Oedipus Tyrannus

1The chorus of Theban elders enters. Chorus O sweetly-speaking message of Zeus, in what spirit have you come to glorious Thebes from golden Pytho? I am on the rack, terror shakes my soul, O Delian healer to whom wild cries rise, in holy fear of you, wondering what debt you will extract from me, perhaps unknown before, perhaps renewed with the revolving years. Tell me, immortal Voice, child of golden Hope.

1Chorus First I call on you, daughter of Zeus, immortal Athena, and on your sister, Artemis, guardian of our earth, who sits on her glorious throne above the circle of our market-place, and on far-shooting Apollo: oh shine forth for me, my three-fold help against death! If ever before you drove a fiery pest from our borders to stop ruin rushing upon our city, come now also!

2Chorus Alas, countless are the sorrows I bear. A plague is on all our people, and thought can find no weapon for defense. The fruits of the glorious earth do not grow; by no birth of offspring do women surmount the pangs in which they shriek. You can see life after life speed away, like a bird on the wing, swifter than irresistible fire, to the shore of the western god.

2Chorus With such deaths, past numbering, the city perishes. Unpitied, her children lie on the ground, spreading pestilence, with no one to mourn them. Meanwhile young wives and grey-haired mothers raise a wail at the steps of the altars, some here, some there, and groan in supplication for their terrible woes. The prayers to the Healer ring clear, and with them the voice of lamentation. For which things, golden daughter of Zeus, send us the bright face of comfort.

3Chorus Grant that the fierce god of death, who now without the bronze of shields, though among cries like those of battle, wraps me in the flames of his onset, may turn his back in speedy flight from our land, borne by a favorable wind to the great chamber of Amphitrite, or to the Thracian waves, those waters where none find haven. For if night leaves anything undone in the working of destruction, day follows to accomplish it. You who wield the powers of fiery lightning, Zeus our father, slay him beneath your thunder-bolt.

3Chorus Lycean Lord, would that the shafts from your bent bow’s string of woven gold might go forth in their might, our champions in the face of the foe, and the flashing fires of Artemis too, with which she darts through the Lycian hills. I call him whose locks are bound with gold, who is named with the name of this land, ruddy Bacchus to whom Bacchants cry, to draw near with the blaze of his shining torch, our ally against the god unhonored among the gods.

1Chorus Who is he of whom the divine voice from the Delphian rock has said to have wrought with blood-red hands horrors that no tongue can tell? It is time that he ply in flight a foot stronger than the feet of storm-swift steeds. The son of Zeus is springing upon him with fiery lightning, and with him come the dread unerring Fates.

1Chorus Recently the message has flashed forth from snowy Parnassus ordering all to search for the unknown man. He wanders under cover of the wild wood, among caves and rocks, fierce as a bull, wretched and forlorn on his joyless path, still seeking to separate himself from the doom revealed at the central shrine of the earth. But that doom lives forever, forever flits around him.

2Chorus The wise augur moves me, neither approving nor denying, with dread, with dread indeed. I am at a loss what to say. I am flustered in my expectations, seeing neither the present nor the future clearly. Never in past days or in these have I heard how the house of Labdacus or the son of Polybus had any quarrel with one another that I could bring as proof in assailing the public reputation of Oedipus, seeking to avenge the line of Labdacus for the undiscovered murder.

2Chorus Zeus and Apollo indeed are keen of thought and know the affairs of the earth. But there is no sure test of whether a mortal seer attains more knowledge than I do, though man may surpass man in wisdom. But until I see the word made good, I will never assent when men blame Oedipus. Before all eyes the winged maiden came against him once upon a time, and he was seen to be wise, and bore the test in welcome service to the state. Never, therefore, will he be adjudged guilty of evil.

1Chorus Consent, reflect, listen, my king, I beg you. Oedipus What would you have me grant you? Chorus Respect him who was in the past not foolish, and who now is strong in his oath. Oedipus Do you understand what you crave? Chorus I do. Oedipus Tell me, then, what you mean. Chorus That you should never use an unproved rumor to cast a dishonoring charge on the friend who has bound himself with a curse. Oedipus Then be quite aware that when you seek this you are seeking death or exile from this land for me.

2Chorus No, by the god that stands at the head of all the host of the gods, no, by the sun. Unblest, unbefriended, may I die the worst possible death, if I have this thought! But my unhappy soul is worn by the withering of the land, as well as by the thought that our old sorrows should be crowned by new ones arising from the two of you. Oedipus Then let him go, though I am surely doomed to be killed or thrust dishonored from the land. Your words, not his, move me to compassion; but he, wherever he be, shall be hated. Creon You are truly sullen in yielding, as you are vehement in the excesses of your wrath. But such natures are justly most difficult for themselves to bear. Oedipus Will you not be gone and leave me in peace? Creon I will go on my way. I have found you undiscerning, but in the view of these men I am just. He exits.

1Chorus Lady, why do you hesitate to take this man into the house? Iocasta I will, when I have learned what has happened. Chorus Blind suspicion, bred of talk, arose, and injustice inflicts wounds. Iocasta On both sides? Chorus Yes. Iocasta And what was the story? Chorus It is enough, I think, enough, when our land is already vexed, that the matter should rest where it stopped. Oedipus Do you see to what you have come, for all your noble intent, in seeking to slacken and blunt my zeal?

