Oedipus the King by Sophocles - HTML preview

  

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

 

Oedipus.

The Priest of Zeus.

Creon.

Chorus of Theban Elders.

Teiresias.

Jocasta.

Messenger.

Herd of Laius.

Second Messenger.

 

Scene:  Thebes.  Before the Palace of Oedipus.

 

Suppliants of all ages are seated round the altar at the palace doors, at their head a PRIEST OF ZEUS.  To them enter OEDIPUS.

 

OEDIPUS

My children, latest born to Cadmus old,

Why sit ye here as suppliants, in your hands

Branches of olive filleted with wool?

What means this reek of incense everywhere,

And everywhere laments and litanies?

Children, it were not meet that I should learn

From others, and am hither come, myself,

I Oedipus, your world-renowned king.

Ho! aged sire, whose venerable locks

Proclaim thee spokesman of this company,

Explain your mood and purport.  Is it dread

Of ill that moves you or a boon ye crave?

My zeal in your behalf ye cannot doubt;

Ruthless indeed were I and obdurate

If such petitioners as you I spurned.

 

PRIEST

Yea, Oedipus, my sovereign lord and king,

Thou seest how both extremes of age besiege

Thy palace altars--fledglings hardly winged,

and greybeards bowed with years; priests, as am I

of Zeus, and these the flower of our youth.

Meanwhile, the common folk, with wreathed boughs

Crowd our two market-places, or before

Both shrines of Pallas congregate, or where

Ismenus gives his oracles by fire.

For, as thou seest thyself, our ship of State,

Sore buffeted, can no more lift her head,

Foundered beneath a weltering surge of blood.

A blight is on our harvest in the ear,

A blight upon the grazing flocks and herds,

A blight on wives in travail; and withal

Armed with his blazing torch the God of Plague

Hath swooped upon our city emptying

The house of Cadmus, and the murky realm

Of Pluto is full fed with groans and tears.

     Therefore, O King, here at thy hearth we sit,

I and these children; not as deeming thee

A new divinity, but the first of men;

First in the common accidents of life,

And first in visitations of the Gods.

Art thou not he who coming to the town

of Cadmus freed us from the tax we paid

To the fell songstress?  Nor hadst thou received

Prompting from us or been by others schooled;

No, by a god inspired (so all men deem,

And testify) didst thou renew our life.

And now, O Oedipus, our peerless king,

All we thy votaries beseech thee, find

Some succor, whether by a voice from heaven

Whispered, or haply known by human wit.

Tried counselors, methinks, are aptest found [1]

To furnish for the future pregnant rede.

Upraise, O chief of men, upraise our State!

Look to thy laurels! for thy zeal of yore

Our country's savior thou art justly hailed:

O never may we thus record thy reign:--

"He raised us up only to cast us down."

Uplift us, build our city on a rock.

Thy happy star ascendant brought us luck,

O let it not decline!  If thou wouldst rule

This land, as now thou reignest, better sure

To rule a peopled than a desert realm.

Nor battlements nor galleys aught avail,

If men to man and guards to guard them tail.

 

OEDIPUS

Ah! my poor children, known, ah, known too well,

The quest that brings you hither and your need.

Ye sicken all, well wot I, yet my pain,

How great soever yours, outtops it all.

Your sorrow touches each man severally,

Him and none other, but I grieve at once

Both for the general and myself and you.

Therefore ye rouse no sluggard from day-dreams.

Many, my children, are the tears I've wept,

And threaded many a maze of weary thought.

Thus pondering one clue of hope I caught,

And tracked it up; I have sent Menoeceus' son,

Creon, my consort's brother, to inquire

Of Pythian Phoebus at his Delphic shrine,

How I might save the State by act or word.

And now I reckon up the tale of days

Since he set forth, and marvel how he fares.

'Tis strange, this endless tarrying, passing strange.

But when he comes, then I were base indeed,

If I perform not all the god declares.

 

PRIEST

Thy words are well timed; even as thou speakest

That shouting tells me Creon is at hand.

 

OEDIPUS

O King Apollo! may his joyous looks

Be presage of the joyous news he brings!

 

PRIEST

As I surmise, 'tis welcome; else his head

Had scarce been crowned with berry-laden bays.

 

OEDIPUS

We soon shall know; he's now in earshot range.

[Enter CREON]

My royal cousin, say, Menoeceus' child,

What message hast thou brought us from the god?

 

CREON

Good news, for e'en intolerable ills,

Finding right issue, tend to naught but good.

