child of Laius' ill-starred race\nWould I had ne'er beheld thy face;\nI raise for thee a dirge as o'er the dead.\nYet, sooth to say, through thee I drew new breath,\nAnd now through thee I feel a second death. (Enter SECOND MESSENGER.)\nSECOND MESSENGER Most grave and reverend senators of Thebes,\nWhat Deeds ye soon must hear, what sights behold\nHow will ye mourn, if, true-born patriots,\nYe reverence still the race of Labdacus!\nNot Ister nor all Phasis' flood, I ween,\nCould wash away the blood-stains from this house,\nThe ills it shrouds or soon will bring to light,\nIlls wrought of malice, not unwittingly.\nThe worst to bear are self-inflicted wounds.\nCHORUS Grievous enough for all our tears and groans\nOur past calamities; what canst thou add?\nSECOND MESSENGER My tale is quickly told and quickly heard.\nOur sovereign lady queen Jocasta's dead.\nCHORUS Alas, poor queen! how came she by her death?\nSECOND MESSENGER By her own hand. And all the horror of it,\nNot having seen, yet cannot comprehend.\nNathless, as far as my poor memory serves,\nI will relate the unhappy lady's woe.\nWhen in her frenzy she had passed inside\nThe vestibule, she hurried straight to win\nThe bridal-chamber, clutching at her hair\nWith both her hands, and, once within the room,\nShe shut the doors behind her with a crash.\n\"Laius,\" she cried, and called her husband dead\nLong, long ago; her thought was of that child\nBy him begot, the son by whom the sire\nWas murdered and the mother left to breed\nWith her own seed, a monstrous progeny.\nThen she bewailed the marriage bed whereon\nPoor wretch, she had conceived a double brood,\nHusband by husband, children by her child.\nWhat happened after that I cannot tell,\nNor how the end befell, for with a shriek\nBurst on us Oedipus; all eyes were fixed\nOn Oedipus, as up and down he strode,\nNor could we mark her agony to the end.\nFor stalking to and fro \"A sword!\" he cried,\n\"Where is the wife, no wife, the teeming womb\nThat bore a double harvest, me and mine?\"\nAnd in his frenzy some supernal power\n(No mortal, surely, none of us who watched him)\nGuided his footsteps; with a terrible shriek,\nAs though one beckoned him, he crashed against\nThe folding doors, and from their staples forced\nThe wrenched bolts and hurled himself within.\nThen we beheld the woman hanging there,\nA running noose entwined about her neck.\nBut when he saw her, with a maddened roar\nHe loosed the cord; and when her wretched corpse\nLay stretched on earth, what followed--O 'twas dread!\nHe tore the golden brooches that upheld\nHer queenly robes, upraised them high and smote\nFull on his eye-balls, uttering words like these:\n\"No more shall ye behold such sights of woe,\nDeeds I have suffered and myself have wrought;\nHenceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see\nThose ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those\nWhom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know.\"\nSuch was the burden of his moan, whereto,\nNot once but oft, he struck with his hand uplift\nHis eyes, and at each stroke the ensanguined orbs\nBedewed his beard, not oozing drop by drop,\nBut one black gory downpour, thick as hail.\nSuch evils, issuing from the double source,\nHave whelmed them both, confounding man and wife.\nTill now the storied fortune of this house\nWas fortunate indeed; but from this day\nWoe, lamentation, ruin, death, disgrace,\nAll ills that can be named, all, all are theirs.\nCHORUS But hath he still no respite from his pain?\nSECOND MESSENGER He cries, \"Unbar the doors and let all Thebes\nBehold the slayer of his sire, his mother's--\"\nThat shameful word my lips may not repeat.\nHe vows to fly self-banished from the land,\nNor stay to bring upon his house the curse\nHimself had uttered; but he has no strength\nNor one to guide him, and his torture's more\nThan man can suffer, as yourselves will see.\nFor lo, the palace portals are unbarred,\nAnd soon ye shall behold a sight so sad\nThat he who must abhorred would pity it. (Enter OEDIPUS blinded.)\nCHORUS Woeful sight! more woeful none\nThese sad eyes have looked upon.\nWhence this madness? None can tell\nWho did cast on thee his spell, prowling all thy life around,\nLeaping with a demon bound.\nHapless wretch! how can I brook\nOn thy misery to look?\nThough to gaze on thee I yearn,\nMuch to question, much to learn,\nHorror-struck away I turn.\nOEDIPUS Ah me! ah woe is me!\nAh whither am I borne!\nHow like a ghost forlorn\nMy voice flits from me on the air!\nOn, on the demon goads. The end, ah where?\nCHORUS An end too dread to tell, too dark to see.\nOEDIPUS (strophe 1)\nDark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud,\nWraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.