Oedipus Rex

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.

TEIRESIAS. Poor fool to utter gibes at me which all Here present will cast back on thee ere long.

OEDIPUS. Offspring of endless Night, thou hast no power O’er me or any man who sees the sun.

TEIRESIAS. No, for thy weird is not to fall by me. I leave to Apollo what concerns the god.

OEDIPUS. Is this a plot of Creon, or thine own?

TEIRESIAS. Not Creon, thou thyself art thine own bane.

OEDIPUS. O wealth and empiry and skill by skill Outwitted in the battlefield of life, What spite and envy follow in your train! See, for this crown the State conferred on me. A gift, a thing I sought not, for this crown The trusty Creon, my familiar friend, Hath lain in wait to oust me and suborned This mountebank, this juggling charlatan, This tricksy beggar-priest, for gain alone Keen-eyed, but in his proper art stone-blind. Say, sirrah, hast thou ever proved thyself A prophet? When the riddling Sphinx was here Why hadst thou no deliverance for this folk? And yet the riddle was not to be solved By guess-work but required the prophet’s art; Wherein thou wast found lacking; neither birds Nor sign from heaven helped thee, but I came, The simple Oedipus; I stopped her mouth By mother wit, untaught of auguries. This is the man whom thou wouldst undermine, In hope to reign with Creon in my stead. Methinks that thou and thine abettor soon Will rue your plot to drive the scapegoat out. Thank thy grey hairs that thou hast still to learn What chastisement such arrogance deserves.

CHORUS. To us it seems that both the seer and thou, O Oedipus, have spoken angry words. This is no time to wrangle but consult How best we may fulfill the oracle.

TEIRESIAS. King as thou art, free speech at least is mine To make reply; in this I am thy peer. I own no lord but Loxias; him I serve And ne’er can stand enrolled as Creon’s man. Thus then I answer: since thou hast not spared To twit me with my blindness—thou hast eyes, Yet see’st not in what misery thou art fallen, Nor where thou dwellest nor with whom for mate. Dost know thy lineage? Nay, thou know’st it not, And all unwitting art a double foe To thine own kin, the living and the dead; Aye and the dogging curse of mother and sire One day shall drive thee, like a two-edged sword, Beyond our borders, and the eyes that now See clear shall henceforward endless night. Ah whither shall thy bitter cry not reach, What crag in all Cithaeron but shall then Reverberate thy wail, when thou hast found With what a hymeneal thou wast borne Home, but to no fair haven, on the gale! Aye, and a flood of ills thou guessest not Shall set thyself and children in one line. Flout then both Creon and my words, for none Of mortals shall be striken worse than thou.

OEDIPUS. Must I endure this fellow’s insolence? A murrain on thee! Get thee hence! Begone Avaunt! and never cross my threshold more.

TEIRESIAS. I ne’er had come hadst thou not bidden me.

OEDIPUS. I know not thou wouldst utter folly, else Long hadst thou waited to be summoned here.

TEIRESIAS. Such am I—as it seems to thee a fool, But to the parents who begat thee, wise.

OEDIPUS. What sayest thou—“parents”? Who begat me, speak?

TEIRESIAS. This day shall be thy birth-day, and thy grave.

OEDIPUS. Thou lov’st to speak in riddles and dark words.

TEIRESIAS. In reading riddles who so skilled as thou?

OEDIPUS. Twit me with that wherein my greatness lies.

TEIRESIAS. And yet this very greatness proved thy bane.

OEDIPUS. No matter if I saved the commonwealth.

TEIRESIAS. ’Tis time I left thee. Come, boy, take me home.

OEDIPUS. Aye, take him quickly, for his presence irks And lets me; gone, thou canst not plague me more.

TEIRESIAS. I go, but first will tell thee why I came. Thy frown I dread not, for thou canst not harm me. Hear then: this man whom thou hast sought to arrest With threats and warrants this long while, the wretch Who murdered Laius—that man is here. He passes for an alien in the land But soon shall prove a Theban, native born. And yet his fortune brings him little joy; For blind of seeing, clad in beggar’s weeds, For purple robes, and leaning on his staff, To a strange land he soon shall grope his way. And of the children, inmates of his home, He shall be proved the brother and the sire, Of her who bare him son and husband both, Co-partner, and assassin of his sire. Go in and ponder this, and if thou find That I have missed the mark, henceforth declare I have no wit nor skill in prophecy. [Exeunt TEIRESIAS and OEDIPUS]