 

OEDIPUS

How runs the oracle? thus far thy words

Give me no ground for confidence or fear.

 

CREON

If thou wouldst hear my message publicly,

I'll tell thee straight, or with thee pass within.

 

OEDIPUS

Speak before all; the burden that I bear

Is more for these my subjects than myself.

 

CREON

Let me report then all the god declared.

King Phoebus bids us straitly extirpate

A fell pollution that infests the land,

And no more harbor an inveterate sore.

 

OEDIPUS

What expiation means he?  What's amiss?

 

CREON

Banishment, or the shedding blood for blood.

This stain of blood makes shipwreck of our state.

 

OEDIPUS

Whom can he mean, the miscreant thus denounced?

 

CREON

Before thou didst assume the helm of State,

The sovereign of this land was Laius.

 

OEDIPUS

I heard as much, but never saw the man.

 

CREON

He fell; and now the god's command is plain:

Punish his takers-off, whoe'er they be.

 

OEDIPUS

Where are they?  Where in the wide world to find

The far, faint traces of a bygone crime?

 

CREON

In this land, said the god; "who seeks shall find;

Who sits with folded hands or sleeps is blind."

 

OEDIPUS

Was he within his palace, or afield,

Or traveling, when Laius met his fate?

 

CREON

Abroad; he started, so he told us, bound

For Delphi, but he never thence returned.

 

OEDIPUS

Came there no news, no fellow-traveler

To give some clue that might be followed up?

 

CREON

But one escape, who flying for dear life,

Could tell of all he saw but one thing sure.

 

OEDIPUS

And what was that?  One clue might lead us far,

With but a spark of hope to guide our quest.

 

CREON

Robbers, he told us, not one bandit but

A troop of knaves, attacked and murdered him.

 

OEDIPUS

Did any bandit dare so bold a stroke,

Unless indeed he were suborned from Thebes?

 

CREON

So 'twas surmised, but none was found to avenge

His murder mid the trouble that ensued.

 

OEDIPUS

What trouble can have hindered a full quest,

When royalty had fallen thus miserably?

 

CREON

The riddling Sphinx compelled us to let slide

The dim past and attend to instant needs.

 

OEDIPUS

Well, I will start afresh and once again

Make dark things clear.  Right worthy the concern

Of Phoebus, worthy thine too, for the dead;

I also, as is meet, will lend my aid

To avenge this wrong to Thebes and to the god.

Not for some far-off kinsman, but myself,

Shall I expel this poison in the blood;

For whoso slew that king might have a mind

To strike me too with his assassin hand.

Therefore in righting him I serve myself.

Up, children, haste ye, quit these altar stairs,

Take hence your suppliant wands, go summon hither

The Theban commons.  With the god's good help

Success is sure; 'tis ruin if we fail.

[Exeunt OEDIPUS and CREON]

 

PRIEST

Come, children, let us hence; these gracious words

Forestall the very purpose of our suit.

And may the god who sent this oracle

Save us withal and rid us of this pest.

[Exeunt PRIEST and SUPPLIANTS]

 

CHORUS

(Str. 1)

Sweet-voiced daughter of Zeus from thy gold-paved Pythian shrine

          Wafted to Thebes divine,

What dost thou bring me?  My soul is racked and shivers with fear.

          (Healer of Delos, hear!)

Hast thou some pain unknown before,

Or with the circling years renewest a penance of yore?

Offspring of golden Hope, thou voice immortal, O tell me.

 

(Ant. 1)

First on Athene I call; O Zeus-born goddess, defend!

          Goddess and sister, befriend,

Artemis, Lady of Thebes, high-throned in the midst of our mart!

          Lord of the death-winged dart!

            Your threefold aid I crave

     From death and ruin our city to save.

If in the days of old when we nigh had perished, ye drave

From our land the fiery plague, be near us now and defend us!

 

(Str. 2)

     Ah me, what countless woes are mine!

     All our host is in decline;

     Weaponless my spirit lies.

     Earth her gracious fruits denies;

     Women wail in barren throes;

     Life on life downstriken goes,

     Swifter than the wind bird's flight,

     Swifter than the Fire-God's might,

     To the westering shores of Night.

 

(Ant. 2)

     Wasted thus by death on death

     All our city perisheth.

     Corpses spread infection round;

     None to tend or mourn is found.

     Wailing on the altar stair

     Wives and grandams rend the air--

     Long-drawn moans and piercing cries

     Blent with prayers and litanies.

     Golden child of Zeus, O hear

     Let thine angel face appear!