\nAh me, ah me! What spasms athwart me shoot,\nWhat pangs of agonizing memory?\nCHORUS No marvel if in such a plight thou feel'st\nThe double weight of past and present woes.\nOEDIPUS (antistrophe 1)\nAh friend, still loyal, constant still and kind,\nThou carest for the blind.\nI know thee near, and though bereft of eyes,\nThy voice I recognize.\nCHORUS O doer of dread deeds, how couldst thou mar\nThy vision thus? What demon goaded thee?\nOEDIPUS (strophe 2)\nApollo, friend, Apollo, he it was\nThat brought these ills to pass;\nBut the right hand that dealt the blow\nWas mine, none other. How,\nHow, could I longer see when sight\nBrought no delight?\nCHORUS Alas! 'tis as thou sayest.\nOEDIPUS Say, friends, can any look or voice\nOr touch of love henceforth my heart rejoice?\nHaste, friends, no fond delay,\nTake the twice cursed away\nFar from all ken,\nThe man abhorred of gods, accursed of men.\nCHORUS O thy despair well suits thy desperate case.\nWould I had never looked upon thy face!\nOEDIPUS (antistrophe 2)\nMy curse on him whoe'er unrived\nThe waif's fell fetters and my life revived!\nHe meant me well, yet had he left me there,\nHe had saved my friends and me a world of care.\nCHORUS I too had wished it so.\nOEDIPUS Then had I never come to shed\nMy father's blood nor climbed my mother's bed;\nThe monstrous offspring of a womb defiled,\nCo-mate of him who gendered me, and child.\nWas ever man before afflicted thus,\nLike Oedipus.\nCHORUS I cannot say that thou hast counseled well,\nFor thou wert better dead than living blind.\nOEDIPUS What's done was well done. Thou canst never shake\nMy firm belief. A truce to argument.\nFor, had I sight, I know not with what eyes\nI could have met my father in the shades,\nOr my poor mother, since against the twain\nI sinned, a sin no gallows could atone.\nAye, but, ye say, the sight of children joys\nA parent's eyes. What, born as mine were born?\nNo, such a sight could never bring me joy;\nNor this fair city with its battlements,\nIts temples and the statues of its gods,\nSights from which I, now wretchedst of all,\nOnce ranked the foremost Theban in all Thebes,\nBy my own sentence am cut off, condemned\nBy my own proclamation 'gainst the wretch,\nThe miscreant by heaven itself declared\nUnclean--and of the race of Laius.\nThus branded as a felon by myself,\nHow had I dared to look you in the face?\nNay, had I known a way to choke the springs\nOf hearing, I had never shrunk to make\nA dungeon of this miserable frame,\nCut off from sight and hearing; for 'tis bliss to bide in regions\nsorrow cannot reach.\nWhy didst thou harbor me, Cithaeron, why\nDidst thou not take and slay me? Then I never\nHad shown to men the secret of my birth.\nO Polybus, O Corinth, O my home,\nHome of my ancestors (so wast thou called)\nHow fair a nursling then I seemed, how foul\nThe canker that lay festering in the bud!\nNow is the blight revealed of root and fruit.\nYe triple high-roads, and thou hidden glen,\nCoppice, and pass where meet the three-branched ways,\nYe drank my blood, the life-blood these hands spilt,\nMy father's; do ye call to mind perchance\nThose deeds of mine ye witnessed and the work\nI wrought thereafter when I came to Thebes?\nO fatal wedlock, thou didst give me birth,\nAnd, having borne me, sowed again my seed,\nMingling the blood of fathers, brothers, children,\nBrides, wives and mothers, an incestuous brood,\nAll horrors that are wrought beneath the sun,\nHorrors so foul to name them were unmeet.\nO, I adjure you, hide me anywhere\nFar from this land, or slay me straight, or cast me\nDown to the depths of ocean out of sight.\nCome hither, deign to touch an abject wretch;\nDraw near and fear not; I myself must bear\nThe load of guilt that none but I can share. (Enter CREON.)\nCREON Lo, here is Creon, the one man to grant\nThy prayer by action or advice, for he\nIs left the State's sole guardian in thy stead.\nOEDIPUS Ah me! what words to accost him can I find?\nWhat cause has he to trust me? In the past\nI have bee proved his rancorous enemy.\nCREON Not in derision, Oedipus, I come\nNor to upbraid thee with thy past misdeeds. (To BYSTANDERS.) But\nshame upon you! if ye feel no sense\nOf human decencies, at least revere\nThe Sun whose light beholds and nurtures all.\nLeave not thus nakedly for all to gaze at\nA horror neither earth nor rain from heaven\nNor light will suffer. Lead him straight within,\nFor it is seemly that a kinsman's woes\nBe heard by kin and seen by kin alone.\nOEDIPUS O listen, since thy presence comes to me\nA shock of glad surprise--so noble thou,\nAnd I so vile--O grant me one small boon.