2Chorus King, I have said it more than once— be sure that I would have proved myself a madman, bankrupt in sane counsel, if I forsook you—you, who gave a true course to my beloved country when it was distraught with troubles, and who now are likely to prove our prospering guide. Iocasta In the name of the gods, tell me, king, the reason that you have conceived this steadfast wrath.

1Chorus May destiny still find me winning the praise of reverent purity in all words and deeds sanctioned by those laws of sublime range, called into life through the high clear aether, whose father is Olympus alone. Their parent was no race of mortal men, no, nor shall oblivion ever lay them to sleep: the god is mighty in them, and he does not grow old.

1Chorus Insolence breeds the tyrant. Insolence, once vainly stuffed with wealth that is not proper or good for it, when it has scaled the topmost ramparts, is hurled to a dire doom, where one’s feet cannot serve to good advantage. But I pray that the god never quell such rivalry as benefits the state. I will always hold the god as our protector.

2Chorus But if any man walks haughtily in deed or word, with no fear of Justice, no reverence for the images of gods, may an evil doom seize him for his ill-starred pride, if he does not gain his advantage fairly, or avoid unholy deeds, but seeks to lay profaning hands on sanctities. Where such things occur, what mortal shall boast any more that he can ward off the arrow of the gods from his life? No. For if such deeds are held in honor, why should we join in the sacred dance?

2Chorus No longer will I go reverently to the earth’s central and inviolate shrine, no more to Abae’s temple or to Olympia, if these oracles do not fit the outcome, so that all mortals shall point at them with their fingers. No, King—if this you are rightly called—Zeus all ruling, may it not escape you and your deathless power! The old prophecies concerning Laius are fading; already men give them no value, and nowhere is Apollo glorified with honors; the worship of the gods is perishing.

1Chorus If I am a seer or wise of heart, Cithaeron, you will not fail—by heaven, you will not—to know at tomorrow’s full moon that Oedipus honors you as native to him, as his nurse, and his mother, and that you are celebrated in our dance and song, because you are well-pleasing to our prince. O Phoebus to whom we cry, may these things find favor in your sight!

1Chorus Who was it, my son, who of the race whose years are many, that bore you in wedlock with Pan, the mountain-roaming father? Or was it a bride of Loxias that bore you? For dear to him are all the upland pastures. Or perhaps it was Cyllene’s lord, or the Bacchants’ god, dweller on the hill-tops, that received you, a new-born joy, from one of the nymphs of Helicon, with whom he most often sports.

1Chorus Alas, generations of mortals, how mere a shadow I count your life! Where, where is the mortal who attains a happiness which is more than apparent and doomed to fall away to nothing? Your fate warns me—yours, unhappy Oedipus—to call no earthly creature blessed.

1Chorus For he, O Zeus, shot his shaft with peerless skill, and won the prize of an all-prosperous fortune, having slain the maiden with crooked talons, who sang darkly. He arose for our land like a tower against death. And from that time, Oedipus, you have been called our king, and have been honored supremely, holding power in great Thebes.

2Chorus But now whose story is more grievous in men’s ears? Who is a more wretched slave to fierce plagues and troubles, with all his life reversed? Alas, renowned Oedipus! The same bounteous harbor was sufficient for you, both as child and as father, to make your nuptial couch in. Oh, how can the soil in which your father sowed, unhappy man, have endured you in silence for so long?

2Chorus Time the all-seeing has found you out, against your will: he judges the monstrous marriage in which parent and child have long been one. Alas, child of Laius, would that I had never seen you. I wail as one who pours a dirge from his lips. It was you who gave me new life, to speak directly, and through you darkness has fallen upon my eyes.

1Oedipus Oh horror of darkness that enfolds me, unspeakable visitant, resistless, sped by a wind too favorable! Oh, me! and once again, Oh, me! How my soul is pierced by the stab of these goads and by the memory of sorrows! Chorus No wonder that amidst these woes you mourn and bear a double pain.

1Oedipus Ah, friend, you still are steadfast in your care for me, and still have patience to tend to the blind man! Ah, me! Your presence is not hidden from me—no, blind though I am, nevertheless I know your voice full well. Chorus Man of dread deeds, how could you quench your vision in this way? What divinity urged you on?

2Oedipus It was Apollo, friends, Apollo who brought these troubles to pass, these terrible, terrible troubles. But the hand that struck my eyes was none other than my own, wretched that I am! Why should I see, when sight showed me nothing sweet? Chorus These things were just as you say. Oedipus What, my friends, can I behold anymore, what can I love, what greeting can touch my ear with joy? Hurry, friends, lead me from the land, lead me from here, the utterly lost, the thrice-accursed, the mortal most hateful to the gods! Chorus Wretched alike for your fortune and for your understanding of it, would that I had never known you!

2Oedipus Perish the man, whoever he was, who freed me in the past years from the cruel shackle on my feet—a thankless deed! Had I died then, I would not have been so sore a grief to my friends and to my own soul. Chorus I too would have had it thus. Oedipus In this way I would not have come to shed my father’s blood, or been known among men as the husband of the woman from whom I was born. Now I am forsaken by the gods, son of a defiled mother, successor to the bed of the man who gave me my own wretched being: if there is a woe surpassing all woes, it has become Oedipus’ lot.