 

(Str. 3)

And grant that Ares whose hot breath I feel,

          Though without targe or steel

He stalks, whose voice is as the battle shout,

May turn in sudden rout,

To the unharbored Thracian waters sped,

          Or Amphitrite's bed.

     For what night leaves undone,

     Smit by the morrow's sun

Perisheth.  Father Zeus, whose hand

Doth wield the lightning brand,

Slay him beneath thy levin bold, we pray,

          Slay him, O slay!

  

(Ant. 3)

O that thine arrows too, Lycean King,

          From that taut bow's gold string,

Might fly abroad, the champions of our rights;

          Yea, and the flashing lights

Of Artemis, wherewith the huntress sweeps

          Across the Lycian steeps.

Thee too I call with golden-snooded hair,

          Whose name our land doth bear,

Bacchus to whom thy Maenads Evoe shout;

          Come with thy bright torch, rout,

               Blithe god whom we adore,

               The god whom gods abhor.

[Enter OEDIPUS.]

 

OEDIPUS

Ye pray; 'tis well, but would ye hear my words

And heed them and apply the remedy,

Ye might perchance find comfort and relief.

Mind you, I speak as one who comes a stranger

To this report, no less than to the crime;

For how unaided could I track it far

Without a clue?  Which lacking (for too late

Was I enrolled a citizen of Thebes)

This proclamation I address to all:--

Thebans, if any knows the man by whom

Laius, son of Labdacus, was slain,

I summon him to make clean shrift to me.

And if he shrinks, let him reflect that thus

Confessing he shall 'scape the capital charge;

For the worst penalty that shall befall him

Is banishment--unscathed he shall depart.

But if an alien from a foreign land

Be known to any as the murderer,

Let him who knows speak out, and he shall have

Due recompense from me and thanks to boot.

But if ye still keep silence, if through fear

For self or friends ye disregard my hest,

Hear what I then resolve; I lay my ban

On the assassin whosoe'er he be.

Let no man in this land, whereof I hold

The sovereign rule, harbor or speak to him;

Give him no part in prayer or sacrifice

Or lustral rites, but hound him from your homes.

For this is our defilement, so the god

Hath lately shown to me by oracles.

Thus as their champion I maintain the cause

Both of the god and of the murdered King.

And on the murderer this curse I lay

(On him and all the partners in his guilt):--

Wretch, may he pine in utter wretchedness!

And for myself, if with my privity

He gain admittance to my hearth, I pray

The curse I laid on others fall on me.

See that ye give effect to all my hest,

For my sake and the god's and for our land,

A desert blasted by the wrath of heaven.

For, let alone the god's express command,

It were a scandal ye should leave unpurged

The murder of a great man and your king,

Nor track it home.  And now that I am lord,

Successor to his throne, his bed, his wife,

(And had he not been frustrate in the hope

Of issue, common children of one womb

Had forced a closer bond twixt him and me,

But Fate swooped down upon him), therefore I

His blood-avenger will maintain his cause

As though he were my sire, and leave no stone

Unturned to track the assassin or avenge

The son of Labdacus, of Polydore,

Of Cadmus, and Agenor first of the race.

And for the disobedient thus I pray:

May the gods send them neither timely fruits

Of earth, nor teeming increase of the womb,

But may they waste and pine, as now they waste,

Aye and worse stricken; but to all of you,

My loyal subjects who approve my acts,

May Justice, our ally, and all the gods

Be gracious and attend you evermore.

 

CHORUS

The oath thou profferest, sire, I take and swear.

I slew him not myself, nor can I name

The slayer.  For the quest, 'twere well, methinks

That Phoebus, who proposed the riddle, himself

Should give the answer--who the murderer was.

 

OEDIPUS

Well argued; but no living man can hope

To force the gods to speak against their will.

 

CHORUS

May I then say what seems next best to me?

 

OEDIPUS

Aye, if there be a third best, tell it too.

 

CHORUS

My liege, if any man sees eye to eye

With our lord Phoebus, 'tis our prophet, lord

Teiresias; he of all men best might guide

A searcher of this matter to the light.

 

OEDIPUS

Here too my zeal has nothing lagged, for twice

At Creon's instance have I sent to fetch him,

And long I marvel why he is not here.

 

CHORUS

I mind me too of rumors long ago--

Mere gossip.

 

OEDIPUS

Tell them, I would fain know all.

 

CHORUS

'Twas said he fell by travelers.

 

OEDIPUS

       So I heard,

But none has seen the man who saw him fall.