\nI ask it not on my behalf, but thine.\nCREON And what the favor thou wouldst crave of me?\nOEDIPUS Forth from thy borders thrust me with all speed;\nSet me within some vasty desert where\nNo mortal voice shall greet me any more.\nCREON This had I done already, but I deemed\nIt first behooved me to consult the god.\nOEDIPUS His will was set forth fully--to destroy\nThe parricide, the scoundrel; and I am he.\nCREON Yea, so he spake, but in our present plight\n'Twere better to consult the god anew.\nOEDIPUS Dare ye inquire concerning such a wretch?\nCREON Yea, for thyself wouldst credit now his word.\nOEDIPUS Aye, and on thee in all humility\nI lay this charge: let her who lies within\nReceive such burial as thou shalt ordain;\nSuch rites 'tis thine, as brother, to perform.\nBut for myself, O never let my Thebes,\nThe city of my sires, be doomed to bear\nThe burden of my presence while I live.\nNo, let me be a dweller on the hills,\nOn yonder mount Cithaeron, famed as mine,\nMy tomb predestined for me by my sire\nAnd mother, while they lived, that I may die\nSlain as they sought to slay me, when alive.\nThis much I know full surely, nor disease\nShall end my days, nor any common chance;\nFor I had ne'er been snatched from death, unless\nI was predestined to some awful doom.\nSo be it. I reck not how Fate deals with me\nBut my unhappy children--for my sons\nBe not concerned, O Creon, they are men,\nAnd for themselves, where'er they be, can fend.\nBut for my daughters twain, poor innocent maids,\nWho ever sat beside me at the board\nSharing my viands, drinking of my cup,\nFor them, I pray thee, care, and, if thou willst,\nO might I feel their touch and make my moan.\nHear me, O prince, my noble-hearted prince!\nCould I but blindly touch them with my hands\nI'd think they still were mine, as when I saw. (ANTIGONE and ISMENE\nare led in.) What say I? can it be my pretty ones\nWhose sobs I hear? Has Creon pitied me\nAnd sent me my two darlings? Can this be?\nCREON 'Tis true; 'twas I procured thee this delight,\nKnowing the joy they were to thee of old.\nOEDIPUS God speed thee! and as meed for bringing them\nMay Providence deal with thee kindlier\nThan it has dealt with me! O children mine,\nWhere are ye? Let me clasp you with these hands,\nA brother's hands, a father's; hands that made\nLack-luster sockets of his once bright eyes;\nHands of a man who blindly, recklessly,\nBecame your sire by her from whom he sprang.\nThough I cannot behold you, I must weep\nIn thinking of the evil days to come,\nThe slights and wrongs that men will put upon you.\nWhere'er ye go to feast or festival,\nNo merrymaking will it prove for you,\nBut oft abashed in tears ye will return.\nAnd when ye come to marriageable years,\nWhere's the bold wooers who will jeopardize\nTo take unto himself such disrepute\nAs to my children's children still must cling,\nFor what of infamy is lacking here?\n\"Their father slew his father, sowed the seed\nWhere he himself was gendered, and begat\nThese maidens at the source wherefrom he sprang.\"\nSuch are the gibes that men will cast at you.\nWho then will wed you? None, I ween, but ye\nMust pine, poor maids, in single barrenness.\nO Prince, Menoeceus' son, to thee, I turn,\nWith the it rests to father them, for we\nTheir natural parents, both of us, are lost.\nO leave them not to wander poor, unwed,\nThy kin, nor let them share my low estate.\nO pity them so young, and but for thee\nAll destitute. Thy hand upon it, Prince.\nTo you, my children I had much to say,\nWere ye but ripe to hear. Let this suffice:\nPray ye may find some home and live content,\nAnd may your lot prove happier than your sire's.\nCREON Thou hast had enough of weeping; pass within.\nOEDIPUS I must obey,\nThough 'tis grievous.\nCREON Weep not, everything must have its day.\nOEDIPUS Well I go, but on conditions.\nCREON What thy terms for going, say.\nOEDIPUS Send me from the land an exile.\nCREON Ask this of the gods, not me.\nOEDIPUS But I am the gods' abhorrence.\nCREON Then they soon will grant thy plea.\nOEDIPUS Lead me hence, then, I am willing.\nCREON Come, but let thy children go.\nOEDIPUS Rob me not of these my children!\nCREON Crave not mastery in all,\nFor the mastery that raised thee was thy bane and wrought thy fall.\nCHORUS Look ye, countrymen and Thebans, this is Oedipus the great,\nHe who knew the Sphinx's riddle and was mightiest in our state.\nWho of all our townsmen gazed not on his fame with envious eyes?\nNow, in what a sea of troubles sunk and overwhelmed he lies!\nTherefore wait to see life's ending ere thou count one mortal blest;\nWait till free from pain and sorrow he has gained his final rest.\nTHE END","title":"Oedipus the King","type":"page"}