 

CHORUS

Well, if he knows what fear is, he will quail

And flee before the terror of thy curse.

 

OEDIPUS

Words scare not him who blenches not at deeds.

 

CHORUS

But here is one to arraign him.  Lo, at length

They bring the god-inspired seer in whom

Above all other men is truth inborn.

[Enter TEIRESIAS, led by a boy.]

 

OEDIPUS

Teiresias, seer who comprehendest all,

Lore of the wise and hidden mysteries,

High things of heaven and low things of the earth,

Thou knowest, though thy blinded eyes see naught,

What plague infects our city; and we turn

To thee, O seer, our one defense and shield.

The purport of the answer that the God

Returned to us who sought his oracle,

The messengers have doubtless told thee--how

One course alone could rid us of the pest,

To find the murderers of Laius,

And slay them or expel them from the land.

Therefore begrudging neither augury

Nor other divination that is thine,

O save thyself, thy country, and thy king,

Save all from this defilement of blood shed.

On thee we rest.  This is man's highest end,

To others' service all his powers to lend.

 

TEIRESIAS

Alas, alas, what misery to be wise

When wisdom profits nothing!  This old lore

I had forgotten; else I were not here.

 

OEDIPUS

What ails thee?  Why this melancholy mood?

 

TEIRESIAS

Let me go home; prevent me not; 'twere best

That thou shouldst bear thy burden and I mine.

 

OEDIPUS

For shame! no true-born Theban patriot

Would thus withhold the word of prophecy.

 

TEIRESIAS

Thy  words, O king, are wide of the mark, and I

For fear lest I too trip like thee...

 

OEDIPUS

Oh speak,

Withhold not, I adjure thee, if thou know'st,

Thy knowledge.  We are all thy suppliants.

 

TEIRESIAS

Aye, for ye all are witless, but my voice

Will ne'er reveal my miseries--or thine. [2]

 

OEDIPUS

What then, thou knowest, and yet willst not speak!

Wouldst thou betray us and destroy the State?

 

TEIRESIAS

I will not vex myself nor thee.  Why ask

Thus idly what from me thou shalt not learn?

 

OEDIPUS

Monster! thy silence would incense a flint.

Will nothing loose thy tongue?  Can nothing melt thee,

Or shake thy dogged taciturnity?

 

TEIRESIAS

Thou blam'st my mood and seest not thine own

Wherewith thou art mated; no, thou taxest me.

 

OEDIPUS

And who could stay his choler when he heard

How insolently thou dost flout the State?

 

TEIRESIAS

Well, it will come what will, though I be mute.

 

OEDIPUS

Since come it must, thy duty is to tell me.

 

TEIRESIAS

I have no more to say; storm as thou willst,

And give the rein to all thy pent-up rage.

 

OEDIPUS

Yea, I am wroth, and will not stint my words,

But speak my whole mind.  Thou methinks thou art he,

Who planned the crime, aye, and performed it too,

All save the assassination; and if thou

Hadst not been blind, I had been sworn to boot

That thou alone didst do the bloody deed.

 

TEIRESIAS

Is it so?  Then I charge thee to abide

By thine own proclamation; from this day

Speak not to these or me.  Thou art the man,

Thou the accursed polluter of this land.

 

OEDIPUS

Vile slanderer, thou blurtest forth these taunts,

And think'st forsooth as seer to go scot free.

 

TEIRESIAS

Yea, I am free, strong in the strength of truth.

 

OEDIPUS

Who was thy teacher? not methinks thy art.

 

TEIRESIAS

Thou, goading me against my will to speak.

 

OEDIPUS

What speech? repeat it and resolve my doubt.

 

TEIRESIAS

Didst miss my sense wouldst thou goad me on?

 

OEDIPUS

I but half caught thy meaning; say it again.

 

TEIRESIAS

I say thou art the murderer of the man

Whose murderer thou pursuest.

 

OEDIPUS

Thou shalt rue it

Twice to repeat so gross a calumny.

 

TEIRESIAS

Must I say more to aggravate thy rage?

 

OEDIPUS

Say all thou wilt; it will be but waste of breath.

 

TEIRESIAS

I say thou livest with thy nearest kin

In infamy, unwitting in thy shame.

 

OEDIPUS

Think'st thou for aye unscathed to wag thy tongue?

 

TEIRESIAS

Yea, if the might of truth can aught prevail.

 

OEDIPUS

With other men, but not with thee, for thou

In ear, wit, eye, in everything art blind.

 

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